Tag Archives: prompted

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Absently Singing Along

Author’s Note: So I probably could have used this Thursday if I had been able to think. Yesterday was worse, since I could not really function with the lovely migraine I had, so I did not manage to find anything. Today I’m running late again, and I’m doing a quick grab from a completed story because I am uninspired for creating something new.

So here is a bit of song and awkward bonding.

Absently Singing Along

She checked the sign on the side of the road. It would be over an hour before they reached the town that he’d mumbled about before he passed out, and she was getting tired. She turned the radio on again, wincing as the owner’s presets blasted out the latest hit—one that wasn’t even worth being considered music since that woman could not sing—and flipped the channels until the oldies station came on. She smiled to herself, tapping her fingers against the steering wheel as she started to sing along.

At least there was music. She could keep herself more awake that way. If this had been her car—forget it. The radio had died six months ago, and with the store floundering like it was, replacing it was not high on the list of priorities. She just ran her cellphone’s battery down listening to music instead of making calls.

She turned up the radio when she heard one of her favorites come on—amazing because no one played Melanie Safka’s songs anymore. Even the “oldies” stations were playing newer and newer stuff.

“Some say I got devil. Some say I got angel, but I’m just this girl in trouble…” She was in the middle of the last verse when she realized that she’d woken Kennedy up with the radio—no, probably her singing was too loud. He was staring at her. She reached for the knob again. “Sorry.”

He shook his head. “Don’t be. Keep singing.”

“I suppose now I sound like her?”

“She made a musical. It was a horrible flop. You have a better voice.”

“Oh. Thanks. I think.”

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The Right Dress

Author’s Note: So once again, I am pulling from the childhood side project. This scene seemed fitting to use for Wednesday Wardrobe, since it has them trying on dresses. It later lead to a whole series of scenes about a school dance, but I am only posting this one today.

The Right Dress

Alik glanced at the two bags sitting on the table, stopping to rub his neck. He was going to have to talk to the foreman about his schedule. The idea of him having a couple hours after school for homework had been nice in theory, but in practice, it did not work. He kept falling asleep the moment he sat down, and that wasn’t helping much.

He checked the clock, missing his ability to wear a watch without destroying it. He only had a few minutes before he needed to go.

He shook his head, walking away from the kitchen. With their father working in other cities and their mother gone most days, the house was a disaster. Enadar ignored it, always in his books, and it wasn’t fair to make Malina do it all, but she was the only one who seemed willing to do it, who was home to do it.

He would have to do something about that, too. If he figured out his schedule, he should be able to make time to do more here, too.

He stopped outside the door to Malina’s room, hearing voices inside—were those two actually arguing? Since when did Lisea argue?

“Malina?” He knocked on the door. It opened, and he found himself staring at his sister, trying to decide if he’d woken up or not. “What are you wearing?”

She laughed, pulling the door open wider, letting him in. “I knew it. I tried to tell her, but she wouldn’t listen. Can you believe that this is what they expect Lisea to wear to the party her family is having next week? This is terrible. The color is bad, the fabric is itchy, and the design… I told her it was hideous, but she wouldn’t believe me. So I put it on, and she’s still trying to tell me she should wear it. There’s duty, and there’s insanity, and that is insanity.”

He didn’t know or want to know anything about fashion, but he agreed with his sister. He didn’t think he’d seen an uglier dress, and people had tried to give her some terrible ones in the past.

She took hold of his arm. “Tell her that one is a much better fit—in color and style and everything else. That looks good. That is what she should wear. I don’t care if her grandmother got her this one. This is wrong. That is right. Tell her.”

Alik did look, and as his eyes took in the line of the dress that Malina had chosen for her friend, the way it fit and molded her, emphasizing where it should and concealing where there might have been flaws, unpleasantly aware that both of them were becoming women—a fact he did not want to know about his sister—he understood the purpose of the dress the others had chosen for Lisea.

He leaned down to his sister’s ear. “I think the whole point of that dress you’ve taken on is that she’s not supposed to be flattered in it. It’s meant to make her seem more shapeless, less attractive, less noticeable… more dowdy.”

“What?” Malina demanded, shaking her head at him. “Why would anyone do that? That’s not right. Are they trying to humiliate her?”

“Malina,” Lisea said, sounding rather humiliated at that moment. “Please help me get this thing off. I will wear the other one. I don’t want to be embarrassed.”

“This is the dress that would be embarrassing. This one’s meant to make you look—I can’t even say like an old woman because it’s not. It’s worse than that.” Malina crossed over and took her friend’s hands. “I can’t understand why they’d ask you to go looking less than your best, to make you feel so… Why would they make you do that? It would only hurt you, and that is not what I want.”

“I think I’d be more comfortable in it.”

“I am not giving you this hideous thing back. Your grandmother can be as mad at me as she wants. I’m burning it.” Malina looked back at him. “Alik, I know you’re hopeless at this, but help me convince her. That dress is one she looks good in. Pretty. You’d dance with her at the party, wouldn’t you?”

“I don’t dance.”

Malina sighed. “If you did?”

He must be late for work by now. “Yes. If I were the sort that went to parties and if I were the sort that danced, then I would. I have to—”

“Would I get a dance, too?”

He let out a breath. Sometimes he wanted to hate his sister. He stepped forward, giving Malina a kiss on the forehead. “Yes, sister, you would. Now I have to go to work. Will you take care of the kitchen?”

She winced. “Yes, but you owe me a dance.”

“Robots don’t dance.”

by

A Bad Case of the Flu

Author’s Note: So I am lying down because I feel rather awful myself at the moment. I had already been thinking of using these scenes for Tuesday truffles, but they seem even more fitting now.

A Bad Case of the Flu

“Don’t move.”

Vred shook his head, trying to push his way up despite the nausea that would keep him where he was. He had too much to do to allow this illness to stop him. Three hundred eighty-eight. No, more, he corrected himself, since he had somehow acquired three more when he joined up with the Kallas family.

“I have to.”

“No,” Malina said, forcing him back when his coughing disabled him. “You are sick, and you are staying where you are. You know that you need rest, too.”

“Can’t.”

She laughed, humming to herself as she drew up the blanket over him, tucking him in, something no one had ever done to him before, not even his mother. She had been about making him strong, and strength did not come from lying in bed. “Yes, you can. In fact, what you can’t do is use your ability. Not when you’re sick.”

He did not want to think about that. He could not afford sickness. He was not going to stay in bed. “I have work. I can work without my ability—”

“No, you—”

“I can.”

“You can,” she conceded. “Yet you do not have to. Even though you’re sick, I can use your ability. I am a mirror, remember? I don’t take on the physical when I borrow anyone. I can use you just fine.”

He frowned, not liking her terminology. “You are not—”

“I look, I assess, and if there is anything, Alik handles it. You’re fine. They’re safe. Now get some rest,” Malina insisted, adjusting his blanket again. She hesitated and then leaned down to kiss his forehead.

Vred stared at her, noting the slight flush before she shut off the lamp beside the bed.

“Goodnight, Vred.”

“It’s not nighttime.”

“It is for you. Get some rest.”

“I have something for you, Freckles.”

Felise groaned, trying to pull the covers over her head. She did not know what had cursed her with Enadar Kallas as her primary caregiver while the flu swept through them—and she didn’t know what it was that made Revente genes that much weaker to this particular strain, but while the Kallases seemed almost immune to this flu, she knew that she and her cousins had gone down hard with the full thing—fever, aches, chills, nausea—and she could not get herself out of bed.

“Mom swore by this, and Malina assured me that this is her recipe. Not everything works the way it did when she was alive, though. Something always seems to be missing, and Malina says it is Mom’s special touch—but Malina should have that, so I don’t know why it doesn’t work.”

Felise looked over at him. “Stop talking. You are more annoying than usual when I’m sick.”

He smiled at her. “Normally, I’d take that as an advantage to exploit, but I told you—truce until you’re better.”

“Who are you, and what did you do with Enadar?”

He laughed, sitting down beside her and holding out a mug. “The patented Kallas Kure for all things flu and cold. And Alik overloading himself.”

She studied the cup suspiciously. “What’s in it?”

“Honey, lemon, cinnamon, clove,” Enadar continued to rattle off ingredients enough to make her think he’d made more than half of them up when he started talking. “And, of course, love.”

“What?”

Enadar grimaced. “Well, that was Mom’s special ingredient. Or so she used to say. It’s not as effective if it’s not made with love and given with love and…”

“And?”

“And a kiss after every sip,” he said, turning bright red. “Not that I’d do that to you. I wouldn’t. It’s—I—I’m going to leave now.”

He shoved the cup at her, and Felise looked down at it with a slight smile. Made with love, huh? It could be worth trying.

“You look exhausted.”

“I thought I would say that to you,” Alik said, giving the princess a look out of the corner of his eye. She was on the mend, finally, which would be a relief. He had almost been willing to believe that this flu was some kind of side project of Harking’s or the Watch, taking down people with abilities—well, Reventes, mostly—the way it had. “Though you are improving.”

“You’re not.”

“Vred has a thankless job,” Alik said, unable to summon a smile. He did not think that anyone realized how badly overworked the tracker was or how much could have fallen apart the moment he went down with that flu.

“Which you took up for him?”

“You could say that keeping his people protected suits my interest as it protects mine as well,” Alik answered, rubbing his neck. He closed his eyes, telling himself he was not coming down with the flu. If he did, the floodwaters would break loose, and everything they’d done so far would be undone.

“That’s not why you did it, though.”

“You’re still sick,” he said, aware that she would not have been that bold if she was able to think clearly. He almost liked it. “And no, it’s not, but if anyone asks, it is. You should be resting.”

“So should you.” She flushed. “I just… This is the first time I’ve felt able to be out of bed in days, and I don’t want to go back there. Malina’s exhausting herself taking care of all of us, and I don’t want to be a burden.”

That was so typical of the princess. “She knows you’d do the same for her. Go to sleep. Malina will take her own rest when she can.”

“And you?”

He had been running on pure energy for half a week, and it wouldn’t last, but the crises were abated for the moment, and he would crawl into his own bed for a bit until Malina woke him with something else to handle. “I guess it’s bedtime for both of us, princess.”

“I thought you weren’t going to call me that anymore.”

He smiled, pushing her toward her room. “Tonight it fits. Your turn to go play the role of Sleeping Beauty.”

by

Robots United

Author’s Note: Today I pulled out a scene I think most would consider pure ridiculous. My decision to give Alik a cat was a bit silly in the first place, I admit, but then I wrote this, making it… worse, I suppose.

I am not that good a person, I guess. This came from a weird personal conversation I had, which I should not admit to having, but I am that kind of crazy.

Robots United

Alik stopped in the doorway, frowning when he heard the half-squeak. “What are you doing?”

“Playing with the cat,” Enadar told him, looking up at his brother with a grin. Alik gave him a look in return. He’d known the cat was involved because of the noise she’d made, but what he did not know was what the youngest member of their family was doing to her.

“I don’t think she wants to play.”

“You do not have the ability to speak cat. You also can’t tell me you know what she’s thinking.”

“Yes, I can,” Alik said, tired of having similar discussions with his brother. He had ever since Robot had decided she was Alik’s cat and not a family one. She tolerated Malina, but she hadn’t been willing to be close to either of their parents and as for Enadar… Sometimes he was too much of a child still, at least in Robot’s opinion. “You can hear it in her voice and see it in her eyes.”

Enadar lifted Robot up and studied her. “You can decipher her eyes. That’s it. That’s your secret method of communicating robot-to-robot. The laser eyes.”

Alik shook his head. “Give me the cat.”

“Just because she likes you best doesn’t mean I have to give her up the moment you walk into the room. I wasn’t hurting her. We were playing.”

“Playing what, exactly?”

“Did you know she’s ticklish? Right about where you are, too. Must be a robot thing.”

“Cats aren’t ticklish.” Alik took the cat from his brother’s hands, swatting them away when Enadar tried to recover the cat. “Don’t. I’ll overload you if you try and take her back.”

“You’re no fun.”

Robot jumped up onto Alik’s shoulder and bumped her head against his. He reached up to pet her, and she started purring.

“Really, she should fall off of you when she does that,” Enadar grumbled. He was correct. Even though Robot hadn’t grown much past the size of a kitten, Alik’s shoulder wasn’t a good place for her to perch, but she seemed to like it there—it was where she always put herself if Alik was standing. He could hold her in his lap if he was sitting or let her sit on his chest if he was lying down, but she only wanted the shoulder if he was up and moving. “It’s not fair she likes you best.”

Alik smiled. “I don’t tickle her.”

by

A Boy to Remember

Author’s Note: So it has been a rough month and a half, and I did not mean to stop posting my themed snippets so soon after announcing their arrival, but I wasn’t able to write or post or do much of anything through December. It was a very tough time, and I am only now getting back to where I feel almost capable of moving forward again. I think I am ready to try sharing the snippets again. Today is Saturday. That means a Saturday song.

The choice seemed simple when I sat down to post, having also overcome my dislike for the updated version of my site’s backend. I have been thinking for a while that this song suits these characters, and I meant to share this with my collaborator first, but I was impatient. Hopefully She will forgive me for sharing this with everyone before she sees it.

This is in part inspired by “Flowers in Your Hair” by the Lumineers.

A Boy to Remember

Enadar had never seen hair so red, so vibrant. The way the sun hit it was just right for the hew word he’d just learned. He liked it, but it was now forever linked to that fiery braid she wore, even if he did not want it to be. She was not supposed to be such apart of his life. Felise Revente was not someone he wanted in his life.

He was a dreamer, a bookworm. She wasn’t supposed to be a part of those dreams. He should have been able to sleep without remembering. Alik didn’t. Somehow the robot managed to push away every bad memory that should torment him, as though he felt nothing at all when he remembered those things he’d done, as though it was easy to pretend that his ability was always in control, that he was not a killer.

Enadar closed his eyes. He tried to think only of bursts of energy, of those blinding lights, of fireworks, and for some reason, vibrant red hair.

Every time he saw it, his reaction was the same. He wanted to touch it. He wanted to know that it was real. He needed to know that it was real.

Once he had tried to touch it. Once it was within his grasp. Once he’d made a mistake, and a glass of lemonade taught him never to reach for that light again.

Nothing could make him stop dreaming of it, though.

by

The Fair in Love and Romance

Author’s Note: While the weekend was ugly, I asked for prompts, and Liana Mir gave me this one:

“Men always want to be a woman’s first love – women like to be a man’s last romance.” ~ Oscar Wilde

I was thinking I’d need a book to answer it, but no, I didn’t need a book. I just needed two of my favorite characters to discuss it without discussing it.

Thank you, Effie and Garan. You’re good at this sort of thing.

The Fair in Love and Romance

“The football player has been asking for it ever since I came here.”

Effie shook her head, letting out a sigh as she carried the bowl over to the table, taking the cloth out of it and wringing it before she touched it to Garan’s knuckles. “Scott hasn’t played football since he was in high school, you know.”

“It was the one highlight of his pathetic life, and it did enough brain damage to him that it still fits,” Garan insisted, watching her work on his hand. He’d make some comment about Scott’s hard head being the reason for his knuckles getting scraped up like that.

“You’ve got ten times the training he does, Garan. It would never have been a fair fight.”

“What isn’t fair is that he was your first love.”

Effie snorted, putting the cloth back in the water. “Scott was never my first love. He was my first… boyfriend, I guess, but I never loved him. He was—everyone expected us to date, everyone thought we made a cute couple, and I think we might have, but I never felt the way about him that I thought I should, even as a teenage girl with supposedly out-of-whack hormones. It wasn’t enough. It was nothing like the soul-crushing moment when I thought you were never coming back to me, and I think we both know how well the hormonal attraction part of things works between us.”

He grinned, and she rolled her eyes, taking the bowl with her back to the sink. “Besides, if either of us has reason to be jealous, it’s me.”

“You? I told you that she wasn’t a love. Christie was just—”

“Not her. Jordan.” At Effie’s words, Garan tensed, and she leaned back against the sink, folding her arms over her chest. “You know I’m right. You were willing to fight for her, to die for her… to kill for her. I get to be jealous.”

He rose, crossing to her side, his bruised hand cupping her cheek. “In case you missed it, heroine, I just fought for you. I was willing to die for you before I knew you. And while we’ve never gone and counted the bodies, I think there might even have been some killing in there for you, too.”

She flinched. She shouldn’t have said anything at all. She didn’t like the thought of him doing that. Not for her, not at all.

He tipped her chin up, looking straight into her eyes. “When I met Stirn, I was in a bad place. It was just after the accident, and I wanted something to replace what I’d lost at the same time as wanting to die. It was messed up, warped good, and it got worse. What happened with her pushed me down further into the darkness, into a hole I never thought I’d get out of, and that’s not love. Love is supposed to make you better, isn’t it?”

Effie nodded. “That’s what they say. It’s also about accepting people as they are. Kind of conflicting thoughts, I guess. Or maybe it’s just that… You can’t become better unless you’re willing to accept what the past was. You can’t pretend it wasn’t there or didn’t shape you because it did. So expecting someone else not to have a past is stupid.”

“Helping them overcome it is beautiful,” he said. “Just like you.”

“Listen to you getting all romantic on me.”

He laughed. “There is no romance in me, Effie. I thought you knew that.”

“Oh, yeah? And what do you call all this?”

“Us.”

by

Heading Straight for a Fall

Author’s Note: So there were no snippets this weekend. It was not a good weekend for me, and I didn’t have much in me writer-wise. I was thinking of burning stories, editing made me want to cry when I didn’t want to burn, and one of the things I did write was a melodramatic piece where the character insisted he wasn’t going to die and asked someone to take care of his family if things went badly.

So… There was no Sunday silly in me. At all.

Fortunately, today is Monday Mayhem/Mystery, and so I have something for that, even if I seem to be stalled on what I had thought was my new story with Integrated Division.

It just took going for random music on my computer and deciding it was way past time I did something with “Diamonds and Rust” by Joan Baez.

Heading Straight for a Fall

You’re heading straight for a fall, she told herself, cursing the fact that she had picked up the phone in the first place. She knew that voice. She knew what it could do to her, knew how weak she was to that old familiar tone. She should hate him for that, but she hated herself for it more, knowing that he still had that power over her, that she still let him have it.

She’d thought she wouldn’t, and she would have said it was too late for it now, years out of the blue, with a call that came in the night without any kind of warning, the sort that compelled her to answer, thinking it was an emergency, and she supposed in some way, it must be—he wouldn’t have called unless it was—he wasn’t that cruel, and he’d been raised with better manners than that anyway.

“What is it this time?”

“Your specialty.”

“Something cold and cool yet brilliant as fire and twice as stunning?” She asked, sitting back against the pillows and closing her eyes as she played with her necklace. He would have laughed if he’d been able to see it. She was always a source of amusement, if nothing else.

“I don’t have time to flatter you tonight. I need to ask for your expertise. Nothing else.”

She shrugged. “Nothing else to ask for, is there?”

He didn’t answer that one, not that she’d thought he would. Whatever past they had, he’d wanted it dead and buried for a while now, though he had just as bad a habit of falling back into old routines as she did. That man could tease, and his eyes would sparkle blue as he did, making things just that added bit worse for any woman around.

Not that she let many others around. She didn’t do competition.

“You’ve heard the news, haven’t you?”

She snorted. “What use is politics to me? Or should I pretend I have any sort of interest in reality television and the stars that come from it? I don’t, you know. All I care about is compressed carbon. It is a beautiful thing.”

“Yes, I expect your terms would be quite mercenary, won’t they?”

“Always.” She didn’t mention that once she would have done it for free, that if he said the right words, she might go right to that place, laughing with him with the leaves falling and the snow with them, dancing around in the park when they were two young fools with no responsibilities, before the truth of what they both were came between them.

“Are your skills still what they were?”

“Darling, if one of us is rusty, it isn’t me.”

“Well, your tongue is sharp as ever,” he muttered, and she thought she heard him curse under his breath. She should, she supposed, put him out of his misery, admit that she knew what he wanted her to discuss, but she didn’t feel like making this easy for him. If she made it easy, they were like friends, and when they played at friends, they played at other more dangerous things as well.

The band on her finger still burned at the thought of him, and she’d have to remember to replace it before he showed up at her office. “You never did manage to refine my rough edges.”

“You were already hardened by fire by the time I knew you.”

“Don’t you ever tire of our game of puns?” She knew the answer—she wasn’t sure if it was the same for him, but she knew she stuck to them because they were safe. Talking of meaningful things brought them too close to what they’d never be again.

“Only when you make terrible ones.”

“Yours were worse.”

“I’m not the one who is a walking pun,” he said. “Or a lousy poet.”

She hung up on him.

by

Don’t Ruin the Popcorn

Author’s Note: So yesterday, when I couldn’t think of anything to do and thought I needed something sweet, some fluff, I asked for help with finding something. Liana Mir generously prompted me with “Alik, Malina, and Enadar have a popcorn party as teenagers.”

So now I can share a bit of the collaboration, a brief look into some of the fun and family dynamics of the three Kallas siblings who share a close bond despite everything.

Don’t Ruin the Popcorn

Malina mock-glared at her oldest brother. “Now, Alik, you’re not allowed to ruin it.”

Alik gave her a look. “It’s popcorn. It’s already ruined. When I gave it to him last week, I thought it was a good idea. He has made it every night since, and it is not a good idea.”

She sighed, reaching over to touch Alik’s cheek. “Please. One more night. You know that it’s the only thing that has made him smile since we had to leave Holteshire.”

Alik was quiet, his eyes shifting with his thoughts, and she almost asked him about them, but then Enadar burst into the door, spilling his bowl of popcorn as he did. “What is taking you so long? I thought we all agreed—popcorn and comedies. All night long.”

“We agreed to comedies?” Malina asked, glancing at Alik. “Since when do you watch comedies?”

“Since I swear I found films that will make even the robot laugh,” their younger brother announced, bouncing over to Alik’s side and dragging him toward the other room. Malina had to smile, shaking her head as she picked up the other bowls and carried them in with her.

She sat down in between her brothers, knowing that was the only way any of them would survive the night, giving Alik his popcorn before settling in. He looked down at it like he might make it explode, and she kicked his foot. “No.”

His eyes darkened, but he did not touch the popcorn.

Enadar started laughing in an obnoxious manner at some joke that wasn’t that funny, and Alik found a use for his popcorn—throwing it at him with every guffaw. Enadar frowned before throwing some in return, and Malina grimaced as she got caught in the crossfire, wondering why she couldn’t have had at least one sister instead of two brothers.

Still, while it was messy, Enadar was still laughing. Alik actually smiled. No, he hadn’t ruined things at all.

by

An Excellent Throw Rug

Author’s Note: So a while back when I had my fluff fest, Liana Mir gave me the quote “he’d make an excellent throw rug” as a prompt. This is what I came up with, and it seemed like a good piece to start off the themed snippets with a Sunday Silly.

An Excellent Throw Rug

“Why is Flint on the floor?” Cress asked, giving the other man a look as he stepped around him and into Moira’s cabin. He didn’t really want to ask, but he didn’t have much of a choice. They were elementals. They did the impossible. They saw strange things daily. Flint on the floor, doing a good impression of a rug, that wasn’t so bizarre, but if the man was actually unconscious, that made a difference.

“A difference of opinion.”

“Is that all?”

Moira shrugged. “Do I need more of a reason?”

“You expect me to say no. You know me well enough to know I’d say yes.”

She rolled her eyes. “Fine. He’s there because he makes an excellent throw rug.”

“Got tired of knocking him into walls, did you?”

“It was time for a bit of variety.”

Cress snorted. “And they wonder why we never dated.”

by

Not Quite Over the Rainbow

Author’s Note: So, this is a bit out of context, but since I was posting a piece to Kabobbles Sing Along today, I figured I should go ahead with this scene, as it was the most recent, and the prompt from Liana Mir of Beacan + Leah + Favorite Songs got me this to make a bit more progress on this story.

Not Quite Over the Rainbow

“I think we can find one.”

“Find one what?” Beacan asked, looking up from his can of carrots. He seemed happy enough in them, happy enough to annoy Quinn, and Leah would have said that Quinn was hungover if there had been any alcohol in the store they’d raided. He was grumpy, his eyes red when he opened them, which wasn’t often this morning.

“A library. Quinn suggested we find one last night,” Laria said, picking up a can of green beans and shrugging before she reached for the can opener. Quinn’s head jerked up, and he frowned, swallowing a bit as he watched her open the can.

“You remember last night?”

“I remember discussing libraries. I don’t remember much else,” Laria answered, looking over at him. “What? Did you get me to do something embarrassing? If you did, you had better not tell them. That’s not fair.”

He hesitated, and then he shook his head. “No, it wasn’t anything like that. You just muttered in your sleep a bit. That’s all.”

“Did she say anything about walking on roses? She did that with me once,” Beacan said, and Laria threw a green bean at him, then another. He laughed, throwing a carrot back at her. Quinn rolled his eyes at all of them before walking to the door.

“Wait a minute. We haven’t finished breakfast yet.”

“Advanced scouting, I guess,” he said, pushing open the door, and Leah sighed. She didn’t know what was with him this morning—it wasn’t a hangover, but she still couldn’t explain why he was being a bit more of a jerk and more standoffish than usual.

“What happened last night?”

Laria looked down at her can, apparently having lost her appetite. “I don’t know. I must have done something that upset him, but I don’t remember. I was so tired and he said something about a library, and I think I must have passed out on him after that, so maybe that’s it? I can’t give you more than that, Beacan. I just don’t know.”

“You don’t think it’s that bad, do you?”

“No, he’d be worse if it was,” Beacan said, and Laria tried to nod. She set her can down and started for the door. “Hey! That’s wasting food, you know.”

“It’s not going to go that bad, and I can eat it after we find Quinn again. I just don’t want him wandering around on his own.”

Leah shrugged, following after the others. She always did. She’d rather not be left behind, not when Quinn and Candelaria were her anchors, her safety blankets, and Beacan was great, he really was, but she still wanted to be with everyone, not just him.

Beacan groaned. “Is it just me, or is this place creepier today? It wasn’t so bad at first, but without people, now on our second day here… It’s really creepy, isn’t it?”

Leah reached over to hit him before rubbing her arms, needing to be rid of the chill that came over her with his words. She didn’t like this much, and she didn’t want to be afraid all over again. Laria glared at Beacan, and he winced in apology, but it wasn’t like his words were going away or anything. They wouldn’t. They didn’t. Leah could still hear them echoing a bit, and she was now creeped out.

She closed her eyes, trying to calm herself with a song her mom used to sing to her long before things got real bad. She hadn’t realized she’d started humming and even gone to singing until someone came up behind her.

“Nice choice, Daydreamer,” Quinn said. “You know that’s only the most repeated and stupidest song in history, right?”

“It is not.”

“I think the most repeated song is actually by the Beatles,” Beacan said. “All teenybopper and boyband stuff aside, I think they have had one of the most lasting impacts on music ever.”

“And it is not a stupid song,” Candelaria said, her glare shifting to Quinn this time.

“It’s always been my favorite,” Leah admitted, and Beacan took her hand. “I always wanted that land over the rainbow. Mom did, too. No more troubles, no more clouds, no more tears. You can’t tell me that it’s wrong to hope for that, Quinn. I don’t care how much bad you’ve seen. Blue birds find it, and I’ll find it someday, too.”

“I doubt it’s here,” he told her, his voice quieter than usual. He reached over and tapped her nose. “I suppose it could have been worse, though. You could have been singing ‘twinkle, twinkle little star’ or something.”

“No, we should sing something else from Oz,” Candelaria said, getting a smile from Leah since there was only one song in Oz that she didn’t like—the king of the forest one. “Why don’t you try ‘if I only had a—”

“I have a brain, thank you. And I never lost my nerve.”

“Yeah, but none of us missed how you skipped saying you had a heart.”