"What's that?" Alice smirked indulgently.
"Kairn stays too," I said, blushing. I felt a moment of embarrassment that I was trying to put a word in for someone who was essentially my boyfriend. No, that wasn't quite right. Kairn was so much more than that.
"We have no plans to terminate Mr. Wilderwood's contract at this time," She said smoothly, though I saw the humorous light in her eyes for a brief moment. "Besides, I don't think Professor Atwater could get by without him," She finished.
"Okay, I guess that's settled then," I said, pleased that Kairn would have a reason to stay for another year. I had spent the summer with him, in his realm, so unlike the Liminal World, and yet so similar. It was strange to be away from him for this long, but he was returning tomorrow. My stomach dropped at the thought of him. Our summer together had felt like a dream in so many ways. It was a wonderful dream, but still, it had felt unreal somehow. The knowledge that I would see him in person tomorrow gave me goosebumps. I tried to distract myself before Alice could realize where my mind had gone.
"Do you have any other questions for me, before I go?" Alice asked. She had valiantly trudged all the way out into the woods with her black heels, but now she looked as though she was ready to get out of here.
"One last thing," I said, remembering quickly, "Will I be returning to my same dorm this year?"
"Well," She paused and her expression became unreadable. "We thought it best for your training if you continued to stay out on the land."
"Wait, really?" I was shocked. I was supposed to camp for the whole year?
She seemed to be thinking about how to put it delicately, "The thing is, there is some question of safety -" She hesitated and switched gears. "There is simply so much for you to learn, if you stay out here you can be intensively trained until such time as you are ready to leave the Academy."
I honed in on the key words she had said, "Wait a minute, what question of safety?"
She sighed, "As you mentioned, last year and the year before there were several incidents that brought yourself and others into harm's way," My mind flashed to Aria, comatose in the infirmary and I felt a jolt of shame. Was I to blame for that? "We just thought it might be best to keep you-"
I interrupted, "So you're saying I'm a danger to everyone else," I knew that's what she meant. It was no different than when I was in foster care. They were scared of me.
"That's not it," She said, but her words were hollow. “We are not blaming you. It's no different than how we set aside a space for the Lycans every month."
I would normally have argued the point further, but the pit of shame in my stomach was welling up uncomfortably. Maybe she was right. After all, I didn't want anything to happen to my friends.
"So I'll be camping out here?" I finished.
"There are many buildings that have fallen out of use on the outer edges of the campus. You should take time to explore and choose whichever suits your needs." She explained. Her tone shifted to excitement as if I should be happy to have a whole house to myself. I knew she meant well, but it stung.
"Alright," I nodded.
When Alice left the woods, Lucian returned to the clearing where we had set up camp. Always so gentlemanly, he had given us space for that conversation. Though he seemed to know what had transpired. I would have been irritated, but he was hard to dislike.
"It's not all bad," He said, starting to gather wood into a fire ring. I set my hands upon the wood, letting my fingertips smolder against the grain. It wasn't as easy to control as it was in the Liminal World, but I was improving by leaps and bounds.
"I know," I sighed, not wanting to discuss it further. "Tomorrow we can find a new building to set up in," I smiled halfheartedly, trying to find excitement buried somewhere inside. I was going to miss Halewick House. Nox settled next to me as we stoked the fire.
"We'll do that," he said. "Then when classes begin, we will start the real work," He said. He had been working me pretty hard already. I wasn't sure if I knew what the real work was going to entail.
2
The Witch's Cottage
I spent the morning hiking through the less explored parts of campus. My dreams were unusually quiet, but I took that as a good sign. The campus was huge, covering most of the mountainside, and as Alice had mentioned there were unused buildings dotting the edges of the Academy. Some were more overgrown than others. In general, the paths were not cleared very well, but as we reached higher altitudes the forest was thin enough that it didn't matter.
We came across a building that looked to be an old fashioned dormitory. It had a dining room and several large rooms filled with rows of old iron bed frames. The vines from the forest were pushing in through the broken glass windows and grasses were sprouting from the cracks in the floor.
"This place is too spooky," I laughed nervously but felt seriously ready to get out of there. There were strong memories tied to that place, and part of me could sense it.
"I tend to agree with you," Lucian muttered, not wanting to say a negative word, but I could tell he was as uneasy as I was.
We wandered for several more hours until it was late into the afternoon. There were a lot of buildings but none of them felt quite right until we got to the very edge of the mountain. There was a small clearing in the
