Chatoyant College Book 7: Upon What Soil

Chapter 57: Conference

There wasn't much time to react. They all bolted toward Gilkey. Edie was always glad it was the closest dorm building to the western woods, but she was even more glad today. And she was glad to feel Corrie's hand grab her and help her along—she was already a little tired and out of breath from her quick walk through the woods, and she wasn't used to running.

By the time they reached the dorm, she was panting and had a stitch in her side, not to mention completely soaked, but at least they'd made it. She looked around at the people standing and dripping in the foyer area. Corrie, Dawn, Rico, Annie, Roe, Brandon—yes, they were all there. She took a deep breath and tried not to cough, leaning slightly against the wall so she could focus all her strength on breathing normally.

"Sorry," said Dawn to Brandon, taking off her jacket and delicately shaking water off it. "We didn't mean to drag you into our dorm."

"It's cool," he said. "This is as good a place as any to talk. There aren't any faeries in your building, right?"

"Not anymore," said Corrie. "But there is a werewolf."

To Edie's surprise, Brandon laughed. "Really? Cool. I guess you have some protection, then. Is there somewhere we can sit down?"

"Yeah, let's try the common room," said Edie. She walked slowly out into the main hall, then looked in the common room. Her stomach dropped. It was full of people, laughing and watching a movie. She'd really hoped to not have to go up all those stairs to her room right now—plus, there were a lot of them, and the rooms were tiny.

She turned around to find that everyone else had followed her and shook her head sadly. "It's taken. We'll just have to go upstairs, I guess."

"Fine with me," said Roe, shaking her head. Drops of water fell from her long hair. "I want to change anyway. Should we all meet up in Corrie and Edie's room in a few minutes?"

"Always our room," Corrie groaned melodramatically.

"Well, the rest of us don't know our roommates are interested," said Dawn with a sympathetic smile.

"I know mine isn't," said Annie. "She'd be pissed."

"It's fine with me," said Edie. At least she'd gotten her breath back properly by now. "Just knock before you come in, because I want to change, too."

Once they'd all changed a bit, and Edie had put on one of her oldest, most comfortable sweaters (too bad there wasn't much she could do with her hair besides showering, which she planned to do later), they crowded into the room. Annie sat with Edie on her bed, Roe joined Corrie on hers, Brandon took Corrie's desk chair, and Rico took Edie's, then pulled Dawn down onto his lap. Dawn protested, but didn't try to pull away.

"So," said Brandon, leaning forward and resting his elbows on his knees, "I guess you all want to know about the stuff you bought at the craft fair, huh?"

"Yeah," said Corrie. "Did you know it was all going to be affected by magic?"

"Oh, of course," he said, shrugging. "That's the whole reason I was there. I wanted to see what people would get."

"But you didn't want to warn anybody," said Roe.

"Warn them?" He looked confused for a minute, then shrugged again. "That would be a lot less fun. Besides, I know none of it's going to hurt anybody. That's against the rules." He dragged out the word "rules," sounding like he wasn't exactly a big fan of them.

"The doll I bought made me trip," said Corrie. "I could have been hurt."

"But you weren't," said Brandon. It sounded so much like Professor Lal's excuse that Edie had to frown. They were so confident that the voodoo doll wouldn't have hurt Corrie, but she could have tripped at any time, and they'd seen nothing to indicate that the magic somehow knew when it was safe and would only trigger at those times. But Professor Lal had said she wanted to study the magic and do something about it, since it was getting stronger.

"So you just went to the fair to see what people would buy?" Edie said, trying to understand. "You didn't really want to sell anything?"

"Well," he said with a grin, "I wanted to send that glitter all over, too. That was fun."

"What about the faerie market?" Dawn asked. "Why were you there?"

"I figured it was the one place nearby that you guys wouldn't turn up." He rolled his eyes. "That obviously didn't work out. Or, I guess it did work out for you."

"That's another question," said Corrie. "Why did you help me?"

"That guy's a jerk. He would have taken something you can't lose. Like your heart." There was a stunned silence, but Brandon continued. "I don't want anybody breaking the rules. I like hanging out on this campus."

"I see why Leila didn't want me going there," Edie said softly.