Rising Shards

I wasn’t sure if Lillia would actually join us, and didn’t really care either way. She was a friend of Faleur after all, but Sai and the other devils were a lot nicer to Faleur’s clique than I was. I expected a nod or a brief greeting before she’d leave, not much else.

”Hello,” Lillia said.

”Hi,” Sai said. ”We sure run into each other a lot lately.”

”I think a lot of students are out shopping today, but yes, we have, haven’t we?” Lillia said.

”It is curious,” I said. ”I must warn you though, if you’re spying on me for intel to relay to Faleur, you’ll pay dearl—ow!”

Sai punched me hard in the shoulder.

”Can you drop that for like a second?” Sai asked.

”Apparently not until you hit me,” I said, rubbing my shoulder.

”I don’t normally do that,” Sai said. ”Well, maybe it’s normal for me and Ana but it’s only when she says something like that.”

Lillia stared at the two of us. I pictured her as some kind of cyborg scanning us over with such a cold, focused gaze. Maybe she thought we were spying on her, which I begrudgingly admit was just as likely given Wildfire Hearts having an espionage course that basically amounted to snooping around.

”So...what are you shopping for?” Sai asked.

”All the books in the store are on sale today, I was hoping to pick up some cookbooks but ended up looking at the craftier things as well,” Lillia said.

”Good way to pick up a new hobby, I suppose,” I said. ”Did they have any guitar books? I play bass, but like, fine with any music book really.”

”Not sure, didn’t see any,” Lillia said. ”You can look yourself, if you want.”

I gritted my teeth. ”I was just asking a simple question.”

”A question I answered,” Lillia said. ”I don’t owe you more than that, to say you’ve been unkind to my closest friends is an understatement. I’ve been as cordial as I can in our encounters so far and I’d ask you to do the same.”

”Cordial...” I squinted.

”Ana, you don’t get to get all pissy when you were calling her a spy for Zeta like, five seconds ago,” Sai said. ”I know you get like this easily but can part of a me day mean you actually try to keep that inside?”

My face was red, anger and embarrassment rising in equal measure. I couldn’t even argue it, I did say this was a day for them, and they were entirely correct. It was frustrating to be so thoroughly defeated by words, but it did make it easier to swallow my pride and do my best to move on.

”You’re right, sorry,” I said.

”Ana just gets mad like, incredibly easily,” Sai said. ”She nearly busted the TV in our dorm when a Tower episode got delayed.”

”In my defense, that episode was following up a massive cliffhanger and I couldn’t wait another second,” I said.

”Well, you could because you did manage to wait,” Sai said.

”Figure of speech,” I said.

Our banter received more glares from Lillia. I really wasn’t expecting her to last this long. I also wasn’t really sure what to say, and Sai and Lillia seemed to be in a similar boat.

”Just answer the question!”

A voice across the store was loud enough to break the silence. We all turned to see the Althea sisters trying to get away from a short girl with glasses who was frantically jotting things down in a notebook, an unfortunately familiar face, that girl Tay who was always trying to keep track of the various relationships and gossip of her school. Another was with them, a Rising Shards student with round glasses was with her, Michi.

”We already told you if you want to grill us about our lives to do it somewhere private,” Myles said.

”This is private, there’s no one around,” the girl said.

”Tay, there are four others just within eyesight,” Lillia sighed. ”I’m sorry. I was just going with Michi, and Tay...joined us.”

”Yo.” Michi waved at us.

”I invited myself along, yes,” Tay said. ”Because I needed to get a relationship status update on you.”

”Which was very rude,” Lillia said.

”And then I needed to quiz the devils about the prom, because you’ve all gotten multiple requests so I need to know if you’ve said yes to anyone!” Tay said.

”And I told you no,” Myles said.

”No as in we said no so far to everyone who’s asked and no as in we don’t want you to ask anymore questions about us,” Ash said.

”And I was respecting that wish by...” Tay said, coughing. ”Well, I was going to after a few more questions.”

”That sounds like not respecting their wishes at all, actually,” Sai said.

Tay’s eyes darted all around us. ”Wow, there’s a lot of people here, this was a great decision. Could I ask you all a few questions about the prom?”

I squinted. If Tay asked anything about my relationship status like she did with Lillia there might be a problem.

A problem with an easy solution, it was just Tay.

”None of us are interested in answering any of your foolish and silly questions,” I said. ”We have other places to be. Come on.”

I turned my nose up as I left. Sai, Myles, and Ash followed.

”Thanks for that,” Myles said. ”I don’t wanna like punch her, but like.”

”But like! Oh my god leave us alone!” Ash said.

The sisters kept checking behind them. Tay thankfully wasn’t following, but her presence suddenly loomed over us in a strange way given her generally harmless nature. Extremely annoying, but harmless.

”Wasn’t Charmaine with you two?” I asked.

”Uh, she was...” Ash looked around. ”We might’ve lost her trying to get away from Tay.”

”We should probably get her, yeah?” Myles sighed. ”Hopefully she’s not near that gremlin.”

Charmaine wasn’t in immediate eyesight.

”Hey...” Sai said. ”Did anyone notice we’ve been walking in this store for like, a really long time?”

”Hm,” I didn’t even notice until they said so, but we had been walking forward for quite some time, which was strange in a store that didn’t look that big from the outside. ”Maybe...the store is deceptively big?”

We all knew that wasn’t the case, and practically at the same second we all sensed danger. We noticed then that the store itself seemed to have changed, instead of a smaller, cozy enough store, it was a vast hallway, products lining the shelves still, but no end to it either way.

It wasn’t immediately clear if we’d fallen into the void, but it felt like we had. I wished I’d brought my bloodsabers along, but if any enemy tried to face us now, surely our powers would be enough to stop them. I told myself that at least, but a voice in the back of my head said this wouldn’t be that easy.