It was a bright cheerful morning in April, a few weeks later, and Rachel DuValle was late for class.

To some this may have been of little consequence, but for a responsible adult like Rachel—with goals and ambitions far exceeding her humble upbringing—it was a calamitous event. Rachel was never late to class. She took great pride in it. In the twenty-two years she'd been alive, she'd never once been more than one minute late to any obligations. Then again, in those same twenty-two years, Rachel had never once dealt with a problem quite like this one.

"How on earth did you even manage this?" she asked exasperatedly.

"Look, just help me down, all right?" Will shot back grumpily.

Rachel sighed. "Who did you piss off?"

She pulled at one rope experimentally. It was perfectly taut, not a millimeter of slack remaining. As she touched one strand it shook slightly, sending Will wobbling right along with it. He groaned from the movement as it sent him bouncing dizzily through the air.

William Carbonell, age twenty-three and the former technology guru of Rallsburg State University, was presently suspended by a tight web of ropes and sheets some five feet in the air above the small living room. With his muscles and well-chiseled face, he could be one of the most handsome guys on campus—if only he would get rid of the shoulder-length hair and stubble. He looked like he was just coming home from a headbanger concert every time she saw him.

Rachel glanced around her apartment, looking for anything that might get him down easily. Neatly stacked books and papers, several laptops, and a large whiteboard with long lists of names and hierarchies, but nothing that seemed remotely helpful. Rachel went into the kitchen and retrieved a serrated knife just as Will finally mumbled a name.

"Again, with feeling."

"It was Viper, okay?"

Rachel stopped short of cutting the nearest strand of rope and gave him a stern look. "You invited that psycho into our apartment?"

"Hell no!" Will snapped. "But he's not really the kind of guy you can just say no to."

"I do all the time," Rachel folded her arms, frowning.

Will shook his head. "You're much braver than me, honey. Now can you get me down please?"

"What did he want?"

"Wanted to know if we knew anything about his stuff being stolen. Only got him to leave when I convinced him you wouldn't be home for hours."

Rachel shook her head, exasperated, but began to saw at the rope with the knife all the same. It was tough, military-grade stuff—unsurprising given the culprit. As she finally worked through the first few strands, Will began to rise higher toward the ceiling. He let out a yelp of pain.

Fear pulsed through her entire body, as panicked visions of her beloved's body twisting all out of proportion from the ropes surged through her mind. She stopped dead, not daring to move the blade another inch.

"What happened?"

"Rope's twisting at my leg. You cutting it just made it worse." He looked down at it, face creased in fear.

"How about I call an expert?" Rachel pulled out her phone and started dialing.

"Wait!"

"What?"

"Are you calling Mason? Please don't say you're calling Mason."

"Do you have a better idea?" Rachel pointed out, now with a ringing phone in her ear. Will groaned. She held the phone to her ear with her shoulder, grasping Will's hand with her own tightly. He took hold gratefully. "Don't worry, Will. Mason'll have you out of there in no time at all," she said comfortingly, as the phone in her ear clicked on.

"Rachel?"

Quick and reliable to answer as usual, but Mason Rhistler always started a conversation with the other person's name. Never a 'hello' or a 'good morning.' Rachel often wondered what that was about. It sometimes felt like he had to remind himself who he was speaking with. She was surrounded by odd characters more and more every passing day.

"Hi, Mason."

"Shouldn't you be heading to class?"

She grimaced at the reminder. Mason was the sort of person who always had his act together. As the nephew to the mayor, he seemed to believe he was partly responsible for each and every citizen of the town. Nowadays, she was as well-organized and on top of things as anyone, but the dry tone of his voice made it clear she'd never quite get her old reputation behind her. Not in front of her close friends, at least.

Rachel didn't need them to see her differently though. She had the entire world waiting for her to build up her new image, well beyond the student population of a tiny liberal arts college sequestered in the forests of western Washington.

"It's been a weird morning, okay? Look, we need your help."

"What's up?"

"Look, just come over to my apartment. Will got himself… stuck, and I'm having trouble getting him free."

"O…kay," Mason said slowly, clearly wondering if she'd gone off the deep end. "Did you forget how to unlock the bathroom door again?"

"No, it's not that," Rachel snapped, her cheeks flaring up at the memory. "You'll understand when you get here. The key will be in the gutter above the door. I've gotta run."

"Sure."

"And Mason? Come alone, please."

"Whatever you say, Rach." She winced. Rachel had always hated people shortening her name. Mason was doing it deliberately to mess with her, no doubt.

"Thanks." She hung up the phone, then glanced back at Will. He looked miserable, but otherwise okay. "Can I get you anything?"

"Nah." He tried to adjust his position a little in the web of ropes, to make himself more comfortable, but it didn't look like it helped much. He hung his head in disappointment, before forcing a smile onto his face. "Have a good day in class. I'll be fine."

Rachel could tell he was still upset, but it seemed like it was about more than just his current predicament. Will was the sort of guy that would keep everything internal as long as he could, even around her. She knew that pressing him on it would only make him feel more uncomfortable. Will would tell her when he was ready. She could wait.

Rachel went back into the kitchen and put the scissors away, grabbing the step stool as she went. She took it into the middle of the living room and climbed atop it. Will's face was pinched with disappointment, and just a twinge of fear, though Rachel could tell it wasn't directed at herself. He dragged back his fake smile once again, trying to reassure her before she left for the day.

"Have a good day. I love you," he said, and despite the situation and the many huge weights crushing down on both of their minds in that moment, it was still enough to send her heart fluttering. She looked back into his friendly brown eyes that always made her feel safe and comforted and smiled. Rachel leaned forward and gave him a kiss.

"I love you too." She could feel him squirm just a little, though his current restraints prevented anything else. She climbed back down, grabbing her bag of books and papers, and fastening the little pouch of other materials to her waist. "Text me when you can, okay?"

"Yeah."

Rachel closed the front door and locked it behind her, then took out her spare key and set it on the railing of the second story walkway of the apartment complex. She focused on it as best she could, though she'd always been awful at this sort of thing. Her hand contorted slightly at the effort, as she felt the energy flooding down to her fingertips. It was like a rush of blood, but deeper in the core of her body—a gust of wind that moved inside her skin. With a quick flick of the wrist, she sent the key fluttering upward.

She couldn't sustain it. The key wasn't hovering or flying in any sense. It was as if she'd thrown it. She winced, frantically refocusing on the little dot of reflected light in the morning sun, and flicked at it again.

It abruptly changed directions in mid-air, flinging itself back toward the roof above the walkway. She heard it clatter satisfyingly into the gutter.

Rachel let out a small gasp of exertion as she released the mental energy she'd gathered back into her body. It had only taken two movements, awkward and exhausting as they might have been. She congratulated herself. Rachel had done far worse in the past. Maybe she was getting better.

A glance at the clock above the sign for Hendricks Apartments in the parking lot was enough to dismiss the thought. Rachel scurried down the stairs and onto the road. If she hurried, she might still make it to class on time.

Rallsburg, Washington—a town that would have faded utterly into obscurity—existed primarily to serve the students and faculty of Rallsburg State University. Nestled at the southern edge of the Olympic National Forest in the foothills, it originally stood as a logging town and a railway stop between Tacoma and the Pacific coastline—but when the state decided to sponsor a new college campus, it became prime cheap real estate. The school was established, fresh housing built, and new residents surged into the town.

It took a great deal of time before the well-entrenched locals came to accept the newcomers that plagued their once simple town, but as more new businesses sprang up and the town became a hotbed of economic growth, even the most stubborn homeowner came to see the benefits brought by the school. They resisted, but no trouble ever came from the new university, and so their fears went unfounded for years. By the time the school reached its first decade of operation, Rallsburg as a whole came together to celebrate its anniversary, without a single harsh word to be found in the entire township.

However, as the years went by and the excitement faded, coupled with the lack of any real achievement by way of the school, the town grew quiet and lonely once again. Businesses closed up shop. A new, more direct train route was opened to the coast. The college saw decreasing attendance year after year until it shrank to the low hundreds. The state program was already considering closing it for good. Rallsburg was finally accepting its fate.

In its fifty-second year of education, the college and the town both would be rocked to their core—but for now, the students of the university had nothing more to concern themselves with than the upcoming finals week and the never-ending tangled web of relationships and stories that made up a typical college life. If Rachel had her way, the transition would be as smooth and painless as possible.

As she walked—having given up sprinting after she realized she was still perfectly capable to getting to the campus on time at a pace that didn't startle every living creature she passed—Rachel was sure to greet everyone she passed. She knew nearly every resident of the town by name and face, and those she didn't were sure to get a friendly introduction. Rachel was the type to network everywhere she went, to a fault. No matter what context, she was always building up her relationships, forming new connections, and finding new friendships.

Her tactics were learned from a certain socialite on campus whom she was passing that very moment. Hailey Winscombe, formerly the queen of town, the one whom everyone knew and knew everyone in return. Hailey had been Rachel's inspiration, a queen spider at the center of a vast web, though she was sure that Hailey didn't see it that way. The girl was one of the most genuine and authentic people Rachel had ever met, and that threw most people off guard long enough for her to make friends.

Yet something had changed. Hailey had become withdrawn and distant over the last year. Rachel saw her opportunity and struck, becoming the new town gossip, the go-to friend for student and townie alike. A cynical observer might have called it manipulative, the level to which she tried to build her status amongst the social structure in the vacuum left in Hailey's wake, but Rachel didn't think of it that way. She wanted to meet everyone, to know their stories and their fears. Eventually, she felt she could see how it all knitted together, so that she could repair the frayed edges and keep the town whole and happy.

So she told herself, anyway. At some deeper level of her mind, Rachel's nagging conscience reminded her that she was doing it all for personal gain to some degree, and maybe she was. But... if she did good by most of the people she met, did her motivations really matter?

Rachel tried to help whenever she was able, and indeed many of the town often approached her as a sort of mediator. If there was a conflict between the old hunter out by the woods and the construction crew working on resurfacing a road near town, they called on Rachel to talk the man down from his guns. When a couple of college kids started skipping out on their rent, the landlord went to Rachel, and she in turn persuaded the pair to pay in full without incident. Even the sheriff of the town—a harsh grumbling woman by the name of Jackie Nossinger—was quick to enlist Rachel's help when there was any sort of trouble that might be solved by diplomacy rather than violence.

After all, Rachel never forgot anything, or anyone. Her memory was absolutely flawless, and her composure rarely wavered.

This was in stark contrast to the image the students and faculty of Rallsburg University held of Rachel DuValle only a year prior. Rachel had formerly been something of a ditzy, stereotypical blonde—but without the looks or even the blonde hair. She'd often lose track of assignments, to the point of pulling over-nighters redoing them from scratch to get them in on time. The comment from Mason earlier about the bathroom door still grated at her mind, hours later as she sat idle in class.

Her door was a tricky thing, always in disrepair and with a fiddly lock that required you to practically pick it open every time with a hairpin. She'd asked Brian, her landlord, to repair it many times over, but he'd always given some excuse or other. So she'd have to ask Mason, one of her closest friends, or Will, the only two human beings she could bear to be so embarrassed in front of.

She'd frequently forget birthdays, was terrible with faces, and had a knack for losing every important paper she wrote for days at a time before miraculously recovering them at the last moment. Rachel hated all these things about herself, but try as she might, she'd never managed to improve on it. The only thing she managed was to be on time for everything, even if she had to show up without half of her work. Her life had been a never-ending parade of stress and panic until the last year—when a single scrap of paper changed her life.

It had fluttered onto her balcony one day, practically shoving itself into her hand by the bluster of the wind. She'd read from it, she'd understood its secrets, and from that day forward she'd found purpose, a new drive to push her forward. Her old plans were quickly forgotten, vague dreams of possible careers dashed to the wind. Rachel had always been the sort of die-hard 'save the world' type, but she'd never had a clear idea of how to go about doing it. As the years rolled by and the world seemed to get worse and worse, she'd begun to despair that she'd never be able to amount any real change.

So when literal magic dropped into her lap, she didn't think twice before taking the plunge.

The lecture she was currently sitting through was exceedingly dull, to say the least, but still Rachel was catching every word, almost effortlessly, even as she had a document open on her laptop, writing a paper for another class entirely. It was just how her mind worked now, this sort of hyper-efficient multitasking, and it was all due to the ritual she'd enacted.

In hindsight, what she'd attempted was probably reckless and dangerous to untold degrees, but she was too excited and hopeful to pass up the chance. When she'd later told Will (in strictest confidence) what she'd done, he'd been shocked and terrified for her well-being, both physically and mentally.

With the fireworks he'd witnessed, she didn't blame him for being worried.