After Chris, Ian and Winter headed out as per Lady Burness’s request to buy groceries for dinner, Daniel sat down to read (they’d tried to convince him to come too, but he’d only told them he’d be in the way).The book Lady Burness lent him was small, but in Aurorian and, to pass the time, he had asked the Witch if she had a dictionary he could use.

Her answer had been, “Of course I do, goby, every self-respecting citizen of Whitelake does! Let me just see if I can remember where I put it…”

And so Daniel had sat himself down in the living room at the hardwood table (strangely enough, equipped with benches rather than chairs), with the little book and the dictionary, and kept his mind occupied.

Every once in a while, however, his thoughts would wander back to Julia, and he’d frown.

Daniel wasn’t angry, not really. He didn’t know the word for what he felt. Annoyed? Exasperated? Irritated? Lonely?

Daniel fished out his cell phone and stared at the wallpaper. It was a picture of the two of them, taken a few months ago. Julia was wearing large diamond shaped earrings that he’d bought for her the week before. He looked at her smile and sighed.

Daniel had always thought it had been understood that their relationship would only last within the so-to-speak walls of high school. They had never even brought up any plans that stretched beyond that. Julia was a brat; he’d known that. He’d known that even before they’d started dating. Nonetheless, he had still liked her, and he had still cared about her – in your usual “I want to be with my crush and I would care if she was sad” kind of way. Had she expected to marry him? It was inconvenient to think about this in general, let alone even on a hypothetically realistic plane…

His thoughts were interrupted by the front door falling open and a voice calling:

“Towels! Towels and a fire!”

The group that stumbled through the doorway consisted of Chris, Winter, Ian and a boy Daniel didn’t know who was dripping wet, shaking madly and coughing. Next to him, holding him up, was Ian, also soaked to the bone.