Chapter 13
Thirteen
Dani cried the whole ride back to their apartment.
She didn’t calm down until McKenna had helped her change into her favorite pajamas, made her a cup of marshmallow hot chocolate, and tucked her into a nest of blankets with Gingerbread watching over them.
Only then did her heartbeat settle and her breathing return to normal, just in time for a tsunami of self-loathing to wash over her.
How come she could make it through a certified nightmare at OneiroLabs without panicking, but not a college party?
“I knew I didn’t like Halloween for a reason,” she said.
“It was a panic attack, babe,” McKenna said, curling up at her side. “Not a moral failing.”
“Kass doesn’t know that,” Dani said. “He’s going to think I hate him.”
“I find that highly unlikely. Just explain what happened the next time you see him. Or shoot him a message if you don’t want to wait. If he’s as nice a guy as you say he is, he’ll understand.”
“I hope you’re right. And I hope you managed to have some fun before I dragged you away?”
McKenna scoffed. “You didn’t drag me away from anything. It was an entertaining diversion for an hour or so, but all those mortals were so terribly … finite.”
Dani snorted into her cocoa. “Most people are, Kenz.”
“My point exactly. You’re just a human being, babe, and so is he. If he can’t deal with a little stage fright, then fuck him. If he can, then—fuck him a different way, if you know what I mean.”
“McKenna!”
“Come on,” her friend said, waggling her eyebrows. “Don’t tell me you didn’t steal a kiss or two while you were wandering his mansion for over an hour.”
“I didn’t. I didn’t,” Dani insisted, cheeks blazing. “But there was—there was a moment when I thought he might—but I messed that up, too.”
“Psh,” McKenna said. “You haven’t even been on a real date yet.
Watch, he’ll turn up at Quarter Cast this weekend begging you to go out with him.
Until then, I appoint it my solemn duty to keep you distracted.
Shall we go window-shopping with Oliver tomorrow?
I’ll message them right now…” She typed quickly on her quartzpad.
“Aha, they’ve already responded that they’d love to.
See? You won’t have to think about Kass at all. ”
“Sure,” Dani said dismally. “Totally. Not at all.”
That night, Dani’s dreams were tangled and confused, tugging her back and forth between the emotional highs and lows of the past week: OneiroLabs, Oliver, Kass, Silva’s proposal.
She woke the next morning with something that felt like whiplash, and definitely a hangover—both from all the White Russians and from the panic attack.
There were still a few hours till she and McKenna were due to pick up Oliver from their dorm, but there was no way she was going back to sleep.
She slipped out of bed, careful not to wake her roommate, grabbed her quartzpad from its charging crystal, and made her way to the kitchenette they shared with the other tenants on their floor.
It was little more than a closet with a sink and a coffeemaker, but it did the job she needed it to, which was produce a cup of not-disgusting medium roast in the mornings.
Dani loaded the machine with grounds and powered up her quartzpad while the coffee dripped.
It was impossible not to think about last night.
She couldn’t shake the feeling that she’d royally screwed up by bailing on Kass like that, no matter what McKenna said about being human or whatever.
If the roles were reversed, she’d definitely think he wasn’t interested in her, so she wouldn’t be surprised if she never heard from or saw him again.
The coffee finished brewing. Dani poured herself a mug and opened her messages, hoping against hope that there was something from Kass in there, some preemptive forgiveness or at least a You good?
Instead, the subject line at the top of her inbox slammed into her like a curse.
The edges of her vision darkened, and the claws of her rib cage tightened around her lungs.
Her finger hovered over the screen while she digested what she was reading.
ATTN: Scholarship Eligibility Under Review
“No,” she said. “No, no no no no.”
She set down her mug in a panic, sloshing coffee over the side and burning her fingers. She shook the droplets off and took the quartzpad in both hands. Her heartbeat was wild in her chest as she opened the message.
Her eyes dashed across the screen with increasing dismay. She mumbled the words under her breath as she read them, as though she could not quite believe them otherwise.
“Dear Danica Lionet,” it began, innocently enough.
“We are writing to inform you that due to a high number of absences and/or tardies, as well as a decline in grades, the Committee for Merit-Based Scholarships and Awards will review your awards package at the end of the semester. Your session will be held on Monday, December 15 at 9:30 A.M. in the Emeritus Building, Hall C. Your attendance is required. Cordially…”
Dani trailed off. She was sure she only had three tardies, and she’d only missed one class so far, a herculean effort on her part.
Yes, she’d gotten a less-than-ideal grade on her late tarot assignment, but she didn’t think she’d been scoring that badly overall.
Had she misunderstood the rules about how many absences she could have in total?
Had she miscounted how many times she’d been late?
It didn’t matter. The university had made it clear when they’d granted her the scholarship that they’d watch her progress like a hawk—and swoop in on her like one, too, if she set one foot wrong.
Which, apparently, she had.
Tears stung at her eyes. So fucking unfair.
How was she supposed to do her homework, get good grades, and achieve perfect attendance when she had to spend half her waking hours working to cover the portion of tuition the scholarship they had so benevolently awarded her didn’t?
She had defied her parents, won her own emancipation, scraped by on tips and the dubious kindness of strangers, and hitchhiked across the country—all to get here.
The panel who’d interviewed her had expressed admiration for her resilience and determination.
They were impressed by how resourceful she was, how ambitious.
Ambitious—the polite word for desperate.
Their admiration was conditional, though; she’d known it from the start. But that didn’t make this wound bleed any less.
Dani realized suddenly that she was shaking. She turned off the quartzpad and swallowed. Every muscle in her body was taut as a bowstring, her anger the arrow placed against it. She took a slow, hot breath.
Twenty-five thousand dollars.
Gods, it was tempting. She was brimming with the desire to take some kind of action, even if it was a foolish one like messaging Silva that she’d do it.
But there was that voice in the back of her head, telling her that saying yes would be as good as dooming her future at the Leap.
At least with the scholarship review, she’d have a chance to defend herself—but if she got caught trying to steal from OneiroLabs, she’d be out on her ass without question.
Not only that, but it felt a little like going against her own principles.
Hadn’t she worked her whole life to break free from people who wanted to use her ability to their own ends?
True, her parents never compensated her financially, but wasn’t the intention the same?
Dani wasn’t sure. She didn’t think Silva was trying to exploit her; the professor really seemed to care about what was going on at OneiroLabs, and about helping Oliver and anyone else who was suffering the side effects.
But that didn’t change the fact that if things went awry, Dani could wind up back where she’d been three months ago: couch-surfing to stay off the streets, with little hope for her future.
She didn’t know what to do, but she had to move. She went back to the room, dressed quickly, snatched up her bag, and left before McKenna could wake up. The day greeted her with a gusting wind and a shock of blue sky visible now and again between the clouds racing overhead.
She let the wind carry her where it wanted, ending up on the greenway that ran along the edge of the forest bordering the north and west sides of campus.
The forest was owned by the university and tended by the students of various departments, including fairy studies, arcanobotany, and animal magic.
Dani had ventured under its canopy just a few times, and only with McKenna, who went in regularly to collect ingredients for her various glamours, an activity that often involved a tussle with a dryad or pixie of some kind.
Dani strode the length of the greenway, letting everything swirl around inside her—the unfairness of the scholarship review and the position she was in, Silva’s unreasonable request, Oliver’s awful predicament, her fuckup with Kass last night.
She’d never been in such a state of confusion in her entire life.
She had always known what she wanted—to get away from her parents, to come to Fox’s Leap, but most of all, to take control over her own life.
Now it felt like what little control she’d managed to claim was slipping through her fingers.
The walk didn’t fix that feeling, but it did burn off some of the frenetic energy she’d started the morning with.
Dani had almost reached the end of the greenway for the second time when she realized how high the sun was in the sky.
She pulled out her quartzpad to check the time; she was supposed to meet McKenna and Oliver in thirty minutes.
Retracing her steps, she made it to Oliver’s dorm at the exact same moment as McKenna.
Her best friend was in a coat with a peacock feather pattern, and had her hair wrapped in a teal scarf against the wind.