S t r a n g e d i s c o v e r i e s

I wake up in the morning, feeling relaxed and well rested, and I look around at all my friends. Mia, Aviania and Pandora are talking about something in the corner, Casper and Alexa are whispering. Matthew is missing, Cecilia and Amelia are just walking into the room, and Damon and Lucas are arm wrestling.

Oh. I just remembered what happened last night. Lucas catches my gaze, smirks and winks, then goes back to the game. I groan softly and flop back down on my mattress, my cheeks heating up. I flip onto my back so that my face is in my pillows.

"Finally, you're awake," Mia looks over and sees my blushing state. "What happened?"

A cheer arises and everyone looks over to Damon and Lucas to see Lucas pumping his fist in the air.

"Ugh. I shouldn't have accepted. You always win," Damon mutters, but with a smile on his face.

"Did that happen?" Mia looks back at me.

"What? Did what happen?"

She jerks her head towards Lucas, and I play dumb. "Huh?"

She shoots me a dirty look. "Charlotte Belle Fernsby, you know exactly what I'm talking about!"

I raise my eyebrows. "Do I?"

Lucas snickers, and Mia looks over to him, exasperated. "Him! Did he happen?"

"What?" I am heading into slightly dangerous territory now, but it's fun, and I know she'll forgive me. We joke around like this all the time.

"What Happened Last Night With Lucas!?" she is speaking through her teeth, but yelling at the same time.

"I didn't know people could speak like that," I say in response. She rolls her eyes and looks over at Lucas instead, and points an accusing finger at him.

"WHAT DID YOU DO?!" she is now thoroughly pissed at me, and Lucas looks at me.

"Help, Lotte. You got me into this!" he pleads.

"Me? You're the one who was fine with them locking us out last night," I growl at him. The others are just looking between the three of us now, entertained.

He scoffs. "Don't say you regret it."

"Regret what?" Mia explodes.

"Nothing!" Lucas and I say.

Everyone stays silent, for one, two, almost three minutes.

"Yeah, something definitely happened," Casper says.

I push my breath out in an annoyed huff of air, then I get up. "I'm going to the library."

"Course she is," I hear Mia mutter.

"No! Don't leave me alone here!" Lucas calls.

"You can come," I joke.

"Actually, I'm gonna."

"Ah, no, that was a joke," I say quickly. He stands up and looks at me. "I know."

I turn around sharply on my heel and stalk out of the room to the library I went to before. I walk around all the aisles for a while, then when I think Lucas is off my tail, I try to find the secret study that had the books on magic. I wander around for roughly a half hour, then find the banner. I duck underneath, and hear something behind me, but I turn around and nothing's there.

I spin back around and walk the ten minutes down the stairs, realising for the first time that there are smaller passageways leading off of the sides on the walls, but I stick to the main one. I reach the room, open the door, and step inside.

I hear something behind me again, something like a sharp intake of breath, but I step forward and out of view, pressing myself against the wall. I watch the entrance, and then a surprised Luas walks into the room.

"Followed me, did you?" I accuse.

"It's my house," he replies, completely unfazed by my bad temper.

"I thought I lost you back at the library," I say, ignoring his comment.

"Yeah, nah."

"How did you hide from me?" I question.

"Figure it out. Not that hard."

I wrinkle my nose at him, pull out the history of magic book and sit down to keep reading. I hear him scoff as I open to a random page.

"Rude, much," he comments. When I don't respond he continues. "Hello, earth to Lotte, how about breakfast?"

"Books come first," I retort, not looking up from my book.

I hear him sigh, walk over to the other chair. He leans on the back, and when it doesn't break he sits down on the armrest, resting his elbows on his knees.

After a while, I look up to see him looking at me. "You good?" I scoff.

"Yeah, fine."

I look back at my book, but I can still feel his gaze on me, so I look up at him again. He smirks.

"Am I distracting you?" he asks innocently. I scowl, and look back at the page, but I can feel his eyes on me and I can't focus.

"Yes, you are," I huff.

"Aw. What about me?"

"All of you."

We pause for a moment, and I say, "Don't take that the wrong way."

"Oh, you know me. Of course I take it that way."

I blush and look down at my book, close it, take a deep breath, and reopen it.

"Don't ignore me," he protests. I hear him stand up and feel him sit down on the armrest on my chair. "Watcha reading?"

I sigh. "The magic book I told you about."

"Is it good?"

"Well it's sure given me a lot of info."

"Ah. Like the mark?"

"Yeah. And the magical families," I add.

"Oh those. That book. I think I've read it," he sounds thoughtful.

"And did you believe it? Is that what made you believe?"

"No. I've believed since I was born," he answers quietly.

I don't know what to say in response, so I just sit there awkwardly while he examines the book page I'm on. I look down, and see I have opened to a page on the Cyfrin family.

"Interested in the families?" I say.

"Eh, sometimes," he replies, looking up. "They're important to know about."

"Why?"

"If you don't believe you wouldn't get it. 'S like how you learn about your ancestors and important people in history, that's what it's like."

"Why do you believe it's real though?"

He doesn't say anything, only looks away. He sighs, a deep sad sigh. "I'm sorry," he murmurs, then walks away, up the stairs and out, so I follow him, but when I reach the top of the stairs I can't see him anymore. I yell out, "Lucas," and he yells back, anger in his voice, "Charlotte, stop." I duck outside the banner, but he is gone from sight. I growl under my breath, then tug the banner down and stalk back to the room.

I can't focus on the book anymore, instead I get up and pace around the room. What does he mean? He believes? Ancestors?

I let out a groan of frustration, then stomp out of the room and push past the banner. I walk around, annoyed at him, then I go back to the mattress room, to find them all gone, so I go down to the breakfast hall and find them all just sitting down.

I pull out a chair and thump down into my seat, then drag the legs across the floor.

"Someone's in a bad mood," Mia observes.

"Not my fault," I retort. "A different someone keeps ignoring me!"

"Not my fault either, you're asking questions I can't answer!" Lucas yells at me.

I hold my tongue and look away, knowing that if I say something it isn't going to go well. We sit quietly for a while, but then conversation picks up from other people.

We eat breakfast, then instead of going back up to our room, we go out the other side to the entrance room.

"While you were gone, we decided to go out for a while for a walk. Don't ask where because I don't know yet where to," Casper tells me. I follow him and the others outside, into the already-hot sun outside.

"Ugh. It's so hot," I say.

"Yeah, why don't we go somewhere inside. Let's go up to town," Alexa suggests.

"That's a half an hour walk!" Matthew exclaims.

Yeah, I know, small town. It takes only half an hour to walk from the bottom to the top.

"That's not bad Matthew, besides, you could do with the exercise," Mia says.

"Hey," Matthew protests hotly.

We set out at a brisk pace, and I make sure to keep my distance from Lucas to try and stop myself from confronting him, and I can tell he is also trying to avoid me. We walk in comfortable silence, for about half the way, then we start joking around and complaining of heat and tiredness.

"Guys, we haven't even been walking for that long," I say.

"Keep up, we're halfway there," Aviania adds.

So they shut up and we keep walking, and I watch the manors to the right, the road filled with the houses of rich people, as they all become more modern as we approach the town.