Sheamus whistled. “I guess it’s a good start. We should be able to work together to help our realm’s issues. Let’s go eat.”
They walked away, leaving me standing alone and pondering their words.
From my point of view, Rylan McKenzie was going over and beyond to make up for the worldwide catastrophe. Sadly, not everyone would have.
“Keep following the light!” I heard the same guiding castle staff say from the end of the hall.
A croissant floated past my head as I made it to the nearest table.
“They’ve got good croissants.” A man walked by me, his arm thrust into the air with a pastry in his hand.
My heart rate skyrocketed as another croissant shot into the air, coasted over the chandelier, then landed on a person’s head.
Why were croissants flying? That doesn’t seem sanitary.
While those vaulted ceilings I admired earlierwerebeautiful, they did nothing for the sound. Between all the chattering, forks scratching against ceramic plates, and magic popping all around, my brain was overstimulated.
A rush of breath blew out of me, and my magic crackled on my tongue like popping candy. I needed to get out of here before I lashed out when someone invaded my personal space.
I grabbed a to-go box and shoved the closest food inside.
Staff with crisp black shirts and purple ties walked in front of me, checking food and chatting with students grabbing plates.
As I turned to rush out the door, Imogene and her friend stopped on the other side of me, blocking the carrot cake. I’d saved space in my second box specifically for a slice. Just as Iopened my mouth to say, “excuse me,” a fight erupted between them.
“Imogene, you’re hogging all the shrimp kabobs.”
Imogene proceeded to call her friend a largemouth bass.
Her friend gasped, then everyone else gasped as her face transformed into a mixture of a bass and a human.
“You old crone. Now look what you did!” she yelled as a staff member ran up to her with a spray bottle and spritzed her gaping fish face.
Pink mist soaked into her scaled skin, and in seconds, she morphed back to her normal appearance. The two women shouted at each other until a staff member spoke softly to them and pointed toward a chocolate fountain surrounded by various tarts. Turns out, the flowing chocolate resolved their bickering as they rushed to grab their sweet treats together.
Feeling the weight of the day crash into me, I left the grand hall in search of my room.
I arrived at the staircase and eyed the three people holding food boxes, standing on the first landing above, their chests heaving.
“Where is an elevator when you need one?” someone huffed as I made it up to the first group.
“We got this,” I muttered to us all before taking on the rest of the steps, focusing on one at a time. My thighs burned, but I pushed through with thoughts of finally sitting down to eat those two slices of pepperoni in my box.
“These stairs are going to kill my knees,” a woman with streaks of gray hair blew out between deep breaths, gripping her luggage handle tighter before going up the next set. I paused on the third landing with the others and flashed them a grin of solidarity.
I wasn’t in terrible shape, but I was tired, and these steps would probably be the end of me.
“We could probably just live here. I mean, we already have our stuff,” a man with glasses and a handkerchief sticking out of his brown coat pocket said as he chuckled. Then, the sound of a loud cranking noise caught our attention. Good ol’ Imogene sat on a little seat attached to the railing of the stairs while it pulled her up like a little rollercoaster.
“Perks of being in your seventies.” She winked at me as the lift helped her up and around the landing to the next floor.
Thestarvingwoman with blue hair from the dining hall panted as she reached the landing. “I never thought I’d be excited to be in my seventies, but I am now.”
“Here’s to seventy.” I raised my to-go box and pushed myself through fatigue and made the rest of stairs my bitch.
Chapter Five
Maybe the best of friends all had food-based origin stories
