“Oh,” said Hailey, clutching her stomach. “Why would she do that to me?” Taking a great breath, she tried not to think about suffocating inside a jellied in-between.
Giselle studied Hailey.
“I know why Asher claimed you,” she said, her face softer than Hailey had ever seen it. “You ring with goodness. I can hear it over your broken crystals. It must remind him of the serenity inside the Aether—and you can’t even imagine the wickedness inside Jaycen,” she told her almost kindly. “Anybody can pretend to be a good person some of the time, but to rise like you do with nothing but good in your heart—it’s very rare, Hailey. Even though everyone here avoids you, they all want to know you.”
Giselle’s crystal eyes sparkled beautifully, and Hailey could have sworn her hair showed flecks of gold.
Expecting the insult that was sure to follow all that, Hailey sat in silence for a good ten seconds before she realized that Giselle had just paid her a compliment.
“You stink,” Giselle said, wearing her normal look of disgust again.
There it is, Hailey thought, and she shuffled off to the shower, careful to avoid the shards of vibrating crystals spread across the floor.
Before bed, she gathered the pieces back into their box and pushed it into her closet. Giselle was already snoring on a bed of silk—on the ceiling—when Hailey reclined on her naked mattress. She shivered twice and drifted off.
In the morning, on the floor at the foot of her bed, near the door, Hailey stepped on an envelope. Inside, she found her schedule and a note.
That liar, she thought as she read her schedule. Fin knew exactly where to find Asher—he had an office inside the observatory. It was written in black and white on her schedule. Not that she would ever venture there without an invitation, but she wanted her photo of Holly back. She hastily unfolded the note:
She thought about what Giselle had told her the night before—that Jaycen was wicked and had tried to kill her. It would have been great to ask Giselle if she knew why Jaycen would want to see her, but she’d already gone. She must’ve tip-toed—or floated or maybe she just crawled across the ceiling for all Hailey knew, but she never made a sound when she left the room that morning before Haileywoke up.
She’d just have to rely on Fin’s assessment.
Hailey had slept in her Bear Towne sweat pants, and after she opened her closet, she decided she’d wear them for the rest of the day too. There was no other option.
Her jellied jeans popped up to attention as soon as the closet door opened, and then they began pacing back and forth as if they were on patrol. Her jellied t-shirt had folded itself into a swan and cooed sleepily on its shelf. Meanwhile, her other pair of jeans, which had fallen into Alaskan bog water, had come out of the washer and dried into otherworldly cement. They now resembled a stone carving, and they were just as flexible as one too. Hailey couldn’t bend them enough to get a foot inside and left them standing against the wall. She was afraid to put on her muskeg-jellied shoes, which quivered in the corner.
Thankfully, rain poured on Bear Towne that day, and Hailey grabbed her wellies while Tomas fixed her hair.
Outside Fin’s door, Hailey listened for any suspicious giggling before she knocked. He answered straight away and closed his door quickly behind him, before Hailey could see inside.
“Morning,” she said more like a question, and he nodded, grabbing her by the hand and practically dragging her down the stairs.
“All the clothes that went into the in-between with me have come to life,” she told him right before she tripped down the stairs.
“Careful!” he yelled as he caught her.
“You’re pulling me too fast, Fin, my legs can’t keep up with your lightning speed,” she said, smiling brightly as he held onto her.
Fin laughed heartily and shook his head. “I’m sorry.”
“What are we running from?” she asked as he steadied her back to her feet, and then her face darkened. “Did your clothes come to life too?” Maybe he knew what to do about autonomous jeans.
“No, goofball. There’s just an angry woman in my room.”
“Oh,” said Hailey, her playful smile vanishing.
Fin looked at her sideways, smiling as they made their way out the door and across the Bowl to Chinook for breakfast.
Neither of them said a word until they sat down to eat.
“Was that your girlfriend?” Hailey blurted, bursting the silence, and then she imagined slapping herself in the forehead.
“Who?” Fin asked, looking mighty smug as he shoveled a spoonful of scrambled eggs into his mouth.
“The girl…” Hailey sighed, dipping her head. “You know, the girl you were…with last night…” She couldn’t even look at him as she said it.
“No, Hailey,” he said sounding highly amused. “That was my dinner date. You’re not jealous, are you?”
