I walked the halls with Ryder's hand clasped to mine and us brainstorming possible topics for English class which was a comparative literature assignment for the intricacies of media-transformation that affect the story's message and/or themes to a successful or unsuccessful degree respectively. At the moment, Ryder was debating using a comparison of a book-to-movie adaptation, particularly one with multiple film versions. I envied how Ryder could easily separate the student part of his life from the werewolf part. However, it served as a nice distraction from this morning of shocking news (to me) that I, for once, didn't feel like sharing with Ryder because it had nothing to do with him.

"I feel like it would be easy to do The Great Gatsby because I've read that book like three times and everybody's read it at least once and there's multiple film versions—two that were big budget from 1974 and obviously the new-ish 2013 one with Leonardo DiCaprio and Tobey Maguire. I can compare not only the book to the movies but also the difference in extravagance that was impacted by time of creation and the theatrical changes to the ending," Ryder rambled intelligently (an academic trait he tried but failed to hide) but my eyes trailed off to see the bouncing brunette curls of Stella, who I had yet to track down to talk to today. She stood by her locker, transferring books and journals while Trevor loitered on the other closed lockers. Since we were on our way to lunch, I easily steered Ryder in that direction while he planned out loud. "But that would be too easy and overdone...not to mention I can't stand the Buchanans—actually, you know what? No. I should do Ender's Game because man oh man they did such a good job with that movie adaptation and the whole difference between ending a fight versus ending all future fights all while framing it all with games—"

"Hey," I interrupted his talk while coincidentally addressing Stella now that we were about to pass their area. Not that I didn't find Ryder's intelligence incredible, but I was obviously distracted with Bailee and my brother and Ryder's oversaturated shift away from werewolf agenda was quicker than me wanting to move on from it. I stopped, yanking Ryder back by our clasped hands and his ranting ceased. Stella looked over her shoulder at me and I noticed Trevor straighten up, clear his throat, and glance at Ryder without audible greeting. Wait, why was it so incredibly awkward right now? Now instead of asking about her weekend, I switched gears into an appropriate segue that also pulled in Ryder. "We were just talking about the English project that's due at the end of the semester. Any ideas, you two?"

"Yeah. I'm gonna do the transition from the Valerian and Laureline comics into the Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets movie that flopped because it's a French comic without much American base in my opinion, but was actually pretty accurate and nailed characterization and world integration," Trevor instantly responded, thought out entirely because our English class was this morning and of course he would pick some French comic that nobody else really knew about, despite it laying framework for later yet unrelated Star Wars and Star Trek legacies.

As if Stella pushed her previous frown with Trevor away to make conversation with me, her face lit up briefly. Trevor was making an effort towards outside conversation so she would too in order to protect whatever cloak of normalcy they were trying to go for despite their body language reading differently. She nodded and pursed her lips. "I was thinking of the viewer digestion of Romeo and Juliet in various forms from its 1996 film version versus a retelling in a different genre like in Warm Bodies." Stella glanced at Trevor briefly and then Ryder for some unknown reason to me. "Since apparently a love story is more or less understood differently when it involves a couple of teenagers versus a reimagined adventure with a monster." Suddenly she slammed her locker close right as Ryder rolled his eyes and Trevor took a deep breath. Okay, I definitely missed something that happened. Before I could ask, Trevor stopped leaning on the lockers and attempted to grab Stella's hand in an exit, but she pulled it away and her gaze met the floor. Trevor sighed once more to note the rejection, picked up his backpack that was on the ground, and walked away. I didn't know what the hell just happened, but I did know that Stella wouldn't tell me if Ryder was around.

"Wow, that's so cool. I was thinking about the adaptation of a Shakespeare piece too," I feigned in mostly fake enthusiasm to blanket the tension. "10 Things I Hate About You. Did you know it was based off of Taming of the Shrew? Or that She's the Man is based on The Twelfth Night? Do you mind if we compare our brainstorming so we don't end up with similar routes? Or maybe we can plan a movie night for us both to—"

"Babe," Ryder suddenly laughed. I looked over at him and he frowned at me pathetically. "You don't need to talk in code about wanting some alone time with Stella. I get it. I can go." He leaned over and kissed my cheek. "I'll see you later," he told me. Then his eyes slid over to Stella's, who he still walked on eggshells around despite what anyone said or any forgiveness Stella granted him. "Stella..." he still said in a "I wish you well" kind of way before he walked off. Stella only sent him back a fake smile while he proceeded down the hall and she and I began walking side by side.

"Okay, what happened?" I asked her. She sighed. "I thought you'd get back from the college trip even more fired up about North Texas."

"I am" she groaned unconvincingly before looking over at me. "Fine. Okay. Last week at Trevor's party, everything was great and we were almost going to—"

"I should advise you that Ryder is still within hearing range," I interrupted her before she said anything that might cause Ryder to tackle an in-range Trevor and reenact exactly what he had done to Evan's face last week. Stella scoffed, stopped walking and then grabbed my arm to pull me to the side and out of the way of any hallway traffic.

"Whatever, it doesn't matter," she dismissed. "Suddenly this weekend he decides to call up his parents and tell them they shouldn't move back to Tyriette like they were supposed to this weekend." I paused and frowned, trying to figure out what that meant but Stella wasn't going to give me the time to think nor see her in turmoil so we continued to walk towards the cafeteria where she knew she would continue on with her strength due to the sheer distraction of everyone's social idolization of her. "I think he's trying to break up with me or something. Why else is he taking steps back on the weekend when we were both planning our futures?"

"Stella, I do not think he's breaking up with you," I told her rationally. "I'm sure he had a logical reason. He did keep calling Ryder about..." I realized there were still people walking around us so I didn't exactly want to use specific words alluding to the Tyriette Treaty for supernatural sake as well as for the preservation of Stella's ignorance of it all. "...things...that also had to do with his parents coming back to town in the winter. I can ask Ryder if you want—"

"Ryder?" she turned up her nose, but in a different way than disgust. "If anyone would know anything, it would be Andrew. He's the one that set Trevor off."

"What?" I asked alarmed. "What did he do? I haven't even seen or talked to my brother at all this weekend or even today so—"

"Well you need to talk to him because Trevor, as well as my relationship, was all fine and dandy until Andrew decided to do whatever Andrew decided to do that Trevor felt inclined to disagree with and panic about."

"Five weeks...I thought Versailles would've tried a lot longer than that for the one girl he decided to finally date," a voice suddenly said and we looked over to see Stormy approaching after clearly eavesdropping. "I told Trevor it was a bad idea to mix Tiers but we all know he insisted," she continued with a glance towards me because I was definitely in that tribunal when Trevor wagered dating Stella with whether or not she would phase after Preston bit her. Back then Trevor had made a point about Stormy caring about Aaron, which was a "mixing of Tiers" in itself yet right now she was twisting the dagger in Stella's heart about her relationship worries for no reason.

"Just like you insist on stringing Aaron along despite you knowing that is more forbidden than Trevor and Stella could ever be, right?" I instantly snapped at her. She smirked at the harshness of the comeback, but Stella didn't care to entertain the conversation any longer. She just sent me a look reading "we'll talk later" and then strutted away. Now I saw why Bailee stressed so much about wanting Stella and Stormy to be friends to make things easier on her, but I saw now how ridiculous that hope was. Bailee's optimism could maybe balance out Stormy's pessimism and my stubbornness overpowered her indifference, but Stella's general qualities that made her popular could not balance out Stormy's misanthropy and need to pull in people towards shared misery.

"Touché," Stormy yielded when Stella was completely gone. I watched Stormy to try and figure out what she really wanted. She knew I wasn't going to out her little party-fling with Aaron to anyone that mattered, but I wasn't going to let her hypocritically taunt Stella's woes. "So, I heard you got a special visit this weekend."

***

"It was unsurprising really," Stormy told me now that we sat outside at her usual lunch table and I had told her about what happened with Evan's punishment and my lovely visit from my dad. She casually ate during my anecdote, not at all alarmed at anything I informed her of. Based on her demeanor, I could read that she assumed I would be freaked out about it instead of appreciating and learning from it. But she quickly picked that up after the fact and played it off as if it was a normal thing—even though my family members coming back from the dead was basically normal for me at this point. "I told you once before that I'm not cleared to do any magic involving other magic right? Well my mom is cleared for some of it but it's still not an exact science because werewolf magic is sometimes dominant." She still confused me, but she could read it on my face to know as much. "The runes worked for Ryder and Aaron, but you're part Condor so of course they faltered for you," she clarified.

"Condors are blessed with the Spirit that runs through all Lycans," I paraphrased under my breath from what I had learned from when Natalie and Cassandra were trying to explain the Mate pairing system and family meanings for long-standing werewolf bloodline families. "My paternal grandmother was a Condor."

"Right," she nodded. "Condors have ancient Spirit blood dating back to the oldest indigenous tribes in North and Central America. Not only with transfiguration, but also with necromancy. It's pretty cool actually; a blood connection with the Spirit Realm. So for anyone into necromancy or divination, the connection is initiated from our realm to theirs yet at their discretion. For Condors it's difficult, but pretty much the other way around if they want it to be. That's why their line was so successful because each family member could apprentice with previous leaders even after they were dead, mates could contact each other if one of them passed or was away, plus Spirits have a way of knowing exactly how to reach a person and get their message across if summoned...In actuality, it's largely unknown which is why I'm pretty sure our families got even closer when your grandparents got married—other than the whole Everton matriarchy thing. A bunch of mortician witches and a family with a connection to the Spirit Realm to learn from? No wonder my dad was so good at this stuff after being babysat by your grandma and dating Cassandra in high school—"

"Wait. Your dad dated my aunt?!" I asked even though the "Everton matriarchy thing" made a bell go off in my brain that I would certainly bring up with Cassandra later on since it lined up with her telling me once before that being an Everton woman was the most powerful asset I had. More than that, the powers of Condors also made me think that maybe my dad and Natalie had astrally been in contact over the years, maybe that's how Andrew visited me in my dreams and knew so much about being an Alpha, and maybe that's why my dad said I was harder to reach than the aforementioned for some reason.

She dismissed it with a flimsy wave of her hand and a new bite of food as if it wasn't a big deal. There was a lot of dismissals of big deals going on today that I was noticing and wondered how many times people dismissed issues that I alternatively dwelled upon instead of accepting like they had. "Anyways...you're not experiencing any extreme post-visitation side-effects, right? No visual hallucinations or objects exploding or spontaneous wolf raging or falling through walls and floors? My parents wanted me to ask you that to make sure." I shook my head no with a frown. She suddenly clapped her hands and stood up with her empty tray. "Great. Right on time then, since you have a busy lunch period today."

"Huh?"

She didn't need to answer me before she left because I easily looked over to see a timid and still-bruised Evan approaching the table, managing to forge a rough smile towards me. "Can we talk?" I didn't need to answer or nod my head for him to get the picture that of course I would talk with him and he didn't need to act like I viewed him as a threat at all just like he knew not to fear that Ryder would charge in from the cafeteria to break us up.

He sat down where Stormy previously was and I was able to recognize his stiff movements in doing so. I didn't know what he wanted to talk to me about and part of me felt like it would be insulting to demand answers from him about Bailee. I wouldn't want anyone questioning or putting restrictions on my bond with Ryder so why would I do that to him and Bailee? But maybe I was wrong. Maybe he was here to apologize yet again.

"What's up?" I asked him innocently, as if I didn't know about him and Bailee's contact let alone their imprint. "How are you feeling...?"

"Like I need to talk to you and get some things off my chest," he said with conviction. I contained my sigh indicating that I really didn't want him to apologize to me again. His blue eyes were sure to lock onto my brown ones and it I felt up to it, I was sure I could see the rim of silver in them because he was so serious right now.