Dinner that night was the same as lunch, but with fewer heart-stopping epiphanies. Mrs. Simone and Dr. Smith kept looking at Audrey subtly, and I could see how the edges of their mouths would turn up ever so slightly whenever she spoke. Audrey seemed to be doing her best to avoid looking at them.

Mr. Marquez came back in the middle of dinner, his head down. His suit looked a little more rumpled than before, as if he had been sitting against a wall. He sat between Dr. Smith and Ms. Catalona, looking haggard and worn down. It didn't suit him. Mrs. Simone reached across her husband and squeezed his hand..

I felt like asking what was wrong, but when I opened my mouth, Isaac shot me a look that clearly said, it's an adult thing and we shouldn't get involved.

Sierra looked at Mr. Marquez for a long time, if she had known him from a long time ago, but didn't know what to say.

Dinner ended, and we began to go back to our rooms. The rest of the hall filled out, and then our table. Mr. Marquez began to pick up one of the platters, but it trembled in his hand. Mrs. Simone placed her hand on top of it and gently coaxed it back to the table. "Let someone else take it. You need to sleep, Juan."

He nodded, too tired to even argue. Dr. Smith stood and helped Mr. Marquez walk.

I watched in confusion and a tinge of sadness hit me.

"Sierra," Mrs. Simone said quietly, gesturing to the platter with a question in her eyes. Sierra nodded, and picked it up, needing both hands for the heavy tray.

"She asked for water," Mr. Marquez called from the door. His voice was rough and laced with exhaustion. Mrs. Simone nodded. "I'll go get a pitcher." She hurried off to a door in the back.

Sierra noticed us waiting. "You guys can go on ahead, this might take me a bit." I wasn't sure if she was talking to everyone or just her friends, but we all slowly filed out.

"I'll race you to the courtyard," Audrey said to Deynan and Isaac.

"Oh, you are so on," Deynan said, prepping. Isaac just smiled.

"Go!" Audrey said, bolting forwards. Deynan followed in hot pursuit, complaining on how unfair it was. Isaac ran off, laughing, and Sophie followed him, flitting like a butterfly.

I sighed. I hate running. I was getting ready to follow them, when Sierra let out a small shriek. I turned quickly, but she had just tripped a little. She looked at me apologetically. "Sorry, this tray is a little heavier than it looks." I nodded, not sure what to say. For a few moments, we stood there awkwardly. I began to wonder if I just gave off an aura of awkward.

For the first time, I had a really good look at Sierra Claget. Other than my first impression , I noticed a few other things. Her ears were pierced, though the holes were pinched, as if she hadn't worn earrings in a long time. She wore a necklace that had a wide array of charms on it, but I couldn't see them all from where I was. The chain had tarnished; she wore it a lot. She shifted and I noticed a long, pale scar down her forearm. She looked uncomfortable, and I realized I was staring.

Finally, I asked a question. "How is Audrey handling...the news?"

Sierra nodded seriously. "Ok. I think she's trying to avoid confronting it. Just pushing it away. But sometimes I catch her staring off into space, and she only does that when she's thinking about something and she doesn't want anyone to know she's thinking about it. Otherwise she would just say it out loud. She's open like that."

I nodded, surprised on how insightful that was. Suddenly, my mind flooded with a hundred other questions I wanted to ask her. I settled on the most important one. "What's wrong with Mr. Marquez?"

She tensed, and I fought the urge to wince. Wrong question. "Well..."

Just then, Mrs. Simone walked in with a pitcher, filled almost to the top, and so cold that little droplets of water had formed on the outside. "Here you go," she said, handing Sierra the pitcher. But Sierra didn't take it. She looked from the heavy tray to the pitcher back to the tray. "Um..."

Mrs. Simone saw me. "Oh, Ravi, would you carry this down with Sierra? I want to go check on Juan." She held out the pitcher.

I stood for a moment, stunned, then broke out. "Oh, uh, yeah sure." I took the pitcher. It was cold and wet. Mrs. Simone smiled at me and hurried off.

I looked at Sierra, a bit panicked. It must have shown in my eyes because she laughed. "Come on." We walked out.

The walk was awkward. Well, maybe that was just me, because Sierra seemed perfectly relaxed. Then she sighed. "I suppose I should tell you where we're going."

"Uh, yeah. That would be great."

She laughed a little. "So, did Dr. Smith tell you...what I did...a few weeks ago?"

"You mean, when you took down the evil sorceress Giselle in 'a blaze of burning light'?"

She laughed harder. "Uh, yeah, you could put it that way. Well, anyways, we had kind of left her on her island where the princesses and the dryads were setting up a government of sorts. But they noticed that even though I put her magic level at like, 2%, she was still powerful enough that it was causing issues. The biggest was the cats. Her cats kept attacking people whenever they got close to the cell."

"Cats?" I asked, confused.

She shook her head darkly. "Don't ask. Well anyways, it was my idea to bring her here. See, since her power comes from hatred, I thought it would be good for her to learn that Myths aren't all that bad."

I still didn't know why she hated Myths, but I guess that was a story for another day.

"So now she's here. It's usually my job to bring her her food. Mrs. Simone says it's because..." she faltered.

"Because...?" I prompted.

"Because I'm the only one who can love her after all she's done," she finished in a whisper.

I almost stopped dead in my tracks. What did she mean, she loved Giselle? How could she? Didn't Giselle almost destroy all of her friends?

Sierra turned and stopped in front of a heavy looking wooden door. "Um...could you open it?" She looked sheepishly down at her tray.

I shifted the pitcher to just one hand, which proved to be more difficult to hold than I thought. I opened the door quickly and stopped it with my foot as I grabbed the pitcher with my other hand just before it fell.

"I applaud you," Sierra said, grinning. "Mentally."

We walked through the door and down long, twisting stairs. The air was getting damper, and torches lined the walls. We were entering a dungeon.

All the cells were empty and cold except for the one at the very end. A soft light warmed the space around it. As we began to walk down, our footsteps echoed loudly.

"Who is it?" a cold voice. It pierced my heart, chilled me right to the bone. But it was shaky and unconfident.

"Just me," Sierra called. She looked at me. "And a friend."

My heart lurched at the word 'friend'. When had that happened? Not that I was complaining, but I thought it took longer than that to make a friend.

"Go away." The voice sounded defeated.

Sierra sighed. "You have to eat."

"Says who?"

Sierra sighed again. This was obviously a conversation they had had before.

Then we reached the cell.

It didn't look how I expected it to look. There was a carpet covering the floor and a small bed in the corner. A happy lamp stood in the corner, next to a small table with a journal and a pencil that looked rather untouched. There was a cat poster on the wall that said 'Love Everyone!' with a picture of two kittens hugging each other.

Giselle also didn't look how I expected.

She was sitting in a corner next to the bars of the cell, hunched over. Her hair was a mess. She wore a thin, light blue sleeping gown. A sneer flashed across her face, but I could see the way her eyes flickered back and forth uncertainly. In a word, defeated.

Sierra placed the tray on a chamber in the wall and closed the door. It slid in, then out onto a ledge on the wall in the cell. She took the pitcher from me, and repeated the action.

I wiped my cold, wet hands on my jeans.

"So who is this?" Giselle asked, glaring at me.

My hands froze.

"His name is Ravi," Sierra said calmly, "and he is our friend."

She stared at me, long and hard. Then she turned her head to the floor. "Legend," she muttered.

My eyes widened. How did she know?

"Giselle, you should eat..." Sierra began.

"I should eat!" Giselle exploded. "I should eat food given to me by a pathetic little girl. I was a queen! I was powerful! A sorceress who could enchant living things! Do you understand that kind of power?" She gripped the bars and pressed herself against them. "Even in this puny cage where it restricts my already depleted power, you can feel it, can't you? And you know what will happen if I recharge, don't you? I can enchant myself." She laughed maniacally. "I can give myself MORE ENCHANTMENTS!!!"

My heart stopped. That was power.

"Giselle," Sierra said quietly, "why do you hate me?"

"Don't pretend," Giselle said, shifting so her back was to us.

"I thought it was because Mrs. Simone took your boyfriend, and you thought he was dead. But we already explained to you, she was acting on Council orders, and she thought she was doing what was best for him."

"That's a lie," Giselle muttered. "And he is dead."

Sierra frowned. "No, he isn't. You saw him today."

"That was cruel," she said, her voice tight, "and as good as the illusion was, I know it wasn't Juan."

I took a sharp intake of breath. What did she just say? Mr. Marquez? Her boyfriend?

"What can we do to prove it to you?" Sierra said quietly.

"Nothing," she spat. Her shoulders shook, and with a start I realized she was crying.

"He told us you asked for water, so we brought you a pitcher," Sierra said. "And just for the record, he looked pretty upset."

"Why then?" Giselle said with sudden vehemence, "why, once he was 'taken' did he not come back, if he remembers me? He could have only been dead."

Sierra was silent. Then, "I don't know."

"I do," I blurted. Sierra turned to me in surprise and I immediately regretted it.

Giselle turned her head, and I saw her cheeks were wet.

"Um, I heard him talking to Dr. Smith. They had told him that..." I racked my memory, which wasn't as hard as you might think with a evil sorceress staring at you. "They told him that the Council wiped your memory and took you in for a small job, and the the girl he knew was as good as dead." I swallowed. "That last part was a direct quote."

Giselle stared at me for a few moments, her gaze piercing and harsh. I fidgeted. Then she turned away again. "That makes sense I suppose."

"Well, he's coming back tomorrow," Sierra said, removing a tray from another alcove, presumably from lunch, even though it looked barely looked touched.

Giselle was silent.

"Come on, let's go," Sierra said quietly, walking out. I followed her slowly, my hands in my pockets. As we walked out, I glanced back one more time.

Her tears were flowing freely.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"So, what do you think of these girls that saved an entire island?" Deynan asked when I got back to the room.

"They're cool," I replied.

"I think they're all really nice," Isaac said.

"I think they're lame," Deynan snorted. "Except that Audrey girl. She is freaking scary."

"They're not lame," I said annoyed. "Not as lame as you."

"Well they certainly aren't spectacular," Deynan argued. "You know, they don't have that saving-the-world vibe."

"I think they do," Isaac said thoughtfully. "All of their power comes from control over emotions, right? You have to have a strong heart. And I think they do."

"Especially Sierra," I said, thinking back to earlier that evening. I'm the only one who can love her after everything she's done.

Deynan snorted. "Well that Sophie girl sure isn't. She said maybe fifteen words the entire day. At a decibel of two."

"You would barely be able to hear that, Deynan," I said, rolling my eyes. He looked at me pointedly.

"Don't judge them before you get to know them," Isaac said.

"Uh huh. As if EVERYONE doesn't do that. I'm actually willing to bet twenty bucks that they're doing the same exact thing in their room, right now."

"Yeah, talking about what an obnoxious jerk you are," I muttered.

"Probably," he said, nodding. I turned my head and stared at him.

"Well I'm going to bed," Isaac said. "I'm tired."

"Same," Deynan said, plopping down on his bed. "See you guys in the morning."

I sighed. "Night."

I reached over to the side table and switched off the light.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Happy early birthday bellabehrend!