"Hallie, don't be silly. What do you mean you thought I was dead?" Quinn said, trying her best to be friendly and brush off the very real fact that she'd been missing for two months. She’d never been overly friendly to anybody, preferring to keep to herself. Which meant Hallie probably thought this was highly unusual behavior from her.

Hallie's eyes darted from Quinn to Malakai and back again. She frowned. "Who's this?"

"This is Mal," Quinn said.

Malakai inclined his head and said, "Nice to meet you, Hallie."

"Huh, is it?" She said, narrowing her gaze at Malakai. Then she turned her attention back to Quinn. “And you’re not being held by him against your will?”

Quinn blinked. “What? No. Not at all like that.” She waved her hands for emphasis.

"Then why did you disappear? You were speaking to me one moment and then you were just gone the next. How could you just not contact me? The police even said you’d withdrawn cash the week before, and there were no signs of foul play so you probably just cut ties.” Hallie sounded slightly panicked.

Quinn racked her brains. She was sure they hadn't been the best of friends. She was absolutely positive she'd kept her at arm's length. But maybe Hallie hadn't had many great friends either and thus, well, that kind of counted as her friendship. Plus she couldn’t remember what she’d withdrawn cash for. "I'm really sorry. I just sort of got caught up in stuff."

"In stuff? I've never met anybody more studious than you, more boring than you. You wouldn't even come out to parties with me." Hallie lamented.

"Well, I don't really like parties. I prefer to sit and read," Quinn mumbled out an excuse that wasn't a lie at all. Oh, now she remembered. She’d splurged and bought a brand new high end tablet for school and reading. She really hoped that was with her other stuff in storage. She couldn’t remember if she’d had it at the Library with her or not.

"Look, even your mom contacted me asking me if I knew where you were. The fact that I told her that the last time I'd seen you, we had been discussing majors seemed to settle her down a bit. But Quinn, even your work called around for your friends. I mean, you couldn't have just told us or your dorm mate where you went? Even Jordan contacted me!" Hallie seemed a lot more bothered by it than Quinn had expected.

Quinn actually felt guilty for not having given home more thought, especially since even her foster brother had reached out. "I... I... that's why I came back. I realized that I should have said goodbye to everybody."

"Goodbye to everybody?" Hallie crossed her arms. "Are you leaving? Are you going somewhere?"

Quinn took in a deep breath. She was not good with this.

"Well, I'm extremely glad that I found Quinn," Mal said, smoothly interjecting.

"I... I'm sorry this has caused you so much trouble." Quinn added.

Hallie turned to Mal and gave him a very quizzical look. She slowly looked him up and down and then it was like a light bulb went off in her mind and her eyes widened. She looked back at Quinn, pulled the chair up from a vacant table next to them, and sat down.

"Are you serious? He's why you left? I would never have thought a guy would get you away from the University." There was a conspiratorial grin on Hallie’s face. It lit up her eyes too.

Quinn didn't like lying. She was about to disabuse her friend of that notion when Malakai spoke up. "I have been a bit of a bad influence on her."

Quinn had to suppress a laugh because he really had been. She'd fought a giant cephalopod, she'd gone to a chaotic magic lava rock world. There was so much she'd done since she'd met Malakai. He was a hundred percent telling the truth, just not the truth Hallie thought she was hearing.

"I'm sorry," she said again. "I just... I guess I got carried away." Again, that wasn't exactly a lie because Quinn had been carried away through to another dimension or dimensional portal or whatever it had been.

"Okay, but you need to sit down and catch me up. And don't... don't be such a stranger. What... I mean, you're back here?" Hallie’s tone downplayed the question, but her body language portrayed more eagerness than her voice.

"Oh, I just wanted to catch up on some stuff and check some things." Quinn said evasively.

"Like what? The fact that you missed the deadline and thus got unenrolled?"

"Yeah, pretty much that." It was hard to believe Quinn had been planning her entire life and now it was gone. Everything was different and she couldn't even come back if she wanted to because she'd screwed it up. Well, she hadn't completely screwed it up, but her scholarship would be gone. There would be no way that she could afford this University on her own money. She hadn't really thought of that. It made her feel melancholy.

Although she was fairly certain the Library technically paid her to be the Librarian…

"But are you happy, Quinn?" Hallie's words pulled her out of her thoughts.

"Yeah, I... I am actually," she said. It was one of the first truths she'd uttered since sitting down to coffee. "I'm actually really happy with the way my life is turning out. So don't worry about me."

"I'll only not worry about you if you tell me what you've been doing." Hallie's words were soft and serious.

Quinn wanted to ask Hallie if maybe they hadn't ever been this good of friends. How was Hallie so concerned about her? But it felt good that someone had worried about her. So, instead, she asked, "Did you pick your major?"

"Yes," Hallie said, her smile brightening. "I chose theater and I'm loving some of the choices I get to take next semester. It's going to be amazing, Quinn. I'm going to be the best actress ever."

"You know, Hallie, I bet you will be. You'll surprise everyone."

"I know, right?" Hallie's laugh sounded so carefree. Like she didn’t have the weight of an entire universe on her shoulders.

Quinn wanted to put her even more at ease. "See, Mal is kind of a cousin."

Hallie's eyebrows shot up. "So you're not an orphan anymore?"

"Well, I mean, yes, but I found distant cousins," Quinn said, which wasn't a lie because they were very distant, like light-years away. Considering it wasn’t even DNA sequencing but a distilled essence of the family magical ability. She just made it sound a little more relative-related than distance related.

"Yes, I'm one of those cousins," Mal said.

"Oh, really? He's a cousin?" Hallie raised an eyebrow.

Quinn could practically see the thirst in her eyes and moved to head that train of thought off. "Yeah, like a distant cousin, like three, four times removed. Mal's my friend." Quinn finished hurriedly.

Malakai chuckled. "Wow, you wound me, cousin dear, that I am that unappealing. I did not know that I was so unattractive to the female gaze."

"Now don't say that, you're being an idiot."

"You wound me again," he mocked.

Hallie laughed. "It's good to see you smile, Quinn. You don't... you've never really done that. I think this is the most I've heard you talk in the 18 months I've known you."

"Really?" Quinn said contemplating that in more seriousness than she wanted to admit. "I'm sorry. I guess I just like my own company."

"That's okay. Will you promise to text me just sometimes? Let me know how you're doing? Are you here to pick up your stuff from your dorm room? I think they put it in storage when you didn't come back after a month. They... they usually do that." Hallie trailed off, looking at Quinn expectantly.

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

"Yeah, I might go see if I can have a look through," Quinn said, suddenly really eager to find some of the small mementos she might be able to keep. "Hey, Hallie, thanks for worrying about me."

Hallie laughed. "Of course, I worried about you. You saved my ass so many times with lecture notes. I don't know what I would have done in that first year. I've had to grow up a little bit this year because you kind of disappeared. But I get it, not everything’s as easy as it appears to be to others, is it?"

For a second there, Quinn just wished that she had spent more time with Hallie, maybe more time developing friendships, less time focusing on getting out and getting herself set up for the future. "Yeah," she said to Hallie, "sometimes I think it's like that."

"Look, Quinn, I gotta go. I've got a class in five minutes and I'm gonna have to run all the way across campus now." Hallie stood up and paused. "Text me, please."

"I will," Quinn said, and watched her one friend walk out of the coffee shop.

"From the way you spoke back in the Library, I didn't think you would be so attached," Malakai said. Quinn pulled herself out of the thoughts that were spiraling in her head right then and looked at him.

"You know, neither did I. That was weird. She was always so annoying. She always asked for my notes, and insisted on talking to me when I was trying to study. I just, I guess she grew on me more than I realized." Quinn said thoughtfully.

"People have a way of doing that, you know," Mal said. He paused for a few seconds before speaking again. "Okay, so what next?"

"Drink your coffee and eat your cookie," Quinn said, suddenly feeling quite vulnerable. She pulled her phone over, which was now sitting at about 48%. They had talked to Hallie long enough that the supercharger had decided to actually do its work. And that's when she realized that she had like 80,000 emails. Okay, she didn't have 80,000 emails, she just had a lot.

"Hey Quinn, what's the other thing you've got charging there?"

"Oh, it's a power bank. It should let me still access information on my phone for at least a little while once we're back." She said absently.

"Hmm, I wonder if we could adapt that." he said, studying it curiously.

Quinn perked up. "What do you mean adapt it?"

"You're bringing it back with you, right?"

"Yeah, I am."

"Okay, let's, yeah, just bring it back. Magic is magic, right?" He winked at her mischievously. “I could do with a little side project.”

"Okay," she said, not exactly understanding what he was talking about. But she finally went to her messages and realized that her mother had actually sent her about fifteen over the last two months, which was about five times more than she usually sent her. She sucked in a deep breath and sent a text.

Hey mom, so sorry for not contacting you earlier. My phone was fritzing with messages. I finally got it fixed. I want you to know I'm doing really well. Don't worry about me if I don't contact you for long periods. Just know that I'm doing absolutely fine.

She sent the message and then said, "Mal, come here." She turned the camera around and took a selfie of them and sent it to her mom straight after the message. She was relieved to see that Mal's illusion held up in a photograph too.

"There, that should at least let her know that I’m actually alive. It is me talking to her and not somebody who's stolen my phone and is trying to impersonate me."

"Your mom would think that?" He asked.

"Let's just not get into her crazy conspiracy theories that she sometimes comes up with." Quinn chuckled. "Okay, anyway, now I've just got a couple more to send."

"That's a pretty cool instant picture thing." Malakai said, obviously curious.

"Camera," Quinn said as she sent her next texts. She sent one to her foster brother Jordan. He'd been the closest thing to an actual sibling she'd had. Letting him know that she was okay. Sent the same photo. And then to her youngest foster sibling who was about 15 right now in 10th grade and had contacted her five times throughout the last two months. The others were spam or just the library checking to see where she was for her shift a few times before they obviously fired her. The dorm contacting her...

She took a long swig of her coffee and watched the battery on her phone slowly tick up. She scrolled through the photos not really wanting to talk and extremely grateful that Malakai wasn't necessarily the most talkative person either. Right now he appeared to be people watching. It was going to take a little while for the phone and the power brick to charge. At least it was half charged when she bought it.

"What are you thinking, Quinn?"

"Just..." She was about to speak when her phone dinged. "My mom texted me back."

She took a deep breath and opened the message. It was long.

How could you not contact me sooner? I'm grateful that you sent me photographic proof. And it's good to see that you didn't turn off the location information on the photo. And I can tell you're actually at the University. You realize that they halted your enrollment when you didn't turn in your finalized choices, right? And they've said they've put the scholarship on hold for now. You should go and see the administration and please text me a little more frequently. I've been worried about you.

Quinn cringed. Her foster-mother for the last three years before she graduated had been a decent sort - genuinely caring. The foster father however... not a nice guy. "I don't suppose I can come back like once a month and just send a message to people, right?"

"I don't see why not." Malakai shrugged. “I mean, the Library is getting copious amounts of energy now. And you can refill your own energy well whenever you’re in the Library. So that’s easy ports back.”

"Yeah, that might be a good option. Anyway," she said, hitting the table, standing up, and then she texted her mom quickly.

I will try to text you more frequently but don't worry if it's been a couple of months. I'm going to be absolutely fine. I've found exactly what I want to do with my life.

The phone was almost fully charged. She'd probably plug it in while she was going through her stuff in storage to get it the rest of the way. The power brick had dinged up to three notches.

"Okay," she said, "let's get going."

"Where are we going now?" Malakai asked, raising an eyebrow.

"I need to go to dormitory storage and get my stuff or look through my stuff and see what I can take with me."

It was about a 10-minute walk to get to the dormitories. Quinn pointed out a couple of other locations on campus. "That place has the best sushi even though it's just a little store and I used to take English in that building over there. It's a pretty awesome building."

"I would have assumed a language building would be closer to the library," Malakai mused.

"Well, we assume a lot of things and we don't always get them right."

He chuckled. "Did you text Hallie?"

"Thank you," she said. She texted Hallie a simple, I'm texting you and got a smiley face back immediately. She sighed. "Friends I didn't realize I had."

At least part of her felt warm at the sensation that somebody had actually missed her. It was better than she'd hoped. She reached the dormitory and went to find the TA, rapping on his door when she got there.

Bushy brown hair peering at the pages of a book moved at the sound, and he looked up, his dark eyes framed by thick glasses. His mouth opened in an O of surprise. "Is that you Quinn?"

"Yeah, Gary. Sorry, I disappeared." Quinn had never apologized so much in her life as she was doing today.

"You had us worried. It's good to see you in one piece. Is it his fault?" Gary asked, gesturing toward Malakai.

"No, it's not his fault." She said sheepishly. "I should’ve contacted you sooner."

"Yeah, you should have, but I kept your stuff." He smiled and fished out a key from his draw before standing up. "It's in about three boxes and a tub of bedding. I'll take you to the storage."

Quinn followed with Malakai trailing behind and got to the storage room.

"There you go, those ones in the corner in the back, right." He smiled. "Take your time, just bring me the key back and don't disappear with it."

"Thanks." Quinn watched him go and then walked in and knelt down in front of the boxes, absent-mindedly plugging the phone and the charger into the wall as she did. She leafed through some of the stuff, picking out a couple of picture frames that she always held on her desk, pictures of her parents and the grandmother who had obviously come with her to this world, people who had raised her.

Memories flickered through her mind at the sight of them. Fragments she'd forgotten, distorted and fuzzy images she couldn't quite recall. Her head started to ache. She shoved them in her bag.

"I don't think I can take the rest of this," she said, looking mournfully at the rest of the boxes. It really was just sentimental stuff. "I can't fit it. I don't know how to carry it."

"Why don't I just open my storage and put it in there," Malakai said.

"Because we don't have magic?" Quinn answered.

"No, it can pull on my mana and my energy and I can open it at least."

"But you won't regenerate it quickly, Mal."

"No, I won't. But we'll be home soon and we're using your energy for that. Plus I did bring a few energy balls and that way even if it sucks everything to open, insert, and close, I'll be okay." He smiled at her.

"Oh," she said.

"Just let me do this for you, okay?" He asked.

"Yeah, thanks." Quinn couldn't help the smile. This was super sweet of him. Maybe she didn't have to leave parts of herself behind after all.

With her boxes all secure in Malakai's inventory and his energy replenishment at least partially started by an energy ball, Quinn stood and brushed her jeans off, grabbed her phone and the charging block.

A wave of diziness stole over her as she did so, and she had to reach out and grasp onto the cold stone wall as images flashed through her mind.

Sitting happily in the back seat with her grandmother while her parents drove to their favorite park. There was a picnic basket next to her, and her grandmother was teasing her about her love for apple and cinnamon muffins.

A sudden blaring of light and an impact that smashed her head against the window of the car so hard it shattered.

A flash of blue and gold light suffusing her entire body.

A glimpse of scales.

And everything went black.