"Jenny, you need to tell me how this happened."

  Natalie hesitated. Plan A didn't seem to be working, but she wanted to keep trying. The less her friends got involved the better. "It didn't happen at school. So you don't have anything to worry about, right?"

  "I'm worried about you. I want to know you're safe."

  "I'm okay, really." For once, Natalie actually felt like she meant it. She lifted a hand to her face and touched the scar. It stung, but not as much as she expected. She didn't exactly like it, but it wasn't as terrifying as she'd feared. "I screwed up and I learned from it. It won't happen again."

  Next time, no one gets near you, period.

  The principal looked taken aback at her tone. Maybe she'd spoken a little too harshly, but it was hard to be anything but cold when thinking about the people who'd done this to her. She took a moment before answering. "If that's all you have to say, then I can't help you. But I can't let you back into the student body without some kind of explanation."

  The old woman was too stubborn. Natalie decided to try her own words against her. "I'm a special case, remember?"

  "A special case only gets you so far. If I start hearing from parents about students getting maimed..."

  Natalie grimaced. She knew what the word meant from books she'd read. "I wasn't maimed. I got hurt, and it left a scar."

  "Kids exaggerate, and worried parents exaggerate more." The principal sighed again. "I don't know what to do with you, Jenny."

  "Just let me go back to class. Maybe nothing will happen, just like you said."

  "Nothing keeps happening a lot, Jenny, and all I have to go on is your word. That won't be enough."

  With that, Natalie gave up hope on getting out on her own. She made a tiny flame flicker into life out in the hallway at the spot they'd prearranged. She wished she'd learned how to do light magic by now, since a flame might set off the fire alarm or something, but it was the simplest signal they could think of that she could do, and one she didn't need much to cast. Barely a whisper crossed her lips, less than a word.

  A few seconds later, there was a knock on the door. The principal looked up, surprised. "Who…"

  "Mrs. Talbot?" said Steven through the glass.

  "Mr. Chau, I'm with one of your classmates right now," she called back. "Didn't my secretary—"

  "I'm sorry, Mrs. Talbot, but I really gotta talk to you—and Jenny. It's… my fault, okay?"

  "...All right, come in."

  Steven walked in and took the other chair next to Natalie, looking nervous. She wondered how much of that was acting and how much was real. She always felt really nervous sitting in this room across the harsh old woman, and she could do magic.

  "This had better be good, Mr. Chau."

  Steven nodded. "It's my fault she got hurt," he said firmly.

  Natalie winced. She wished they didn't have to do this, but he'd volunteered. He was the best option, the most believable, since Quinn was already out of the state by now. She fiddled with the object in her jacket pocket, grasping it to remind herself of her friends and how far they'd go to help her.

  She already missed him and he'd only been gone a day. Is this what having a crush feels like? she wondered.

  "It was just a dumb bet. We were pretending. And I made up a symbol to use, or I thought I made it up, and I forgot what it meant." Steven lived in that area so it's kinda plausible. He'd never actually forget what it meant, but it should work for the old lady, right? "We all feel terrible about it. Jenny got hurt and it's our fault. Punish me, don't punish her. She didn't do anything."

  The principal glanced between the two of them one after the other, clearly thinking hard. As Steven opened his mouth again, probably to repeat the same couple phrases, she held up a hand. "No need to continue the charade, Mr. Chau."

  "Huh?" asked Natalie.

  "I don't believe for a second that any of your friends did this to you, Jenny." She shook her head. "But…"

  "But it doesn't matter so long as our story's straight," finished Steven, in a much more confident voice.

  Now that he wasn't feigning guilt, he sounded normal again. Just like the smartest of the group should, though he was echoing someone else's plan. Natalie had given Quinn enough information to figure out a possible way out of their predicament. This was plan C, but it was still a plan. Quinn prepared backups for everything.

  "You're worried about the reputation of the school right?"

  She looked taken aback. "Yes."

  "And how something like gang activity would look in the news, especially if it was a kid at your school that got hurt?"

  "Yes, again." She adjusted her glasses slightly. "Where are you going with this?"

  "Well, it wasn't gang activity, unless you're calling us a gang. There's no real gang activity around here, we all know that. So if we all swear to the same story and we don't spread it, you're not gonna get in trouble. Right?"

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  "...People will still ask," she replied, sitting back in her chair.

  "Nah, they won't. Jenny never comes to anything parents are involved in, and most kids don't care about her."

  Natalie shrugged. "And I don't care about them either."

  "It'll fade a bit as it heals," Steven said. "I've seen it before. It won't stand out so much." But it'll never go away unless I make it go away. Even then, unless I figure it out with magic, it'll still be there.

  "If people ask, I just tell 'em to go away," Natalie continued, channeling a bit of Rika as she did. She'd never liked Rika much, but the older girl's rebellious take-no-shit attitude was pretty attractive right now, she had to admit. "I don't need them."

  The principal nodded slowly. "If you're all on board, I suppose I can live with this." She turned to Steven. "If that's everything, Mr. Chau, I think you should return to class. I'll have to give you a minor punishment to fit the story. Lunch detention for a week."

  He looked crestfallen, but nodded. "My mom's gonna blow up over that."

  The principal broke into a slight smile, which was no less disturbing than the last time Natalie had witnessed it. "I'd be happy to remind her of the number of detentions she served in my school."

  "You were the principal there too?" Steven asked, shocked.

  "Yes. Getting transferred away was a lifesaver." She frowned. "I'd like to speak with Jenny alone for a bit longer, if that's all right. Please let her teacher know."

  "Yeah." He glanced at Natalie. "I'll take notes for you."

  "Thanks."

  As soon as Steven was gone, the principal eyed her curiously. "How much do they know about your… situation?"

  "Huh?"

  "Would I be wrong in assuming that whatever secret life you have is dangerous?"

  "...Yeah, sometimes."

  The principal shook her head. "I don't want to know. Just remember what you might be bringing them into, all right?"

  "I do. They don't know everything. Just… enough."

  The old woman smiled. "I'm glad you're thinking this through. It's good that you found some real friends, Jenny."

  Yeah, it is. "Is that it?"

  "Yes, that's it. Go back to class now."

----------------------------------------

  "What do you mean you won't be there?" she asked.

  Quinn's face fell. "...My grandpa died. We're flying down to San Diego tonight and we'll be there for two weeks."

  "Oh…" Natalie's instincts were pulling her apart. On the one hand, she wanted to give him a hug and try to comfort him, but on the other… she couldn't. The damaged half of her won out, and she just sat there awkwardly. "I'm sorry."

  "Thanks."

  The rest of the group had left, with Mitch promising to fill Tyler in on the details. They all had things to do, leaving Quinn and Natalie alone in the library. Natalie sat there a little uncomfortable, not sure what to say. It wasn't like she were unfamiliar with death — in fact she was painfully familiar — but she'd never known the death of a family member. Just from the way he'd said it, they'd definitely been close.

  "I'm sure it'll go okay. Steven can handle adults. He's good at that," Quinn added.

  "Yeah."

  "Are you worried?"

  She shrugged, putting on bravado. "What do I got to be worried about? I can do magic."

  He grinned. "I don't think you can just magic your way out of the evil queen's office."

  "...Why do you guys call her that anyway? She seemed nice to me."

  Quinn frowned. "You know, I dunno. I always just heard stuff about her. And the way she looks, you know?"

  "Yeah, she looks evil. But she's actually been really cool to me."

  "Huh."

  "And look at me right?" Natalie struck a pose, like she were holding up a knife. "Do I look like some crazy gang member with magical superpowers to you?"

  "Not even a little."

  "Uh huh." She could tell she was cheering him up, even if it was just by distracting him a bit.

  He smiled. "You're really cool, Natalie."

  Hearing it aloud gave them both pause. Natalie's mouth opened a little, but she didn't say anything. She bit her lip, not sure how to respond. It sounded so nice to hear her name, since she never got to hear it anymore, and the way he said it made it sound like the most special name in the world… but he shouldn't even have known it.

  Quinn winced. "Sorry. I forgot."

  "...No, it's okay," she admitted, as much to herself as to Quinn. "I just… no one calls me that anymore. Not out loud."

  "I'll try to remember—"

  "I want you to."

  "Huh?"

  Her face got red. "When it's just us, I mean. I want you to call me Natalie. I miss my name."

  "Okay… Natalie."

  Her face got even more red. She felt like someone had lit a fire inside her cheeks—warm and embarrassing and pleasant all at once. "Just don't tell any of the gang."

  "And break our secret group pact of trust?" Quinn said with a grin. "I tell them everything."

  "No you don't," Natalie grinned. "You told me none of them know about how you secretly love all the super girly TV shows."

  His eyes widened. "You wouldn't dare."

  Natalie smirked. "If anything ever gets out, I'll tell. I know your dark secrets. You shouldn't have told me so much."

  "Oh, you don't know my dark secrets," he shot back.

  "And you definitely don't know mine."

  They both stared at each other, suddenly awkward again. The total silence of the library didn't help much, as the only sound filling the gap was a slight buzz of a lightbulb way above them.

  "...Did you bring the decks?" Natalie prompted. Anything to clear her mind of the images that had been flashing through her skull, of things she never wanted Quinn to know.

  "Huh?"

  "Conquest, dummy."

  "Oh." He reached into his backpack, where sure enough he'd brought the whole main set. "You still haven't played a game, have you?"

  "I've watched you guys plenty. I think I got this." In truth, Natalie had actually read up on the rules and even a few guides, sitting out in the forest on her phone. It seemed like it could be pretty fun, and she definitely could do with some more fun in her life. The most she got was spending time with Percy and the other animals she'd befriended in the forest around her house.

  Quinn set out the territory card stacks, then lined up the generals behind it. Natalie was already trying to get into the mindset of the game. Anything to distract her from the painful twinge on her face that kept reminding her of the weekend she'd made it through.

  I'm with my friend now. I'm here. Everything happened, and I survived. I'm going to make it through this, and I'm gonna have a good time here hanging out with Quinn.

  And I'm going to pick Linnethea and totally annihilate him.

  …But what if he expects me to pick her and drafts stuff against her? He could pick zero forests or elflands and I'd lose a lot of options.

  I can beat him if I draft against that. I can go with an all-undead plan and then take out his farms with pestilence spells, since he won't have any elves to protect them. And I'll have forests but I won't care about it, 'cause I don't gotta feed my guys anyway.

  "Natalie?" he asked, and again it sent a tiny pleasant tingle through her ears.

  "Oh! Sorry." She hadn't noticed it was already set up. "Uhh, who picks first?" She knew there was an official way to pick, but she couldn't remember it.

  "Normally we just always let whoever lost the last game decide. How about you just choose? You wanna go first or second?"

  "...Second." She still wasn't sure if she even had a strategy, so she wanted to just see what he did and figure it out from there.

  "Okay." Quinn glanced across the line of sixteen territory cards carefully, then picked up one of the farms. Natalie grabbed two forests, and to her silent delight, Quinn picked up another farm.

  Bingo. Gotcha, Quinn.