RYAN. STORY TIME IN PROGRESS.

Anige shrugged as she continued: “The kobold was wearing a waistcoat and trousers and gaiters. They got all the way out of the manhole, humming, and brushed themself off with their hands while their scaly-tail pushed the cover back onto the hole. We were just standing there, staring. I would personally say I was agog, but I wouldn’t want to speak for the boys.”

“Let’s say that my attention was commanded,” Ryan said, as wryly as he could manage. Megan giggled.

“Then, they looked around and saw us, and they… perked up, I guess I’d say?” Angie shrugged one slender, heavily freckled shoulder. “They took a couple steps toward us, and they said, ‘Hey, you’re Angie McMillan, yeah?’ ”

Megan’s mouth dropped open. “Whaaaaat?” she whispered. Ryan couldn’t stop himself from snickering at her reaction.

“Yup,” Angie said, matter-of-fact. “That’s what I thought too. I, of course, was totally stunned, so all I could really manage was, ‘Yeah?’”

“Of course, I’d be blown away!” Megan replied.

“Yup,” Angie said. “So then they said, ‘We’ve been hearing a lot of positive chatter about you lately! Keep up the good work, kid, and you’ll go places!’”

“Whaaaaat?” Megan said, at a higher pitch, her already big blue-violet eyes wide and astonished.

“And then they walked away and disappeared into the park, because we were all too, just, flabbergasted to do anything,” Angie said, a rueful smile on her face. “I wish I’d had the wits to say anything at all to them, ask them anything.”

“Oh my spirits, of course,” Megan said, an appropriate amount of both awe and commiseration in her voice. “So you don’t know anything about what that was about?”

“Nothing,” Angie replied, shaking her head. “I wish I did. It was so surreal. I would have thought it was a dream if Ryan and Ev hadn’t been there to confirm it was real.”

“My best guess,” Ryan offered, “Is that ‘they’ are hearing about you from the birds and other little critters you can talk to, and the petty spirits you make homes for.”

“Except I spend more time arguing with the shitting birds than I do helping them, getting their help, or even just having a pleasant conversation,” Angie pointed out. “Most small critters are dumb as hell. Except for crows, and even then some of those are pretty dumb.”

“Maybe arguing with birds constitutes ‘good work’ as far as a kobold is concerned?” Ryan said.

“That doesn’t make any sense,” Megan said, giving him a skeptical look.

“Well, sure,” Ryan said, “And there’s so many stories about the Fair Folk where their behavior is rational or logical.”

“Well,” Megan said, “There is that.”

“It is a mystery,” Angie said with a shrug, “One that will remain unsolved unless another fae comes along to explain it. There’s not a lot of point in wondering about it.”

“If you say so,” Megan said, her eyes unfocused, gazing off into some imagined tableau. “I don’t think I’d be able to think about anything else if I were you! What did they mean by that?”

Angie shrugged again. “Either that I should keep on keeping on, if I want to ‘go places,’ or to change... something, if I don’t want to get mixed up with the Good Neighbors? But I don’t know what to change or whether it would be really so bad to go places, so I’ve just been living my life. It’s been almost a year, so… you know. What happens happens.”

“Sure,” Megan said, not sounding or looking entirely convinced. Ryan wasn’t sure there was much else to say about the matter. He was immediately proven wrong when she said, “What if there’s just an invisible fae of some kind, like, following you around and evaluating you?”

Angie got through all of, “That—” in her attempt to reply before she was interrupted by a moderately loud crash and clattering behind Ryan. He and the girls, and most of the people in the immediate vicinity, all turned to look at the scene.

Maybe five meters away from them, a handsome blond boy, softer and nobler of feature than Ryan, appeared to have knocked a tray of food out of the hands of a junior named Fira Cai—a member of Mbali Encantador’s party, movers and shakers in the Persephone year twelve social scene. The boy was blushing and apologizing profusely to Fira, and also darting looks at the people around them, interjecting the occasional ‘sorry’ at the crowd in between the apologies to Fira.

The kid’s handsomeness was a little shocking, even after their lunchtime experience with Gramyre, surrounded as they were by the more typical teenage patrons of the Food Court, and emphasized by the fact that he looked maybe fourteen at oldest. And Ryan did not recognize him at all. Maybe he went to one of the other middle schools or something. Maybe.

The kid became more and more flustered as people continued to stare at him, which they were probably doing because he was so very handsome. Somehow he managed to continue apologizing to Fira for causing the accident and helping her clean up, while Fira seemed to be trying to accept the apology and reassure him. He had produced some sort of napkin or wipe to clean with, and after twenty or so seconds of wiping up, he glanced over in Ryan and the girls’ direction.

The kid’s face became redder again, and he started sending nervous glances their way every few moments, at least for the minute or so more it took him to finish cleaning the spilled food. After maybe the fifth glance the boy took at them, Ryan sensed Megan and Angie turning back to each other, but Ryan continued to watch the boy clean up the whole time.

“Ryan…?” Angie said after another twenty or so seconds.

Ryan said, “Who is that?”

“Some kid,” Angie replied. Said kid blushed even more furiously when Ryan spoke—could he hear them despite the distance and the general noise level in the Court?

The kid finished up, despite Fira’s overall lack of help, and then stood and led her away, toward a less occupied area, which happened to be in an area of the court that Ryan could watch if he sat in his seat normally. So he did so, keeping his attention on Fira and the kid as they grabbed a table together. As the two started to speak, Ryan glanced at Angie and gave her an innocent smile.

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Angie narrowed her eyes at Ryan.

“Huh,” Megan said, shaking her head. “That was weird. Cute kid. What were we talking about?”

Angie continued to look at Ryan, not speaking, for five seconds by Ryan’s count, her expression disapproving, intrigued. Then she said, “Don’t recall.” In his periphery, Ryan noted that Fira appeared briefly shocked, before adopting an unconvincing expression of casual ease.

Megan took the opportunity to finish off her vada pav, and said, “Well, what do you do when you’re not running into fae?” Ryan caught a glint of metal—of silver—as the handsome kid handed something to Fira. Interesting. Her food must have cost a couple of gold at absolute most, so a silver was far too much compensation.

Angie laughed. “Yeah, that’s like ninety-nine point nine nine nine nine nine percent of the time. Ryan spoke true earlier when I was giving him a hard time, though. I mean, we each have our own things. Evan shoots, I spend a lot of time practicing enchanting and, lately, drawing, and Ryan has his coding.” She said coding funny, just a bit of a smirk to her tone that implied that “coding” might be a euphemism for something else.

Megan’s eyes darted to Ryan curiously. Ryan, trying to keep any reaction off his face, reached out under the table and pinched Angie’s thigh. Or tried to—her skin was smooth and her muscles toned enough that he couldn’t really get a good grip to actually pinch her. Ryan also noted the handsome kid leaving the Court, Fira still sitting at the table where he had left her.

Angie glanced at him, bemused, and then continued as if nothing had happened, “And then we hang out some of the time and do whatever. Watch shows or play games or go out or junk. At least since I turned fifteen we’ve gone out a reasonable amount. That extra hour and change on the ol’ curfew sure changes the game as far as going out goes. And somehow Ryan manages to sneak in just hours and hours of video games and television and reading that he does not consume with the rest of us. Somehow.”

Ryan grinned. “I don’t really need all that much sleep,” he said. “In a manner of speaking.”

“In a manner of speaking,” Megan replied, giving Ryan another flat look.

“There’s just a lot of things you guys aren’t interested in,” Ryan said. “Or that one of you isn't. You aren’t interested in Beast Fighters or Destiny even though Evan and I are, and neither one of you are much for reality shows beyond The Great Hunt, for some reason, even though those are great ways to see how real people react under pressure.”

“I just don’t feel the need to put everything in the universe under a microscope like you do,” Angie said, at more or less the same time Megan said, “What reality shows do you like?”

Megan glanced apologetically at Angie as Angie blinked back at her, giving Ryan the opportunity to say, “Oh, you know, anything with a game component, which should appeal to Evan but doesn’t for some reason. Survivor, Fredonic Idol, the Flames of Love family of products—”

Megan perked up at the mention of Flames of Love. “Did you watch Fire in the Tropics this year? I need to catch up after missing the live airing while I was gone.” Now Ryan perked up.

“Oh no,” Angie said, but Ryan ignored her, and soon he and Megan were lost in discussion of the previous couple seasons of the show.

As they were talking, Ryan noted that Fira sat there for a while longer, then wandered back into line at one of the food places, seeming rather dazed.

ANGIE. APPROACHING TWILIGHT.

Ryan and Angie walked back to The Grove in comfortable silence as the day grew long and the sun approached the horizon. Curfew wasn’t until the end of civil twilight, but civil twilight was still pretty late in the day this early in September, and it was a school night, after all.

Hanging out with Megan had been easy, easier than Angie had thought it would be, as angry as she’d been over the years. They’d fallen into familiar patterns quickly, chatting about absolutely nothing for the next two hours—TV shows and movies, books, random interwebs bullshit. No focus, no pathos, just friends together like they’d never been apart. It was unfortunate Ryan had someone to encourage him regarding Flames of Love now, but Angie hadn’t really been surprised.

Eventually they’d drifted down to the video games, and she and Megan had played Mario Bros (the crab flipping original, not Super Mario Bros) while Ryan conquered the local Beast Fighters machine.

Now it was time to check in with Evan, and maybe spend some time together down in Ryan’s quarters. Angie’s favorite part of the day. It was a wonder to have Megan back, but there had been a lot to process over the course of the day, so Angie was looking forward to alone time.

“We home!” Ryan announced as they came in.

“‘Sup?” Cali’s voice was muffled from the living room, but it sounded sullen.

Inside said living room, they found Cali munching on a grilled cheese sandwich in a desultory manner, watching an episode of The Great Hunt: Bavaria. There was another plate filled with more grilled cheeses along with some bowls of tomato bisque.

“Hey,” Cali said, slumped down on the couch. “I thought you’d be home sooner.”

“You didn’t text or anything,” Ryan replied. He slid into the rocking chair he’d claimed on his first ever visit to the Cadells’ house, back before they lived together. Angie flopped down on the couch next to Cali. “I sent you a text.”

Cali checked her phone. “I didn’t see or hear it,” she said, sullen. “And this is our normal routine.”

“Sorry,” Angie said, sincerely contrite. “I totally spaced texting. I should have too. Maybe you’d have heard that one.”

“Hanging out with Megan?” Cali said, her tone moving from merely sullen to outright sour.

“Yeah. Evan tell you?” Angie replied with a sigh.

“That you guys hung out with her and Chris Gramyre at lunch,” she replied, now sounding annoyed. “And then he disappeared into his room. He didn’t even answer when I yelled that I made food. I wanted to ask him about it.”

“That’s probably why he stayed in there,” Ryan said, a smirk in his voice if not on his face.

“Shut it,” Cali said without malice.

Angie popped up and went into the hall. She walked into the hallway and knocked on Evan’s door. “Hey Evs!” she called. “We’re back! You wanna come out?”

There was no response. Angie shrugged, walked back into the living room, flopped back down and picked up a grilled cheese sandwich and started munching.

“Hrm,” Ryan said. “I ate more ramen than I should have. I might reheat some later.”

“Do grilled cheese microwave well?” Cali asked. There weren’t usually any left on grilled cheese nights, Angie supposed.

“Anything microwaves well when you’ve got the touch,” Ryan said, grinning and waggling his fingers.

“Eh, fair enough,” Cali replied.

“Gots to feeds these flames, gots to feed the flames,” Angie sang after chewing for a few moments, reaching out and dunking her sandwich in a soup bowl. “Gots to feed gots to feed gots to feed these flames!” They settled into watching the show for a bit.