Archer Warrick February 26th,20XX

I’d known something was up when Joyce had come to the building with a parade of clothing behind her, but I’d been too sleepy to put things together fast enough.

All the signs were there.

Aaron, who tagged along with a reluctant expression and kept shooting us sympathetic expressions. The cold and calculating way Joyce looked us all over, and the shy but excited-looking team of people that also served as bag carriers.

Joyce had woken us up and called us down to the lobby about an hour ago. I’d gotten myself and Eva dressed pretty quickly since we were used to being woken up at weird times, but the others fared much worse.

Kaja and Tillo competed for who could do the best zombie impression as they rolled Destia to the elevator. Destia tried her best to look both alert and awake, but her head would occasionally use her voluptuous hair as a cushion and her eyes would close for a few seconds too long for me to describe it as a blink.

Although Destia technically didn’t need to be in a wheelchair, the gashes on the bottom of her feet made walking difficult for her. There was also the fact that not using her powers seemed to be difficult for her.

After she’d accidentally used her powers within four hours of being taken off bed rest, Joyce had ordered the wheelchair in and put the twins in charge of making sure she stayed in it.

It was a large elevator so it could handle all four of us and Destia’s wheelchair in one trip and still have space to spare, but it was still awkward. I’d caught a surface thought from Destia a few days ago and knew that she wanted us all to be closer, but I didn’t know if I could take the initiative.

The elevators finally stopped at the third floor, and we all entered the space for the first time. I’d planned to visit it yesterday, but Eva had finally recovered from the repercussions of her reckless usage of her powers a few days ago. I’d lectured her and had passed on the punishments from Joyce.

She had ended up taking off the cleaning duty from the list and I knew that she would still call Eva in and speak to her, but I just hoped that I could go with her. Not that I enjoyed being lectured, but I didn’t know what Eva would do to Joyce if she felt unsafe.

Honestly, I was probably the most thrown off out of everyone there.

I could usually tell when Eva was about to use her powers, but last time I hadn’t known until I saw Mr. Harvey completely freeze in his step. Could Eva have found a way to block me off from her mind?

And how did I feel about it?

“Kids, come over here and meet Sparrow.”

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Joyce put a causal hand on the redhead’s shoulder and waved us over. I noted Destia narrowing her eyes for half a second before suddenly widening them and trying to fix up her appearance in the wheelchair.

The redhead sent a casual nod to Destia and a warm smile but otherwise kept her attention on Joyce and the rest of us.

Did they know each other?

I resisted the urge to confirm my theory and tried to put together what was going on.

Aaron avoided our glances and was currently helping the other strangers put together an elaborate set. A lot of them looked flustered at suddenly being helped by a star like Aaron, but he was adamant about doing something that would help him avoid looking guilty.

Or maybe he just wanted to help, and I was overthinking things.

“Well, hello everyone. My name is Sparrow Truman, and I’ll be your visual director today…. I came up with quite a few ideas and Ms. Knightly has been so kind as to help me bring them to life, so I hope you’re all ready to have as much fun as I am!”

While she was still nervous, Sparrow seemed to have relaxed when she saw how close to her age we all were. She still looked back to Joyce every third second to make sure she wasn’t crossing any lines, but she otherwise looked confident.

Joyce smiled warmly at Sparrow, earning another odd expression from Destia. I wondered what was wrong with her, but once again I denied myself from looking into her head. I couldn’t scold Eva for being reckless with her powers one day and then do the same thing myself.

“Well, As she said, this is Sparrow Truman. She’s an active user on Squire who caught my eye with her set designs and concepts. IT was doubly impressive because she’s so young. I wanted to get all of your profile pictures done for your profiles, and I also wanted to get a few fun pictures for the calendar we’re putting out later this year. I hope you’ll all cooperate and not… make our guest worry.”

She verbally hesitated as she searched for a way to warn us all to avoid using our powers and ended up speaking incredibly vaguely. Sparrow looked a bit thrown off and seemed to have made a few assumptions, but that was out of my control.

Joyce made careful eye contact with each of us one last time before pulling out her phone and turning in the opposite direction.

“I have somewhere to be, so I can’t accompany all of you. But Aaron is here so asking him about anything and if anything... serious happens, then call me. Okay?”

“Goodbye, Ms. Knightly! I won’t let you down!”

Sparrow suddenly inclined her head downwards and loudly thanked Joyce. After a moment, all of her cronies and employees followed suit and a chorus of ‘thank you Ms. Knightly’ echoed through the room.

Joyce smiled back calmly like she was used to it and casually waved her hand in acknowledgement before blowing a kiss at Aaron and boarding the elevator.

We all watched in silence as the elevator doors swung shut and almost didn’t breathe until we saw the visual display switch to another floor.

Like a spring storm, she had come in, changed everything and then left. We hadn’t known each other long enough for me to wish she had stayed behind. I also wasn’t young enough to have gotten attached to an adult so quickly and tightly that I would act out and ask them to stay… but I wished she hadn’t left so quickly.

“Great Jedeyi, Destia, what happened to you?”

The sound of someone cursing crashed the silence, and we all looked back to see Sparrow leaning over Destia with a concerned expression. She put both palms on the arms of the wheelchair and leaned over Destia so close that a bump from behind would have made their foreheads touch.

I instinctively searched Destia’s face for a negative expression, worried that I’d read her previous expressions correctly, however, I realized I was wrong.

The look on her face was still complicated, and she forced a smile onto her lips as she tried to calm down the other girl of the same age. She didn’t look angry at the least, but she didn’t look happy either.

There was something there.

There was something there that I really wanted to know. But once again, I held myself back.