"We have to work that out," Ms. Rhodes said. "I will not lose an entire generation of royalty on my watch."
So we headed back, but the moment Aspen opened her door, we both stopped hard. "Ms. Rhodes?" I called.
Her door re-opened quickly, and both she and Tag rushed out. "What is it?" Ms. Rhodes asked.
"Notes," Aspen said. "Lots and lots of notes."
So I bent for the closest.
"Do not touch those!" Tag snapped.
I picked up a handful anyway as Ms. Rhodes said, "She's the safest one of us to do so."
But the contents inside were short and simple. I flipped through them one after the other.
Ocean Timbers hopes the Silent kill all Winter fae.
There's something wrong with Poppy Hawthorne's magic. It doesn't look the same.
Lark Butters thinks her roommate knows something, but she's scared to talk to anyone.
This morning, I saw Crispin Rowan running away from a guy. Mr. Cove didn't do anything to stop it. I don't know if he's ok.
And on and on they went. Each one was a warning or information of some kind. In total, there were sixteen, and I turned them over to Ms. Rhodes willingly. Not a single one gave any hint of who'd written it.
"If they feel safe enough to tell me," Aspen decided, since it was her door and not mine they'd been pushed under, "then I'm going to make a sign for it." And she turned to Ms. Rhodes and Tag, raising her voice so it would carry down the hall. "They're scared, but they're helping me.Me!I will do everything I can to make sure they don't suffer for it."
"Yes, Your Majesty," Ms. Rhodes said, dipping her head in respect. "I don't have the authority to make you reveal anything to me you don't want to."
Tag just chuckled, proving she understood exactly what nuances were being played out here - and that we were all likelybeing watched. Yeah, I was sure that was probably a magical thing, but whatever. I was getting used to that sort of stuff now.
So, for lack of any other way to make sure people knew, Aspen found a pen and some paper. A little magic made sure it stayed on the door, and the message was a simple one. "Information welcome. Anonymous ok. Put under the door."
The next morning, we woke up to find a few more notes. When we made it back from the gym that evening, the paper had been replaced with a painting on posterboard. Not a crappy one, though. This looked like a fine work of art.
Winter fields were lined with snow-covered evergreens. A trail led through them, fading out as it got too small to see. On a hill overlooking it all was a white castle. The other corner had a crown made of snowflakes sitting among some kind of winter flowers. The middle of it was nothing more than pristine snow - or pure whiteness. Only one thing marred the perfection of the art: a red heart drawn with one of the dry erase markers magically stuck to the wall beside her door.
"I'm going to say that's a sign of approval," I joked.
Aspen rolled her eyes at my bad pun, but she put the sign on the door before we headed to class. I took the notes with me, delivering them to Ms. Rhodes. It seemed we were getting a system down.
That lasted for the next few days. The notes kept coming. Some were concerns about others. Quite a few people had noticed either Poppy's, Pascal's, or Ms. Linden's magical shifts. Most sounded like they were afraid it was a trick. Others had information that was slowly but surely narrowing down the list of suspects for this group we could only call The Silent.
There was just one problem with all of this: it was exhausting. We were constantly looking over our shoulders, hurrying around to make sure everyone was safe, putting more effort into our combat lessons, and burning more magic than Iwas used to. I felt like every spare second was spent reading the notes, trying to find something in them that would help, and keeping the entire court up to date.
For me, coffee was the solution. A text to my dad resulted in a Keurig being delivered to my room on Saturday. Liam even showed me how to set it up, fill it up, and make a decent cup of coffee. And because my dad was amazing, he'd purchased the good pods to go with it - both coffee and cocoa ones.
Aspen was sucking back sugar. Her Pixy Stix collection had gotten lean, but Liam had planned for that as well. Ok, so I'd mentioned that in my request, but I didn't mind him getting the credit. Hawke and Wilder kept disappearing together. Torian gave them knowing smiles, so I could make an assumption about how they were handling the drain.
But on Sunday afternoon, Aspen fell asleep studying. I tucked her into my bed, convinced Jack to watch over her, then headed to her room so I wouldn't move wrong and wake her up. It also gave me the chance to see when more of those notes slid under the door.
I was reading one of the books I'd missed in the literature class I no longer had when the bathroom door glowed softly. My head snapped up just as Torian sauntered into his sister's room - and stopped hard.
"Where is she?" he demanded.
I lifted a finger to my lips. "She passed out in my room, and we're not waking her,right?"
He ducked his head as a smile took over. "I actually came to check on her, so I'm good with that." Then he made his way closer. "I'm worried about her, Rain."
