I sighed, munching on a piece of coffee cake and recalling the past week. Thankfully, the coffee cake didn’t actually contain coffee, or I would have exploded the coffee joint by now.

  Dimitri and Finn still hated each other, Aidan practically had a video game addiction, Zephyr did his best to try to keep the peace, and Maverick was supposedly searching for the Magus of Historia himself. Though I got the feeling that was an excuse to get away from the hellhole that was our apartment.

  I had been spending my mornings going to the same coffee shop where I’d first met Lumi and Zuri, hoping they would eventually show up. Maverick had followed me the first couple times, but deemed it safe enough for me to go alone. Just in case, he gave me a pair of leather gloves that made me look absolutely ridiculous. He assumed it would be easier for me to get startled than angry. Hmph! I didn’t startle that easily!

  The barista dropped the bag with my order as loudly as he possibly could in front of me, snapping me out of my thoughts and causing my hands to ice over.

  Curse you, Maverick.

  Once my hands returned to a normal temperature, I opened the bag. Four cake pops, three more coffee cakes, and a cookie. Even if Lumi didn’t show, I had no intention of returning home for quite some time.

  Half an hour passed, and I was beginning to grow bored. I pulled up a generic match-3 game on my phone to pass the time. The ad breaks were super annoying. Maybe I should use Maverick’s credit card to skip them…

  The sound of a chair being dragged broke my concentration, and I practically jumped out of my seat. Lumi and Zuri were sitting at my table!

  “Lumi’s friend is here!” Zuri beamed.

  “I have a name, you know.” I sighed.

  “I hope you don’t mind us joining you…” Lumi said quietly, her eyes looking everywhere but at me.

  “Not at all.” I smiled. “I was hoping you would join me. I’m sorry about your date.” I turned to Zuri.

  “O-oh, it’s quite okay! Really!” She frantically waved her hands at me, blushing.

  “How much longer are you going to be in New York now that your date didn’t work out?”

  “W-well, I wouldn’t say that it didn’t work out—”

  “He led you all across New York City! He didn’t even seem to care about you! He’s a total douchebag! You need to drop him and accept that someone better is going to come your way and love you for who you truly are!” I practically shouted at her. Dating apps were notorious for having many members who weren't serious about relationships, but this was next level!

  She seemed taken aback by my outburst. Once she composed herself, she smiled at me. “You’re right, Elaina. Thank you for reminding me of my worth. What a wonderful friend Lumi has.” She turned to the younger girl and beamed at her.

  “Would you like to join us at our hotel suite?” Lumi asked.

  I paused. Maverick had given me permission to come to the coffee shop on my own, but not anywhere else. Would he really be all right with this…? I glanced at my phone’s battery, 68%.

  “Sure.” I smiled. “If that’s all right.” I glanced at Zuri, who didn’t seem to have any say in this.

  “Of course!” She beamed at me.

  I considered texting the boys, but I had already mentioned I’d be out for a while. Texting them would only make Maverick panic and stalk me, anyway.

  Lumi opened the backseat of the black sedan for me before sliding into the passenger seat. Zuri whispered something to her before she moved to the back to sit next to me.

  “How long are you staying in New York? I thought you were on a trip?” Zuri asked as she pulled out of the parking garage.

  Crap. I forgot I had said that. “U-uh, we cancelled everything else so we could stay in New York longer,” I answered.

  “I see.” She seemed to accept that answer. “How are you liking the city?”

  “It’s okay.” I shrugged. I would have liked to have seen more of it.

  Zuri and I made small talk the rest of the trip while Lumi looked out the window. She told me about their delay in the lobby because the staff couldn’t seem to locate their reservations, their difficulty securing a rental car, and the food poisoning they experienced on their first night.

  Finally, we arrived at the hotel. It was one of your standard chain hotels you find in every US city, far less spectacular than where we were staying.

  We walked through the lobby that was miraculously still serving breakfast, and hopped into the elevator, where we rode to the sixth floor. Their room was simple with two queen-sized beds. One had makeup and clothes strewn about, the bed not yet made. The other had its duvet perfectly folded at the foot of the bed, a blanket clearly not originally from the hotel spread across it, and the plush I had bought Lumi the other day.

  “Have you had lunch yet? I’ll grab lunch. Does pizza sound good?” Zuri asked. We both nodded before she nodded in acknowledgment and left.

  “One day she’ll learn she doesn’t always need to leave,” Lumi muttered. Had she only left to give us privacy? That was...oddly considerate.

  “I guess she doesn’t want to get in the way.” I shrugged.

  “But she’s not in the way.” She glanced up at me, and I could tell she was bracing herself for whatever I would say next.

  “No, she’s not.” I shook my head, my voice soft to reassure her.

  An awkward silence fell between us. I glanced around the room, trying to find something to pass the time with—a game, a book, a deck of cards—anything! All I could glimpse was Lumi’s plush and Zuri’s makeup. I supposed the older girl wouldn’t be happy if we played with her makeup.

  Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

  And then my mind went to the game I had been playing on my phone.

  “Have you played this before?” I asked, pointing the screen in her direction so she could see.

  She shook her head and buried her chin and mouth into the plush she had just grabbed. I quickly demonstrated the game to her, and she seemed to understand.

  Great, now we weren’t just looking at each other. I was just looking at her looking at my phone. Maybe a video would have been better…

  “What are your friends like?” Lumi asked, keeping her attention on the match she had just made on my phone.

  “My friends?” I asked, taken aback by the sudden question. “Well… One is a jerk. He teases me and everyone else nonstop. He trapped me in a container once, too.”

  This got her attention. “Why are you still friends with him? It doesn’t sound like he wants to be friends with you.”

  “At first he didn’t, but… I don’t know. Something about him has changed.” My mind couldn’t help but go back to Letheria. If only she knew that Spring had come round and I was the shoulder for Maverick to cry on. Okay, maybe not yet. “He’s getting nicer, at least.”

  “Nobody wanted to be friends with me back home. I don’t think I could make them be my friend either. Everyone always wanted to be Zuri’s friend, but she didn’t want to be their friend back. Friends… are complicated.” She narrowed her eyes at the screen.

  “You can say that again.” I sighed. “Another friend has been staying in his room all day after this other guy joined us. They’re not friends with each other. In fact, I think they hate each other even if they won’t admit it.”

  “Is the other guy your friend?”

  I thought about it for a moment. “I don’t know,” I answered honestly.

  “Do you want them to be?”

  I shook my head, not wanting to think about what that would mean for everyone else. “My last two friends you would like. There’s one who’s super smart and a good cook! And then the other is kind and considerate, but really shy.”

  “And you all get along? The jerk doesn’t pick on the shy guy?”

  “Well, yeah, he does. But he picks on all of us. They still get along. Kind of.”

  “You’re all so different and yet you’re friends. When I see friends together, they look the same. They’re doing the same activity, have the same opinions, they even feel the same…”

  “But they’re not the same. Everyone is different, some more different than others. But that’s how families work too, right?”

  A smile. “Kiran was always annoying everyone with how busy he was. He could never focus on one task at a time; it always had to be multiple. And Ciana had such a beautiful singing voice. Nora was always taking care of everyone when they were hurt, and Lux never failed to cheer everyone up.”

  “Your family…” My own smile faltered.

  She nodded. “I miss them. I wish things had been different.”

  The door unlocked, and Zuri stepped in with two large pizzas. I felt bad not having any cash on me, not knowing what their financial situation was. She plopped the two pizzas on Lumi’s bed and sat next to the three of us.

  “Sit on your own bed,” Lumi said, matching yet another three in her game.

  “Can’t. It’s too messy,” Zuri answered, her mouth half full.

  “What do you do at night? Sleep in Lumi’s bed with her?” I asked.

  “M-maybe…” Lumi pulled her plush closer to her.

  Okay, that’s actually really cute.

  Lumi excused herself to the bathroom, and I was suddenly flooded with a million questions from Zuri.

  “Are the two of you getting along?” Zuri asked. She was a little more serious than she had been earlier.

  “Yeah, actually. It’s nice.” I smiled.

  “Is Lumi happy?”

  “I think so? She’s smiled a couple times—”

  “Smiled?” Zuri’s eyebrows raised in surprise before she herself smiled. “It takes a lot to get her to smile. What do you think of Lumi?”

  “Uh, she’s nice,” I answered as naturally as I could muster. I had no idea why I was suddenly being grilled. “She seems a little lonely, though.”

  “Exactly! Which is why I wanted you to be her friend!” Her own smile faltered once more. “I fear there may come a time when Lumi learns of what I have done and finds herself unable to forgive me.”

  “What did you do…?”

  Zuri shook her head. “Just promise me when the time comes… You won’t treat her any differently than you are now. Be there for her. As a friend. ...Even if you both hate me.”

  Hate her? Why would I hate her? “I find it hard to believe she’d choose me over you. You’re her sister, even if not by blood. It’s obvious that Lumi thinks the world of you.”

  She blushed. “You think so? People tell us we look close all the time, but sometimes I worry it simply appears that way, and that’s not how Lumi feels.” She scooched towards me and her voice dropped to just above a whisper. “Make no mistake, there’s very little I wouldn’t do for Lumi. And maybe in time… you might just come to save her.”

  “Save her?” I pulled my head back away from her, taken aback by where the conversation was going. We had just met not too long ago, and here she was asking for favors and talking about saving people. I knew she was a bit eccentric, but this was crossing the line.

  The sound of a knob twisting interrupted our conversation, and Zuri scooched back to where she had been sitting before.

  Lumi glanced between us, likely aware she was interrupting something. “What were you two talking about?”

  “Just my adorable Lumi, of course!” Zuri beamed. “You better eat up before we finish the whole box!”

  As if out of spite, Lumi reached for the untouched box underneath and pulled out a slice for herself.

  While the girls were chatting with each other, I took the time to retrieve my phone, just for several texts to appear on the screen.

  Maverick: Where are you?

  Maverick: I’m coming to get you.

  Maverick: Send me your location so I can come get you.

  Maverick: Forget it. Are you in public?

  Maverick: I’m getting in the car. Reply to me, Talentless moron!

  I sighed. “It looks like I have to get going. I’m sorry for leaving so abruptly.”

  Zuri shook her head before shoving her phone in my face with a number pulled up. “Add it to your contacts and let’s do this again sometime.” I could barely see her smile from behind the phone.

  I nodded and quickly typed her number into my phone. I said my goodbyes and headed into a corridor, texting Maverick to come get me.

  “What are you doing in a hotel?” Maverick asked.

  “Meeting a friend.” I swallowed.

  “What friend? I thought you said your friends were in Lakeside.”

  “Riverside,” I corrected. “These are people I met in New York.”

  “People?” Maverick’s eyes widened.

  I rolled my eyes, slouching. “It’s two girls, don’t get so worked up.”

  “In case you’ve forgotten, we’re here looking for—”

  “An evil group of magicians, yes, I remember. Don’t you think they would have killed me by now if it were them?”

  “Maybe they don’t know you have magic. You haven’t slipped up yet, right?”

  “Can't with these stupid gloves you gave me.” I rolled my eyes.

  “Good. I don’t want you seeing them again until all of this is over.”

  I could feel warmth between my fingers and the leather, and I could've sworn I saw burns forming on the gloves. “When all of this is over, I’ll be back in Meridia! At least let me say goodbye to them!”

  “You can say goodbye before we leave. Right now, you need to stay safe. For all of our sakes.”

  He was being so unreasonable. First he lets me go to the coffee shop alone, then he doesn't want me to talk to people. What was I supposed to do while I was out? At least I’d gotten Zuri’s phone number. Maybe I could text them.