what happened after unlocked

chapter twenty-two ~ aurora emberstone

With Keefe gone, Team Valiant disbanded, and no leads whatsoever, Sophie didn't have anything to do apart from homework when Foxfire went back.

"Are you sure you don't want to transmit to Keefe?" Sandor asked her from his position at the door. Sophie, meanwhile, was memorizing a poster with all the stars and their names positioned correctly. She did have six abilities and photographic memory, but the cold, cruel winter was making her more tired than usual.

She shook her head, stifling a yawn with her pillow. Well...maybe the fact that it was midnight and she was still trying to focus on her studies was one reason why she was finding it so difficult to concentrate.

"Maybe you should try and get some sleep now?" Sandor urged. Even the big, muscly goblin looked tired. But that just might be from watching Sophie study boring things for the nine hours she'd been away from school.

"No!" Sophie snapped. She needed to absorb this information before her midterm...if she didn't she would fail...if she didn't people would think she was crazy...but she was too tired...

Her eyelids were like bricks over her eyes, and while she desperately tried to keep them open and keep her thoughts on track, sleep was one of the hardest things to fight off.

"Okay, fine..." she grumbled, and in the corner of her vision she saw Sandor sighing with relief and moving outside the door.

Sophie had almost definitely fallen asleep by now. But it was hard to distinguish her dreams with reality. Everything was blurry and strange...voices sounded faraway...dreams were so confusing, yet so blissful...

There were people standing over her in the dream. So horribly familiar, yet she couldn't see their features...one was blonde and the other brunette.

The blonde's hair was styled in a way so that it stuck up in every direction...the brunette had glittering amethyst jewels in their hair...

And then the blonde faded away...leaving only the long-haired brunette.

The dream slowly faded, too.

Sophie realized that the faraway voices she'd been hearing came from real life. She jolted upwards in bed, but immediately regretted it when the blinding sun rays burst into her eyes, mingling with snow-white clouds and periwinkle-blue sky.

She squinted at the girl hovering above her. 

"Sophie, are you having any, I don't know, side effects to manifesting?"

"To be fair, she did stay up until midnight studying a sheet covered in constellations, trying to memorize them all after an extremely busy day of training." Sandor's voice was still tired.

"Sophie!" Biana chided. "That's terrible! And besides, school's almost about to start!"

It was only now that Sophie remembered what day it was and saw the uniform Biana was wearing.

She leaped out of her bed, sprinted to her closet, shoved on her Level Five uniform, and dashed back out again. All under thirty seconds.

Sandor and Biana stared at her.

Sophie looked down and realized that she hadn't even removed yesterday's clothes yet. She face-palmed herself and returned to the closet.

Five minutes later, when Sophie had gulped down some hasty breakfast and checked she was wearing her full uniform, shoved her Astronomy homework in her bag, and her, Biana and Sandor leaped away.

Foxfire was crowded with students passing through the halls. It was only until now that Sophie remembered the fight between her and her friends...and that her and Biana hadn't spoken for a week, not even the last two days at Foxfire.