After Stellarlune

Chapter Twenty

The next day, Sophie wanted to sleep in.

She had stayed up way too late the night before, trying to be responsible, and do some research before she made a decision if she was going to help Elysian or not.

But the next morning she started really regretting it, when Edaline had gently shaken her awake, and said something about going to school.

"I have school today?" Sophie mumbled into her pillow.

"Technically you've had school for the last week," Edaline said. "But you've been so busy that you've missed it."

Sophie groaned. "Can't I just miss it again?" 

Her adoptive mom just smiled. 

"Breakfast will be ready in ten minutes. Go get dressed."

Sophie had elementalism that day. And Telepathy. The thought of sitting through two hours of mind exercises with Fitz made her want to throw up. They hadn't really talked about any of the Keefe stuff yet, and Sophie definitely wasn't ready to today.

And to top it all off, during morning orientation, Magnate Leto reminded everyone that Midterms were coming up.

"Not excited?" Dex guessed when Sophie let out a long groan. 

"I think this is the year that I'm going to fail," Sophie told him. But she didn't really care that much anymore. Not with everything that was going on. Even though the Neverseen weren't a problem anymore, Sophie still had lots of big decisions ahead of her. 

"You'll pass," Dex assured her with a laugh.

In Elementalism, Sophie was supposed to practice bottling fire, which was one of the hardest things to do in elementalism. 

"I know you have a history of bottling fire, so this should be easy," her mentor said. 

But one of the bottles cracked from too much heat, and when Sophie tried to pick it up, it cut her. 

"Better head to the healing center," her mentor sighed, mumbling something about how she was already way far behind.

So Sophie started the familiar walk down the Elwin's office.

"It's been a while," Elwin said as Sophie walked in. "At least for you. What did you do this time?"

Sophie showed Elwin the cut. "Do you think it's bad enough for me to skip my telepathy session?"

"Unfortunately, that cut shouldn't be that hard to fix," Elwin said. "I just need to apply some salve, and bandage it up, and you should be good to go."

Sophie groaned, and sat down onto a cot, as Elwin grabbed some bandages.

"Why don't you want to go to telepathy?" Elwin asked. "Not more drama with Fitz, I hope."

Sophie just sighed.

"I'm not sure if I want to know," Elwin said. "But if you need to talk to me about anything... I'm always here."

"Thanks," Sophie said. "Everything's just been crazy lately. And I'm so worried about so many different things."

"Is Sandor one of them?" Elwin asked.

"Sandor!" Sophie exclaimed. "See, I'm so worried, I forgot to be worried about Sandor!"

"Well I do have news about him," Elwin said. Sophie was pretty sure he was trying not to laugh.

"Really?" Sophie asked. "What is it?"

"He's doing much better," Elwin said, making Sophie's stress levels shrink, just a bit. "But it'll be a long road to full recovery."'