𝔪𝔞𝔤𝔦𝔠 𝔠𝔞𝔫 𝔟𝔢 𝔡𝔞𝔫𝔤𝔢𝔯𝔬𝔲𝔰, hosie

josie's home, 4

Hope managed to sleep through the night without wolfing out, so Alaric granted her furlough from her ongoing wolf jail sentence, but only for the day. She was to return to her cell before curfew and was warned not to fall asleep.

She headed back to her room to take a quick shower before the start of classes, then made her way to the dining hall to get a bite to eat. MG was still there, talking with Landon, who was decked out in Salvatore School regulated clothing. "So, you get to stay now?" she asked as she sat.

"Yeah, Dr. Saltzman said it was for my own protection," he answered. He smiled at her widely, clearly happy to see her.

She smiled back, though she was merely being nice. Something had changed between them. The feelings she had just before he left were gone. Yes, she still felt the need to protect him, but she also felt the way towards Rafael, MG, and Penelope. It was the feeling of her heart floating when she looked at him or thought about him, that was no longer there.

Her heart suddenly felt very heavy as she realized she was going to have to talk to him about their relationship and what happened next. She never had to let someone down like this before. The only crush she ever had was with Roman, and that had turned out disastrous. She preferred to not think about him as much as possible.

She chatted with them for a little while, mostly about what Landon missed while he was away. The bell rang, causing them to scurry off to class before they were late. She had two tests to take before lunch and another after. She wasn't worried about doing poorly. She had an excellent memory, allowing her to retain almost every piece of information she learned.

Her friends, on the other hand, looked exhausted by the time lunch rolled around. Each had their heads in their notebooks going over as much information as they could. Standardized test week was always the most stressful week of the year. Most students didn't even bother to stress over the end of the year exams because those only reflected their knowledge, not the entire school's performance. If the school, as a collective, did poorly on the standardized tests, then they risked having the school overrun by government people or the school could be shut down. No one wanted that to happen.

After classes ended for the day, Hope headed for Alaric's office to see if he wanted to spar. It was abundantly clear that he was too busy to spar the second she walked in. He was sitting at his desk, with a mound of books in front of him, while her aunts were sitting on his couch, with an even larger mound of books scattered around them, on the coffee table, under it, on the floor next to them, there were even a few books resting dangerously on the top of the couch.

"How did your exams go," Alaric asked the second he saw her.

She looked away from her aunts to him and rolled her eyes. It was as if he forgot she was top of her class. "I aced them."

"Good. Good," he said.

"How is it going?" Hope asked as she looked around the room curiously.

Freya tossed the book she was reading onto the floor next to her. "About as well as to be expected. Marcel is looking into the possibility of multiple pit locations, while we are looking for any reference to Malivore in these books. So far, we have found one brief reference to a place that could be Malivore, but nothing else."

"Vincent has the New Orleans witches on it too," Keelin added.

"We've also reached out to as many of the packs as we can for anything that will help explain what is happening to you," Freya continued. "Hopefully, someone will have the answers we're searching for."

"Great," Hope said, though her tone wasn't very hopeful.

"How are you doing?" Freya asked, recognizing her niece's tone.