Be Gay, Do Crimes: Ros Vs Everything, Apparently

this chapter is a surprise tool that will help us later

"Are you sure you're okay?" pressed Amelie for what had to be the thirtieth time this evening.

"Yeah, fine, fine," grunted Jade, scrabbling onto her bed. She grinned. "Better than Colette."

"I don't think Colette looks quite as... bloody," Amelie said weakly, gazing at Jade's bloodstained knees.

Jade shrugged and went back to peeling her bandages off. It was the first opportunity she'd had to sit down and gather her thoughts since The Colette Incident, as she'd dubbed it, since the nymphs in the infirmary had spent the whole time telling her off, and dinner had been full of people running up to high-five her, demanding to see her injuries, or glaring at her across the hall.

So when Amelie opened her mouth again, Jade cut her off.

"Am. It's very sweet of you to keep asking, but it's really not that bad. I'll just chill here for a few minutes, then I'll go and have a bath. Okay? It's fine."

Amelie clamped her mouth shut and nodded vigorously. Jade smiled at her, and was pleased to receive one back. Amelie had been very jittery since lunchtime, almost as unsettled by Colette's scheme as Chinhae himself. It probably didn't help that her roommate had been beaten bloody during said scheme, but Jade was pretty proud of herself.

She flopped back on her bed, feeling serene for the first time today--

That was, until Rosalind jumped through the open window.

Jade bolted up, shocked, and hit her head on one of the posts on her bed. Amelie dropped her charm bracelet into their marble washbasin.

"What the--" began Jade, but Ros shot her an irritated glance.

"Shut up," she muttered. She slammed the window shut and crouched under the sill. Jade and Amelie stared at her, stunned, as she watched the fairy patrol zoom by, chattering furiously amongst themselves.

There was a minute or so. Jade and Amelie stared at Ros. Ros stared at the window...

"Think they're gone," Ros stood, straightening her uniform. "God, they're cretins. So easy to trick."

A pause. Amelie seemed to have lost the power of speech, so Jade posed the question: "Um. What are you doing?"

"Hiding from the fairy patrol. Came to give Mark a letter, got caught on the way back and had to run."

"Couldn't you have given it to someone at lunch?"

"Well, I was going to, but lunch was rather... busy," said Ros, eyeing Jade's scraped knees.

"...fair enough," said Jade. She probably could have still given it to one of them, or Sophie, but Jade was harbouring a suspicion that she'd been here for something more nefarious. "Bigger question: did you climb across to this window? In those boots?"

"Yes," Ros said simply. "No one saw me. Most people are in the common rooms. I was expecting this room to be empty, I admit."

Jade stared at her, wondering why Purity, which was to the back of the castle and facing only the moat and the woods behind the school, was so preferable. "Oh. Cool. How did you even get into Good in the first place, though?"

Ros fixed her with a stare. "You ask a lot of questions, don't you?"

Jade went red. "Just wondering."

"So I see," Ros turned to peer out of the window. "Will they come back this way?"

Jade shrugged.