Vespertine

The day after, Quinn awoke with an unfamiliar feeling of optimism, though she felt certain she could get used to it.

She stretched, blinking. She was in her own bed, but hadn’t changed into pajamas. She faintly recalled collapsing into bed when she had gotten back last night, after saving Caiden, and being too exhausted to resist sleep.

She checked the time; just before 8:00, again. She repeated her morning routine of getting dressed and brushing her teeth and braiding her hair, but when she went to find Arette for breakfast, she nearly ran into the shorter girl.

“Arette!” She said, by way of greeting, before frowning at the other girl’s expression. “Are you okay?”

Arette looked panicked and worried. “What time is it?”

“8:15,” Quinn said, glancing at her phone. “Why?”

Arette held up her own phone, and Quinn saw that she was on the prediction website, the one that that had the beginning and end times of the reversal.

The end date read November 7th, 7:00 AM.

Quinn checked her phone again. It was November 7th. “So the reversal’s over?”

“Yes,” Arette replied, agitated. “But it’s not right.”

“What do you mean?”

“Your magic, Quinn,” she wailed loudly. “Can you feel it?”

Frowning, Quinn flexed her fingers, waiting for that surge to come, and then realized there was none. In fact, she felt no different than she had yesterday, when the reversal was still taking place.

She shook her head. “No. But it must be some kind of mistake. These website predictions aren’t always right. They weren’t precise with the starting time, either.”

“That was a couple minutes. This is an hour, Quinn!” Arette said despairingly, and Quinn could feel her own panic begin to set in, even as she tried to calm herself down and come up with a logical explanation.

“Maybe Caiden will know,” she suggested, and Arette nodded. They headed to Caiden’s room, knocking before opening the door, and Caiden’s eyes fluttered open sleepily.

“Jesus, good morning to you too,” he murmured as they scrambled over to him, collapsing unceremoniously onto his bed, looking at him intently.

“Caiden, can you feel your magic?” Quinn urged.

Caiden yawned. “Oh, right. The reversal’s over, yeah?” He closed his eyes again and clenched and unclenched his fist. Then he opened his eyes, a smile on his face. “Yeah, I can feel it again.”

Relief washed over both Quinn and Arette, and they exchanged a puzzled look before they froze at the wrongness of the statement.

Before they could say anything, Salvatore poked his head through the doorway. “You guys are being awfully loud with your stomping, you know. Some people are sleeping.”

Then he noticed their expressions and stepped inside to stand beside them. “What’s wrong?”

“Caiden’s got magic,” Quinn said. “And we don’t.”

Salvatore frowned. “But that’s impossible. Last night, he…we made him mortal. And the reversal’s over, anyhow. You should all have your magic.”

“Do you?” Quinn asked, and then Salvatore’s eyes widened too, as he felt for his magic and realized it was nowhere to be found.

A horrible realization was dawning on him. “No. No. No!”

At that moment, they heard Riana’s voice from the doorway, tremulous and frightened.

“Salvatore…”

They turned to look at her. She looked afraid and uncertain, her eyes reminiscent of a wild animal that was being hunted. None of them had ever seen Riana like that.

But her expression, however unusual, wasn’t the notable part.

No, the notable part was her hands.

Her glowing hands.

To be continued.