Chatoyant College Book 13: Chapter 50: Night Vision

Dawn tried to get a better mental look at the cold spot, but it really did seem to just be a spot where the air was cold, staying in one place. It wasn’t moving at all, so she wasn’t sure why she could sense it, but maybe sensing air “currents” was an inaccurate way to describe what she was doing. She wouldn’t assume there was no air somewhere just because she couldn’t tell it was moving, after all.

Just because she couldn’t find anything interesting, though, didn’t mean it was time to give up. “Corrie, how are you doing?” she asked.

Corrie sighed. “Not as well as I hoped. You’d think since it’s magic, the laws of physics wouldn’t apply at all, but apparently my distance sight vision is just like my ordinary vision.”

Dawn grinned. “You can’t see much in the dark, huh?”

“No. I can see where there are lights, of course, but I don’t think that faerie is going to come out into the light just for our convenience.”

“Well, can you look at something else for me?”

“Of course.”

“Remember that cold spot I told you about?”

“Is it still there?” Corrie opened her eyes and turned to look at Dawn.

She nodded. “It’s moved, and I don’t think it was there this afternoon. It’s still on the edge of campus—or maybe I should say it’s on the edge of campus again—but it’s further north than it was before, near Sayer.”

“Huh. It’s close to the barrier?”

Dawn checked again. “Yes, right up against it.”

“Well, I probably won’t be able to see anything, but I’ll try. I’ll start out at the wall, and move north as best I can.”

Dawn and Edie waited in silence as Corrie sat with her eyes closed, presumably looking with a different set of eyes. Finally, though, she exhaled, opened her eyes, and shook her head. “I couldn’t see anything. It’s just too dark. Do you think that the cold spot is the faerie?”

Dawn felt an unpleasant flutter of her stomach, but she had to shrug. “I don’t know. It could just be a weird thing. Professor Lal thought it might be something sheltering on campus.”

“Didn’t she know what it was?” Edie asked.

“No, she said she was going to try to find out, but when she told me about the storm she said she still didn’t know what it was. She couldn’t sense it even though I could. I guess it’s probably a faerie, and I’m sensing it with my Sight, but that doesn’t explain why she couldn’t sense it.”

“I’m sure some faeries can hide from other faeries’ vision,” Corrie said. “I mean, you’ve been able to see faerie things that other faeries couldn’t see. Faeries might be able to use glamour, but that doesn’t mean they can see through it.”

“Maybe.” Dawn frowned. “I guess the important thing is that we really didn’t find anything.”

“No.” Corrie wrinkled her nose in disappointment. “I guess I overestimated my ability to find things with my distance sight at night. I’ll have to ask Professor Rook for advice on Tuesday. Wow, that’s our last class, isn’t it? The semester is going so fast.”

“You’re not complaining that it’s almost time to go home for the summer, are you?” Edie asked with a grin.

Corrie shook her head and grinned back. “No. It’s just going to be weird. I mean, we had winter break, but that was pretty short. This is going to be a much longer break. I’ve gotten so used to this strange world of Chatoyant College, I don’t know if I can manage in the real world anymore.”

“People graduate and go back to the real world every year,” Dawn said.

“Yeah, but do they know the school as well as we do? And for the people who do, don’t they have a hard time fitting in? Maybe you should ask your aunt.”

Dawn thought about her aunt’s life. She spent her days making art and she’d never had a romantic partner as an adult—and the second part, at least, was definitely Chatoyant College’s fault. She was sure her aunt had never gotten over Tom, her faerie lover during her college years. But that didn’t mean she hadn’t adjusted back to life in the real world; she certainly had business savvy, enough to make a living from her art. And she seemed quite happy with just her family.

“She seems to do okay,” Dawn said. “Maybe we should take this summer as an opportunity to recalibrate. Who knows what’s going to happen during the break or even next semester.”

“I think we’ll be okay as long as we stay in touch,” Edie said. “We’ll have each other to talk to if we get confused about why there aren’t any faeries in our neighborhood or start to worry on the full moon.”

Corrie laughed. “That’s right. I’ll send you guys emails all summer.”

“I would expect nothing less,” Dawn said.