Chatoyant College Book 13: Chapter 74: Positioning

Edie grinned back as she wrote down which stone corresponded to which professor, and then started to sketch the area, but realized something was still missing. “Where will each of you be? Corrie might be able to see you with her distance sight, but since it’s going to be dark, we shouldn’t take any chances.”

“Ah, we hadn’t worked that out.” Ginny looked at the other three professors. “I’ll take the southwest, between the magic and administration buildings.”

“I’ll take the northeast,” Professor Rook said.

“Between the magic and science buildings?” Edie asked, frowning at her sketch.

“No, between the humanities and science buildings.” Professor Rook walked back over, took her pen out of her hand, and added to her sketch. He wrote “ROOK” between the long rectangular building at the top and the diamond-shaped building to the right.

Edie took back the notebook and pen, a little annoyed that he hadn’t bothered to ask permission. But she couldn’t yell at a professor, and his addition did make the sketch a lot clearer. Now she understood what they were talking about with the four entrances to the center green.

“That leaves me to take the northwest, and Professor Strega, the southeast,” Professor Lal said. Professor Strega nodded. Edie added Professor Lal’s name to the space between the magic and humanities buildings and then Professor Strega’s to the space between the administration and science buildings. Then she added Tom’s name to the administration building and “werewolves” to the science building.

“I think I have everything,” she said, showing her drawing to Corrie and Dawn.

“Add us,” Corrie said, pointing to the magic building. Edie nodded and wrote “us” in the magic building on her drawing.

“Can I see?” Link asked.

She handed him the notebook. He looked it over and nodded. “This does look pretty comprehensive. Thanks. But which way should Troy and I walk?”

“Whichever direction is the most natural,” Professor Lal said.

Link shook his head. “I can’t really think of any reason we’d be walking through the center of campus like that, at least not at night. The paths connect Darnel to almost everything else more efficiently.”

“What about when you walk to Gilkey?” Dawn said.

“I take the paths then, too…” He tapped the drawing a few times, moving his finger around it. Edie wished they had an actual campus map; her drawing wasn’t the most complete, since it only showed the buildings in the middle of campus, and none of the paths. But as she recalled, the campus maps weren’t exactly to scale, either.

“That works as well as anything else, I guess.” Link shrugged and handed Edie back her notebook. “The most direct route to Gilkey from Darnel would technically be walking through the center green from northwest to southeast, so we’ll do that. If that works for you, Troy.”

“It doesn’t really make any difference,” Troy said. “That’s fine.”

“How much time do we have?” Ginny stood from her chair and walked across the room to look out the windows. “Does anyone know what time sunset is today?”

“Ten minutes after eight o’clock,” Professor Lal said.

“Fine, then we have a little less than half an hour. Troy and Link, go back to Darnel—take the paths. At ten after eight, or a little later if you prefer, begin to walk this way. The sky should still have some light to it, so you will be safe enough until you reach the green.”

“I think we can take paths most of the way,” Link said. “We’ll walk to the humanities building, then cut across the green.”

“That sounds like the safest plan,” Professor Rook said.

“The rest of us will get situated now,” Ginny said with a nod. “Better to be waiting for a long time than to make our presence obvious and scare her off.”

Charlie’s mom stood up, looking relieved to have the talking over with. “Show us where to go. We are ready.” Corrie’s dad and Marie followed her example. Charlie stood a little more reluctantly. He glanced at Corrie, but didn’t say anything.

“I’ll show you,” Professor Rook said, heading toward the door. “I need to disable the alarm anyway.”

“Tom, I’ll show you where to wait in the administration building,” Professor Lal said.

The werewolves and faeries left, leaving four humans, one other faerie, and two Djanaea in the room. “Let’s go,” Link said to Troy, and they followed the others out of the room.

“Well, the rest of us can go down to the front seating area,” Ginny said. “Professor Strega, are you ready?”

Professor Strega rose slowly. “As ready as I shall ever be.” Ginny looked away from her—Edie thought she was hiding a smile.

They all went down to the front area with the chairs. Edie could see the sunset through the windows; when Ginny found the light switch, the room was plunged into orange light, but the area they needed to watch was on the east side of the building, so the sun wasn’t in their eyes.

“Good luck,” Corrie said as the magic professors walked out the door.