Chapter 93: The Fall Festival, Part Eight

Chapter 93: Chapter 93: The Fall Festival, Part Eight

Chapter 93: The Fall Festival, Part Eight

The day before the Fall Festival, Iris Wexley found Audra near the supply boxes at the back of Classroom Three.

"Are you sure you can help tomorrow?" Iris asked. "You only need to do it for one day."

"I can manage one day," Audra replied.

Iris paused.

The answer had surprised her.

She had mentioned the idea casually during the planning meeting. The haunted house already had students assigned to props, ticketing, sound effects, makeup, and the narrow hidden spaces behind the cardboard walls. Iris had only suggested that Audra join a few classmates in costume for part of the festival, mostly because a recognizable face would bring people through the door.

Audra’s popularity made that obvious.

As long as she wore something that did not hide her completely, students would show up.

"All right," Iris said. "Then we will have you help promote the haunted house for a while. You do not need to do much. You can walk around with us, make an appearance near the classroom, and take part in the auditorium segment."

"That should be fine."

Audra gave a small nod.

Across the room, Cyrus sat in his usual corner with a manga open on the desk in front of him. He had one hand resting against the side of his face, his dark bangs low enough to conceal most of his expression. Around him, other students carried cardboard panels, rolls of tape, plastic props, and folded fabric toward the partially built haunted-house entrance.

Cyrus blended into the classroom so well that he barely seemed present.

Audra’s attention lingered on him.

The past week had been inconvenient.

Festival preparations had kept students in school later than usual. People moved through the halls until evening, teachers checked classrooms at random, and every spare room had become a storage space for decorations or supplies. There had been too many witnesses and too little privacy.

Audra had not found a chance to speak with Cyrus alone.

She had not found a chance to use the glamourkin ring again either.

The lack of opportunity irritated her more than it should have.

Even so, she did not need to force anything.

Cyrus went through his days in predictable patterns. He came to school. He studied when he had to. He worked at the lounge. He went home. He avoided attention whenever possible, which only made it easier to notice how he moved once someone watched closely enough.

Audra could wait.

The following morning, St. Alder Academy opened into a full day of festival noise.

Classroom Three gathered in the hallway while Ms. Hart gave final reminders about schedules, cleanup, safety, and the rotation chart posted beside the haunted-house entrance. The room behind them had already been darkened with fabric and purple lights, while students in costume moved in and out carrying plastic limbs, fake cobwebs, and bags of candy.

Audra stood near Iris in a white costume that covered her from collarbone to ankle.

The outfit had a long fitted bodice and layered panels of pale fabric that fell around her like winter mist. White ribbons had been woven through her hair, and a faint dusting of silver makeup caught along her cheekbones whenever she turned beneath the hallway lights.

Students nearby tried not to stare.

They did not succeed.

"She looks like a Frostborn ghost," someone whispered.

"She does not even need a costume to pull that off."

"Please stop saying that where she can hear you."

"She definitely heard it."

The murmurs continued until Iris turned her head toward the cluster of students near the lockers.

Nobody said anything after that.

Iris was not loud. She did not need to be. Years of handling class logistics, settling arguments, and keeping projects from falling apart had given her an unspoken authority that people recognized without being told.

Audra paid none of them any attention.

She was looking for Cyrus.

He had not been in his seat when she arrived. He had not appeared near the classroom door. He had not stood beside Owen, lingered near Faye, or drifted past the windows the way he sometimes did when the room got too busy.

By the time Ms. Hart finished speaking, he was still nowhere in sight.

Audra felt a small, unreasonable disappointment.

She had chosen the costume partly because it suited the haunted-house theme.

She had also wanted to know what expression Cyrus would make when he saw her.

The thought made her tighten her fingers against the folds of her sleeve.

She followed Iris through the building after the hallway briefing ended.

Their job was simple. They walked through the second and third floors, made themselves visible, answered questions from students asking where the haunted house was located, and directed people toward Classroom Three. Iris did most of the talking. Audra only needed to be present.

That was enough to gather attention.

Students moved aside when she passed. Some recognized her immediately. Others looked at the white costume first, then stared longer after they realized who wore it.

Audra tolerated it without comment.

She had experienced attention for too long to be surprised by it.

Her focus remained elsewhere.

Every few minutes, she caught what looked like Cyrus’s departing back through a crowd. A dark school uniform. Low-hanging hair. A familiar way of avoiding the center of any group.

Each time, the figure vanished around a corner before she reached it.

By the time she and Iris completed a circuit through the second and third floors, Audra had not spoken to him once.

Iris checked the time on her phone.

"The auditorium is the last stop," she said. "After that, you can head back to the haunted house if you want. There are a few places inside where someone can drop props or make noise from behind the walls."

Audra understood what she meant.

The haunted-house layout included several hidden openings. A student could pull a fishing line to move a plastic hand, drop a fake eyeball from above, or shout from behind a curtain where visitors could not see them.

The idea held some appeal.

It would have been more interesting if Cyrus entered.

Audra imagined him walking into the darkened classroom with his hair in his eyes and that guarded expression on his face. She wondered whether he would notice the hidden spaces. She wondered whether he would try to act calm even if something startled him.

The thought made her mouth curve slightly.

"Let us go to the auditorium first," she said.

The backstage area was already crowded when they arrived.

Several students from Classroom Three stood in costume near the curtain line. One wore a long black cloak and a skull mask. Another had painted their face gray and attached plastic horns to a headband. A third student had dressed in a red-and-black little devil costume with pointed wings and a tail that kept getting caught under her shoes.

The girl in the devil costume approached Audra.

"You only need to walk out at the beginning," she explained. "Stand near the front while the lights are low, then we will handle the rest of the performance."

"That sounds easy enough," Audra said.

The girl nodded quickly.

A host’s voice carried from the stage beyond the curtain.

"Up next, we have a special performance from Classroom Three."

Audra stepped toward the opening.

The auditorium had filled more than she expected.

Students sat scattered through the rows, leaving enough empty seats for late arrivals while a low current of conversation moved through the room. The stage lights came up slowly, casting a pale wash across the floorboards.

Audra walked into view.

The costume covered her figure in white from head to toe. Her hair fell loose over her shoulders, the silver detail in her makeup catching beneath the overhead lights. The entire room seemed to pause.

For a moment, nobody spoke.

The silence did not bother Audra.

She had received louder praise before. She had been watched by larger crowds. Yet the sudden stillness carried its own kind of confirmation.

Then a chair struck the floor.

The sound came from the middle of the auditorium.

Audra’s attention shifted immediately.

A boy in a crooked fox mask had shot to his feet so fast that his chair had slammed backward. The mask hid his eyes, but his posture gave him away. His shoulders had locked. One hand hovered near the edge of the seat, and he looked ready to leave before the performance had even begun.

Audra knew that figure.

Cyrus.

The room erupted a second later.

"Wow."

"She looks incredible."

"That costume is perfect."

"Classroom Three is going to get a huge line after this."

The praise washed over the stage.

Audra did not listen.

She watched Cyrus slip toward the aisle and leave the auditorium with the speed of someone escaping a fire alarm.

Her eyes narrowed.

Why had he reacted like that?

Why had he looked frightened?

He had barely seen her before turning away.

The reaction bothered her more than the praise pleased her.

Audra let the rest of the performance begin without her. The students behind her took over with music, staged movement, and a few simple effects designed to advertise the haunted house. Audra stepped aside and waited until she could leave without drawing unnecessary attention.

Outside the auditorium, Cyrus moved quickly through the hallway.

His heartbeat had not settled.

If students in the auditorium had not said Audra’s name, he might have walked straight out of Grayhaven before nightfall.

He had spent the entire morning wondering whether he had seen someone from the settlement. He had followed a pale figure through the hallway, used more Frostborn sight than he should have, and convinced himself the whole thing was an illusion.

Then Audra had stepped onstage dressed in white.

The timing had been unbearable.

It felt like the kind of sudden close-up scare that ruined a horror movie by appearing before anyone had time to breathe.

Cyrus pressed a hand against his chest as he walked.

A haunted house was supposed to have ghosts, fake monsters, and people jumping out from behind cardboard walls.

It was not supposed to send Audra onstage dressed like a Frostborn apparition.

The costume had been too convincing.

Frostborn were rare enough that most people would spend their lives without meeting one. Cyrus knew that better than anyone. He had lived among them. He had escaped from them. He had spent nearly a hundred days wondering when someone would find him and drag him back.

Audra could not have known what the costume would do to him.

That did not make it less frightening.

Cyrus made his way to the fourth floor, where the hall was quieter than the crowded festival areas below. He avoided the stairwell leading to the roof. The empty roof access had become too risky after recent events, and he had no interest in finding another place where someone could corner him without witnesses.

A vacant classroom near the end of the corridor would do.

He entered, crossed to the window, and leaned against the sill.

The vending machine outside the room held bottled drinks, and he had bought one earlier. The sweet liquid sat in his hand while his Frostborn cold gradually lowered the temperature through the plastic.

His breathing eased.

He had overreacted.

Probably.

Audra was a human student in a costume. She had not come from the settlement. She did not know what he was. She did not know how close the shape of white fabric and silver hair came to memories he had spent every day trying to bury.

Cyrus stared down at the drink.

The bottle had gone cold enough to fog against his fingers.

Footsteps sounded behind him.

They were deliberate.

Cyrus turned.

Audra stood in the classroom doorway.

The sight hit him harder than it should have.

He had barely caught his breath after seeing her onstage, and now she had appeared in an empty fourth-floor classroom dressed in the same white costume.

The bottle slipped from his hand.

It struck the floor and rolled beneath a desk.

Audra entered without speaking.

Her expression held none of the public composure she had worn in the auditorium. She raised one hand, and the pink stone of the glamourkin ring flashed against her finger.

Cyrus’s thoughts stopped.

The fear in his chest did not disappear. It simply lost its direction, spreading through him without reaching his hands or feet. His body remained upright. His mind went blank around the edges.

Audra pulled the classroom curtains closed.

The room darkened.

Then she crossed to the door, turned the lock, and faced him again.

Cyrus stood where she had left him.

The fox mask still covered part of his face.

Audra frowned at it.

She stepped closer and lifted the mask away.

Cyrus’s dark bangs had shifted. For once, his face was fully visible beneath the pale light leaking around the curtains. The sight brought a private satisfaction that Audra did not examine too closely.

She had missed seeing him clearly.

That was all.

Audra stood in front of him and asked, "Why did you leave the auditorium so suddenly?"

"Because I was scared," Cyrus answered.

Her expression changed.

"What were you scared of?"

"Snow women."

Audra stared at him.

Then laughter slipped out before she could stop it.

The sound was light and bright in the locked classroom.

Cyrus Calder, who hid his face from everyone and treated beautiful women like potential disasters, was afraid of Frostborn women.

He was afraid of a rare-blood line most people would never encounter.

The answer was so unexpected that Audra could not keep her amusement from showing.

For all his guarded behavior, Cyrus could be strangely endearing when he did not realize anyone was watching.

Audra leaned closer.

"Why are you afraid of Frostborn women?" she asked.