Don't Mess With Time

Chapter Twenty-Three

She could feel Reena's breath on her neck and it made her whole body erupt into shivers.

Reena smirked and put her hand on Beatrix's arm playfully.

"Definitely... maybe we should just, I don't know, go together?"

Beatrix gulped, finding her throat closing up at the thought.

"Like, uh," Beatrix didn't get the chance to finish as Reena started speaking.

"I mean as friends!" Reena said with a giggling laugh that sounded like the chiming of bells and made Beatrix's insides melt.

Beatrix tried to ignore how weird she felt about Reena saying "as friends" because she had no idea why it made her heart hurt.

Reena rubbed Beatrix's arm and she forced herself to speak.

"Yeah, sure, we can go together."

Reena beamed at her with that beautiful smile of hers and Beatrix tried not to blush as Reena moved a bit closer to Beatrix.

Agatha, who was sitting beside Tedros, looked over at Theresa and Amber as they continued to talk about who knows what.

She looked happy and Amber was having difficulty taking her eyes off of Theresa, so she guessed things were going well.

Agatha had gotten Tedros to apologize to Theresa, even if he still thought this was going to go poorly, and she had forgiven him.

The two sat together showing far too much PDA and making Kiko feel a bit like a third wheel.

She was seated beside Agatha and debated going over to sit by Reena and Beatrix, but then she saw that the former was all over the latter (who was currently blushing profusely and looking like she wasn't sure what to do, an odd and out of character response for Beatrix that made Kiko slightly confused) and Kiko decided to stay where she was.

She almost jumped for joy when Nicola asked if she could sit beside her.

Kiko nodded enthusiastically and moved over to make room, meaning she moved away from Agatha and Tedros who were still being all touchy feely over there.

Kiko and Nicola started talking about classes soon after and Kiko tried to keep her eyes from wandering over to where the three witches of room 66 sat.

She'd been thinking about Dot a lot lately and it made her very confused and nervous.

She didn't know how to feel about that.

The last person that had made her feel that way had been Tristan and she didn't like what that implied about her and Dot.

Before Kiko could go down that rabbit hole, another form appeared.

A very short blond figure that was probably supposed to be in her office or classroom.

But instead Sophie swept over and stole the spot beside Agatha that Kiko had vacated.

"Aggie!" she said happily, giving the Ever a hug.

It was awkward and she actually forced Tedros away from her best friend a bit.

Nicola snickered as Tedros glared at Sophie and the blond glanced over, her eyes shooting to the dark-skinned girl.

She looked away quickly and focused on Agatha, but her gaze kept slipping to the other girl.

Kiko raised an eyebrow at the exchange and wondered what could be going on there.

She'd heard that Nicola was going to classes at both schools, which meant that she must be learning from Sophie (which was truly a horrifying thought. In fact, Sophie teaching any member of the next generation was concerning).

Sophie looked at the surprisingly tall pile of books that sat on the table next to Nicola and tried to memorize the titles.

They were fairytales she herself had never even heard of and she promised herself that she would read them tonight to see if there was something in them that she had been planning to use to show up Nicola.

She'd been reading a lot of fairytales recently while looking for the smallest and most insignificant piece of information that she could know that Nicola didn't.

She honestly hadn't found a single thing yet and it just made her more upset with the younger girl.

How could the girl know everything?!

That didn't seem fair!

She didn't know how the girl had found enough time to read all these books at least five times and memorize everything inside of them!

That just seemed impossible!

Sophie found herself wondering, not for the first time, if Nicola had read her fairytale.

She wondered what the slightly taller girl thought about her... her book, she meant.

Of course.

Not like Sophie would ever care what the other girl thought about her.

Not at all.

Nicola didn't seem to notice that Sophie was giving her so much attention and went on with her lunch, somehow both reading a book and carrying on a conversation with Kiko at the same time.

Like how was that even possible?!

Sophie didn't think it was.

Maybe she was using some sort of spell!

Yes, that would make sense!

She was probably also using a spell to make Sophie unable to stop thinking about her.

Sophie frowned and kept glancing at the girl while continuing a conversation with her Aggie.

It was almost as impressive as Nicolas's reading and talking considering how much attention she was giving the younger girl.

Speaking of watching a girl, Hort was staring at Sophie from across the clearing and trying his best not to look at the beautiful, of somewhat nerdy, girl that sat with her.

He noticed that Sophie was also looking at her and frowned.

What could that be about?

What would Sophie care about some first year that wasn't even a Never (or at least she was in the middle of two schools fighting over her).

Ravan glanced at Hort and then looked over at the two girls he kept staring at.

Ravan sighed, wondering why he had ever let himself fall for the other Neverboy.

Hort would never look at him the way he looked at those girls.

Raven's only consolidation was that Sophie was totally checking out the other girl.

Ravan was shocked for a second and took a second look.

Sure enough, Sophie was still watching Nicola and sometimes getting distracted by Agatha, but not often. Actually, it was usually the opposite as in she'd be watching Nicola and Agatha would snap at her and she'd jump.

At least Hort wouldn't get the girl of his dreams, but that still made Ravan sad for his beloved little weasel boy.

Seems like everyone here in the clearing was having trouble with romance.