When The Stars Align

chapter twenty five | t - minus six days (till you're eighteen!)

"Gods, Vera, why do I always find you in your kitchen?" I look up to see just the boy I was thinking about. What he was doing at this ungodly hour, I'm not sure, but he probably just woke up. Maybe I wasn't as stealth as I thought I was.

"I mean, this is my kitchen," I said, grabbing the packet of strawberries. "I think the real question is why are you in my house, and not your own. I'm sure Olivia is missing you under her roof. And Mikayla, isn't she jealous you haven't been around her much recently?"

Atticus gave an odd look, confused as to why I brought it up. "Vera, I was worried about you, okay? Is there something wrong with wanting to make sure your best friend is okay." He bit his lip. "Plus, I might have accidentally fallen asleep on your couch and have been staring at the ceiling for a good hour or so."

"The TV is right there for you to use."

"I didn't want to annoy anyone. Some people are sleeping"

I gave a small smile. "Apparently some people aren't us." I take a bite of the apple as I walked into the living room, again, fiddling with the chain of the amulet. "Don't you want to keep this? It's pretty important."

He sticks his hand in his pocket, almost nervous about answering. I give him an odd look as he replies. "Yeah... yeah, that would be good."

I raised an eyebrow, taking off the clasp. He almost looked relieved as I took it off and was about to give it to him. "Is there... is there something wrong Att?"

He shook his head. "No... not.... Exactly." He said it almost as it if was a question. He took the amulet from my hand and put it into his pocket. "It's just... uh... I was kind of worried that you we gonna maybe, I don't know, collapse if you took it off."

I bit the inside of my cheek, confused. Collapse? "Why would I collapse?"

"Your life might have been temporarily dependant on the amulet, at least for a little bit." Atticus hesitated as he spoke. My eyes probably grew wide, confused as ever. "The counter attack you casted when fighting Ansen used up all the blood magic within you, so we needed to give you some magic to keep you awake until Friday."

I reached for the amulet, which I remembered wasn't there anymore. It became a habit, fiddling with whatever was around my neck. Maybe it's because I'm supposed to have one of my own around my neck. I had to find it, sooner or later. I can't let Ansen find it before me. "Where do you think the last ones are?"

He shrugged. "No clue, they could be anywhere." Green and black, where would they be? "We can probably ask Professor Lorcan if he knows anything about either one. Pheon and Vic probably can help us trace back the Hawthorne line. You have the best bet to find the Noatra amulet. How many days do you have left again?"

How many days until I turn eighteen. "Around a week, I think. I don't count down the days until my birthday. What's the point of that? What's the point of a birthday, anyway? Are we really supposed to celebrate another year closer to death?"

"It's celebrating another year of living, Vera," Atticus explained, leaning against the table. "It's celebrating the memories we made and the friends we laughed with and the things were experienced now that we're a year older. We're celebrating life, Vera."

That would be a good reason to celebrate, if you had a good life. A good year. But I'm sure being arrested and almost killed on multiple occasions isn't something to be happy about. Maybe returning home would be a nice thing from the past year. Back with my actual family and friends. But everything else... everything else about being seventeen was shit.

"There's still no point." I bite my lip. "I have nothing to celebrate."

There was a silence in the air. "There's four days until mine. It's the first one in ten years that you're there to cover my face and hair with buttercream frosting."