Chapter 92: Chapter 92: The Fall Festival, Part Seven
Chapter 92: The Fall Festival, Part Seven
Cyrus had probably imagined it.
There was no reason for that woman to be inside St. Alder Academy. The campus was full of students, teachers, volunteers, and parents who had come to see the Fall Festival. Even with all the costumes, masks, and crowded hallways, she did not belong here.
Still, the pale shape at the end of the corridor had lodged itself in his mind.
Cyrus stood near the third-floor stairs with one hand resting against the fox mask on his face.
It had been nearly a hundred days since he escaped.
The ring on his hand made that fact impossible to forget. It stayed cold when it wanted to remind him of the past, quiet when it wanted him to relax, and present every time he looked down at his fingers. The thing had followed him out of the mountains, out of the black room, and into a school festival where students were walking around in vampire capes and cardboard crowns.
He had not hidden perfectly since arriving in Grayhaven.
Perfectly was too much to ask of anyone.
But nobody at St. Alder had connected him to the Frostborn. Nobody had looked at his low-profile school disguise and decided he was a runaway from a rare-blood settlement. His grades had improved. He had a job. He had an apartment. He had food when he could afford it and people who offered food when he could not.
There was no reason for her to find him now.
Even if she somehow stood in front of him, she might not recognize the version of Cyrus who wore glasses, kept his hair low, and avoided eye contact like it was a school requirement.
The thought did not settle his nerves.
He stepped farther down the hallway.
The white figure had disappeared around the far corner. From there, the route only split in two directions. Someone could take the stairs up or leave through the side exit that led toward the courtyard.
Cyrus followed carefully.
The festival had filled every floor with noise. Music leaked from classrooms. Laughter bounced off the lockers. Someone somewhere had started a chant that rose, fell apart, then started again with different words.
By the time he reached the next corridor, he found nothing but students.
The crowd was dense enough that a white costume would have been easy to spot. Most people had dressed in bright colors, dark cloaks, fake blood, plastic armor, or whatever they had dragged out of a closet that morning. A person dressed head to toe in white would have stood out immediately.
Cyrus saw no one like that.
He walked to the end of the hall and looked down toward the courtyard.
The exit doors stood open. Students moved through them in small groups, carrying food, drinks, and festival tickets. A girl in a witch hat was trying to keep a balloon from getting caught in the wind. Two boys in matching superhero costumes argued over whether they had missed a stage performance.
No white-haired woman.
No familiar figure waiting outside.
Cyrus stared longer than he meant to.
The Frostborn had lived in snow for generations. Even those who never left the settlement learned how to see through winter glare and blowing ice. Cyrus had not been allowed beyond the village when he was younger, but he had still inherited the same sharp distance vision.
He let a little of it surface.
The hallway brightened around the edges. Details sharpened. The courtyard came into painful clarity, from the festival banners strung between the trees to the paper cups crushed near the trash cans.
His hair almost began to pale.
Cyrus shut his eyes before the color could reach the ends of his bangs.
There was nobody there.
The ring could turn cold whenever it pleased. That did not mean it could guide someone across the country and straight into a school festival.
He had let his nerves get ahead of him.
When he opened his eyes again, he felt foolish.
He had spent too much time waiting for the past to catch up. The habit had become so deep that one glimpse of white fabric could make him chase shadows through a hallway.
Cyrus turned to leave.
"Excuse me?"
The voice came from behind him.
He looked over his shoulder.
A girl from his class stood a few steps away, holding the strap of her bag with both hands. Cyrus did not remember her name, but he recognized her face. She sat near the middle of the room, usually close enough to hear Owen’s jokes but far enough away that Cyrus had never needed to join the conversation.
Her cheeks had gone pink.
Cyrus waited.
"Could I get your contact information?" she asked.
The fox mask still covered his eyes. Only part of his face showed beneath it, but apparently that had been enough for her to decide he was worth approaching.
"The class group chat has it," Cyrus said.
He turned before she could ask anything else.
The girl remained in the hallway, staring after him.
She knew the boy had been in the same class as her. She was certain of it. Yet she could not decide who he was. The mask, the low voice, and the small glimpse of his face had left her more confused than before.
Cyrus returned to the second floor.
He had already missed part of the festival while chasing the white figure, and he refused to let an imagined threat ruin the rest of his free time. The classrooms along the hall had transformed into little worlds of their own.
One had become a temporary café with small round tables made from desks and cardboard covers. Another used blue fabric, paper stars, and projected lights to create a starfield backdrop for photos. A classroom near the stairs offered painted bookmarks and handmade candles. Two doors down, students were running a miniature carnival game where people tried to knock down stacks of cups with beanbags.
The fox mask made it easier to enjoy himself.
Nobody could see his full face. Nobody could decide he looked familiar. Nobody could ask why he kept one hand near his ring whenever a crowd pressed too close.
That should have made the festival relaxing.
Yet every time he caught a pale blur at the edge of his vision, his stomach tightened.
He would turn.
There would be a white sleeve, a pale coat, or a flash of silver from someone’s costume.
Then the crowd would rearrange itself, and the person would be gone.
By the fourth time it happened, Cyrus began to suspect he was doing it to himself.
He had been free for too long.
That was the problem.
His mind had started treating safety as a reason to prepare for disaster. The closer the hundredth day came, the more likely he was to imagine her behind every corner.
Cyrus exhaled and entered the café-themed classroom.
A student in a black-and-white server uniform led him to an empty table near the wall. The room held thirteen small tables, each one built from classroom desks covered by fitted round boards and draped with cloth. The effect was rough around the edges, but it worked. Soft music played from a phone connected to a speaker, and the scent of brewed coffee gave the room a cozy, almost convincing atmosphere.
He ordered coffee and waited.
The students serving customers had gone all in on the theme. Their outfits used dark skirts, white aprons, lace trim, and tidy collars. The styling looked better than Cyrus expected from a classroom project. He did not know much about clothes, but he understood when someone had made an effort.
The coffee arrived in a disposable cup.
"Here you go," the server said.
"Thank you for bringing it over."
Cyrus took the cup and waited until the student had moved away before lifting it toward his face.
The coffee was hot enough to sting through the lid.
He held it in both hands for a few seconds, then let the cold in his body do the rest. The temperature dropped until steam no longer rose from the opening.
Cyrus took a drink.
It was not great coffee.
It was not terrible coffee either.
For a classroom booth run by students who had probably learned the recipe from a video, it was good enough.
Usually, he was the one standing behind a counter while someone else waited for a drink. At The Full Moon Lounge, he kept track of glasses, orders, ice, napkins, and customers who wanted to talk longer than they needed to.
Sitting at a table while someone else brought him coffee felt unexpectedly nice.
There was also something appealing about watching a school turn itself into a place where students could serve food, build decorations, perform onstage, and act like adults without anyone telling them to take it seriously.
Cyrus finished his coffee and left the classroom.
The next room had a dartboard and an archery setup made from foam targets and plastic-tipped arrows. Cyrus paid for a few turns and spent the next several minutes testing his aim.
He did not hit the center very often.
He also did not miss the board.
That counted as a success.
By the time he finished, he had decided he would return after his afternoon haunted-house shift. With a little more practice, he could probably hit the bullseye at least once.
He stepped back into the hallway.
A group of students nearby was talking about a play in the auditorium.
"They are doing another show in twenty minutes," someone said. "The first one was actually good."
"I heard the costumes are better than the acting."
"You are only saying that because you missed the first half."
A play sounded interesting.
Cyrus bought another soft-serve cone from a stand near the stairwell and headed toward the auditorium.
He had barely taken three steps when a burst of white light flashed across his vision.
Cyrus stopped.
A student wearing a festival staff armband stood several feet away with a camera raised in both hands. The camera strap hung from their neck, and the student had been moving through the halls taking pictures of booths, costumes, performers, and crowded festival spaces.
They had photographed him.
Cyrus did not care enough to ask about it.
The fox mask covered most of his face, and the image would probably end up in some school newsletter or festival post that nobody looked at after the weekend.
He continued toward the auditorium.
The student with the camera lowered it and looked through the photo.
The image had turned out better than expected.
A boy in a crooked fox mask stood alone in the hall with a soft-serve cone in one hand, his posture loose and unhurried while the festival moved around him. The photo did not need a crowd beside him to feel alive. Somehow, it caught the ease of someone who had nowhere else to be.
The student saved it.
Inside the auditorium, the seats were only half full.
It was still the first morning of the festival, and most students were busy visiting booths, eating outside, or lining up at the haunted houses scattered through the building. Cyrus found an empty spot near the middle and sat down.
The room was dim enough that he lifted the fox mask slightly, letting it rest higher on his forehead.
No one sat near him.
For a while, he could simply watch the stage without worrying about his bangs, his glasses, or whether anyone would recognize him outside his disguise.
He had not spent time like this in years.
Faye’s house was fun in its own way. Miles and Lena made every visit louder than the last, and Cyrus liked that he could walk into the living room without feeling like someone was waiting to demand a price from him.
But being alone was different.
He could wander wherever he wanted. He could eat what he wanted. He could sit down when he was tired and leave when he felt like leaving. Nobody had to approve it. Nobody could lock the door and tell him it was for his own protection.
The mountain settlement had never offered anything like this.
There had been snow, trees, cold wind, and women who could dance beautifully when they wanted an audience. The performers onstage were not as polished as the people Cyrus remembered from home, but their routines were new to him. The music was louder, the costumes were stranger, and the audience responded to every mistake with cheering instead of judgment.
Cyrus found himself enjoying it.
The host returned to the stage after one performance ended.
Cyrus had been walking around for hours. The food, the crowds, the games, and the warm auditorium finally caught up with him. He covered a yawn with one hand and leaned back in his seat.
Then the host spoke.
The audience went silent.
At first, Cyrus thought it was because the next performance was important.
Then he looked toward the stage.
White.
The figure stood beneath the lights, clear enough that there was no possibility of mistaking her for a costume or a trick of the crowd.
Cyrus shot to his feet.
The chair beneath him slammed backward with a loud crash.
In the sudden silence of the auditorium, the sound landed like a gunshot.
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