“I can’t believe we’re stuck here for the rest of the night,” Liora grumbled, sitting on the end of her bed with her arms crossed.

Edge sighed and leaned against the wall, trying to ignore everybody’s thoughts so she could make room for her own. Her eyes flickered back and forth from the door, half expecting an enemy to come charging through at any moment. Echo was curled up next to her, his beautiful wings stretched out on the floor. Part of her was relieved to see him again, grateful Rose had at least protected him.

“It’s…not, uhm, so bad, is it?” Elias said, trying to lighten the heavy mood. He wasn’t wrong. The room was pretty big, with a clean wooden floor and a high ceiling. There was a glass table and four chairs in the middle of the room, and three gold beds off to the side. The bathroom was on the left wall, with a single window letting tiny specks of light inside.

“If it’s so nice, then why don’t you come in more than a few steps?” Liora challenged, raising her eyebrow like she expected a really good answer. Elias was still frozen at the doorway, obvioussly too afraid to come in further.

“I, uhm, well…” Elias was saved by Kilah, who was pacing across the room.

She stopped, turning around with a small twinkle in her eye. “Never mind that. What we need is a plan for tomorrow. Right, Kalmar?”

Her eyes flickered towards the corner. Kalmar was lying in his bed, pretending to be asleep. He wasn’t the best at faking it, considering Edge could hear the thoughts running through his head a mile away.

That, and his mouth twitched whenever someone said his name.

Liora rolled her eyes. “A plan? We need a miracle.”

Kalmar rolled over, burying his face in his pillow. He groaned, “Wake me up when the miracle gets here.”

“What do you mean by that?” Kilah asked, glaring at both of them.

“You really don’t see what’s happening here? Nobody could be that stupid. We’re Rose’s captives. You actually think she’s going to let us out, tell us all we need to know, and send us home?”

“Actually, we’re not anybody’s captives,” Kilah argued. “Rose saved us. And we have no reason to believe she’s a traitor. She promised us answers in the morning, and we’re going to get them. We just have to be clever to get them all.”

“Wow. People really can be that stupid,” Liora mumbled under her breath, but it was still heard.

Kilah scoffed. “They can be. Unfortunately for you, I’m not the one who’s being that stupid.”

Liora looked ready to fling a dagger at Kilah’s head, so Elias mumbled a shaky, “Having a plan won’t really hurt us, Liora.”

“Exactly! Elias gets it.” Kilah gave Elias a weak smile before getting right into business. “We need a list of questions, ranked by importance, that we need answered. Who wants to start?”

No one said anything. Elias started fidgeting with a loose thread on his shirt, looking anywhere but at Kilah. Liora just shrugged and crossed her arms.

“Edge?” Kilah asked hopefully. “You’ve been quiet, as always. Anything to say?”

Edge’s eyes flicked over, keeping her careless stance against the wall. “No.”

“Are you sure?” Kilah persisted. “There has to be something you want answered.”

Edge cocked her head slightly, eyes narrowing. There were, in fact, a lot of questions she wanted answered. But they were to be asked in private, just her and Rose.

Looking away, Edge simply said, “Many things.”

Sighing, Kilah went to stare out the window, obviously frustrated with her uncooperative teammates. “If you guys want to lose this important chance, that’s on you. Can’t you see I’m just trying to help?”

They considered that for a second.

“Well…should we ask about how we got here, maybe?” Elias gingerly took a seat on one of the beds, cringing as if he was afraid of it. Liora rolled her eyes again, but Kilah was beaming at the suggestion.

“Yes! Thank you!” Kilah snatched her small notepad from the table, scribbling down the words and mumbling to herself. “Teleported…uh-huh. Alright, anything else?”

“How about, oh, I don’t know, how to get home?” Liora said. “Isn’t that the whole goal of everything we’re doing here? To get home?”

There was a pause. Kilah sank down into a chair, uncertainty lining her face. “Is it? How can we just…see all of this, and leave?”

“Well, I—” For once, Liora was at a loss for words. “I don’t know.”

“What about our parents?” Elias asked, staring at the ground. “And everything else we left?”

“I miss them,” Kilah agreed, tapping her foot anxiously. “But…I don’t know. It’s just so hard to choose between them and this. Everything here just feels so…peaceful.”

Liora cocked an eyebrow. “Peaceful? We’re in the middle of a war.”

“Even despite that. Doesn’t this feel like those places out of storybooks? Magic exists! Dragons are alive! There are castles, princesses, and monsters. I’ll always remember this. I’ll always…” Kilah hesitated for the right words. “…always regret leaving.”

The words hung heavy and raw. Kilah was right, though. Edge couldn’t forget this place or the experience. And going back home just seemed so…pointless compared to what she had now.

“But how could you not regret staying?” Liora argued.

Kalmar sighed, his voice muffled by his pillow. “This is a problem.”

“Do you want to stay or leave, Kalmar?” Kilah asked, desperation in her voice.

He pushed himself up, running a hand through his hair. “It’s…complicated. On the one hand, we’re in this super cool, magical fantasy land with sparkly castles and awesome ogres who want to eat you. On the other hand, we have actual lives back at home, you know?”

“I know,” Kilah responded, sighing. Her eyes slowly wandered onto Edge again, and she wished she could just disappear into the shadows for good.

Relenting, Edge muttered, “I don’t have much of anything to go back to.”

“What do you mean?” Kilah asked gently.

“I mean…” Edge stopped herself. There was no way she was going to spill her guts to anyone, especially not these kids. “Never mind.”

Elias looked over at her, concerned. She shrugged, doing her best to look uninterested in everything. Even though she wasn’t.

“Soo…” Kalmar said after another tense bout of silence. “Sleep time?”

Kilah looked down. “I guess. This whole plan didn’t go how I thought it would, did it?”

“Not at all,” Liora was happy to confirm, sliding under the covers of her bed. “Like I said. We need a miracle. A huge one.”

Edge pressed herself harder against the wall, wishing she could melt into it. The group’s voices echoed in her head, each one tugging her in a different direction. She studied the cracks in the floorboards instead, pretending not to care. Kilah sank into her own bed, then she gasped.

“Wait. There are only four beds,” Then, her eyes scanned the rest of the room, “and four chairs. But Rose said she had been expecting us. Why…?”

Edge avoided her gaze, a mix of guilt, fear, and anger boiling up all at once. Here she was again. Always the outcast.

“It doesn’t matter,” Edge said quietly. “I’m fine on the floor.”

“You sure? I could share with Serena, or Kalmar could share with Elias—”

“Uh, no way,” Kalmar interjected, making a point to stretch out as much as he possibly could on the mattress. “I can’t share, not even for Miss Moody in the corner. I need my beauty sleep.”

“I’m fine.” Edge waved the comment off.

“Okay,” Kilah looked hesitant. And confused. “Still, it is weird Rose only planned for four.”

“Very,” Liora agreed, shooting Edge a mistrustful glare.

Figures that I’m the first one she thought of as the stay, Edge thought bitterly.

“Let’s just…not right now, okay?” Elias said, though it sounded more like a request. “Tomorrow. We can talk about everything, uhm, tomorrow.”

“Question,” Kalmar asked abruptly after everyone except Edge had gotten into their beds. “How do we turn off the lights?”

“There’s no switch?” Liora asked, scanning the room.

Kilah shrugged. “There’s no electricity here, as far as I can tell,”

A silence settled, thin and restless. The lantern overhead buzzed faintly, casting shadows over the floorboards. Edge couldn’t stand it, the yellow light pressing in, the way it made everyone’s faces look drawn and tired. She could feel the shadows at her fingertips, tugging, waiting.

She slipped deeper into the corner, fingers clenched tightly. For a second, she hesitated, her thumb tracing the edge of her sleeve. Should she? Usually, when she used her shadows, things went wrong. But this was different. Just a little darkness. Something to give them all rest.

Edge focused on the corners of the room, where the darkness seemed to gather. She sucked in a breath and let go, just a little. The shadows responded, slow, careful, almost gentle this time. They crept along the corners first, softening the harsh yellow until it bled away, swallowing the floor, then the walls, then the beds.

The lantern’s light flickered, then dimmed, like someone had draped a heavy cloth over it. The group fell quiet. Edge felt the tightness in her chest ease for the first time all night. She pulled the darkness around herself, let it muffle the leftover arguments and the ache in her head.

“Did… you do that?” Elias’s voice was barely above a whisper.

Edge didn’t answer. She didn’t need to. Sometimes, it was easier to be a shadow than a person.

No one said another word. Edge sank down and curled up next to Echo, placing her head on his smooth scales. He grunted softly, stretching out his wing and placing it over her. She sighed, wishing she could just stay there forever.

But tomorrow was coming.