#mitch.

There was hardly anywhere you could go here where a parent wasn’t just around the corner. Avery resulted to wandering to the far, far left of the room where a row of less desirable slot machines were situated to sneak another ‘little treat’ into her system. She’d just taken out her Altoid container, carefully plucking out one of the quarters she’d cut earlier when someone rounded the corner to the spot she was hiding, startling her for a moment until she quickly recognized it was Mitch. “Jesus. What’s gotten into you?” Taking a moment to get a proper look at him, Avery came to the conclusion she probably wasn’t the only one having a horrible time this evening. How comforting and depressing. “Mint?” She held out her hand, a quarter of something that definitely wasn’t a mint pinched between her index finger and thumb offered to the younger Morrison.

Evelyn had never been frightened of her magic before; but she was someone who breathed easier in the open air, stretched out like Balfour in the sun, grass scratched her skin. And the trees had closed in, the sky swallowed by the storm and then by the greenery that had closed in around her and Azra and Evelyn had felt that wild fear — not necessarily of her powers but her lack of control over them, just as everyone else did.

And it wasn’t even that that was on her mind right now, nor Balfour’s — lovely, soft Balfour who had come home — warning about the future to come. 

No, it was Feiyan she thought of. Feiyan, who was in pain. She tried not to let herself think ‘or worse’. Instead, she told herself it was a good thing Balfour had come home to tell them Feiyan was in danger because they could all try to save her now.

But Evelyn couldn’t even lie still in her bed, every moment baring down on her, time flashing it’s great sharp teeth and whispering that she couldn’t delay.

Her fingers zipped up her coat before closing into fists in her pockets as she walked through the hall, light on her feet. She doubted anyone was sleeping — sleep escaped so many of them — so she tried to slip out quiet. At least when she was gone, she’d answer their phone calls so they’d know she was okay.

Her feet padded across the soft ground, thoughts scattered but trying to gather themselves. She was a strategic advisor not because she was a strategist but because she was a mediator, a diplomat. This was a plan barely formed, the sketched outlines of a daughter desperate to find her mother. She had no idea where she wasn’t going; Feiyan had told her of travelling to Scandinavia once but if she was in danger, would she really be somewhere she hadn’t visited long ago? And how would Eve get there, without being stopped by another member to talk sense into her, never mind what would she even do other than wander through cold forests her summer coat couldn’t protect her from?

And so, Evelyn froze at the edge of the island, the Potomac dancing against the river banks. The soft steps, the shuffle of someone else, made her turn, bringing her away from wild thoughts without reason.