Dying Is The Easy Part

Chapter Fourteen: January 17th

Monday morning, Quinn woke up even before their alarm went off. Valerie had spent the night in the dorm—after Quinn had come back from hanging out with Vincent, she'd wanted to know how the meeting with their parents had gone. They had stayed up past midnight talking, passing the jar of chocolate cookies from Quinn's candy stash—which had gone untouched for the last few weeks—back and forth. 

It had almost felt like old times; the two of them sitting cross-legged on the floor in their pajamas, loopy from the sugar rush while Quinn's lo-fi playlist crackled through their phone. The only difference was that, instead of chatting about their classes, they had been talking through the next steps in their hunt for ghost artifacts.

Today, they were going to go to the local antiques store to search for anything once owned by Vincent or Hannah. It felt good to have a game plan. More than that, it felt good to know that they weren't alone—that the paralyzing sense of responsibility that had been weighing them down wasn't something they had to carry all alone.

"What is wrong with you?" Valerie groaned into her pillow when Quinn pushed open the curtains.

Ignoring her, Quinn stretched, blinking out at the campus slowly coming to life. The rare morning sunshine was warm on their face; if they focused, they could hear the gentle drip drip drip of the icicles melting outside their window, the trickle of water changing its form and seeping back into the ground.

"It's bright," came Valerie's muffled accusation.

"Yeah," Quinn agreed. They stood there for a few more moments, soaking in the light, before they turned and gave a resolute tug to the mountain of blankets that covered a vaguely Valerie-shaped form. "Come on. Class starts in forty minutes. If we hurry, we can grab something to eat first."

Valerie finally gave up their tug of war, blearily squinting up at Quinn when they ripped the blanket away. "Oh, hello, Energetic Quinn. Haven't seen you in a while."

Quinn made a face at her, but couldn't find any real irritation in them. They'd had several full nights' sleep in the last few days, they had an appetite again and they had a plan. This newfound joy was a fragile thing, but it was there, trickling into their chest as steadily as the ice melting outside.

Quinn knew that the weather could change at any moment and turn the blue skies grey again, but for now, it felt like enough.

"Haven't seen you in a while either, Grumpy Morning Valerie," they replied as they crossed over to their half of the room again, a teasing lilt in their voice that would have taken an unbearable effort to manage a few weeks earlier. "Are you sure you're feeling all right? Got any withdrawal symptoms yet?"

From the other side of the room, a pillow came sailing, barely flying past Quinn's head.

They got dressed in comfortable silence, Quinn bundled up in their usual dark-sweater-dark-jeans-combo, Valerie in a dress that anyone else would have gotten hypothermia in. While Quinn styled their hair in the small mirror propped up on their desk, trying their best to make the blue locks look intentionally tousled and not like they'd just rolled out of bed—they kind of needed a haircut, but at the same time they didn't hate how it almost looked like a mini-mullet by now—Valerie sat down cross-legged on her bed and pulled out her tarot cards.

"What are you doing?" Quinn asked, glancing at her over their shoulder.

"Daily tarot draw. I started doing this with Rhia every morning so she can learn the meanings." Valerie held the cards in their direction like an offering. "Do you want to pull one?"

Quinn hesitated for a moment before, giving one last ruffle to their hair, they spun around. "Sure, why not."

Valerie handed them the cards. It was the new deck the Greenbrooks had gifted her for Yule; from the look of them, the colors vibrant and the edges sprayed gold, they were on the upper end of the price range among the cards that Obscura offered. It was strange, Quinn thought as they accepted them, that they had sold these things for months at the shop but never actually held them in their own hands.