'What if she invites me over?'

'She won't. If she's anything like… well, she'll probably be as suspicious of you as you are of her. But that's to our advantage, she won't want to get close too soon.'

'This… this feels wrong, Xanthe.'

'I know,' Xanthe sighed, running a hand through her long blonde tresses,
'we're talking about her as if she's a target.'

'Not that.' Allegra resisted the urge to roll her eyes,

'I mean she is a target right? I convince her to ditch Maggie, you guys force her magic out of her, eco-stellar crisis averted. Simple.'

'Allegra – '

'No what feels wrong is the fact that I agreed to do this in the first place. Can't you guys just capture her or something?'

'You really want us to trap Lucy like hunters would trap an animal? Don't forget Allegra, this is your best friend we're talking about.'

'She stopped being my best friend as soon as she went dark. Which was technically years ago. I feel nothing for her now.'

'Be that as it may, you need to act like you do.'

'Yes, I know Mum.'

Xanthe raised her eyebrows at that. Allegra's lips twisted into a smirk at the conventional name she called Xanthe when she wanted to irk her.

'I've been in all the school plays and I direct community productions. I think I know what acting is.'

'Alright darling, you don't have to give me your CV. Just… be safe. Don't stay alone with her past sunset.'

'Like that's ever gonna happen.'

'Okay. Well then. See you later?'

'I'll probably see you before. You won't leave me alone with Maggie's protégée, you'll be hiding in the bushes or something.'

'Ha ha.'

Allegra turned to the front room window, jumping up at the flash of green down the street.

'Bus is here.'

'Okay darling. Try not to worry too much.'

'Like I ever worry. You're the one who worries.'

And with a toss of blonde curls, the girl was gone.

Despite her mother's comfort and her nonchalance, Allegra was fidgety on the bus. The air con was too high, her seat was sweaty, her tights were itchy. Her fingers were cold and her face was flushed. She'd felt calm, cool and distant the whole week leading up to this, or rather, she'd convinced herself that she did. But now was the day she had to do it. She had to talk to Lucy. She had to walk into school, sit through form and lessons pretending to be interested in nothing that was relevant to her (otherwise she'd get afterschool detention which could ruin all her plans for saving the world), then hunt down the very person she'd been avoiding desperately for the past couple months, look her in the eye and say…

Say what?

She cursed herself for her empty head as she stared into the mirror of the girls toilet. She then cursed herself for not realising that Lucy would walk through the door of said toilets and catch her eye through said mirror. She then cursed the girls toilets for being as empty as her head was right at said moment.

The two girls held each other's gaze for a split second. Then Lucy swiftly broke off and entered one of the stalls. Allegra supposed that the other girl had gifted Allegra the opportunity to leave without a fuss on purpose. And she was about to. But she stopped. And she waited. And waited. And wa- before realising that Lucy was very obviously waiting inside that cramped stall for her to leave. With a purposeful march, Allegra strode over to the bathroom door, and opened it, waiting silently for it to close by itself. Right on cue, Lucy unlocked the cubicle door and stepped out, a shaky hand running the tap. Allegra had a second to note how tense and twitchy Lucy had become, her tight ponytail inadvertently revealed the lines under her eyes and the imminent breakout on her forehead. Had she changed that much in three months? Maybe she'd always looked that way, but Allegra just didn't see it until now. She had just a second to ponder all this, before Lucy turned and saw her standing by the door. A harsh bell went off nearby, signalling the end of break. After that, silence. Well except for the sounds of lockers bashing and teens yelling and doors creaking – etcetera.

But it was silent in the toilet.

Typical, at any other point in life, the loos would be positively flooded with people.

Allegra stood, having confronted Lucy, but not knowing what to say. 'Hi, how's being a dark spirit going for ya?' Yeah right.

Lucy ran a hand awkwardly across her arm, catching her blazer cuff and clinging onto it for dear life.

'I've got to go. The bell's gone.'

She made a move to leave through the door. Allegra didn't budge. Lucy sighed.

'Allegra please can you move?'

'No.'

'Why not? I thought you never wanted to see my face again. Now you're here doing everything in your power to keep me here. What do you want?'

'I…'

Allegra's chest thudded, verging on painful. Lucy had become so much more assertive, so much more confident. Where Allegra was tripping on words, Lucy had cut her down to size with just a couple of sentences. Allegra couldn't help but cast back an ironic thought to the first time they had met. The roles had been entirely reversed.

'Look,' Allegra stated, feeding off the memory of her old bubbly self and 'acting' as Xanthe put it.

'I know that you're a… you're different now. And you chose something that I can never understand. But I was thinking, maybe I've over-reacted. I mean, I still don't agree with whatever this is you're doing now. And I'll do everything in my power to stop you from doing anything else that's stupid. But the truth is… the past few months without you have been exhausting. There's so much going on now. Not even just in the stardust world, but with school too. And its like, this double life is ridiculous you know? Because before I had you to face the world with me, and now its… just me. And its not the same. I miss you.'

Allegra was surprised at the torrent of words that flooded out of her mouth. Great, it was either awkward silence or verbal diarrhoea. She wasn't even acting anymore, all the anger and bitterness had disappeared to be replaced by desperation in five seconds flat. That wouldn't work at all. Dark spirits had power, they wouldn't be attracted to desperation. Ugh, was she really thinking of Lucy like that? It was… surreal. Still, it wasn't her fault if Lucy had decided to…

Said girl stared at her fingers, expression unreadable. That spoke volumes. With a short stumble backwards Allegra swung around and wrenched open the door, getting two steps out of it before she felt her arm being pulled back. She nearly flinched, but dared to glance around and what she saw stunned her.

Lucy was smiling at her. Not a sly sarcastic smile, not a calculative smirk, but an actual expression of joy. Albeit, it was timid, and accompanied by a look of hope she had only seen on the faces of injured baby foxes, but it was still a smile.

Allegra didn't know what about that smile was infectious, but before she knew it the two friends were hugging. If she had stopped to think, then Allegra would have perhaps been suspicious, thought that Lucy was using some dark mystical power to manipulate her emotions, or –

But any thoughts of magic and dark spirits and evil faded right away.

This wasn't a dark spirit. This was just Lucy. Solid, human, Lucy.

Allegra never thought she'd say it, but it was so nice to be human for once. And she was happy to, for the moment at least, just be two ordinary human girls sharing an ordinary human hug.