Color. Bridget paused. That was a whole facet of the series she hadn’t captured. It gave her a new reason to reread the books. She brought herself back to the task at hand. No Pipems. The few instances of the word Ken were in the archaic sense of “to know.”

She closed her laptop and went to her room. As she got dressed, she mulled over the rest of Bob’s email. How could King Tristan be anything more than Princess Ofelia’s father? Cousins shared grandparents. She tried to figure it out, but failed. Of course, anything was possible in the Swords and Shadows series. Maybe Bob would introduce time traveling in Eyes of the Forest.

Bridget grabbed her coat and backpack, then locked the door behind her. As she walked to the bus, the uncomfortable feeling that something wasn’t right kept nagging her.

At the stop, she took out her phone and reread the email. She made herself pull back and consider it as a whole. It didn’t make a lot of sense. And it didn’t really sound like Bob. Or rather, it sort of did, but a hyped-up Bob. A confused Bob.

She hit the REPLY button. “Bob?” Her thumbs hesitated before she finally started typing. “Are you all right? I’m not completely following you.”

In between classes, she kept checking her email, but Bob did not reply. Trying to figure out what was wrong with him made it easier for her to walk into physics, to see Ajay again now that she knew how he viewed her.

“Can I talk to you at lunch?” she asked. She needed to discuss it with someone, and Ajay was really her only choice.

“Sure.” Ajay’s dark eyes sparked in a way that would have made her stomach flip just the day before. “I even brought two tiffin boxes today.”

AJAY

What’s the Worst That Can Happen?

All through Mr. Manning’s class, Ajay kept his eye on Bridget. She had been upset yesterday, but today she wanted to have lunch with him. That should have been a relief, but it wasn’t really. Maybe she just wanted to yell at him about the socks.

Ajay had wanted to give a gift to Bridget. But what? And then it had come to him. The weather was only going to get colder, but she was already always cold. Especially her feet. No matter how much she jigged her legs, she frequently complained about losing feelings in her toes.

So he had bought her a pair of the heaviest black knee socks he could find, knit from New Zealand wool, which the clerk at Nordstrom had assured him was the best kind, and not the least bit itchy.

The price had been surprisingly high. But only the best for Bridget.