The following evening, a different kind of tension hung in the air around the campfire. It wasn't the tension of danger, but something subtler. Julian noticed Clarissa had been unusually quiet, her smiles a little less frequent, her responses a tad shorter than her usual warm self. She'd been diligently helping clean up after dinner, but her movements were stiff.
As the others dispersed—Emma dragging Veronica into a debate, Zoe and Fey heading to check perimeter traps, Celestia and Beatrix deep in discussion about core analysis, Julian found Clarissa alone by the dwindling fire, staring into the flames.
"Clarissa?" he asked, approaching. "Is something wrong?"
She turned to him, and the look in her eyes was one he rarely saw a flicker of hurt, a dash of frustration, and a very un-Clarissa-like pout. "Wrong? Why would anything be wrong?" she said, her voice sweet but with an unmistakable edge. "I'm sure you've been far too busy to notice if something was."
