That party had been absolute s**t.

There had come a time, shortly after the main hall had gone silver, when Chester found that he was no longer able to contribute meaningfully, a real, visceral fear rendering him incapable of moving. He had never felt such a sensation, or if he had it had been so long ago that he could no longer recall. Most of his everyday discomfort stemmed from the potential or actual failure of his mind, the trust he had in his body's ability to carry him forward implicit and absolute. Some of the things he'd seen on the other side this time though... He understood why Mr. Mercer had warned against wandering alone. They were stronger, quicker, craftier. They could catch you no matter how strong you were. Chester had held perfectly still once he'd truly realized that, not wanting to attract attention but afraid that he'd already attracted too much.

He had never been happier to turn tail and run, to finally open a door that spit him back out in reality, the morning light cresting over the horizon as he caught his breath. He longed to shuffle home and crawl under his blankets, to root in the silent darkness of his room, and that's what he did, sleeping deeply until his mother knocked on his door and demanded her bright-eyed baby boy brush his damn hair and come with his parents to Denny's.

It was difficult, sitting in a cracked plastic booth gulping down a Honey Jalapeño Bacon Slam while haunted by recollections of the murder from the night before. Or maybe it had been a suicide, because he was pretty sure Adoelle had wanted to die.

He didn't understand. Why had they been warned about the ball's imminent arrival at all if the outcome was exactly what one of them had predicted, even strove for? Clearly there was something he wasn't getting. He wanted the otherworld to be the place it had originally been for him, a quiet, demand-free haven to explore, but Algernon had been right about that too. He couldn't go back to the quiet now without knowing in the recesses of his mind that things could be very different with only a moment's notice.

The obvious answer was, stay home. Don't accept party invitations from strange, teleporting men. And sure, he'd try to keep away from all that for a while. But he was too enamored with it now, too eager to learn more about the power he wielded to just sit around in Denny's forever. To go back to Rider-Waite and live life as a normal student. And anyway, if past visits were any indication, it wasn't like he could control when he found himself there anyway. Other Ashdown took him whenever Other Ashdown damn well pleased.

He snorted into his eggs, the soft burst of laughter drawing his mother's attention away from the screen across the room. It was comforting that she cared about him slightly more than she cared about baseball.

"Is everything okay, honey?"

Chester nodded. "Yes. I'm just thinking about the sad fact that I'm probably never going to another party again."

"Too much for you? Your cougar leave with another guy?" He knew his father cared too, in his own way, but his eyes didn't leave the game.

"Hm. Something like that."

"Well, there're plenty more birds to catch. You're young."

The one good thing about their preoccupation with sports was that they both managed to miss the dull red splotches that spread from the back of his neck up to his cheeks. "Sure. Thanks, dad."