Glimmers of Glass (A Glimmers Novel #1: Cinderella)

Chapter 24

I imagined if there was a God, he saw something like our school cafeteria every time he looked through his microscope. The room was a microcosm of humanity. It wasn't quite goths here, cheerleaders there, but it was clear who was with whom, and who didn't want to be seen anywhere near whoever else.

Tyler's group was full of rich kids, the kind who had latest-generation smartphones and liked to talk in loud voices about how poor people wouldn't be so poor if they'd stop buying McDonalds. It was the kind of group that normally would have driven Elle up the wall, but she sat in the middle of them, listening in on their conversation and looking like she'd never been anywhere else in the world. She'd gotten her hair highlighted since the last time I'd seen her, and I was pretty sure her pink nails were fake.

"At least she looks better," Imogen offered when she caught me staring. "She seems self-confident."

"She looks self-confident," I corrected. "She seems brainwashed."

"You're right," Imogen said. "Still, it's not a bad look. At least she did more than brush her hair."

Imogen went back to the essay on World War II she was trying to read before World History that afternoon. I scanned the cafeteria, watching the diverse group of people that all managed to call this place theirs. The theatre kids were easy to spot. They were the loudest in the room, two had bright blue hair, and they were all draped on top of one another like a pile of kittens. A tight-knit trio of academically driven perfectionist girls whose rivalry I could smell from across the room sat eating and speaking to one another, occasionally falling into laughter that never felt entirely victimless. The entire manga club had holed up in a corner together, passing around a sketchbook. Here and there, the loners were gathered, little anomalies of one or two people who didn't have a group to sit with. The smart ones had brought books.

One of the tiny loners was familiar. Daniel sat by himself, alternating between scribbling into a notebook and picking at his food. I frowned. We didn't talk much at school, but I knew he usually had people to eat with and hang out with in the halls.

I reached out my energy toward him, trying to feel what he was feeling and see if something had gone wrong. But he felt fine. Calm, focused, creative, even. I wondered what he was scribbling in the notebook. Before I had a chance to wonder for too long, though, he stiffened. He turned around in his seat, fixed me with a judgmental stare, and then turned back to his book. When I reached out again, he'd thrown a shield up that would keep me or anyone else from getting too close a read on him.

"Humdrum wars are so boring," Imogen said. She set the essay down on the table and reached for her cranberry juice, flicking a finger up on the way and throwing a sound bubble around us so we could talk without being overheard. "I mean, it's all just people shooting at other people, and then bam, everyone dies." 

Her voice was flat and unimpressed. In Imogen's world, violent death wasn't exactly something to get up for. 

"Not a single curse. Not a single interesting quest. No story. Just pointless death after pointless death and meaningless battle after meaningless battle, and then somebody finally gives up and then ta-da, it's over. Everyone goes home. What is the point?"

"I think it's a little more complicated than that," I said. But I couldn't see much point to war, either, especially not the way the Humdrums did it. There weren't many real heroes and villains in Humdrum wars, no matter how the history books tried to paint things. Hitler had been a real villain, but then, he had been one of the most influential—and completely insane—magicians of his time, even if next to no one under his command knew about it. It was something most Glims tried not to dwell on.

World War II was the last Humdrum war we'd interfered in. Occasionally a Glim would dabble in a Humdrum conflict, usually witches who'd taken their political activism too far. But every group had a few rogues—maybe even needed them—and they weren't enough of a majority to drag us into another war. Most of us were peaceful and kept to ourselves. We had the rule of the Faerie Queen and the guidance of the Oracle to keep us on the right path and to catch and stop villains before they had a chance to gain power. We just didn't need big wars anymore. "Too bad the Humdrums are more than a few decades behind us on the peace thing," I said.