Claire picked out the few books she hadn't read yet, intending to check them out and bring them back to her room.
Before she could even sit down, however, she ran directly into Sloane Sterling.
Seeing Claire, Sloane let out a visible sigh of relief.
She had been searching for Claire all day without any luck.
It was only when someone mentioned seeing Claire and her classmate head toward the library that Sloane finally tracked her down.
Unaware that she was the target of Sloane's manhunt, Claire simply offered a polite nod of acknowledgment.
But Sloane immediately stopped her. "Claire, do you have a second? I need to ask you about something."
Claire looked mildly surprised. When had Sloane ever been this polite to her? What on earth did she want to know?
"Let's step outside," Claire agreed. Talking in the library would just get them yelled at by the staff.
She whispered a quick goodbye to Priscilla, handed over her books, and walked out with Sloane.
"What do you need, Sloane?" Claire asked, genuinely curious.
Sloane had always been incredibly arrogant. Even though Claire had forcefully knocked her off her pedestal recently, the older girl was fundamentally too proud to casually humble herself.
In front of the rest of the campus, Sloane maintained her flawless, untouchable goddess persona.
"I wanted to ask... have you seen Meiko Fujii since the break?"
"She told me she was going to Apex for the holidays and mentioned she was planning to visit you while she was there."
Sloane had only remembered the detail after scrolling through her old chat logs with Meiko.
She had suddenly lost all contact with her. The university administration claimed Meiko had returned to Sundara for 'personal reasons.'
Sloane refused to believe it.
Why would she vanish so suddenly?
Wasn't Meiko the exchange student who had pulled strings just to replace that other guy?
Did Sundara's universities really let their students drop out and flee the country on a whim?
"She did come looking for me. She brought her teacher with her, and then the two of them left together."
After a moment's thought, Claire gave a carefully curated half-truth.
Sloane looked stunned. Meiko had brought her teacher to Apex?
She had considered Meiko a close friend, yet the girl had never breathed a word about her teacher arriving in Solenia.
Suddenly, a wave of profound disappointment washed over Sloane.
What kind of friend was that? She had been so devastatingly naive, completely blind
to how manipulative people could be.
Ironically, Claire was thinking the exact same thing about her.
It was a miracle Sloane hadn't successfully pressured Dr. Sterling Senior into treating Meiko Otherwise, her own grandfather would have been dragged straight into a massive espionage scandal.
"Did she mention why she was leaving?" Sloane asked, still clinging to a shred of hope.
It wasn't that she deeply cared about the friendship; it was the bitter sting of realizing she had been used and discarded.
"How would I know? We weren't exactly close. She wanted me to treat her teacher,
but the condition was beyond my capabilities."
"Maybe she and her teacher went back to Sundara to find a different solution."
"Or maybe the only reason she came
to Solenia in the first place was to
seek medical help, and the exchange student act was just a
convenient.
cover."
Claire was practically spelling it out for her. If Sloane kept aggressively digging into Meiko's disappearance, she was going to have national intelligence knocking on her door.
"Is that so?"
Sloane choked on her words.
She suddenly remembered Meiko constantly fishing for information about her
grandfather, asking about his schedule and availability.
Thank God Sloane didn't have the authority to dictate her grandfather's patients, so
she had always deflected the requests.
Looking back at it now, the only reason Meiko had ever befriended her was to secure a legendary doctor for her teacher.