Now that Julia was gone, Chris had asked Daniel to share his room, and so he didn’t get a chance to talk to Winter about the inMagic explosion until what he figured would be the next morning.

In the meantime, his night did not go well – every time he thought he was relaxing, he would think too much and start shaking all over again. Daniel didn’t look too calm either and kept pacing around the room and throwing Chris cautious glances. None of them managed to sleep much.

It was around seven in the morning when Chris knocked on Winter and Ian’s shared room, hoping that they’d already be awake. He felt exhausted, but he had to know something.

Ian was the one who opened the door. He turned away and said, “Miss Winter, it’s Hawks.”

“You can let him in.”

Ian moved aside and Chris peered into the room.

“Winter, uh, can I ask you something?”

She was currently fixing the bed and, giving him a glance over her shoulder, she said, “Go on.”

“Uhh, that thing yesterday… I mean, the explosion… how did it happen? I mean… do you know what caused it?”

Winter straightened the sheet. “Emotion," she said. “Witches' strong emotions can cause disturbances in the mass of magic at places as unstable as Whitelake.”

“Ah… so it didn’t have anything to do with the Gates?”

“Not to my knowledge. A Witch nearby might have gotten angry and caused it.”

Chris threw an involuntary glance at Ian, who had taken it upon himself to fold the sofa back into its original form. His lack of commentary seemed more than unusual.