Rue noted that none of the ghosts here were hostile, and most didn't seem to really even move much. There were also a handful of spirits, which wasn't surprising in a place where lots of stressed out humans accumulated.

If Claude noticed she was paying attention to anything in particular, he didn't give any indication of it.

Sacred Oak College was a very large campus, and Rue was a little surprised by that. Sure, the college had a prestigious reputation, which it probably largely owed to the volume of old money vampires, mages, dragons and unicorns who attended here. Rue still hadn't really expected its size to reflect what had to be a very high population of normal humans. She had sort of assumed, obviously wrongly, that the school primarily catered to supernatural students, and would be small as a result. Shady Glen was about as much of a small town as she expected, so the school exceeding expectations was even more of a shock.

The buildings were all brick, with architecture in a very New England style that was unexpected this far west. Rue supposed they were just trying to copy some of the well-known north-eastern schools to really lend that 'classic college' feel.

It took almost fifteen minutes of walking to get from the main office to the bookstore. Rue tried to match up the buildings with the maps she'd studied. She tried to judge how far apart the buildings she'd have to travel between were, so she could get a sense of how easy it would be to make it between classes. She didn't see all the buildings on the way to the bookstore, but it did seem the ones she could spot were fairly close together.

When Rue finally found the bookstore, she was glad to go inside and get out of the heat. It wasn't even that hot out, but it was so sunny out that it felt hotter. Rue went straight to the counter and asked the clerk about her text books. Once the bag of books was safely in hand, Rue felt content to browse around the bookstore to kill time.

Claude just sat on a bench by the door and listened to music on his phone with a pair of wired earbuds.

The bookstore didn't have enough to keep Rue engaged for more than about forty-five minutes. She sighed, because there was still an hour to kill before Lucas was done with whatever he was doing.

Rue wandered over to where Claude sat. He looked up at her and smiled amiably.

"I'm done here, but there's still time to kill," she said with a shrug.

"We could just walk around campus for a while if you want," Claude suggested. "I can point out anything of interest."

"Actually, I noticed there's a park just off campus," Rue said.

"Yeah, we can go there," Claude chuckled. He stood up, pocketing his phone and earbuds.

The two walked out of the bookstore and across campus without really talking. Rue still observed where the ghosts and spirits of the campus lingered, watching for any that might need to be pushed, but all was calm.

"Hey!" a voice shouted across the grassy quad from where they walked. Claude and Rue looked up to see Lucas jogging towards them.

"Luke, you said it would be a couple hours," Claude said, raising an eyebrow.

"Yeah, they let me go early when I said I was escorting a freshman," Lucas said, flashing a smile at Rue. She gave him an unimpressed look. "Sorry for using you as an excuse," he said, raising his hands defensively. She rolled her eyes.

"It's kinda early for lunch though," Claude said, checking the black watch on his wrist. "I mean, I'm not opposed, since I didn't stop for breakfast before leaving the house, but I assume you guys did."

Lucas and Rue both nodded.
"Well, we can go to the park until we get hungry," Rue shrugged. "That's where we were headed when you caught up to us."

"Sure, sounds good," Lucas said amicably.

The three neighbors walked to the nearby park. There was a duck pond and picnic area surrounded by trees, with a walking trail wending around the entire area.

Claude made a beeline for a shady spot under a big oak tree right by the pond and pulled his phone and earbuds back out. Rue made her way straight to the walking trail and started following it. Lucas looked back and forth between the two for a minute before jogging to catch up with Rue.

He didn't say anything as he fell in step beside her, largely because she had a contemplative look on her face as she looked at the trail ahead, and he didn't want to interrupt.

They made it about a third of the way around the trail when Rue stopped short, turning sharply to look at something. Lucas noticed and backed up a few steps to where she'd stopped and followed her gaze, not really seeing anything of note. Rue veered off the trail and crouched down between some trees. Lucas followed her and found her looking down at a circle of white mushrooms. He glanced at Rue and noticed she had a pretty serious look on her face.

"Isn't the S.P.A. supposed to be watching for this kind of thing?" she asked.

Lucas glanced between her and the mushrooms and back.
"Um, is that a fairy ring?" he asked.

"Yeah. Part of why they settled me here is that there isn't supposed to be any active gates to Faerie here. The only risk would've been during specific times of the year," she said.

"Like midsummer and Halloween?" Lucas asked, crouching down next to Rue.

"Yeah."

"It's hard to tell the difference between a fairy ring and just a circle of mushrooms, though," Lucas observed.

"Mm, I guess. I thought the S.P.A. would be able to tell, though."

"Well, these things pop up pretty fast, right? It's not like they can check every square foot of forest every day. They don't have that kind of manpower."

Rue sighed and stood up. She looked around, trying to see if there was anyone else nearby. Lucas caught on to what she was doing and also checked, listening for the sounds of any other people. When neither of them saw any signs of anyone, Rue held out her hand. Her eyes narrowed and each mushroom in the ring burst into flame. The fire was a weird color, almost white with dark purple edges. It was faerie fire. The mushrooms hissed and squealed as steam rapidly escaped them as they shriveled and burned.

"Does that... take care of it?" Lucas asked, raising an eyebrow at her.

"Yeah. For now. Faerie rings are more likely to pop up around the full and new moons, so I guess it's not that surprising that one appeared here. This is a pretty dangerous location for one to pop up though; lots of mortals come to this park with it being so close to the college campus."