The False Star
He turned, pleading, to the senior women who had once doted on and shielded him in every way they could.
But now those women looked at him with shock, with disgust, with contempt.
They drew back as if from a plague, putting clear distance between themselves and him.
So he flung his last hope toward the teacher who had once prized him like a gem—Lyra Moonglass.
Lyra was watching him too, her expression a tangled knot.
There was the anger of being deceived, the regret of being fooled, but most of all the hollowness left when a dream falls apart.