The Pretender and The Prince novel Chapter 8

Most of the listings were for tutoring or jobs at local restaurants and coffee shops, with pay similar to what she was already making. Tutoring paid a little more per hour, but the rest were all manual labor, paying only a few dollars an hour. It wasn’t nearly enough to solve her current crisis.

Just as she was starting to feel hopeless, Zaria called again.

“Ondine,” she said, “the best hospital in the country is Lustrous Medical Center in Boreal City. I got you in touch with the top oncologist there. They can get you a priority appointment. You can’t delay this. You and your mom should transfer there as soon as possible.”

“Thank you, Zaria. I’ll talk to my mom about it tomorrow.”

“Good. Decide quickly. You’ll probably be in Boreal for a while. My family has a place there you can stay in. Just focus on getting things sorted out with your classes first.”

“Okay. I really appreciate this.”

…

By the time Ondine finished her shift at the diner, it was four in the morning. The university dorms locked down at eleven p.m., but there was a “secret passage” through a small grove of trees near the north gate—a section of the iron fence that was old and rusty. Some enterprising students had managed to bend two of the bars far enough apart to create a gap just wide enough to squeeze through.

The students had affectionately nicknamed it the “dog hole,” and it was how Ondine always got back to her dorm after a late shift.

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