It'd taken them the better half of thirty minutes to collect what they'd need for what Miss Rose was referring to, for the moment, as a "field trip"- no parental release forms necessary because, as she'd made abundantly clear, "I am the only adult you need to be worried about". Except for Crawford, who spent the fifteen minutes it took everyone else to get ready standing outside smoking a cigar with an unbothered look on his face. Clara was the first of the three students done, and waited next to Crawford with her messenger bag full of supplies slung over her shoulders. She looked to him, and he lazily glanced at her from the side.

"You know smoking is horrible for your lungs, right?"

"If anything's gonna take me out 'for my livin' does, I'm gonna die a happy man knowin' it was my vice."

Clara's lips pursed into a straight line.

The front door creaked open; Hardy stepped out first, unzipping his backpack to slip the dagger through its army green folds. Isaac was right behind him, arching an eyebrow at the very functioning door that he, quite frankly, was surprised was still on its hinges after last night. He frowned and grabbed Hardy's wrist, twisting it around to look at his watch. Hardy remained unbothered, trapping his bag between his legs as he used his other hand to close the zipper the rest of the way, concealing the dagger safe and sound in a multitude of pockets. Isaac huffed through his nose- 5am. Correction, then; the attack happened *earlier this morning. Adrenaline and the primal need to not get his head torn clean off of his shoulders had kept his sleep-addled brain at bay, but now that it had time to process that the world had settled again, it was urging him to rest.

There was a hand at his shoulder. Isaac jumped, but he saw the streak of purple in raven hair and found the nerves of his brain settling. It was just Miss Rose. She caught his gaze and gave him a small smile, soft, though he could tell she was strung a little higher than usual. She brushed by him and turned only to lock the door behind her. "Is everyone ready to go?"

"Yeah," Isaac watched as Hardy slipped his bag onto his shoulders. "So, how exactly are we planning on finding our friendly neighborhood home invaders?"

Rose smiled, this time more like she usually did, bright and reassuring. "Same way I look for spectral artifacts! I let Magnus lead the way!"

Isaac raised an eyebrow, and god help him, he swore the top half of his face was going to get stuck that way someday. "Magnus?"

Crawford took another puff, rounding his lips so that the smoke took on a circular shape. Miss Rose waved it away and gave him a look- the kind wives give their husbands over shoes left at the front door- and he grimaced, but dropped the cigar and put it out with his heel anyway. "Well, don't keep 'em waitin', Rose." Clara moved closer to Isaac and Hardy, eager to get a look. Isaac glanced at her and Hardy, and the looks of curiosity so plainly painting their crinkled noses and furrowed brows. Must be new to them, too.

Rose rolled her shoulders in a semi-committal, but ultimately nonchalant shrug. "Yeah, yeah. I'm just not looking forward to the lecture I'm gonna get." She reached into her back pocket and procured what appeared to be a compass. Small, silver, sat perfectly in the palm of her hand, like it was sculpted especially for her. Her eyes fluttered shut, and Isaac could tell from the small rim of purple aflame under her eyelashes that she'd connected with her spirit.

"What is it this time, Mari?"

Rose opened her eyes, finding beady black staring into the abyss that was her soul- or, rather… maybe staring into the abyss that was her curious nature. It made her good at artifact hunting, maybe not the best spectral partner, though. "Okay, okay. I deserve that. But it's important this time!"

Magnus turned and flew a few feet away, back of his body (a long eel-like tail covered in fur) brushing vaguely against her nose. He looked a lot like a basset hound, one that a particularly squealing-prone Sherlock Holmes fan had dressed in a deerstalker and matching coat for a cute scrapbook. She remembered meeting him the first time, back when she was still greener to the spectral world.

Before she knew that spirits were typically averse to hugs and scritches, no matter how much they looked like a good boy.

Magnus huffed from his throat, gave her a look that only an elderly butler with far too much experience and Magnus himself could level her with. The expectant kind. The kind that dared her to make her case. "So you're admitting you were using me for fun before?"

She abided. "Well no, that stuff was important too, but this is…"

Magnus sighed, the sign he gave her, every single time, to signal he was acquiesce. "What do you need?"

Right, down to business, then. She sobered and stripped her hand of her black glove, holding it out for Magnus to sniff. "There should be a saliva sample on this glove. Can you track it for me?"

He hovered closer, inching his wet nose toward the glove. He sniffed once, then twice, and nodded. He registered the smell, compared it to the large database of scents and stenches he'd picked up on in his near-infinite lifetime. She watched him in silence, but took the moment to slip her glove back on. If she knew Magnus, which she did, then he'd give her a destination, maybe a word for warning. He took a few moments, then did something she hadn't seen him do before. He paused. "This could lead you into Consortium territory, you know…"

"What?" She would have hid the trepidation in her voice, but Magnus had known her too many years for her to play anything cool ever, not that she ever got it by him before. She had a feeling he was a little more a detective than he'd like to admit. Magnus glanced at her with droopy eyes, big ears flopping as he floated in place, like there was an undercurrent breeze that blew from below. "Why?"

"The scent you're handing me matches somebody long lost to the Consortium, I'm afraid. One Catriona Barrett." Rose glanced down at her hand, squeezed her fist around the glove that still had traces of saliva on it. "Disappeared after the Consortium eliminated her lover, which I'm sure you know was a spirit by the name of Emmerich."

"That doesn't make sense. The dagger is perfectly capable of killing humans, but it's just as capable of killing spirits. What would she want with it?"

"A conundrum not meant for me to solve, I'm afraid." Magnus hummed floated away from her, cracking only an eye open to glance at her. He must have seen her frown, because he sighed and momentarily moved closer to her, moved around her in a circle so that his tail could brush up against her cheek and make her nose wiggle. "We were lucky that the dagger was within Cousinhood territory, but you know I'll be leading you-"

"- All over god's creation. Yeah, I know." She smiled his way, gave him a scratch under his chin either to calm herself down or to annoy Magnus. She had no plans to ponder which it was. He glared at her, unamused as always, as he faded from her sight. "I'm afraid that's a risk we're going to have to take."

The compass hovered in mid-air, faintly radiating with the same purple that surrounded herself and Magnus. As the last of Magnus's spirit world faded from view, the compass itself pulsed, like a heartbeat. She held out her hand and waited for it to fall into her palm, cold detailed silver against the fabric of her glove. The pulsing became faster, a more constant stream of vibration until it was buzzing in her hand, meaning Magnus had decided precisely what direction to go in. She nodded south and said "Let's go."

Clara, Hardy, and Isaac glanced to Crawford, who only tipped his hat as confirmation before following closely behind Rose. Hardy exhaled, shoulders slouching as air deflated him like an old balloon. "This should be fun…"

He trudged after Rose and Crawford, Isaac and Clara close behind.

She walked beside Isaac, but he felt her eyes watching him as though they were on his back. He tensed up. "You know, if we pass your hometown…"

He grimaced. "I wouldn't say a word."

He hurried hurried to catch up with Hardy, ignoring the set of eyes that were now definitely watching his retreating frame.

Sewing, as any 18th century woman would tell you, is the cornerstone of femininity. Women practiced the art often, and with the persistence of anybody who had to live their entire life without video games or sports. Sewing also, as any of these 18th century woman would tell you, is a real pain.

Isabel pricked herself for the third- or fourth- time, tried once more to stitch the two pieces of cloth together, and instead decided she'd had quite enough of whatever purgatory she'd found herself stuck in. Sleeping Beauty only had to get pricked ONCE to fall asleep, she'd say that she more than earned a nap. "This is so-!" She flicked her tired wrist around, trying to find the right word. How to best describe the ludicrousness of her current task without lowballing her grievances or insulting her teacher. Ah, yes. That's the right word. "Stupid! This is so stupid! How is sitting here sewing going to save anyone?"

Dimitri glanced up from his sewing job, cool eyebrow raised. Zarei, too, glanced up from her task, reading a book which, comparatively, was a favorable task to whatever this nonsense was. Zarei herself looked bored, but not surprised. She'd most likely been anticipating Isabel's outburst, as was customary once every class. Not every period, no, every class that Isabel had to be subjected to some of the most boring, menial tasks she'd ever had to do for a grade. Zarei's class. "Isabel," Zarei started, and she could already hear the routine disinterest. "In a life or death situation, you may have to temporarily sew and dress or cauterize a wound." She adjusted her glasses and mumbled, in equal irritation, "they wouldn't let me have fire in the classroom, so this will have to do."

"This is a waste of our time!"

Dimitri, as chill as always, lifted one hand, a motion he seemed to carry out every time she had these routine outbursts, as though she was a wild spirit and needed to be tamed and reined in. "Isabel-"

"No! I'm sick of this! The traitor who released those monsters is still out there and we have no idea who they are or what they want!"

Zarei seemed unperturbed, though she shut her book with one snap and set it off to the side of her desk. "Isabel-"

"What are we sitting here sewing for? We're just wasting time-!"

"Isabel!"

She choked, instinctually stepping back as Zarei's hands slammed upon the instructor's desk. This… this was not part of the routine, but she supposed her outburst had been more emotionally-charged than her others had been. Zarei usually took her complaints in stride, even snarked about setting up a suggestions box for Isabel to leave comments in (that way she could dispose of them easier). This time, though, Zarei looked her dead in the eye, unblinking, unmoving. Isabel looked to her left where Dimitri sat at his desk, found his hand still raised cautiously, though it'd moved some to avoid her flaring aura.

Fine.

She growled to herself, sliding back down into her seat, but unwilling to continue stitching. Instead she glared at the two bits of cloth and used the needle to take small jabs at her desk. Zarei wouldn't say anything, would probably just be happy she wasn't complaining. She'd just have to deal with her restlessly squirming in her seat until class was over in another handful of minutes. God, she hoped Max was having a better time.

The gym was larger than the auditorium their Training 101 class typically monopolized. Once the bell had rung and all the class had been seated, when Spender announced that they'd all be transferring to the gym for the day, Max had almost felt the collective sigh of relief that hung like the usual unease in the atmosphere. He glanced at Collin, who had taken to walking the very thin line between the waking world and the unconscious one with his chin rested in his hand, eyes slowly inching shut before they popped open again after a restless three seconds of shut-eye. Johnny sat at his other side, practically bouncing up and down in his seat. Probably the least claustrophobic the psychopath has felt in weeks.

Spender stood at the bottom of the bleachers, raising his hands in a sad attempt to get his large, voluble class to more of a hushed whisper. Because Spender was a quiet man naturally, and passive normally, his voice was lost in the sea of early-morning chit-chat, the kind that was kept in-check by smaller class periods. Max watched with varying degrees of amusement as Spender circulated through every trick in the book to get a bunch of confused, aggravated, loquacious middle-schoolers to shut their overused traps. He first tried to clear his throat. When that didn't work, he tried to drop his teacher's guidebook on the gym floor- when that was stifled and dulled in the vastness of the gym walls, he resorted to yelling at the top of his lungs. That still didn't work, and Max could see the man struggling to figure out how else to reign in a hundred or so students. His calloused hands were clawing at his face, eyes visibly heavy with exhaustion, even behind his shades. When all hope seemed to be lost, Coach Oop set one heavy hand on Spender's shoulder, gave him a pitying look, and got the attention of every student the way only a gym coach knew how- screaming and just being louder than the normal teacher.

Chatter seemed to fade almost instantly, and Spender shot Coach Oop a grateful look.

He cleared his throat as Oop retreated to his office. "Class, today we are going to begin working the physical aspects of your new abilities, rather than your minds." Max could practically feel Johnny vibrating in the seat next to him. He shot the red-head an eye that he ignored entirely. "Now, I've always been more focused on the intellectual end of training-"

"Couldn't tell!"

Spender picked Max out in the crowd immediately, glared at him, and received nothing but a grin in response. "... So I've asked an old master of mine to stand in for me." An elderly man stepped forward, huge and terrifying for being gray in the face. "This is Master Guerra. Say hello, class."

"Hello, Master Guerra…." Roughly a quarter of the class even bothered, and those that did were unenthusiastic at best and downright resentful at worst, clearly not knowing what was ahead of them. Max swallowed hard; he'd heard stories from Ed about Isabel's grandfather, stories that Isabel had commented "didn't even graze the bottom" of just how tough Master Guerra could be. And that was on his granddaughter… what would he be like with kids he had no attachment to? Max felt his spine shiver preemptively at the possibilities. Collin leaned over, now much more awake than he had been two minutes prior, and whispered.

"Hey, is that Isabel's dad or something?"

Max cupped a hand over one side of his mouth so Collin could hear him better. "Grandpa, actually. And probably the embodiment of abuse of power…"

Master Guerra's eyes roamed the crowd, but there was something about his gaze that felt like he was simultaneously singling out every single child in the bleachers. Max had the crazy theory that it was because he was, in actuality, seeing every one of them, judging them, assessing them, what they could do. He clearly didn't like what he was seeing, because he took a step forward and his eyes were no less calculating. "Spineless, each and every one of you. Hardly spectrals, hardly able at all. If you want to be worth anything, you will do as I say, and you will do it the first time!"

The class, silent before, fell deathly mute.

Spender stepped forward, chuckling with a nervous edge as he set one unsure hand on Guerra's shoulder- er, tried to. He decided against it last moment. "Master, these children still hardly understand the concept of tools, perhaps you should tone it down just a little-?"

"You asked for my help. This is what you receive."

"Ah."

Isaac cringed. The little cabin he'd taken shelter in was just as creepy and run-down as when he'd last seen it. Creepier, in fact, now that he'd bled all over its floors.

Crawford stopped at the front door and puffed on the last bit of his cigar. Rose passed him by and reached for the handle, eyes on the compass in her hand. "Should I do it?"

Rose shook her head. "Don't waste the energy yet, Crawford. We know the story here pretty well already." She pressed the door open with a sickeningly loud creak, a sound that made Isaac shudder. "Catriona left this place in a hurry in the dead of night. If we want Magnus to keep her scent, we've gotta find something that will lead us to where she went next."

The group pushed on. Crawford went first, one arm protectively extended in front of Rose, other hand cocked with one of his guns. Rose glanced around, looking for anything that may emit a trace of Catriona's aura, careful to let Crawford open doors. The place should have been abandoned, but the odds of Consortium pawns and antagonistic spirits were a possibility she was unwilling to overlook. Clara clung to one of Hardy's sleeves. They were switching off who was looking out in which direction, leaving Isaac to keep his eyes straight ahead. More of a challenge than it may seem, with the cabin's darkness spanning well past Rose and Crawford. He tried to keep in pace with them, but his legs were shaking and he wasn't sure if it was because he was three different kinds of dead the last time he was here, or if the draft of the run-down walls was getting to him.

Clara edged closer to Isaac, willing herself to feel calmer with somebody on either side of her. "There's so much blood, everywhere…" Her breath hitched and trembled with every word, hot breath running down his neck. Miss Rose looked back and found his eyes. He frowned and glanced away. They made it to the end of the hallway, what Isaac remembered as the bedroom he'd taken residence of that night. He was right; Rose raised the compass and the light of her aura illuminated the very edge of the bedpost, rotting and covered in, what Isaac assumed was probably, more of his dried-up blood.

Hardy's foot made contact with something at his feet, and he leaned forward to pick it up. "Oh hey, a diary!" He said one second. "Ah!" He said the next.

Clara glanced over Hardy's shoulder to see the page he'd opened up to by chance, and stifled the scream she instinctually reacted with behind her interwoven fingers. The page was yellow with age and slick with dust from infrequent use, though it had clearly been handled somewhat recently, the way fingerprints edged the pages. The page Hardy had opened up to, the one Isaac now glanced over Clara's shoulder to see, was covered in nothing but pen- and a lot of it. Frantic. Some unlegible. Dark and as black as a widow drenched in the blackest of inks. Words scribbled next to sketches of spirits, of auras and eyes that seemed to watch from behind the safety of the page.

Why can't he see them

I'm not crazy

Help

Hardy screamed and accidentally tossed the book a foot in the air, only to start juggling it with unsteady hands the moment it came back down, whimpering the whole time. Isaac snorted and held out his hand so Hardy could pass it to him- and he did, by using one juggling hand to smack the book mid-air in Isaac's general direction. Isaac caught the diary by the spine in his open palm, flipping it back open with relative ease. "This is her's?"

Just as soon as he opened it, a gloved hand snatched it from him. Miss Rose grinned and raised to compass to the diary, humming at the confirming buzz of her tool. "This is the next piece in Catriona's puzzle, kiddies!"

Kid after kid lined up in parallel with the bullseyes across the gymnasium floor, each new frontrunner as confused as the last. Guerra and Spender stood to the side, eyeing individual auras as they hit or missed the targets- and they rarely hit. Guerra was grimacing, looking every bit terrifying as Spender felt. He kept switching from watching the students to watching his master, frequent enough to keep an eye on his reactions, but not frequent enough for Guerra (hopefully) to notice.

Max was third in one of the first lines. All the better, in his opinion, for getting this over with as fast as possible. He aimed at the target a few feet away, concentrated. He'd had so much on his mind lately. Isabel, Spender, Ed…. His eyes narrowed as blue crossed his vague vision- the kid next to him, but it was enough. He took one quick breath and took his shot. Black gas, perfectly rounded, perfectly paced, hit the bullseye head-on, nearly knocking it over in a clash of red and white against a crawling web of black that descended over it.

Spender's eyes widened, a small smile inching across his face. He'd been worried that all of the attention he'd had to put into training these classes had denied his original students somehow of the attention he felt was vital to truly learning to hone their new powers, but if Max's spectral shot was any indication-!

"Don't get so excited." Guerra was watching the children still, but Spender could feel the disappointment in him radiating from his drilled eyes. He pretended not to notice. "Spectral shots are child's play. That your student is capable of such a feat places him on par with Isabel at five years of age."

The next group of students stepped up. Max met Collin's eyes on his way back to the bleachers.

Collin looked panicked, gesturing to the targets, then gesturing back to the hands Max was well aware would be unable to conjure up any aura at all, let alone get a spectral shot off. Max winced and shrugged at him. Can't help ya there, man.

Collin got up to the bat and mimed for dear life, found other kids doing the same thing. Each pointed and breathed and stood there waiting for auras that never built and shots that never burned through the distance. They turned to each other, confused, some agitated, some lackadaisical about the whole thing.

Guerra turned to Spender with a glare in his eye, and all he could do was smile nervously and swallow the fear gnawing at his throat like acid.

Nature walks were run-of-the-mill for Master Hashimoto's dojo. Ed never quite got the importance of them, and when he asked for clarification the answer was always "something-something peace" or "something-something tranquility".

Aka, "Something-something Ed isn't interested."

But alas, they were required. Every student in the dojo would wake up at roughly 5am, clothe themselves, then walk a mile-long hike through the woods before they could all return home to feast upon the breakfast Hashimoto no doubt would have laid out for them when they got back. As beautiful as the scenery was this time of year, Ed was far more interested in getting back so he could settle the uncomfortable tugging and gurgling of his stomach.

The start of the day was always the hardest. He knew this. And like always, he'd get through it. That didn't mean he felt like trekking up a mountain of flowers today, though.

He sighed and carried onward, barley giving the beautiful red roses he passed a sidelong glance. Well, he almost didn't. The vibrant red caught his eye, and he fell a few steps behind admiring the way the morning dew dripped from the soft petals.

Red was supposed to be the color of aggression, of hunger and anger and danger, but it was also adventure, passion…

Love.

A laugh he knew better than his own crossed his mind's ear, and he almost hated the way he instantly drew the connections to tan skin and red, so much red. Ed shook his head clear and turned away, transitioning into a light jog to catch up to the rest of his peers. This was crazy, he was being crazy. What that girl said meant nothing. What Dimitri said meant nothing, just people being people and misunderstanding his relationship with Isabel. They were like siblings! She was his best friend! He shook his head clear with finality.

He caught up with the rest of the group with ease, not that it was difficult. It seemed like he was the only one eager to get back to food, because his peers had taken a decidedly slower pace. He'd lightly jogged like an old man who'd just watched his small weiner dog steal his slipper, and still, he'd managed to catch up in about thirty seconds. Ed huffed, shoulders slumping in the way that usually got him a fist upside the head from Guerra and a small scolding from Spender.

"Guys, look! He's letting me feed him!"

One of the other students had paused to bend down a few feet in front of him. A quick side-step confirmed that she'd palmed a nut from the ground, and that a small squirrel had taken interest in it. A few other students coo'ed and some bemoaned not having their phone to take a picture. Ed felt himself smiling despite his grouchy mood. The squirrel was, after all, pushing the boundaries of cute. Big beady eyes, tail twitching, head tilting as it tried to communicate with his fellow student in a language it didn't know she didn't understand. Part of his heart, which he found had somewhat frozen over the last few weeks, melted on the spot. She opened up her palm, and the squirrel readily sprinted for it, pausing on her fingers to test the nut and see that it was real. Chestnut brown fur, spots of darker hair that looked black in the early morning sunrise-

-- brown eyes under long lashes, squinting with mirth as he made her laugh, his favorite sound in this world and the next.

Ed froze mid-thought, eyes widening so much he thought they would fall out of the sockets. He'd done it again, the same thing he'd been doing the past- how long had it been? Too long! Too long for this to still be a problem! Ed took several deep breaths, one hand pressed to his chest as he hyper-ventilated, or something close to it. He was just tired, that's all. He was busy a lot of the day training to become a man worthy...of… his mind trailed off again, and Ed felt his hands tearing his hair straight off of his head before he even registered the deep-seeded hand that felt like it was tugging twenty different chords of his heart.

I do not like Isabel! I do not like Isabel! I do not like Isabel!

"Get out of my head!"

There was a silence around him, and he couldn't help but think that it was a little odd, considering all the cute-animal-fawning that'd been happening a few seconds ago. He opened his eyes, which had been screwed shut in his agony, to find his entire class staring at him. Even the squirrel, which had been so content with its nut before, had turned its curious eyes on him as if waiting for an explanation. Ed blinked. "I yearn for the sweet embracing heat of my gaming console."

She’d never liked them, hospitals. They were cold, and they were lonely-- especially at night, in the dark, lights down low over empty reception desks. Catriona bit her thumb. She’d been stalking back and forth for the better part of an hour, waiting on a clock that trembled every painfully slow minute that passed. She breathed in, took one moment, two moments, then breathed out.

“My love, the children will be fine. They were young, that woman recognized that. She would have gone easy--”

“That isn’t the point!” She whipped on him-- shoulders, hands, back-- tensing as her nails dug into the skin of her palms. She never got mad at him, rarely raised her voice an octave, but this was different. She’d made this mistake. She’d messed up, and now her children had paid for it. “We were ahead of schedule, I thought we were ready and we weren’t. Far from it!”

He was right. Their injuries were minor, just some bruises and scratches, wounds they’d get playing in a backyard filled with trees and broken branches. But that didn’t matter, not to her, not right then. Emmerich approached her, raising one hand-- not the way one would in defense of an animal; he raised his hand not to silence her, but to demonstrate understanding. She didn’t have to say anything else, didn’t have to explain. Her cold hands, still shaking, wrapped around her upper arms, and the rest of her body shivered. She wasn’t cold, but he was always so warm. His eyes were thick with emotion, heavy and focused on her-- always, always, always. “They love you, Catriona,” his raised hand fell to her shoulder, squeezed her in one palm. “They followed you with no fear, and they will follow you now.”

“Does it matter?” Her brows furrowed as she shook her head, eyes somewhere behind him, staring at nothing but the melted hallways filled with stars, his world. Her kids were somewhere down that hallway, and her mind was with them. Lost. “Does their loyalty mean anything when I am all they have? What is their love worth when I am a lie?” He squeezed her, stepped closer, and her eyes met his, but she was still so far away. “They know other spectrals exist, now. Before, I was the only option. What is to stop them from joining her?”

“The truth, Catriona, the truth that those monsters are working to enslave and destroy every spirit, and we,” he took her hands in his own, raised them to his chest. “We are the only chance this world has at setting things right.”

Cold-blooded eyes, she could see them in the back of her mind, so different from her own, so different from Emmerich’s. She knew he could see it, and she felt him involuntarily flinch. “I doubt he shares your sentiments, my love. I fear his agenda reads far differently from ours.” He said nothing, and she set her hands at his chest, leaning her head on one of his broad shoulders. He grazed her back with his hand, rubbing her tense muscles under soothing circles. “This dagger… it can free these poor spirits, but it will kill them. Is such a fate worth all of this effort? I fear we are his pawns.”

“Perhaps, but this is all we know. Death is better than the shackle of a human body.”

“I suppose,” she hummed “I just wish it wasn’t a paradox.”

The muted sound of footsteps echoed in the darkness of his world, bouncing off the dying stars and stains of color, and she prepared for her love to melt from her fingers. It used to unsettle her, how quickly he was gone, but he was always there. She closed her eyes, took one deep breath, then two.

“Miss Barrett?”

The doctor was young, going by the small crease between his eyes, no older than thirty, and he approached her with one hand outstretched. There was a carefulness to the way he carried himself, and it carried over to his eyes as he glanced her shoulders-up. She shook his hand and he pulled away slowly, deliberately pulling the board, pen, and paper closer to himself. “Yes, how are the children?”

“They’re fine. Their injuries were all minor, though I would get the little one’s ears checked with her pediatrician. There was some damage, but I doubt it’s anything permanent.”

She knew it, they both had, but she could feel Emmerich sigh in relief within her, in tune to the hand she raised to her heart. “What rooms are they in?”

“Esen and Harlow are in room A14 and A15. Aderyn was transferred to room C16 of the Pediatric Ward, which should be” he pointed behind her, finger jutting to the side “right down that hall and to your left.”

“Thank you.” She took one step in the direction of room A14, and he raised one hand to stop her, not that he could do much if she so happened to push through, but she paused out of kindness. This man had taken care of her children, no matter the minor scrapes. Her eyes strayed from the room a mere tantalizing 5 feet away, glancing the good doctor up and down.

He smiled, and it was forced. “These children were in your care, correct?”

“Yes.”

“Mind telling me what happened?”

“They’re kids; they were playing.” She bit out the words, looking from A14 to the doctor again and again. The doctor nodded and absentmindedly stuck his tongue in his cheek. Catriona, she could hear Emmerich’s warning in the back of her mind. Stay calm, my love. There is nothing to gain from his suspicion.

“Have you notified their parents?”

No. “Yes.”

The doctor hummed, “We’ll be making a call to their guardians, what did you say your relation to these children?”

She breathed in, took one moment, two moments, then breathed out. “That won’t be necessary.”

“I’m sorry?”

His eyes were suddenly wide, full of emotion that was fading-- confusion, disbelief, and she could see the faintest twinkle of horror. His mouth open and closed like a stupid gaping fish, like a fool as his mind reeled. She tilted her chin up, and despite her best efforts, despite the quiet disagreeance echoing hollowly in the back of her mind, her lips twitched, inch by red inch, into a smile. She watched as his open lips gasped, as he coughed and they began dripping red as her nails. Her head tilted, and his brokenly followed suit as she gripped his heart in one clawed hand. “That’s my line, Doctor.” With one twist she pulled away, and he fell to the ground in a heap, spilling red across the pearly white tiled floor of the second wing; she never did like hospitals, and she liked doctors even less.

Max wrinkled his nose, flicking his wrist about the way one shakes a Christmas present from a grandparent who doesn’t particularly know them. The packet of text, stapled in the upper left hand corner, made the obvious wobbling paper noise as it waved to and fro. What was it, exactly? Max glanced to his side. Mister Spender was still busying himself passing out the packets to each row, arms readjusting every step he took up and down the stairs leading to each line of students; the packets were slipping from his arms, visibly too thick in a bunch for him to carry. Mister Spender passed another handful of packets to whoever was at the end of the next column, raising one leg to catch a slew of deviant papers slipping from his forearm.

Johnny was lifting his by the front page, looking positively puzzled in that special way only Johnny Jhonny could-- top teeth bare of his upper lip, eyes squinting precariously as he shook the packet around. Collin flipped through the pages with an almost uninterested skim, and when his eyes met Max’s, he shrugged and set his chin upon his palm. Max turned back to his own, taking a moment to read the front page. Training 101, of which the class syllabus was cheekily titled “Ghosts and Rules”.

Well, Mister Spender is the one who wrote this…

He flicked forward two pages. Training 101: Chapter 1

“These packets will be your guide-- and partially your study material-- from now until the end of the first semester.” Spender returned to the front of the classroom, setting the leftover packets in his desk before shutting the drawer and locking it up, stored safely away for absentee students. Or clumsy ones. Max turned to look at Johnny, who had lost interest in his packet in favor of the small flame he could set at the tips of his fingers, balancing the flame a mere inch or two away from his very paper-- very flammable-- textbook. “The good thing about this curriculum is that there is none set in place, hoo hoo! So I’ve taken it upon myself” Spender framed his face between his pointer fingers and thumbs “to work out the most time-efficient, digestible lesson-plan! Now, let’s get started with the syllabus!”

The classroom rattled with groans, some louder than others-- Max thought for sure he could hear kids in the next room over, who weren’t even in their class, groaning in empathy.

But, Max was good at nothing if not actively tuning out the world around him, so that’s exactly what he did. He probably already knew most of the material anyway, right? He snorted to himself and skipped a few more pages ahead, skimming the material over with the loose concentration of a man on Vicodin. Blah, blah spirits. Blah, blah spectrals--

Mediums. His thumb paused before he turned the next page. He ran his finger over it, eyed the yellow highlight around the text.

Look, you don’t need a tool to be powerful. Let me explain…

Something coiled in his stomach, not quite nostalgia, something worse, something that sat in him and spent its time twisting around. He dug his cheek into his fist. He could still smell the grass in his favorite sweatshirt from sliding down a huge grassy hill, hear Johnny’s maniacal laughter, feel the bruise on his chin in the shape of Suzy’s surprise phone.

But more than any of those things, he remembered rain. He remembered clouds and thunder despite the day’s clear sky.

Isaac’s smile was like a stain in his memory, combing through branches and old trees and stepping over small rivers and spirits. Among “Shut uuup Max”, there were smaller things, things that hit him with a familiarity, like a punch in the shoulder that didn’t even hurt, like shoes on hands and conversations that died too soon. Isaac was the one to explain mediums to him, something he wasn’t even sure crossed the mind of Isabel or Ed or-- heaven forbid-- their actual teacher. Isaac had explained things, tried (and failed) to tease him back, introduced him to Doorman--

"You wanna know what my problem is?" Max took a step back upon seeing Isaac's wide, wild eyes, watching his aura grow and flare each time he blinked. "My problem is you! It's been you this whole freaking time! Wanna know why? Because I was an idiot and I trusted you! I knew you for all of a week and I trusted you! Completely! Like some stupid little kid!” Isaac laughed to himself then, eyes falling from Max's to his hands- his trembling, open hands."It's my fault, okay? I screwed up. I wanted you all to care about me, and if you didn't like me, I thought maybe..."

Max grimaced. He could still see Doorman standing stock still in the unlit mansion. He could still see-- even with no eyes to read or brow to furrow or lips to curl-- he could still see the shadow looming over his tall stature. His hands were still raised, still closing the door to the other side of the barrier, and Doorman was sad.

It had taken forever, maybe a little longer, for either of them to utter so much as a word; when he did ask questions, Doorman had no answers. They both knew why and when and how but the “where”, well, the “where” was still taunting him, like a prize at the end of a stick. Isaac was with the Cousinhood, that’s what Isabel said…

“Hey!” Johnny stood up, one fist raised with a flare in his eyes and a small flame circling his knuckles. “When ‘re we gonna learn ‘bout those things that attacked us?”

The murmurs started, small and unsure, filtering through each row, from mouth to ear as kids turned to each other.

“We’ve been in this class for a few days now.”

“Haven’t really learned anything…”

“I don’t know what to tell my parents--”

“--mine tried calling the school--”

Some kid a few rows in front of Johnny stood up, not as intimidating, nowhere near as big, but he was twice as angry and just as determined. He climbed atop his desk, much to the surprise of the neighboring seats (who scattered to move their notebooks) and readied his lungs to scream: “Yeah! When are we gonna get to the important stuff?”

Spender tensed, eyebrows shooting up behind his sunglasses. “Well, you see--!”

It was all downhill from there. Other kids started clamoring for a word, standing on top of their desks, throwing their packets in the air, shouting about perceived injustices as loudly and as often as their lungs might let them.

Max bulked, watching as the kids around him, the few still seated, grew restless in their obedience. They did not stand on their packets or throw things, but they exchanged glances and cheered when they made out a point they could agree with in all the ruckus. Collin twisted around in his seat in a panic, jaw open as the classroom fell into a chaos even he wasn’t used to. Johnny had grown more vehement amidst the pandemonium and had taken to leaping up and down on the desk.

Spender swallowed hard and raised both hands. “Now, now! Children, please! Let’s all calm down! There are some things I have to teach you before you can understand what those creatures were! If you will all please sit down--!”

“Why do some of us have powers and some of us don’t?”

“Tell us who you work for! The government?”

“Why did those things talk?”

The questions grew more frantic and scattered, and Spender himself reflected that. What he could muster of his voice was stuck in his dry throat,  and the late pale of his skin had somehow dulled another shade, though his cheeks had grown a fiery red. Max sighed and made the move to stand. Well, if anybody was going to be the voice of reason--

“Hey! Idiots! Maybe we should all--!”

-- and Mister Spender hasn’t told us anything about Isaac.

Max shut his mouth, eyed Spender down. He was still distraught, doing his best to calm the mass, to put of the fire that had ignited the classroom, the ember that was burning him the longer it went on. Max plopped back down into his seat and crossed his arms. The chaos of the classroom did little to settle, and every question spawned another ten heads to answer to. The classroom ruptured into a state of madness, more contained but no less civil than a riot. Spender’s voice was quickly fading in the mass of voices, and Max’s eyes followed him from beneath the shadow of his baseball cap.

“Open your textbooks to page 345.”

Isabel and Dimitri pulled their books apart until they hit the right page number, then promptly dropped them upon the table with disinterest. Zarei was busying herself with a marker and the whiteboard, sketching out what appeared to be the human organ system. Isabel’s lip curled downward. “Biology?”

“Spirit biology,” Zarei nipped back, “which you’ll need to know alongside human biology if you’re going to learn first aid.”

Dimitri set his chin in his upturned palm, eyes hazily glancing over the first two pages of Chapter 14. He looked like he was about to fall asleep, and that sentiment Isabel felt directly in her gut-- her bored, eye-rolling gut. “This is Advanced Training, right? What are we learning first aid for?”

“I dunno, Iz...” Dimitri smiled at her in that lazy way he always had, in a way that made her bristle involuntarily, like he’d taken a finger and ran it along her spine. He knew what he was doing, and she’d have been lying if she said it didn’t irritate her. “Doctor Z might--”

“Don’t call me that.”

“--have a point. First aid could save your life on the battlefield, y’know.”

Isabel huffed and slouched in her seat. “I don’t wrap bandages. I wrap heads!”

Zarei set lowered her marker and turned around,  brows furrowed, eyes squinting. “What does that even mean.”

“I’m a fighter!” She sat up and punched the inside of her hand. “There’s no situation I can’t get out of if I just think fast and punch real hard!” That’s right. She didn’t need first aid; she’d been on the other end of a flying fist more times than she could count, from as early as seven years old no less. Sparring with an older kid, hunting down a poltergeist, facing toe-to-toe with a spirit decades older than her? It was all the same. She knew she had to be smarter, be quicker, and that was the key to winning. She wouldn’t need first aid if she knocked the other guy out first.

Zarei hummed and turned back to the board. “I see.”

Dimitri stifled a laugh with a snort into his hand. Isabel grinned to herself.

“So, what would you do in the event that somebody important to you, say… Ed?” Zarei finished the final line of the human liver before she trailed back up the the chest. “What would you do if his quick thinking meant taking a shot to the chest for you?”

Isabel frowned, fist uncurling. For a moment she remembered a library filled with books, and the white fade that it vanished into. Among the white fade there was a familiar, unsettling trace of dry blood that came hand-in-hand with a distress she equated with the picture of a blonde mess hanging limply over her grandfather's arm.

Zarei drew the red marker across bright white and light blue of the board and human outline, draw one last line before she moved onto the next organ. “Would you want to keep fighting without him?”

“No!”

She hadn't realized she'd stood up, much less slammed her hands upon the desk in front of her, but the sound echoed in the otherwise empty classroom. She blinked, taking a moment to gather herself. Dimitri wasn't smiling anymore.

Zarei turned around, revealing the completed heart for the both of them to see. She hardly seemed bothered by the noise, or the attitude. Her half lidded eyes examined Isabel, like there was something to scrutinize that hadn't already been on display. Isabel herself wondered what she might have been seeing. She raised an eyebrow with a restrained sarcasm.

“Then you'll want to know first aid.”

Isabel exhaled out of her nose, then plopped back down into her seat, propping up the book with one grudging hand.

Spender groaned and lounged back as far as his desk chair would allow of him. “Children…” he mumbled. “Children are terrifying in mobs of 200.”

“Will you ever stop being such a child?”

“I'm not being a child! I'm an underpaid, overworked guide to the future of our world and it is in my right to vent.”

Zarei grunted. “Your job is not so complex.”

“Perhaps, but it is strenuous!” He paused, grimaced, and threw his forearm over his covered eyes “...and most certainly demanding.”

“Teaching Isabel to heal and not to maime is no easy task, Richard, though you should know that as well as I.”

Spender sat up glancing purposely away as Zarei came to lean against his desk, cup of coffee to her pursed lips. She was laughing at him, and he supposed that was another facet of their relationshinship he’d have to deal with in their transition from night-job affiliates to day-job coworkers. It’d been a handful of years since they’d last interacted in anything other than passing, and though there certainly was still some semblance of a wall between the two of them, one he doubted would fall to anything other than time, he’d found himself quite enjoying her company. Even so, six classes of fifty students for both of them was overwhelming. He felt his own sanity slipping from his fingertips every other hour of a work-day, and he could tell despite her pretenses that Zarei was feeling strained by the workload same as him. “This is simply too much.” She eyed him from the side, hardly bothering to part from her coffee mug, of which he could now see The Doctor Will Be In Shortly painted in yellow cursive above what was clearly the picture of a doctor in the breakroom with her own, smaller coffee mug. “2500 students divided between twelve classes… we need another hand.”

“In case you’ve already forgotten, Richard, I am a temporary solution. As it is, the Consortium is pressed to find someone qualified enough within Mayview to fill my position. The most optimistic timetable suggests you’ll be handling classes of 200 for at least another year before they’re able to locate a third paranatural specialist.”

Spender deflated. Ah, yes. He’d forgotten. Or, more accurately, he might have hoped. She was right. Once they located a second instructor, Zarei would be relieved of this horribly cramped situation. It would be some time before another spectral would be eligible enough to take on a third of the student population, or until the train was recovered enough to widen their horizons outside of the city. Of course, there was the off chance BL would come up with an alternate strategy and this entire dilemma would sort itself out.

But he carried reasonable doubt the situation would happen to resolve in his favor, as things often did not.

He leaned forward and set his head into his folded arms. “I forgot about that.”

Zarei didn’t respond for a moment, though he heard her take another sip of her coffee. He couldn’t see her, but he felt her weight readjust against his desk as she shifted. “I suppose I could stick around awhile longer. I may as well if I’m stuck here until the train recharges.”

“You’re uneasy, I take it? It’s serious enough their safety is a concern?”

This spectral was young, fresh-faced, cheeks still chunky and full of youth, and the manner in which he shuffled in his suitsie before her was undeniably a sign of inexperience. Still, he cared enough to bring this to her, and one doesn’t barge into the head honcho’s office unless they’ve got a bone to pick. “I haven’t heard from her in days. I tried calling, I tried visiting her apartment. I even tried her favorite--” he choked “--favorite bar? She wasn’t there. A-and I know, I know that Doctor Zarei, her train isn’t-- isn’t charged enough t-to take us out of the city, right?”

BL hummed, crossing her legs in the weightless air, folding her hands in her lap and squeezing them. “I see… If she’s disappeared as you say, there are few explanations, and I’m afraid none of them are very good. Inform the rest of your sector, I’ll do my part outside the barrier.”

There was a relief on his face, also youthful-- naivety both refreshing and heart-wrenching. He had hope she’d be able to save his partner, because she was the boss, she had to have all the answers. But she feared she had only a few for the moment, and none of them meant his partner would return, at least not in the way he was hoping.

Walking home from school had been, er, odd lately. Dimitri took to walking her home after classes let out for the day, and on Fridays they’d stop somewhere and grab a milkshake or chat up some friendly (and lonely) ghosts. Conversation with Dimitri came easy, that’s just the kinda guy he was-- cool, always knew what to say. Where a conversation dwindled with other people, Dimitri always had a second-hand story in the arsenal that was his mind; he was in the journalism club so he heard all kinds of things. That was the explanation he’d give, anyway, not that she believed him. Walking home with Dimitri kept her warm in the chilly air of early winter, but Dimitri only walked with her so far. They’d eventually, after around fifteen minutes of walking, would come to a fork in the road, one of which would lead her home to the dojo, the other that would lead to Dimitri’s house. They would wave goodbye, part ways, and she would be alone for another twenty minutes. That was twenty minutes alone for the first time since kindergarten, to be in-step with nothing but a silence that dulled the world around her, to remember that those stupid minutes used to be loud, and wild, and so full of giggles that the absence of it made her lungs squeeze for a howling laughter that wouldn’t come.

So, in part, it was a blessing that Agent Day approached her as the fork divulged in two separate roads; in other-- bigger, pressing-- part, it was uncomfortable, because there was literally nothing to talk about. Alas, there was nothing to be done. Agent Day had “something of great importance” to discuss with her grandfather, and she’d been so nice as to say “We could walk together, if you’d like?”

To which Isabel had responded with astounding neutralness, with maybe just the smallest hint of wariness and a sprinkle of perplexion.

“Is something on your mind?”

“Huh?” Isabel blinked, unsettled at how deep in thought she’d fallen. Agent Day was looking ahead, small smile on her lips same as any other time they’d had the pleasure of seeing each other. Which was, like, one other time. Honestly, Isabel had never been so inclined to rummage old memories for lessons about polite conversation, because something felt off about this woman and the defaning quiet sure wasn’t helping. Wait… quiet… she hadn’t been thinking aloud, had she? “Oh, uh, I’m just, y’know, thinking.”

“About?”

One of Isabel’s eyes squinted, hands clenching around the straps of her backpack. “Um…” Well, there wasn’t any harm in stating the very small, basic facts, right? Not like she was spilling out her whole life story to a complete stranger. Besides, she didn’t exactly have anybody else to talk about this with. Dimitri was hardly concerned, Ed was off training hard-- not that she was thinking about why he was doing that, per say-- Mister Spender was distant and not one for advice, and Max would sooner share a chewed piece of gum with Johnny Jhonny before he’d ever actually listen to her thoughts on this particular subject. Usually Eightfold was there, a safe friend who, though very tiny, had a lot of wisdom and big ideas. But Eightfold was her safety blanket, and she wasn’t there anymore. These days it felt like nobody really was, not that she’d ever voice that. “Ed said some things to me that made some sense, but I’m not sure I wanna believe him.”

“Why not?”

Isabel shrugged. “It’s personal.”

Day’s smile widened just the smallest margin. “Well don’t you trust him?”

“Of course I do!” Isabel liked to think of herself as somebody who was average on the emotional vulnerability scale, not quite a closed off stone of person (like her grandfather), but notably not a heart-on-sleeve emotional wreck. It was just something about today was trying her patience, and if one more person questioned her trust and loyalty to her friends-- so help her, she’d shave her head and make wigs out of the hair of everyone around her. She clicked her tongue and gave Agent Day a glare that she knew she couldn’t see. “That has nothing to do with it! It’d just… be better if he was wrong.”

Day turned to her then with a small frown, almost as if she’d touched a nerve. Nothing that would upset her, really, so much as cause whatever unnervingly strong empathy was radiating off her big bubbly eyes in waves. Isabel’s top lip coiled, revealing a small patch of white teeth, both a sign of disgust and a show of potential biting ability that she was sure was lost on Agent Day. “Oh no, did he turn you down?”

“W-what?”

The small frown that’d been there before turned to a look of absolute sorrow, tears welling in her eyes like pearly blue waterfalls cascading down reddening cheeks. “I’m so sorry to hear that! I know it must hurt! You poor thing, your best friend too! This must have been tearing you up inside!” Her eyes glowed a pure, heavenly white, and Isabel had the sneaking suspicion she somehow saw the rising horror in her wide, panicked eyes, because she immediately flew into hysterics. Her hands spun in defensive circles, like she was trying to block a very determined bee drawn to her face for some inexplicable reason, and her voice hit a new, frenzied pitch. “I-I’m sure this doesn’t mean he doesn’t still love you! Maybe it’s just not in the way you wanted him to! I’ve been on his side of things times a-plenty! I’m willing to wager you he’s just as torn to bits and pieces as you! Oh, I bet you it would mean the world to him if you two could stay friends!”

Isabel had never known her face to get as hot as it was right then. It was as if somebody had taken a ball of fire, the hottest, bluest part, and lit her skin aflame with it. Every inch of her face felt like it’d boiled under the sun for hours with oil or citrus all over her cheeks. Before she knew what she was even doing, she was mimicking Agent Day’s theatrics, hands waving about in quick, frantic circles. “N-n-no! No! Y-you’ve got it all wrong! That’s not--! That’s not what I’m thinking about! Ed didn’t r-reject me! Where did you even get that from? You’re crazy, lady!”

Agent Day desisited, hands falling into tiny balls at her now unguarded chest. She tilted her head and pursed her lips. “Oh, but you do like him, don’t you?”

“I-I mean--! That’s--! You’re--!” Isabel swallowed hard and braced herself to yell: “That’s not the point!”

“Am I wrong? Is there another?” Somebody kill her now. Heaven help her, she’d never felt more humiliated than she had right then, and in the entirety of her life, with a grandfather as proud as hers, there was plenty room for embarrassment, and somehow she’d surpassed every level she’d ever come to reach before. “That’s so strange! I thought for sure that night I came into town--?”

“That’s really not the point!”

“I’m sorry, dear! I don’t know where my mind was! What was it he said to you, then?”

Oh no, she was not putting any more of her emotions out on a platter for a complete stranger, not when whatever just happened would be the result. She’d been exposed enough for the day. Quite frankly, a quiet walk home to her thoughts probably would have been loads favorable compared to being the first guest on Agent Day’s Love Advice premiere. “I told you! It’s personal! A-and it has n-nothing to do with h-how I f-feel about--!” The dojo came into clear view, and for the first time in literal months, she was physically relieved to be within twenty steps (ten, if she ran, which she was definitely about to) of the front stairs. “Ugh! Let’s just drop it, okay?”

They continued to the front door in total silence, not companionable, but certainly mutual. Isabel opened the front door with one expressive hand, hardly stopping to hear the huge BANG that erupted through the front room. “GRANDPA!” She didn’t even bother to wave to Agent Day, not that Agent Day could actually see it… probably… before she was bolting up the staircase to her bedroom, where she slammed the door shut with so much force, it woke one of the students lounging on the living room couch to the floor with a start.

Agent Day stood at the front door, folding her hands in front of her as she glanced around the dojo. So many amazing smells-- sweat, deodorants, perfumes, foods-- it was all so very warm and comfy. It was a little bit of home away from home. She’d always wanted to visit Mayview, of that she was certain, but she wasn’t invincible to the occasional homesick feeling, and sometimes even a good bowl of chicken noodle soup can’t do home justice. Master Guerra took his time making his way to the front room, and when he appeared, it was with a scowl, one so deep it’d scare any old spectral off.

He was early, he thought, glancing down at his watch-- early by a day. Ed snickered to himself and climbed the steps up the Guerra dojo, stuffing his hands in the pockets of his jacket. Isabel was never a fan of surprises, but he had a feeling this would be different-- after all, it’d been a little over two weeks since he’d last seen her, last saw her smile and felt her nearly lift him off his feet. He was growing stronger, gaining muscle and therefore weight, and she wouldn’t be able to do that past the the next season, but for the moment he’d enjoy it. She probably wouldn’t be too proud to be lifted off of her feet, but he’d certainly try to repay the favor.

It was silently that he pressed his palms against the door and inched it open. There were a few grunts, and the sounds of bodies hitting the floor along with the occasional yelp-- telltale signs of a sparring match. He pressed further in, peeking inside with a grin.

Isabel and Dimitri moved back and forth, throwing punches and kicks and dodging each blow all the same as they bent forward and backward in a limbo, in a dance. Isabel winced when Dimitri’s hand came too close to her head, brushing by the tip of her ear as she sidestepped and brought her forearms up to block a surprise blow to her chest. Dimitri seemed less distressed than she was, but Ed could see the bead of sweat rolling down the side of his head. He plopped down on crossed legs by the doorway, setting patient hands in his lap as he watched them duke it out. It’d been a year or so since he’d last seen the Activity Club’s strongest have at it-- a treat he was beginning to realize he’d sorely missed.

Isabel’s sidestep left Dimitri falling forward with the force of his fist, and she took the opportunity to throw her arms around his waist and dig her head into his stomach, sending both of them falling to the ground. She’d been set on cornering him, then, too distracted to notice the way Dimitri tangled their legs on the way down, use the twist of his heel to change their momentum. She squeaked as she landed back-first on the floor, Dimitri pinning her with his hands locking her by the elbows to the floor. She squinted at him from behind the one eye that wasn’t covered in her unruly bangs, and he smirked at her the way Dimitri smirked at everybody, but with a blood-boiling hint of smugness in the glint of his eye. He leaned down, close enough that his nose was hardly an inch from her own, and whispered. “You’ve gotten stronger, Iz, but not strong enough.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure.”

He wasn’t expecting her legs to wrap around his upper body, or for her to use that surprise to flip him over her head. He exhaled, sharply, and grunted as she flipped over on top of him, knee pressing against his stomach, hands curled around his shirt, tugging him up as she leaned down. She gave him her own haughty grin. She didn’t realize her breathing was labored until she spoke, or that Dimitri’s lungs were just as constricted. “Is that strong enough for you?” He took a moment to process how she’d won, or more accurately that he hadn’t, then snorted and smiled, lips, which her eyes-- for some weird reason-- fell to without her explicit permission, parting to say something.

And then there was a whistle.

They turned to look so fast they might have made themselves dizzy, eyes falling to their secret audience, who was then standing and clapping with a smile as wide as his face. “That was so cool, Izzy! Man, where’d you learn that? No way the old man has started teaching you judo.”

Dimitri blinked, and in the next moment he’d been dropped to the floor, suddenly much lighter without the weight of a second person towering over him. “Ed!” He sat up with one hand rubbing his head, eyebrow rising as Isabel rushed into Ed’s arms, wrapping her own around his neck as he took advantage, digging his head into the volume of her hair, of her neck, with a face so bright he’d have thought he was a man home from war. Isabel was no less buoyant than the enduring wife, laughing and swinging herself around and squeezing him closer every time Ed so much as made a move to pull away. Dimitri frowned.

Then he shook his head and smiled, and raised a hand. “Ed! Long time no see, my man.”

The two finally pulled away from their embrace, and Ed waved back with a grin and a flick of his wrist.

Isabel’s eyes met Dimitri’s, wide and-- good lord, glowing. “We were just sparring, since our resident AWOL club member is a little rusty.” She stuck her hands on her hips, and he snorted to the side, gazing at her in his peripheral.

“I must be if I let you pull what you just did…”

Her smile doubled in size, and he could have sworn the shimmer in her eyes diminished to a dull brown, sharp, like a predator, like an animal. Isabel turned and nudged Ed with the bend of her arm, playfully. “What do ya say? Wanna face the winner?”

He and Ed locked eyes, and for a second, just a second, there was a question hanging in the air-- something unspoken, something he wasn’t even sure Ed knew himself to be asking. Dimitri shrugged and leaned forward over his knee, and from there, Ed sprung to life again. “I’m as ready as a lunatic preparing for the apocalypse!”

“What do you mean you haven’t found anything? You’re the police! He’s a missing rich kid! What could possibly be higher on your priority list, woman?”

Suzy, Collin knew, was a fierce girl, and would become all the more tiger-like as the years passed them by, and he thought for sure that, given time… she’d get herself brutally murdered, or locked in a high-security prison. He’d just hoped, prayed, wished on several wishing wells and multitudes of tossed coins in fountains, that he would not be present, nor an accomplice when that day came.

The woman, the small, bony, wide-eyed woman, no younger than fifty, trembled in the presence of Suzy’s wrath, fingers shaking so terribly that she couldn’t even type a word, although Suzy had echoed the command like a mantra: Look up Isaac O’Connor. Has the case been solved? Any traces?

He wasn’t about to tell her they probably wouldn’t share that sensitive information with a couple of middle school kids, and he doubted the poor thing she was terrorizing would. “I-I’m afraid we h-haven’t found anything new, yet--”

“Are you serious right now?” Suzy pointed to the keyboard with one rigid finger, teeth grinding as each word fell from the wall of bone with a hiss. “Look. Again.”

“I-I’m sorry, miss! There’s simply nothing else to be done! Our men a-are working very hard to find your friend! I-I’m sure he’ll--” She squeaked when Suzy’s fist came down upon the desk, shuffling and unsettling stacks of papers, sending white sheets flying and swaying in the dead air of the police station. She wrenched her back against her desk chair until it hit the other side of her circular desk, wincing the more Suzy leaned closer.

“I don’t want excuses, Margaret! I want results!”

Collin sighed and pulled away from the front revolving door where he’d been standing; the red of Suzy’s cheeks meant trouble was brewing, and he didn’t want to be around to hear the tea kettle sound. “Suzy,” he set one hand on her shoulder, pulling her an inch or two off of the front desk, which she was near laying across by that point. “You need to calm down.”

“Calm down?” He winced, unprepared for the level of “shrill” in the height of her tone. “How can I calm down?” She raised one hand, gesturing to the frail woman behind the desk, who’d taken the opportunity to step away-- presumably to get help. “How can I calm down? These nicompoops can’t find one blue-eyed ginger kid, and I’m the one out of line?”

“Yes! Now come” he tugged at her arm “on!”

Her feet skidded against the floor, and though she waved around and pulled back and dug her heels into the floor, he somehow managed to wrench his arms enough to get her out the front door, down the front stoop. She tried to snatch her wrist away as soon her her toes tipped into the final step, and he let her. “What” she huffed, and he wondered, sardonically, if she’d tired even her lungs out with all the screaming she’d just done. He felt a deep, connected sympathy for the poor child she’d presumably have one day, then cringed and swept away the thought of Suzy as a mother immediately. “What did you do that for?”

“You are literally going to get yourself arrested.”

“For what? Complaining?”

“No! For being a public disturbance! In a police station!” He gestured to the still-swinging doors and the mess she’d left on the other side of them. “That’s like going to a train convention before proceeding to mock trains as the inferior public transit system!”

Suzy blinked at him, then glanced to the station doors, then back at him, and crossed her arms. “So?”

“So?” Collin bit down on his lip so hard he was sure it was going to start bleeding, swallowing the complete and utter disbelief and resentment that was starting to swell within him at a more alarming rate-- and higher volume-- than usual.

But blowing up and ranting at her about the poor ethics of the life she led was going to do nothing but get him drowned out like always. He had to be smarter about this-- had to be more like Dimitri about this.

He ran both his hands down his face and sighed into them. “Suzy, look,” he pressed his palms together and placed them at his chest, mildly surprised when she looked at him instead of through him, blue eyes narrowed, but for once, focused. “I miss Isaac, too. I’m worried about him. There are a lot of things that can happen to a missing kid our age out there and few of them are good-- but listen to me. There’s gotta be a better way of going about this.”

Suzy’s nose wriggled and she pouted up at him from when her downturned chin was set, looking like a scolded child as she wrung her fingers through the sleeves of her pink jacket. He would have been more in awe if he wasn’t so worried he’d lose her attention; there was something tamed about Suzy when she was quiet, when she was thinking and not scheming, and the serenity made her something to observe, like the return of the ocean after a tsunami, or the white flag on a battlefield as either army slept through the night. He couldn’t help but think that he should have taken a page out of Dimitri’s book a long time ago. She huffed. “Like what?”

She’d listened to him. She’d really listened! “I’m not sure, but maybe Mister Spender will have some ideas?”

Suzy sprung back to life then, tamer than before, but still fiery and still spoiled. “I don’t wanna ask him for help!”

Collin blinked, hands falling to his sides. Of all the--? “What? Why not?”

Her cheeks bloomed red, and she stomped her foot on the sidewalk for good measure, hands balling into fists. “I just don’t want to, all right!” She passed him by, then, each step as heavy as the irritation radiating off of her, almost like the auras Isaac had once described, and he watched her with a curl in his lip and furrow in his brow.

She must have been six, maybe five, and Catriona wondered how she was already seeing spirits-- how she already felt comfortable enough around them to be playing with them so carelessly, so freely. She could hear the girl’s mother somewhere, in the distance, like a bird chirping completely unaware of the woodsman coming to chop down its tree.

She placed a hand against the tree she took as cover, watching the child from the shadows as the spirit led her to and fro, from one end of the small stone bridge to the other. It was small, small enough to fit into the palm of her tiny hand, and fast, and it flew, in all probability the factor that drew the little girl to chase. It was cute, Catriona supposed, with a bushy tail like a squirrel and paws tinier than the smallest leaf, pure white with a stroke a red along its head to its hind end. Its ears twitched when the girl giggled, beady red eyes blinking back at her because it had no mouth to chirp back.

Catriona was sure it meant no harm.

Meant.

Perhaps it was a misstep, or the culprit was the sleekness of the stone after it’d rained in the early morning.

She slipped. She slipped and stumbled into the running river below, into the heavy crash of wave after wave as her small arms reached helplessly above the raging waters. Her mother drew closer, then. Probably heard the splash.

“Aggie!” Her mother was, understandably, panicked, eyes wide, hands shaking, screaming and reaching a powerless hand out to the wandering, blind fingers of her child. Catriona grimaced, licking her lip and cracking her knuckles.

“Love, I’m going in.”

Though she heard no response, she could feel his approval-- warmth, then something hotter, a passion, a drive.

The little girl, Aggie, floated down the river, out of sight of her mother, who’d only just begun climbing off her knees to chase her down the forestside. She called out to her all the while, heart racing, pounding like the veins in her chest were ready to pop, a hand outstretched in fear, in so much fear. She could only see the tips of her baby’s tallest fingers, overarching the water only enough to draw the attention of the only audience she had. “Aggie! Aggie, hold on! Hold on, baby!”

“It’s okay!” She paused, nearly tripping over her own two feet as a black-gloved hand raised in the air behind the bend of the river and trees, fingers beckoning her closer. “Aggie, right? I caught her, she’s fine!”

Lo and behold, just around the corner, she found a woman with hair the color of an orange sky-- the sunset-- holding a soaking wet Aggie in her oddly-covered arms. But that was her least concern, not when her baby was reaching out to her with tears in her eyes, fingers opening and closing with every inch she reached for her mother’s embrace. With a gasp, with a choked sigh, with a smile, she took her daughter in her arms and swung her around in a circle, holding her close, taking in breaths of her damp hair and laughing to herself as tiny hands clasped at her blouse. She turned to the stranger, her hero, hero daughter’s savior, and took in her odd state of dress with less scrutiny and more curiosity.

Her dress was long and formal and black, as though she’d stepped fresh out of a church, out of a money man’s funeral, though the lengthy slits on either side of her long, slim legs gave that thought pause. The woman smiled and straightened out her dress, shifting the shoulders so the straps of her off-shoulder neckline fell, well, off the shoulder and not on, giving her a smile as she set her hands at her hips. “My, my, little one, your mommy should be more careful with such an adventerous soul like yourself.”

“I’m so sorry!”

The stranger raised both hands defensively, eyes wide and lips curved. “Oh, dear, no, I’m not scolding you! No need to apologize! I was the same way, myself, when I was her age. My mother had quite the handful to deal with.”

She sighed and offered the stranger her hand, surprised when she took it to feel nothing but warmth. How were her hands not wet? Come to think of it, she looked untouched by even the wind, let alone water or the dirt of the forest floor. Odd... “My name is Mari. This is Aggie. I was-- I was so busy watering Mister Carver’s yard, you see, I’m a gardener, that I hardly noticed there was a river nearby and--!”

“You take your daughter to work with you? Well,” the stranger leaned forward and pressed a finger to Aggie’s nose, who giggled. “That seems an odd practice for a woman in this day-and-age. Does your boss know about this?”

“No! But I’ve been trying to find a proper daycare, I really have! It’s just that everyone is full, and babysitters are so expensive in this neighborhood--!”

“Lucky I’ve run into you, then!” The woman reached out of her pocket-- that dress had pockets?-- and held it out for her to take. “You see, I’ve just started my own daycare service, and I’m yet to find any children to, er, look after. Now that you mention it, it must be because they’re all already in established daycare communities.” She clicked her tongue on the roof of her mouth and smiled. “My name’s Catriona. I’d say you and I need each other!”

Mari had only just finished typing her home phone number into the stranger’s-- Catriona’s-- contacts before she all but shoved the phone into her hands. “Yes! Please! Thank you so much! Give me a call at 8:30 when I get off and we’ll set our schedules out, okay?”

Mari and Aggie disappeared over the hill from which they’d came, and for a moment, Catriona felt deeply satisfied. She ran one hand over her arm and sighed. “My only regret is that you and I could never bear a child.”

She could feel him, his essence, enclose around her, then, drag her into his realm with all his stars and lights and the empty black sky. There was something so reassuring about his world, something so welcoming, though his space mirrored nothing but the emptiness of the night sky and the land above the clouds. “I know, my love.” He set a hand on her shoulder, and effortlessly, she fell back against his chest, placing one hand over his own. “Though, perhaps now, we could have a family.” She glanced over her shoulder to find him looking back at her. They smiled as she laced their fingers together.

“Max! My boy! You’re just who we’re looking for!”

Max squeaked and jumped three feet in the air, clutching the family album he held squarely against his chest. Dad peeked around the corner of the kitchen, and though Zoey didn’t go to poke her head out, too, he had a feeling she was in the other room, making popcorn; she had to, otherwise it’d be left up to their dad, who had a bad habit of decking each bowl in so much black pepper and salt (and sugar?), it became inedible for anybody but himself. Max had the sneaking suspicion he planned it that way. “What? Why?”

“We’re going to get a round of D&D in! You up for a fight against an ogre? Now mind you this is very different from the ogre from the last game! This one is the king of resentment, the last one was the king of righteous unfounded anger.”

Max sighed. He got enough monster-fighting a month ago, and if he never saw another monster for as long as he lived, until he died and started roaming the world as a ghost (because he would unarguably stick around just to do sick scooter tricks in the afterlife), it would be too soon. Besides, there was something he wanted to do…

“Sorry, dad. Maybe another night.”

His dad might have called after him again, he’d been clingy like that lately, but he stuck to pretending he hadn’t heard him over the slam of his door. He padded, slowly, over to his bed and climbed atop, resting his back against the headboard as he flittered the front pages of their family album open.

I just need to think for a little while.

He stopped on the latest pictures of his mom, pictures around maybe a year, maybe a month, before… He exhaled through his nose and smiled to himself, thumb running over her face as she tried to pick out a slice of cake in the heated window of a Baxborough bakery in the upper city. He always told himself, that if he could do it again, if he could go back and say things he hadn’t said, or take back things he had-- Max grimaced.

And yet, there he was, thinking the same thing again. He hadn’t learned anything the first time around, and now…

He ran his thumb over her picture again, wondering if he’d get it right a third time.

Isaac could only take a gasp of air before he was lurching over the toilet of another state park bathroom, hands clenching the side of the bowl like safety bars on a rollercoaster. His stomach clenched and he was throwing up all over again. His hands were clammy, and his entire body was sweaty, hot, leaving the bandages on his body clinging to him like a second skin.

His stomach wavered, and for a moment he thought his body was calming, that he could finally take a moment to breath.. And then he tasted bile in his throat and his face was once again uncomfortably close to the toilet bowl.

It took another fifteen minutes for the vomiting to stop, and another five for him to clean up. He left the bathroom with his hands in his pockets, feet swaying from side to side, but he could still walk… a little.

Why was he sick? He’d thought he’d taken all of the necessary precautions to keep his wounds uninfected, keep his body healing-- what had he missed? As far as he could tell, the wound in his arm was scabbing over, as was his eye (though it still stung like a fresh wound when he cleaned his face), and he’d cauterized the wound in his abdomen without it opening up on him. That was all he had to do, right? He frowned. The lever had been rusty… had he given himself tetanus? He’d had all of his shots?

He winced as his stomach once again became unsettled, raising one hand to set it against the churning skin. Not good. He was starting to get dizzy. He winced and watched the park move on around him, trying to clear his eyes. He could make out a dog catching a frisbee in the top of his mouth, hear the proud owner egging and cheering him on to bring it back to her “like a good boy”. He could make out a couple-- he thought, were they holding hands? Locking arms? Oh no, the world was starting to spin.

Isaac paused and tried to steady himself, closing his eyes and clutching the fabric of his jacket.

He could hear children laughing, hear people jogging by and the loud music pounding out of their earphones. There were girls giggling, gossiping, and some old woman talking to the birds she was feeding. And then-- police sirens?

Isaac inhaled, sharply, hand twisting into a fist at his stomach, teeth grinding together as his aura grew to tower over him.

Then it was okay. The police cars were only passing by, only chasing down a speeding driver. He was fine. His world was fine. He didn’t notice the woman walking by, didn’t notice her notice him.

He shook his head slowly, to clear it, and took one step forward, then another shaking one, and another, and before he knew it, he was walking to the exit. His aura died down, came to sit right above his shoulders. He didn’t think it’d left him very often in the month he’d been away from Mayview. There was always danger, always something to keep a lookout for. Sometimes it was monsters, surprisingly enough, sometimes it was the spirits he was looking to spend the rest of his time undoing the evil of, and sometimes it was other people.

He took another step forward, and for a moment his vision gave out, blacked out, left him blind and unsure. He squinted and blinked, but he couldn’t move his head freely. When his vision returned, and the world around him came into clearer view, he saw why-- he was face-down on the ground, knees freshly skinned from the brush with the sidewalk, palms of his hands itching and red and stinging. He took a moment to reorient himself, and by the time he did that, he had an audience.

Isaac tried to shoot up, tried to push himself off the ground at the first site of unfamiliar shoes as his feet, but his arms had lost all strength, and he found his mouth full of splintered, cracked concrete in the next moment.

The people around him started whispering, some asking if he was okay, others asking what happened because they hadn’t seen it but they’d noticed the crowd-- crowd, crap.

You’ve got to get up, Isaac. You have to! You’ve come so far, it can’t end like this!

He took a deep breath and pressed his palms to the sidewalk again, willing his arms to work-- work, please, just for a moment-- and still, he fell back to the ground, cheek scraping against the ground. That meant his hoodie had fallen down, which meant--?

“Oh my god! Oh my god, is that that missing boy?”

Isaac grinded his teeth and gathered the strength he didn’t have, using the tops of his feet to push him forward and not his hands to pull him up. Instead, he skidded forward before he could push himself up, and when he was on his legs again, he shoved past the crowd that’d surrounded him, giving every hand that reached to grab him a small shock, incentive to keep away. No bigger than static. He bolted for the woods, pulling the hoodie back over his head and tightening it by the strings.

“Hey, wait!”

A woman’s voice trailed after him, no different than the rest, so he sucked in his grinding stomach and pressed onward.

He didn’t see a woman reach out after him, see her stumbled up to the woods and pause, or her wide eyes as she followed the trail of blood he had no idea he was leaving behind, or see her steel herself and straighten up, hands clenched at her sides.

The next one was a teenager-- younger than the first, maybe fourteen or fifteen. He was alone, on a street corner in the wealthy, artsy area of the town, performing the act of a mime for free, save for the tip jar he’d set clearly to the side. She approached him silently, head tilted, folding her arms over her chest. He’d noticed her, and in an instant he went from pulling an invisible rope to forming an square-- a box-- around himself, went to work pounding against the fake wall soundlessly. His legs slid below him, and he began raising his hands above his head as though the ceiling was-- ah, she nodded-- the box was closing in.

“Do you really feel that box of yours?” He blinked at her, and she shrugged. “Unless, of course, that’s a trade secret?”

He frowned and, rather than forgetting the box he’d “formed” around himself, he pressed open the top and climbed out of it. It was all very impressive to see, especially for a boy so young. He stood up straight, and fixed her with a glare as he crossed his arms over his chest. “A mime isn’t supposed to talk you know?”

She laughed, waving an apologetic hand. “I know, I’m sorry about that. I just, well, I couldn’t help but notice that you’re performing for people who… aren’t really there?”

He sucked in his cheek and glanced away. “So? Somebody could be watching me from their cozy little apartment, right?”

“I have a feeling that isn’t who you’re performing for.”

He sighed and glanced around, like he was looking for art critics to pop out of nowhere and accuse him of ruining the name of the good ol’ mime. When he looked back at her, his lips were in a thin line. “Look, lady, what do you want? I could be ruining my whole career by talking to you in costume!”

“I don’t want anything, dear, I just want to talk!” She offered him her hand. “My name is Catriona. I think I know who you’re performing for. Tell me, have you had any near-death experiences, dear?”

Isabel was all smiles as she waved Ed and Dimitri off in the evening, which was great because an all-smiles-Isabel was Ed’s favorite Isabel. Even as they came to the front of the tunnel leading to the rest of the city, they could still turn around and see her standing on the front porch of the dojo, waving whenever they’d take a moment to glance back. Ed and Dimitri laughed together and gave her another wave; this time, she laughed too and went back inside.

“I’m glad I got to see Izzy again” Ed had a habit of mumbling to himself these days, the habit of a boy often scolded for his volume, he guessed-- he hadn’t expected Dimitri to hear him.

“Ed.”

“Yeah?”

Dimitri came to a halt, and a few steps later so did Ed. Something had changed in the air, subtly, quietly, but Ed had become more familiar with the world around him, more familiar with the way his lungs seemed to grow heavy--or his heart-- in preparation. Why? Well, that was anyone’s guess. Dimitri always had a lot on his mind, was always thinking, always considering. Ed stood still and waited patiently, while Dimitri stood even stiller aside from the motion of sticking his hands in his pockets. His head was down, and still, he was looking up at him. “You and Iz are still friends, right?”

“Wh-- yes! Of course we are! Best friends! Why? Wh-was it not obvious?”

Dimitri shrugged, eyes falling to the side. “No man, it’s just… it seems like you kinda want more?”

Oh no. No. Not this again. Not from him-- not from the Master Observer of their entire dang club! Ed screamed and tossed his head back, hands pulling and tugging at his hair. “Not you too! We’re just friends! I don’t like Izzy! Why does everybody keep saying that?”

“I don’t know, man” Dimitri usually started to grin there, and for a faint moment he did, and it faded into the same thin line with a downward twitch. “ ‘ts just the way you look at her.”

Ed balled his fists at his sides, face heated enough that he hardly felt the cold air of fall, and he was sure that heat reflected on the red of his cheeks. “Well I don’t like Izzy and I wish everyone would stop” he kicked the dirt “implying I did!”

Dimitri sighed. “Whatever man,” he began walking again, moving past Ed, carrying on down the road where they’d separate-- Dimitri would return to one half of Mayview, and he would return to the other. Ed exhaled through his teeth and followed. “I just thought you should know…”

He blinked. “Huh?”

“If you do like her,” Dimitri paused again, but he had no intention of looking back “you’ve got competition.”