She climbed down from the roof-top, jumping from one decorative banister to another, swinging her body expertly like a monkey in an urban jungle. As soon as her feet hit the ground, she dashed down the avenue, keeping to the shadows. Her cloaking spell shimmered around her, distorting her presence from security feeds. She had another similar spell for stationary use.

William was her biggest obstacle. One false move in acquiring a role that he perceived as belonging to him would merit revenge. She had no doubt that he would go out of his way to make her miserable just to entertain himself. It made her position that much more dangerous since she did have secrets to keep from him. Granted she's had six summers of hiding her identity from him, she was sure that he had already seen too much. She considered herself very lucky that William thought so little of her that he failed to put all of the pieces together. Still, working around him was a chore.

Having to mask her preliminary research on the Academy as computer failure by hitting the hard reset button on the underside of her desk, then blaming it on him, had cost her hours of work. She had to get a new encryption key from Philip just to get back into the system registry. She cursed herself for not shutting her door, but knowing William, the shut door would have been too irresistible to pass up. Still, it would have bought her a few precious seconds.

The lingering remnants of her access to the school's feed had inadvertently leaked into the household network, allowing William access to the tournament feeds. She was thankful that he was so fixated on the tournament that he had failed to notice everything else he had suddenly gained access to. She corrected that mistake while watching the desired feed using her personal tablet. One by one, she altered William's network permissions until all that remained was the video they were watching, and the Council mandated applications. She figured she might have downloaded the resources to the home network instead of her console. She made a mental note to be mindful of her actions in the future, as they could land Mathias in hot water not only with the Council but with his employers. She could be so blind to the people she was hurting when she focused on the bigger picture.

Kendra's timely appearance at the Mather's household held a double meaning. Astral was relieved to learn that Kendra's hesitance was a result of her newly acquired Hunter status, but it wasn't a conversation that either of them could share openly. The fact that Mathias had sent the new Hunter to Astral suggested that she refused to submit to the Red Order's sanctions. If Kendra chose to hunt and was caught doing so, she'd be labeled a rogue hunter, and she could be sent into permanent service in the killing fields. Rogue Hunters after all existed only to take advantage of the people, or so the Red Order claimed when they hunted Astral's father. Luckily for the new Hunter, Mathias was more than able to guide her down the Hunter's path while keeping her status a secret from the society who wouldn't bring themselves to understand. Astral wondered how long it would take for Kendra's curse to send daily encounters. Would she have years or decades? Was this data something that Mathias was studying?

She knew Mathias had been hunting since his early teens. Fifteen years later, without Astral's presence in Clearwater and now that the gate was contained, the worst he had to deal with was an encounter every few weeks outside of the hot spot. During her father's time in town, attacks were escalating, indicating something big was on the horizon. She wondered if perhaps it was her father's curse that was causing the rise in demonic activity and that he was instinctively drawn to the gate.

Astral had drugged William's lemonade during their casual blow by blow re-hash of the video they were attempting to view. Even without Kendra's presence, she would have drugged him just for a little peace. Sometimes, it was worth getting grounded. Once William had succumbed to the sleeping essence, Kendra relayed Mathias' instructions. Traces of a particularly vicious gnarly demon were spotted, and Mathias felt that it was a good opportunity to get acquainted with the new Hunter's talents. Astral recognized the familiar lust for the hunt in her shy guests eyes.

Later that night, she was surprised when William popped his head out of his window, witnessing a hunt in action. It was just his luck to shout at them with the demon clinging just above him, hoping to make a quick escape into the Mather's household. She did the only thing she could do. She leaped toward the beast and swung her scythe, triggering the blade to break apart and propel itself outward. The blades boomeranged toward the lizard demon. She hoped, prayed, that William had half a brain to get out of the way as she plunged the shaft of her scythe, turned spear, toward his window. Luckily, she didn't miss her target. She found William's unconscious body in the fetal position in his closet, hiding in a pile of clothes he couldn't bothered to put away.

They couldn't leave William's body tucked neatly in bed; there were too many memory triggers. They put him back in the living room where he remained blissfully unaware of the rest of the night. He never mentioned the event afterward, much to everyone's relief. The plan, as it always was when William witnessed too much, was to erase all traces of the event and to deny that it had happened at all.

The past three days had been particularly trying. Unlike Clearwater, she didn't have Mathias to rely on to misdirect William's suspicions. Learning about Seth's latent abilities put Squad VII on her radar, which put her in conflict with William. To her summer acquaintance, it didn't matter that he had no intention of trying out for the games, as long as she didn't make a move for it. The instant he found out she was a candidate for recruitment meant that he considered himself a shoe-in for the position. Her problem would come in the form of retaliation when reality didn't quite shape itself to his expectations.

Her problem wasn't so much convincing Seth of her lack of interest; it was in convincing William that she had no interest in the position without ruining her chances with Seth. She figured out pretty quickly that was an impossible feat and opted for misdirection. A friendly wager, staged of course, but something that would push him to extreme measures and ruin his candidacy.

She expected him to cheat, which by the school's laws would have him removed from the games registry amongst various other punishments that would hopefully keep him too busy to be a nuisance to her mission. That left her with the problem of how hard should she push herself. She had to hold back. She could be good at one or two tests, but not all of them. It would have been too strange for some spoiled rich brat, who never had to do a day of honest hard labor, to show signs of extreme physical prowess.

She figured she'd make a show of performing poorly, reducing William's fears, and blame Seth for her miraculous improvements during the secondary testing. Seth pushed her, hard, knowing she could do better than what she was aiming toward. She couldn't exactly explain the details of her ploy to him, it would come off as unnecessarily cruel. He honestly thought that she was attempting to save her friend's ego by performing poorly. The idea warmed her heart. It was a pity she wasn't that sort of person. Maybe she deserved a friend like William.

Roger was a godsend in the grand scheme of things. That morning, William nearly caught her with Seth, immerging from an early morning training session, a basic one-on-one walk through of the previous scenario without all the running and terrorizing. She learned afterward, that Seth, in his infinite wisdom, had convinced himself to speak with William, hoping to reason with the second year student. Instead, he overheard William's exchange with Roger. Seth decided to stir the pot, forcing Roger's hand. How his adversary was inclined to recruit candidates was something of a surprise to the captain. His reaction at having been denied, was less so.

Guilt drove Seth to seek a favor to make amends for the harm he had caused the less than desirable candidate. Unfortunately, he misinterpreted William's desire to join Squad VII as wanting to join the games in any capacity. For the time being, she was relieved that she wouldn't be in William's cross hairs, at least until he found another opportunity to made a grab at the prestigious team.