They reached Damien’s house a few minutes later. The two story building looked just as Damien remembered it, but it still somehow managed to come off as foreign. It had been so long since he’d gone home that coming back felt strange.

“Don’t tell me you’re scared,” Henry said, giving him a mental prod. “Come on.”

If I recall correctly, you were the one that was scared of her. You thought she’d kill both of us for the sake of humanity.

“It’s not my fault you were a dirty little liar.”

“Are you talking to Henry?” Sylph asked.

“Yeah, sorry,” Damien said. He shook his head and approached the door, knocking twice on the wood. A few seconds passed with no response. He went to knock on the door again, but it swung open before his hand could make contact.

His mother stared at him for a moment, her eyes widening in recognition. She didn’t look like she’d aged a day. Her hands were covered in flour and she wore an apron. “Damien!”

She swept forward, pulling him into a tight hug and holding it for a few seconds too long. Damien gently extracted himself from his mothers grip and felt a flush rise to his cheeks.

“Hi, Mom. I’m sorry I couldn’t visit earlier. I was… busy, I guess.”

“That’s what all the teenagers say,” Hilla said irritably. “I did the same thing when I was your age. Nobody wants to come home to their boring old mother.”

“It really was important!” Damien exclaimed. “Blame my teacher, not me. He’s the one that wouldn’t let me leave.”

“Good move,” Henry said. “Pass the problem onto Delph. Maybe your mom will beat him up for us.”

Shush.

Henry cackled and faded back into Damien’s head. Hilla finally took a step back and noticed Sylph standing awkwardly a few feet behind them. She glanced back at Damien, then brushed her hands off on her apron and grinned sheepishly.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t notice you there. I blame Damien for not keeping in contact enough. A mother has to worry, you know.”

“Mom, this is Sylph,” Damien said. “I was hoping she could stay with us for a week.”

“Of course she can! It’s a pleasure to meet you, Sylph. I’m Hilla. Are you one of Damien’s friends from school?”

“I’m his roommate,” Sylph said, shifting from foot to foot. “I’m sorry for intruding.”

“Nonsense,” Hilla said, dragging them both inside. “If you’ve managed to bring Damien home, the very least I could do is put a roof over your head. Have you eaten yet?”

Sylph started to stammer out a response, but Hilla didn’t give her a chance to finish. She led them up to a table and pushed the two into chairs.

“I’m making pancakes,” Hilla said. “I didn’t realize I’d be having company, but I’ll have some extra if you give me a few moments.”

She darted back off to the kitchen, leaving Damien and Sylph at the table.

“Sorry,” Damien whispered. “She’s a bit over the top sometimes.”

“No, it’s fine,” Sylph said. “She’s much… happier than I expected.”

“Yeah,” Henry added. “For someone who broods so much, you don’t feel related to her at all.”

Shut up.

Henry let out a snort of laughter.

“Henry seems talkative today,” Sylph observed.

“Is it still that obvious when I’m talking to him?”

“You’ve gotten better at not zoning off and staring into space,” Sylph admitted. “But I’ve gotten pretty used to it by now, so I can spot it. Your eye kind of twitches a bit.”

Hilla swept out of the kitchen carrying two plates each bearing a single pancake. She slid them in front of Damien and Sylph, then grabbed a glass jar of syrup from the counter and put it down in front of them.

“Would you like some butter or blueberries?” she asked. “I’ll have more pancakes out in a few minutes.”

“She’ll take the blueberries,” Damien said before Sylph could refuse. Sylph glared at Damien once his mother had returned to the kitchen. He shrugged in response.

“Are you telling me you didn’t want the blueberries?”

“Well, no,” Sylph admitted. “But I don’t want to take advantage of your mother’s kindness.”

“She’s probably not going to give you much choice,” Damien said. “You’d better just brace yourself for it and go with the flow.”

Hilla emerged from the kitchen a few minutes later with a huge bowl of blueberries. She plopped it down in front of Sylph, then returned to grab several plates piled high with pancakes.

“You’re both still growing, so you must be very hungry,” she said, sitting down across from them. “Please, eat as much as you like.”

“Thank you,” Sylph said, glancing at the bowl of the blueberries like it was about to fight back. She carefully took a small spoonful from the top.

Damien carved off a piece of pancake and stuffed it into his mouth to hide a grin as Hilla took the spoon and added nearly half of the blueberries to Sylph’s pancakes, completely burying them. Sylph shot a pleading glance at Damien, but he just shrugged and dug into his meal.

Once all the food had been finished, Hilla grabbed the plates and brought them to the kitchen. She adamantly refused Sylph’s offers to help do the dishes and instead banished them to Damien’s room, forcing him to promise to show Sylph around the town once they got settled in.

“Your mom is intense,” Sylph whispered once they’d left the room. “Is she always like this?”

“Pretty much,” Damien replied. “You’ll get used to it. I think she was disappointed when I stopped bringing friends over.”

“Why?” Sylph asked.

“After Henry, I kind of pulled back,” Damien said. He led her through a hallway and toward his room. “It was hard to have any sort of relationship with people when there was a Void creature trying to end the world hitching a ride in my head.”

Damien’s shadow twitched as Henry commandeered it. It lengthened, rising up on the wall and growing a mouth and two purple eyes. “I’ll have you know that Damien was a terrible host. He kept trying to wake me up while I was asleep.”

“You slept for four years!” Damien snapped. “And is it really wise to reveal yourself like that?”

“It’s fine,” Henry said. “You’ll notice this isn’t my normal form. I’ve been working on a normal manifestation for you. There’s no trace of Void energy when I’m like this.”

“Ah,” Damien said. “Cool.”

“You see?” Henry asked Sylph. “I had to deal with this for years.”

“I’m sorry for your loss,” Sylph said seriously. Damien glared at her and she smirked in return.

Damien pulled his door open. A wave of nostalgia washed over him. His room was as plain as he’d left it. A single bed rested underneath his window, across from his desk. He walked over to it and pulled a drawer open. There were still sheafs of paper stored in it.

“I forgot how boring your room was,” Henry said. “At least your place in the mountain still has some character. You could at least put a drawing of me up on the walls.”

“Henry, are you literally just here to make fun of me?”

“Pretty much,” Henry said. “I was getting bored in your head and this felt like a good place to practice my manifestation.”

“And you’ve got nothing better to do other than hover over me and critique the stylistic sense I had when I was thirteen?”

“Well, now that you mention it,” Henry drawled, a grin tugging on his mouth. “Maybe I’ll take a look around town. See if there’s anything more interesting than your boring room.”

He pulled away from Damien’s feet and shot through the window, vanishing into the dimming daylight.

“Wait!” Damien hissed, running up to the window. “You’ve got my shadow, you bugger! What if somebody sees?”

There was no response. Damien rolled his eyes and flopped down onto his bed. Sylph sat down beside him.

“It’s not that bad,” she said after a few moments.

“Huh?”

“Your room,” Sylph clarified.

“Oh, thanks,” Damien said, rubbing the back of his head. “I really didn’t think about decorating much because I was so worried about my magic and Henry.”

He blinked, then slapped himself in the forehead. “Shit, I wasn’t thinking, was I? You had much bigger things to worry about in the forest than I did.”

“I don’t know if I’d say that,” Sylph said, twisting to look out the window. “More urgent, maybe. But not bigger.”

“Were you really just going to camp out at your old place?” Damien asked. “Alone?”

“I wasn’t sure what else to do,” Sylph admitted. “I figured they wouldn’t have torn the house down even if he was dead. The only people that know about it are the ones from Blackmist, and they should know I don’t have anywhere else to go.”

“That’s not true,” Damien said. “You can come back with me whenever you want. Unless you’d prefer to go alone, of course. I don’t want to force you–”

“I definitely prefer coming with you,” Sylph said, cutting him off and giving him a small smile. “The forest doesn’t hold any good memories for me.”

“That makes sense,” Damien said, desperately searching around for another topic to talk about. Words suddenly evaded him like fish in water and he became vividly aware of the fact that he was sitting alone on his bed with Sylph. It wasn’t that different from what they’d done in Blackmist, but it felt different.

He glanced at Sylph out of the corner of his eye. Her cheeks had the faintest spots of red on them, which only served to make his heart start beating even faster in his chest.

“I, uh–”

The window flew open and Henry shot inside, giggling like a child. “Have you ever tried scaring a goat? I knew they play dead when under threat, but it’s so much more fun doing it in person!”

He paused, glancing from Damien to Sylph. “Am I interrupting something?”

“No,” Damien said quickly. “And what did you do to the goats?”

“Nothing,” Henry said defensively. “Nothing lasting, at least.”

Damien sighed and rubbed his forehead. He wasn’t sure if he was angry or relieved that Henry had interrupted them. “Just please don’t get caught. I’d rather not get chased out of my own town with torches and pitchforks.”

“They don’t know of my true nature,” Henry reminded him. “It would probably just be pitchforks, given I might have scared one of the goats away from the herd.”

There was a polite knock on the door.

“Can I come inside?” Hilla called.

“Sure,” Damien replied, sending a sharp glance at his companion. Henry shot back into Damien’s feet, giving back his shadow.

Hilla slipped in. “I’ve got a town hall meeting in a few minutes, so I’m going to have to head off. I just wanted to make sure you knew before I left.”

“Are you on a town council?” Sylph asked.

“Something like that,” Hilla said with a small grin. “I’m pretty sure they only invited me to try to get Damien’s father on board, but I suspect they regret that now. They want to remove more funding from the school and invest it in funding the useless properties that Mayor Shindal owns.”

“They’re still trying to do that?” Damien asked. “Isn’t that what the council was doing before I left for Blackmist?”

“And it’s what I’ve been stopping for the past few years,” Hilla said. “Don’t worry about it. There’s nothing they can do about it. I’m happy enough that you’ve come back. The Mayor has been strutting around that his kid came back early and rubbing it in my face a bit.”

“Joey?” Damien asked after a moment of digging around for a name. “He went to college a few years ago, right?”

“He graduated from Greenvalley,” she confirmed. “And Shindal is setting him up to become the next mayor. Enough of this, though. I didn’t come to complain, I just wanted to let you know I’d be off for a little. If you want to go into town, use the back entrance so I can lock the front door.”

“I will,” Damien promised. “Are you sure you don’t need help at the council or something?”

Hilla snorted. “It’s just a bunch of old geezers whining, Damien. Don’t you worry about it. Now stop being an ungracious host and show Sylph around the town. I’m sure she’d love to see where you grew up.”

She headed out of the room and down the hall, grabbing her coat from a chair and slinging it over her shoulders before disappearing from view.