For a few moments Professor Rhoric is quiet, hands twisting—brows meeting over his broad nose.

“It’s, well…it’s hard for me to talk about, to be honest,” he begins, sighing. “My father’s family never had much to do with me, so my connection to that culture is weak. And they’re very closed. Not a lot of information on the Aether.”

“It’s alright,” says E.J. “Take your time, and just tell us what you can.”

He frowns, eyebrows twisting upward in concern as he regards me.

“Well, it’s a story about something called an...hm, there’s no way to translate the word. It’s called the Aravatra. A being with the abilities of all Umbran types. I don’t know much about it, as I said...but I know that to become one, a person has to be a Stormstruck Umbran. There was more to it than that, a lot more. But that’s all I remember.”

E.J’s eyes narrow. “The Aravatra, you said?”

Rhoric nods, and she glances over her shoulder. “Ever heard the term before, Somi?”

“I have not. A search on the Aether brings up...two results. Each with the same or less information ”

Rhoric shrugs. “As I said. Closed culture.”

Pravda sets her cup down hard on the coffee table, frowning and lacing her fingers together as she leans back in her seat. Toad sips their coffee, eyes bright. Burstrom fidgets, about to open her mouth again before she’s beaten to it by E.J.

“So you’ve never at any point thought it could be true? There aren’t specific figures from your culture’s mythology or history who were Aravatra that you know of?”

For a moment, he looks uneasy—gaze shifting from E.J. to professor Pravda. A small frown tugs at the former’s lips. He shakes his head. “I haven’t counted it as anything more than myth since childhood. And I think it’s likely there were such figures in legend at least. No, I’m almost certain there were. But their stories and names weren’t sung to me.”

E.J. murmurs acknowledgement, eyes narrowing in thought as her hand goes up to rub at her temples.

“I think it’s clear that Ashwyn won’t be able to thrive or truly advance as an ordinary student until all this nonsense is sorted out,” says Pravda, hands coming down to rest on her knees as she leans forward again to look at me. “I think it might be wise for you to rethink your independent study and guidance plans for now. That time would be better used in finding answers about and gaining control over your situation.”

That snaps me out of the daze of overwhelmed disbelief brought on by learning of the Aravatra, and finally my eyes focus as I meet hers.

“But wouldn’t that set me back in my studies? I’ll be behind everyone else.”

“You have much, much more to deal with than everyone else,” points out Pravda. “And you’ll get burnout and lag behind them anyway if you try to shoulder too much at once. Give yourself some grace.”

A dull ache begins to throb at the front of my head, and now I’m the one rubbing my face. Standing, I walk away from all of them. Back out to the balcony. To my vapestem. To the open, salt-and-flower-scented air and the view of the ocean, trees and sky. I drop into the seat facing outward at it all. Boon bobs over my shoulder, buzzing almost imperceptibly.

A few moments later, they all crowd out onto the balcony to join me. Somehow, Mittens has managed to find her way into Toad’s arms, making contented chittering sounds as the Viridian rubs her cheeks with a knuckle. Burstrom presses up beside them, reaching over their arm to pet the spoiled little creature too.

E.J. kneels at my side, Rhoric stepping forward to lean agains the railing.

“You’re not alone in this Ash. We’re all going to help you through it,” says E.J, reaching up to clasp my hand where it rests on my thigh.

“And don’t worry about getting behind,” adds Pravda. “You can’t compare your situation to anyone else’s when it’s entirely different.”

“As your primary mentor, I agree,” says Rhoric.

I’m not sure when the tears started rolling down my face, only that my cheeks are already wet. I sniff, wiping at them with a sleeve, and nod. “A—alright.” I say, thoughts recrystallizing at last. Summoning images of Leon. Of my mother’s smug, wild-eyed face. Recollections of every time she’s disrupted my life, hurt the people I cared about. Manipulated me and spat on my dreams. Whatever’s going on...she knows about it. And she wants to take advantage of it.

And I’m not going to let her. I take a deep breath as I piece together my shattered resolve with a something I suddenly have a great deal of.

Rage.

Rage that I temper before it can burst outward, rage that I turn inward to burn like a hearthfire in my heart. I’m not sure how exactly I’m able to do it in that moment—just like that. Maybe it’s having all these intelligent, incredible Umbrans at my back. Maybe it’s the love in E.J’s eyes, the warmth and pressure of her hand on mine.

Or maybe it’s Pravda, to whom E.J. flashes a glare a moment later. My contained hearthfire falters and flares—but I manage to hold onto it for a few moments longer before slipping into my mantra and breathing exercises. Allowing the fire to infuse my blood, to spread evenly throughout my being.

We talk and plan for a while after that—and by that I mean the professors talk as I nod along, occasionally adding a word or two as I slump further and further sideways in my chair. Their intermingled voices are the last thing I remember before falling asleep.

I wake up in E.J.’s arms, the others gone. She pads across the apartment to her bedroom, laying me down gently in the bed and tucking me into luxuriously silky sheets beneath a weighted blanket. I reach out to catch her hand just as she’s pulling away.

“Please, don’t go,” I whisper, prying my eyes open to look up at her.

“I can’t stay,” she says, voice and expression pained. “If there were a storm—“

“We can sleep in restraints,” I suggest half-heartedly, but she scoffs.

“You can barely sleep with clothes on. How are you going to get any rest with cold metal coils around your arms? And cuddled up close like that, we could still bite each other. Unless you want to sleep in a muzzle?”

“Hhhhrrrrgggg,” I groan, turning onto my stomach to bury my face in her pillow as I begin to strip my clothes off under the blankets.

“Goodnight, Ash,” she says, waiting as Mittens scurries past her to join me on the bed before she turns off the light and closes the door behind her.

~*~

I wake up to the scents of warmed butter, eggs and coffee and the clatter of cooking. There’s also a hint of blood amongst the food smells drifting in under the door—the ordinary human kind. O negative, maybe.

“Oh good, I don’t have to wake you,” says Boon, dipping into view. “Do you remember today’s plan, from last night’s discussion? I think you were asleep—“

“I definitely was,” I say, the last word extending into a yawn as I sit up and stretch. “What’s the plan?

“Well—“

“We’re going on a trip.” The door opens and E.J. lopes in, breakfast-laden tray in her arms.

“A trip?” I blink. “But I thought you said—oh, spirits,” my train of thought is broken as E.J. unfolds the tray’s little legs with her pinkies and sets it down over my lap. There’s a small bowl of food that’s obviously for Mittens, which she quickly whisks away to set down against the wall alongside a dish of water. Other than that, though, there’s grilled egg-toast covered in bananas, mangoes, sweet coconut cream, and powdered sugar. There are scrambled eggs with herby goat cheese and a cup of warmed blood too—O Negative, as I’d guessed—alongside a mug of coffee with cream and crushed mint.

"Wow" I mouth, picking up the fork.“This looks amazing. Thank you, J. You didn’t have to do all this.”

She shifts a little awkwardly as I take my first bite, smiling a bit as my eyes go wide in appreciation. “I’ve been channeling a lot of my, er, energy into cooking, lately.”

Narrowly avoiding choking as I swallow my next bite, I fumble for something to say.

“I need to learn to cook really well, now, so I can pay you back, then. Maybe make some blood strawberries of my own...” I trail off, realizing that’s probably not making anything less awkward, but somehow it works.

“Oh,” she perks up. “Do you have any of those berries left? That’d probably be a better way to start your day than this re-warmed stuff...”

“A few,” I hedge. “but I left them downstairs.”

“Ah,” she says. “You should probably eat the rest soon, they won’t stay good for much longer.”

“Right. I’ll pack them to take with us for our trip, then. Oh, about that. Um…where are we going exactly? And how?”

“Well, when I said we couldn’t leave the Archipelago, that wasn’t strictly true. There are a few exceptions—the other Umbran universities and their islands. They’re the only places new Umbrans aren’t legally barred from. It’s rare for a student to ever go to another school’s island, but we can visit as long as I have special permission from their Dean. Which I now do. We’ll be going to my alma mater, Storm’s Gate.”

I feel my eyes go wide, but I have to wait until I finish chewing my next bite before I can speak again.

“That would be amazing. But…why? Don’t we have kind of a lot on our plates right now?”

“That’s exactly why we’re going,” she says, sitting down at the foot of the bed. “Answers. We need answers. And we’re going to pry them out of SGU’s cold, not-dead fingers,” she grins.

~*~

After breakfast and about ten minutes’ futile protest at the notion of missing two days worth of classes, I pack my things for a five-day trip. Then, after another fifteen minutes more or so of debate, I gather up Mittens and settle her into her carry-bag, triumphant in having convinced E.J. to let me take her with.

Apparently, Pravda will be substituting for her in the Shifter classes and Rhoric in Umbran History. In a way—and in spite of all the stress and our reason for going—it’s almost like we’re getting to take a vacation together. And though the weight of recent events hangs heavily overhead and its shadow is deep, a glimmer of excitement sparks at the prospect.

When we’ve both got our things together, I’m surprised to find a small, gunmetal gray skycraft awaiting us on the rooftop portal-pad rather than a glowing sigil. Hornsby grins and waves at us from the cockpit before giving up all pretense and rushing down the still-unfolding stair to hug me and shake E.J’s hand.

“Welcome aboard my favorite body,” says Somi as we climb the small stair and cross the threshold, her soothing voice humming from everywhere and nowhere all at once.

“Don’t make it weird, Somi,” quips E.J.

“This is...really cool,” I hedge, looking around at the sculpted interior with its lacquered wood surfaces and leather seats. “But why don’t we just portal in? Need to save Umbra?”

E.J. shakes her head. “Portal sigils are prohibited on the Storm’s Gate archipelago, they’ve got strict policies on that. I had to get special permission even just to come in on a private vessel—the majority of authorized arrivals are by their own ships and skycraft only. You’re lucky I’m one of their favorite alumni.”

“Lucky, am I? And whose fault is it I’m in any of these predicaments to begin with?” My tone’s joking, my lips curling up in a smile as I elbow her playfully—but E.J’s expression goes immediately dark.

“Your mother’s,” she says.

Hornsby retakes his seat in the cockpit, though I’m pretty sure he’s just there as a precaution. At a word from E.J, we launch into the air.