The reinforcements they had requested, it transpired, had also been caught under the butterfly's spell. Harold, Helen, and Jimmy encountered them near the town borders, just as they were waking up from the effects of the scale powder.

"What happened?" asked a sixth-year girl.

"We'll tell you on the way," Jimmy said.

He and Helen filled them in on everything that had happened while the drop ship returned to Helix. Harold, on the other hand, had started feeling the effects of the scale powder within minutes of boarding, just as he had said he would, and crashed to the floor, sleeping contentedly. His dreams were pleasant and less vivid, and completely devoid of mutated animals and long-lost family members, which was a relief.

When he finally awoke, it was Wednesday morning.

"I slept through all of Tuesday?" he said, horrified, when he met the others in the canteen.

Helen nodded, looking impressed. "It's a new record, even for you. But don't worry, Girvan let it slide when we explained what happened."

"Wow," Harold said, eyes wide. "Did I miss anything?"

"Not much," Jimmy said. "Butt-load of classwork to catch up on, though."

Harold let out a sigh of exasperation, rubbing the bridge of his nose. "We literally had to free a town from a mystical butterfly, and we still have to worry about homework?"

"You do if you want to stay at the Academy."

Harold scowled, chewing angrily on his fries. "So, what did they say after you gave the report?"

"Nothing, really." Jimmy shrugged. "I think they were kind of surprised that this Gargantuan was docile, compared to the others, and about the effects of the scale powder."

"Not surprising, given that it was pretty powerful," Harold said.

"Almost fantastical," Helen added.

Harold frowned. "What do you mean?" he asked.

"Well, look at it this way. All the other Gargantuans we've faced have just been mutated to have their natural capabilities enhanced. The gorilla became faster, stronger, and smarter. And the salamander and the hornets naturally produced their toxins, which only became more powerful. But what butterfly have either of you ever heard of that can produce sleep-inducing powder? That sounds like something straight out of a fiction book."

"It was pretty weird," Harold said thoughtfully. "And then there's the way it understood me, it was just...When I asked it who attacked it, it showed me a face, reflected on its wing."

Helen paused, a fry halfway to her lips. "You never told us that!" she said, looking shocked.

"Didn't I?" Harold tried to remember. "Huh, guess not. But anyway, it was the weirdest thing. It was so...intricate. And when it touched me with its antennae, I could almost feel what it was thinking."

"So, what, they're getting smarter?" Jimmy said. "More powerful?"

"More like...they're evolving," Helen said slowly.

"Into what?" Jimmy asked, looking frightened.

Helen contemplated for a moment. "I don't know...Maybe if we could figure out where they came from, we could figure out what their purpose is, and that would explain why each one is so different."

At those words, Harold remembered the vision he had been shown before he had woken up in Boston. The immense valley, the wide, grassy plains, the deep blue river, the field of Gargantuans, the cube of iridescent light. He was wondering whether he should tell them, but....

"I had this dream," he said abruptly, deciding to just get it over with. "When we were asleep, I dreamt that I was on this island. But, everything was completely out of wack. And I mean completely. The trees were growing all sorts of fruit, the weather was insane, with things like lightning flashing on an entirely clear day, or rain falling upwards, and everything was a different colour. And there were Gargantuans there, dozens of them, of all kinds. And in the center of all this was this...this light. It was prismatic, you know, like a rainbow," he said, and Jimmy and Helen nodded automatically.

"I didn't know what it was or what it was doing there, but I knew that it was what was causing everything—all the Gargantuans, the weird plants and weather conditions. The light was like—"

"Transmutative," Helen finished, with a faraway look in her eyes.

"Yes! Exactly! Well, not really exactly like that. It wasn't changing one thing into another—not like the haze that changed my chocolate bar into a coin the other day—but it was like it was...altering reality itself. It looked like some kid's crazy imagination was manifesting into the real world. And it felt so real. It was like I was actually there.

"The weirdest part was when I moved closer to the light, and I saw what was producing it. It was some kind of cube. It was glowing in all the colours I'd seen around the island at the same time, and when I was right in front of it, the light just expanded. It was almost like looking into the sun, but I couldn't close my eyes. I think I actually woke up with them burning."

"That's an awfully vivid dream," Jimmy said, his express skeptical.

"Yeah, well, I can't control what I dream about," Harold said, a little defensively. "What did you dream about?"

"I dreamt I was flying," Jimmy said simply, shrugging. Helen and Harold stared at him. "What, it's like my comfort dream. I like the sensation of flying."

"And you?" Harold said to Helen.

"That I was home," Helen said quietly. "And that I wasn't an Enhanced."

Silence fell. Harold was staring at Helen, mouth agape, but then the bell rang, jolting them back to reality.

"Time for class," Helen said, and she swung her bag onto her back and swept off.

They did not get the chance to speak to her during their next class, History, though Harold found something else to distract him for the following period. It was another Gym lesson, and after a full day of rest, Harold was ready to work off some steam.

Mrs. Robinson had opted to put them in groups of three and four this time, switching the Gym floor with a kind of forest-like terrain that extended deeper into the levels below. Then she told them to hide.

"That's it?" one boy asked her. "That's all we have to do? Hide?"

Mrs. Robinson grinned. "You will be attempting to conceal yourself during the entire lesson from my drones," she said. "If you are caught, not only will the drones stun you, but you will also automatically be signed up for an extra few minutes after class to help clean up the Gym."

So they hid, for an entire hour and a half. Judging by the screams and wails of disappointment, she had found several groups. A few drones whizzed by where they were, but found none of them. Though Harold was used to the advanced technology by now, it was still amazing seeing the level of technology that Helix possessed in comparison to the rest of the world.

"All right, I think we're safe here for now," Harold said, moving back from the cave mouth to join Jimmy and Helen.

Jimmy nodded, but Helen merely hummed. Harold exchanged a look with Jimmy, who shrugged, then he sat down.

"So," he said, in an attempt to prompt her into speaking that failed miserably. She merely continued to hum, fiddling with two twigs like a bored child.

Harold sighed exasperatedly. "Helen," he said, losing patience, "are we not going to talk about what you just said?"

"Not unless you want me to find a bigger stick and break it over your head," she said matter-of-factly.

"Wow, that was...surprisingly violent," Harold said. "But either way, it'd be worth it. Now come on, spill. You know you want to," he said, in a cajoling singsong voice.

Helen sighed. "Fine! Okay, I dreamt that I wasn't an Enhanced. That I was normal. It's not exactly a secret that most of us here wouldn't want to be like this. Part of the reason why we're here instead of home with our families and friends is because people have the same reaction to us as they did that poor girl who was killed the other day. So maybe I just dreamt that I didn't have to deal with all that anymore."

Harold, surprisingly, felt stung. He couldn't tell why: it was something that had crossed his mind many times since enrolling at Helix as well. If they had not been cursed with this immutable reality, none of the students would actually be here. Like Helen said, they could have been at home, surrounded by loved ones, could have gone to an actual high school, led happy, healthy lives. Instead they had to be here, isolated from the rest of the world, learning how to fight, because their lives most certainly could depend on it.

It was distinctly unfair, Harold thought. He liked going out, liked the chance to stretch his legs and breathe air that didn't reek of the sea, but why it had to be this way in the first place had never particularly settled with him. Yet he had met many of his greatest friends at this place; could he have said the same if he hadn't been here?

Though the thought had bloomed in his mind many times, he had pushed it away. What was the sense in imagining what could have been when there was no chance that it could be that way? It was merely torturing yourself, directing your mental faculties to create a vision of what your life could have been like if you had been...normal.

But he wasn't. None of them were. And he had long since accepted that.

"I know it's crazy," Helen admitted with a sigh. "But think about it, and answer me truthfully. If you were given the chance to undo all of this—a miracle cure, whatever it was or however it came about—wouldn't you take it?"

Harold was silent for a moment, his unfocused eyes on the ground. Then, as if in a trance, he heard himself say, "Yes."

It was crazy, yes, but it was just as she'd said. Only two days ago he had been forced to relive a recollection he'd long since forgotten—or maybe he had merely stuffed it down, like so much else from his past—and it was plain that the life he had led was far from what he had now. His father had known that he was Enhanced, and his mother was blissfully unaware, simply believing "her boy was tough."

He could be back there in that loving home, as the son of Joseph and Ophelia Farwell, not as a freak, or an abomination....

"But we can't," he said abruptly, shaking out of his reverie. "Because as much as we would want one, there isn't a cure, and we should stop pretending that there is."

Jimmy averted his face, but Helen, to his surprise, was shifting uncomfortably, as if she had another crazy idea.

"What?" Harold asked her.

"It's nothing," she said, though her facial expression told him otherwise.

"What is it, Helen?"

"It's just, I—" She bit her lip, playing with her twigs again.

"Spit it out."

"What if there is a cure?" she blurted, unable to restrain herself.

The question took Harold and Jimmy, by the look on his face, aback. "What?" they said in unison.

Helen sighed. "The idea crossed my mind when we found out that more Gargantuans could possibly be out there. It's obvious that none of these animals were born this way. Something is changing them. And then there was the haze you found when you were out at sea. It changed your Crackermilk bar into a penny. Which is why the idea's been hovering around in my mind. What if whatever is changing the Gargantuans now, could be used to change us, back to how we were before all of this?"

Harold tried to speak, but something seemed to have twisted his tongue. He looked around at Jimmy, who looked equally thrown.

"Helen," he said gently. "There's a good chance that these animals are being changed by something that's not entirely natural, but there's no guarantee it would work on humans—or even in the way you would want it to. I mean, this 'force,' whatever it is, changed a simple salamander into a gigantic monster with a toxin that nearly killed you! What if it changes you into something like that?"

"But what if it doesn't?" Helen said, the desperation in her voice raw. "What if we find a way to use it, to make it work for us—"

"And then what?" Harold said, his voice surprisingly calm. "You just pretend like everything is fine, saunter back home, get welcomed back in, eat dinner and chat like nothing happened with the very people who tossed you out on the street?"

Helen made a sound almost like a gasp, tears welling behind the glasses. "How dare you?" she said. "How dare you?"

Harold regretted the words immediately. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean that—"

But Helen didn't seem to hear. She got up, thrust her tablet back into her pocket, and whisked away into the forest, leaving Harold behind her, his eyes closed as he reflected on what he had just said.

Harold skipped dinner that night. He had a feeling it was best. Helen, of course, would want her space, and it wouldn't be fair to Jimmy to literally place him in the middle of their spat. So after Jimmy promised to bring him back some rolls, he left.

Harold lay in bed staring at the ceiling, though he wasn't really seeing it at all. It was a low blow, he realized that. But at the same time, along with the urge to apologize, he felt an odd sense of triumph. Helen had been building up hopes of using whatever was causing these monstrosities—whatever she wanted to call them—to make herself "normal"? Was that why she had been so eager to continue hunting the Gargantuans, even after spending a day in Sick Bay due to Mira's toxin? Finding out more about these creatures would help them find out more about what was causing their mutations, which in turn would help her to be free of the burden of being an Enhanced?

It was a silly hope. Dangerous, in nearly every sense. Whatever this thing was didn't appear to change anything for the better....

Or did it?

He closed his eyes and again he saw himself on the island, surrounded by emerald grass, sapphire rivers, and multicoloured mutant animals. Had it really just been a dream? Or was it more? Was it...some kind of vision?

He reached up and absently touched his chest, the same place he had felt that odd sensation that had led him to the butterfly. He wondered where it was now, if it was obeying his words and steering clear of humanity. It was nice to see that at least one of them wasn't vicious, hell-bent on destruction. This one appeared to be benign, and had only initiated the sleeping powder as a self-defense mechanism.

It was funny, how the actual enhanced creature was the victim in this scenario. Again, human cruelty had shone through, mutilating it as it had that poor girl and, possibly, her brother.

Harold shook his head, his eyes snapping open. He didn't want to think about that any more. But it still loomed in his mind. What he needed was a distraction. He looked around, but the only remotely interesting thing that presented itself to his sight that could help take his mind off things was the same blue-grey journal he had come in to find nestled in his pillow.

He knew full well that he wouldn't be able to read it, but something told him to try anyway. He picked it up anyway and opened it above his head. His heart missed a beat.

There, highlighted in the squiggly cloud where the words "Midèn kai ápeiro" had been, were the words "Zero and Infinity."

Harold closed his eyes and shook his head firmly. When he opened them, the English words were gone, and the original statement was there once again, entirely unreadable.

Zero and Infinity.

His heart was pounding. He needed to tell someone. He got up out of bed and rushed downstairs, still in his jumpsuit but barefoot. When he reached the canteen, he began to look around for Jimmy and Helen, but then he noticed the entire room's attention was fixed on something else. Someone else.

Harold followed their gazes over to the counter, where a young man was standing beside Mr. Beryl, their first-year coordinator, who was stocking a tray of food and seemed to be asking him what he wanted. The boy, who looked drawn and miserable, seemed to be barely answering, averting his eyes from the collective stares of the entire canteen.

"Who is that?" Harold asked a boy at the Zeus table, to which he was closest.

"That's him," the boy replied. "The boy who was attacked, whose sister died."