27

Marith had forgotten that 03.00 in the morning even existed, but her alarm clearly indicated a three, surrounded by some zero’s, when it went off. Some mysterious force of nature helped her get out of bed at that ungodly hour. She rushed shivering into the chill bathroom and snuck out of the mansion not long after that. She hoped to be back before Lieke would wake up. Nick wasn’t as hard to lie to, mainly because he had chosen to not prod about Marith’s whereabouts anymore, but Lieke was naturally more suspicious.

Watchmaker had instructed a selection of the Chain to meet in a clearing in the forest and the Runners, applying their infinite strategic insights, had decided for the group it would be a splendid idea to practice where the anchor had been defeated. There was no reason for the Kid to visit those grounds anymore, and it was about forty-five minutes away from the nearest town, at a human pace, so they would enjoy all the privacy in the world.

Marith met William, Vanessa and Jonathan in the deserted town’s square of Sweet Lake, so that they could walk to the meeting place together.

The forest was quite light, despite the fact that they gathered in the dead of night. Apart from their enhanced senses the snow was illuminated by the light of a gaining moon, shining amongst a blanket of stars that embellished the dark sky like precious stones.

Marith hadn’t paid particular interest in the night sky, since the night of her Push. Hiking uphill through the blue blanket of snow she looked at the Milky Way and saw… more. More lights, more details, more solar systems shining on. She could even discern different colours, where she had only been able to register faint lights before her Rebirth.

She felt small, but not as infinitesimal as she used to. She still marvelled over the fact that the Web they were serving and protecting stretched out to every corner of the Universe and even beyond that.

She didn’t have to ask herself the question that was almost as old as mankind. They now knew there was intelligent life out there and she felt oddly at ease about the fact that these creatures seemed to be peaceful and kind, at least to humanity.

Brad, James and Anton had already been waiting for them in the middle of the clearing. They had arrived earlier to scan the perimeters and they hadn’t been held back by a human in their midst.

A fresh layer of precipitation had buried the Birdman’s blood. The Mages stood knee deep in the virgin snow, but the Runners barely left a mark.

“How is that possible?” Will wondered, pointing out the difference.

The other Pupils had noticed this at one point or another, but the time William had spent with them had mostly been during spring and summer and he hadn’t been there when the Birdman was killed.

“I guess we’re more enlightened than you,” James teased, with a wide grin.

“Are your bones hollow then?” Brad snorted. He had of course noticed this phenomenon before, but he had never cared enough to ask.

“No, it’s magic. It’s the same wizardry that makes us so fast... it also made us light, apparently.”

“Luminous,” Will remarked.

“Exactly!” James finished. “Now on to more urgent matters.”

Judging by his tone of voice he wasn’t joking around that cold, early morning.

Only three Runners and three Mages, and Will, were present this practice round. The Prophets were still in their beds and didn’t have to wake up for school for at least the next three to four hours. Juliette was running her shift around Sweet Lakes’ clinic, guarding Etienne.

The Mages shared their experiences and the progress they had made practicing by themselves, at home or at work, with the others. As it turned out they hadn’t made a lot of advancements.

They had found out that it was indeed nothing like the fantasy books they had all read at some point when they were younger. It was far from reading spells from some recipe book and watching the magic inexplicably happen or simply unfold before them.

Brad and Vanessa had even practised together once, without much results, Marith learned, feeling a pang of loneliness around her midriff when she heard that. She was the only other Mage, since Will still hadn’t had his Rebirth yet. She felt left out.

They stood freezing in the snow together, blowing clouds of condense into the night sky, trying to fluff up the progress they had supposedly made, since killing the Birdman.

“I trapped a car at a junction. The driver intended to take off when the light switched to green. It wasn’t able to burst through my dome,” Vanessa shared. “The engine even stopped running.”

“Congratulations,” James said in an even tone of voice, “you’ve caused a traffic jam.” He crossed his arms in front of his chest, with some difficulty, since he was wearing more than just sweatpants and a polo shirt that morning.

“The other day I prevented a kid at school from running into another student with scissors,” she continued.

“Heroic, but you were already capable of catching Juliette mid-air in a bubble, when the Birdman introduced her to a tree,” James said, continuing to be unimpressed.

Anton shifted his weight uncomfortably from one leg to the other. He didn’t love the tension in the air. Jonathan didn’t speak at all.

“I tracked a perp,” Brad shared hastily, when James glanced in his direction. “He was going almost ninety miles per hour outside Spectre Lake.”

“Again, couldn’t you already do that?”

“Yeah,” Brad sighed, trying to rub the frown out of his forehead.

“Same here,” Marith said insecurely, slightly shaking her head when the attention finally rested on her.

James closed his eyes, before he spoke. “Okay, we have come up with a thing… a solution we hope will speed up the process a little bit.” He opened his eyes and gestured at the other two Runners.

Marith and Vanessa pressed their lips together, praying the plan hadn’t sprouted from James’s mind alone.

“Please, tell me it was Oracle’s idea?” Brad informed, as if he had read the thoughts of the female Mages.

James rolled his eyes halfway into their sockets and sighed. “Okay, fine. Oracle had an additional message for the Runners.”

“And you left that out?”

“Amber and Kyle told us not to…” Anton started.

The understanding of the grand design of the Universe and the course of the Web made the instructions of both Oracle and Watchmaker infallible to the point of never being questioned. At least, the Pupils had to assume as much for the sake of their mental wellbeing.

“We are taking off now,” James informed, pleased that he knew more than the Mages and that he could lord it over them for now. “Try to locate us while running,” he instructed Brad.

“Now, that’s a real challenge,” Jonathan said jokingly.

They sped off. Their departure from the plane was mostly unnoticed, apart from the cloud of white dust, glittering in the moonlight, hovering where the Runners had just stood a fraction of a second ago, and settling down again.

“Are you guys as annoyed as I am?” Marith inquired, turning around to face her fellow Mages, when she was convinced the Runners were out of earshot.

“Yeah, kinda,” Brad answered.

Vanessa and Will didn’t answer. The latter couldn’t suppress a yawn. They were probably yearning for their beds.

Before Marith could deploy the vibrating chords from their cage the Runners appeared at the line of trees, on the opposite end of the open field of snow and ice. She frowned and squinted her eyes. She could only discern dark blue silhouettes.

The strings escaped from their envelope in a moment of inattention. She focused on Jonathan, who appeared to be holding something big, or, at least, something bigger than a large dog, with a rapid pulse.

With seemingly just a few strident steps the Runners crossed the plane and stood before them. Jonathan was holding a Columbian white-tailed deer, with big, black, panic-stricken eyes, wearing her winter fur. Her legs dangled limply under the Runner’s arms.

Marith instantly reigned in her searchlights. The moonlight shone down on their faces, giving their skin a sickly yellow hue. Their surroundings were still bathing in blue and the open space had turned into an environment of questionable behaviour and hostility.

“Aren’t you blowing the orders way out of proportions? Whatever they may be,” Vanessa, who appeared to be sensing where this was headed, wondered.

“Well, I am British. It is what we do,” James reckoned in his obnoxious and unbothered tone of voice. “Watchmaker said and I quote,” he continued, raising a knowing finger in the air. “The old ways aren’t dead. They are just dormant. Bring them back.”

“And?” Marith asked, shaking her head incredulously and blinking her eyes rapidly.

“Feel the drums and battle cries of our ancestors,” Anton began, sounding more like a Rus than ever before. “Hear how a horn is blown in the far distance, notice the galloping of horses coming our way,” he said with a telling hand gesture.

Marith looked at him with her jaw slightly unhinged. Even Vanessa was rendered speechless.

“What mushrooms have you been eating?” William put Marith’s thoughts into words perfectly.

“You’re supposed to kill the deer,” Jonathan clarified, not playing around with the Mage, like James and Anton. He was still uncomfortably holding the baffled forest animal. The deer was so stupefied it barely resisted the hold Jonathan had on her.

“Not with your hands, of course,” James informed nonchalantly.

“What?! Why am I doing this?” Marith demanded with big eyes.

“There is no other way to test or enhance your talent,” Anton shared, sounding almost apologetic.

“Ready?” James asked, ignoring her objections.

“How about no! How about that?” Marith asked defiantly and shook her head again, in case they hadn’t seen it the first twenty times. “What if it doesn’t work?” She wondered after an uncomfortable silence.

“Then we’re having deer for dinner, because it’s dying one way or another,” James threatened with a smirk, unzipping his thick coat and reaching for his knife.

“Not funny.” Vanessa eyed him seriously.

“You guys do realize that Jonathan wasn’t dead when I saved him, right? I cannot undo death!” Marith almost squeaked. She was feeling light-headed and noticed colourful blots dancing in the darkness before her eyes.

“There is only one way to know for sure how far your talents really stretch,” Anton said evenly. He wasn’t a big advocate of this plan either, but he had to admit there might be a point to it.

“Vanessa, dear, could you maybe, possibly cast one of your convenient domes over it and unhand our kind Jonathan.”

“Don’t talk to me like that,” Vanessa almost hissed at him. She wasn’t used to being blindsided by the Runners, not like this. Where had the times gone in which Oracle and Watchmaker would first inform her?

Jonathan released the deer after counting back from three by spreading his arms. It leaped towards the forest edge with a profound look of horror in her eyes and her white tail raised in the air.

Vanessa did what James said, trying not to show her reluctance. A slight flash, no more than a glimmer, passed her eyes and the deer was caught in an invisible cage.

The poor, panicked animal ran around the small circle the dome allowed and kept banging her head against the transparent walls.

“Now, for the love of anything holy, kill the fucking deer!” James commandeered, done with all the fussing.

All of a sudden his British accent didn’t sound so charming and distinguished anymore. He was ready for some action, a demonstration of her strength, an acknowledgement of her power. If she couldn’t do it a whole set of fresh and unfortunate problems would arise.

Marith realised she had to do it now and she had to do it right. She knew that if she wouldn’t succeed they would make her do it over and over again, until she would succeed.

Brad and William stood idly by, not knowing what to comment or how to help.

The deer looked stressed and knowing when Marith walked closer to the dome. The animal appeared to be suspecting that this was the proverbial ‘it’. Cold sweat was streaming over both their bodies. Their big eyes and heavy breathing gave their thoughts away.

Was she actually going to kill this ‘furry forest friend’, as Lieke would undoubtedly call it? She had seized to practice on both her sister and Olive for ethical reasons and now she had to stop an innocent animal’s heart for experimental purposes?

She closed her eyes to invoke the lucid dream state she required to control and manipulate the Web and call on the Flow, which presented itself instantly. She channelled the stream of energy that constantly and continuously weaved their fabric of reality. It travelled through each living creature, but could only surge and be warped into a tool by the influence of a Pupil.

Marith opened her eyes and gazed upon the deer calmly. She unlocked the little box, that special place, in her mind that housed the enthusiastically vibrating strings. They fanned out far and wide, celebrating their brief freedom, before obediently travelling the path Marith forced them along.

An electrical currency travelled up and down her legs, back and arms. The Flow made her skin feel cold at first, then it warmed her. She didn’t enjoy what she was about to do, but she loved the powerful sensation it gave her.

When the chords struck the deer’s heart they stiffened and hummed, like a gong being hit by a felt beater. This didn’t kill the harmless animal, but Marith did. She didn’t want to dwell on it.

The act of killing had to be done that morning, according to the Runners. The reason was bigger than herself. It transcended the group and was indicative of their abilities for Oracle and Watchmaker.

She kept it brief. She stopped the heart and stood by, nailed to the ground, while the flow of blood halted and the electrical currency, surrounding the powerful organ, quenched.

Happy now? Marith thought fuming. She glanced up at the sky when the deep brown body fell sideward into the snow. A dull thud was all there was to it.

She stared at it for a few moments, feeling guilty, miserable and several other horrible things. Then she found herself next to the harmless, lifeless animal in the thick snow, which crunched under her sudden weight. Vanessa had lifted the dome, but Marith hadn’t consciously registered that yet.

If death was the true purpose of her gift than that would be the most depressing discovery she had ever made about herself.

“Leave it,” James commanded.

Kindly get fucked, Marith thought, ignoring him.

She had been forced to stop the heart. That didn’t means she wasn’t allowed to start it up again. She couldn’t just leave the body there to rot in the snow, waiting for scavengers to devour. She simply wasn’t wired that way.

She had been able to wake Olive up, after rendering her unconscious. She had accidentally healed Jonathan before. She owed it to herself, and the deer, to see if there was any more to her talent. Perhaps she, a vessel that channelled the powers of the Web, was capable of more than what she dared to believe.

“What is that?” Marith heard Vanessa’s voice ask in the distance.

“I don’t know,” Brad mumbled cocking his head.

“You see it too?” Vanessa wondered astounded.

“I do now…” Brad mumbled, seemingly lost in thought, referring to when they had killed the Birdman. He had not been able to see it then, but somehow, at some point in recent times, he had developed the same sense.

“What is it?” James asked, still demanding, but slightly less demanding than before. Not being able to see the same thing as the Mages seemed to be humbling him somewhat.

“I think this is what happens when something dies?” Brad said with an audible question mark at the end of his statement.

Vanessa made a soft sound of acknowledgement.

Marith didn’t see anything, mostly because she had her eyes closed and Vanessa and the group stood behind her.

The snow beneath the kneeling Mage wobbled and then didn’t, because it angled steeply and tossed her over, as if she was being swept off the deck of a ship by a large wave from the sea.

Her plane of existence had shifted and she knew this was different from saving Jonathan. Mostly because the deer was clearly dead and Jonathan had never actually died, but also because she felt more in control now. She was doing this on purpose. It wasn’t accidentally happening to her, or the deer, like down in the Corridors.

A peculiar power flowed through her arms, hands and fingertips. She had felt this many times before, but never this strong. She had inadvertently placed her hands over the warm chest of the animal, guessing the location of the dormant heart somewhere in there.

Something was trying to explode out of her.

It was life. Life suddenly rushed from Marith’s fingertips like electricity from a powerline.

“Why isn’t it, you know… moving on?” Brad whispered.

The duck pond and the flowers the wounded Jonathan had spoken about flashed before her eyes this time, but she didn’t travel the entire way to ‘Nate’s garden’, as Etienne had astutely called it.

“It’s moving,” Marith heard Vanessa say exasperated behind her. It sounded very distant. “The Birdman’s…” she hesitated and swallowed, “soul went up.”

“Are you influencing it?”

“Me? No,” Vanessa answered. “It just cast a bubble around it, but that’s it. It moves on its own.”

“What exactly is it doing?” Anton wondered.

“It’s travelling back… to the body,” Brad spoke, reluctantly acknowledging to himself that he was seeing whatever was left of an organism after it died and realizing it wasn’t much.

“And it’s gone,” Vanessa whispered amazed as she released the shining, glittering, pulsating mass from the confinements of the bubble.

She and Brad had been able to witness how the deer was reunited with the corporeal aspect of her existence.

Marith remained by the side of the limp body, hoping for a miraculous resurrection. She had removed her hands from the animals fur and had placed them on her upper legs. She felt dazed and devastated.

“So we are seeing souls now?” Jonathan inquired curiously.

“I guess so,” Brad answered.

“I wonder what purpose that will serve in the end,” William, feeling disconnected to the group, mumbled.

“Who the hell cares?” Marith almost yelled.

She stood up, looked upon the failed project with frustration burning behind her eyes, turned around and left the flaccid body of the white-tailed deer behind.

“How on Earth are we ever going to beat this Kid?!” The Mage almost screamed.

The manic look in her eyes was not unfamiliar to the other Pupils, but it sure was unpleasant.

“You can cast a dome,” she gestured wildly at Vanessa, “Brad can locate stuff,” she continued, putting everybody else down and then herself, “and I can influence heartbeats. Wow, that stuff sure comes in very handy fighting an ancient and immortal creature!” She sarcastically yelled on.

“I think she’s having a mental breakdown,” James audibly whispered at Anton, who stood by with his mouth slightly ajar.

“We’re amateurs! We’re idiots! Someone will die!” She warned with crazy, wild eyes. “Jonathan almost did die, the last round!”

She set eyes on the whole group, one victim at a time. The Runners with their attitude, the Mages staring around with a glazed look in their eyes, practicing their so-called talents.

They looked shocked and disappointed, which made Marith feel instantly guilty for her outburst. Europeans were too rude, too direct to ever communicate with Americans without horrifying them at one point or another. She knew that and had therefor kept her fears and doubts to herself, but it had been destined to come out at some point.

She spun around her axis, in an attempt to explain how dire their situation really was. If the Kid would find Etienne and reveal himself for a first and final confrontation they would absolutely, without a hint of a doubt, be obliterated, with their current ‘skills’.

“Wait, where did it go?” Marith stopped ranting abruptly and glanced around, tears frozen on her cheeks, her eyes oddly cleansed.

The deer had been right there. She could still see the imprint the modest body had made in the snow.

Jonathan just pointed at a border of trees, without saying a word, making her feel extra foolish. After rubbing her eyes Marith followed its tracks and came to the reluctant conclusion that her Runner was right.

“So, it worked?” She asked sceptical.

She scanned their vicinity with the strings in her mind.

“I think it went too far… for you,” Brad helped with a telling look in his eyes.

“Oh,” she exhaled. “Well… at least, there’s that,” she started apologetically.

Vanessa crossed her arms and popped her right hip out. William looked pale and drawn. Brad never took anything personal and didn’t seem to mind to be yelled at.

“You’re not wrong,” Anton, always trying to keep the peace, sussed, “but who knows? Maybe after William gets his Rebirth and we perform the Ritual we all grow stronger, more powerful.”

Marith nodded, still facing the group on her own, sluggishly formulating an apology in her head.

“And when will that be?” Jonathan wondered, agreeing with the purport of Marith’s outburst to some degree.

Suddenly Brad’s head jerked to the opposite end of the clearance.

His eyes stopped moving like regular eyes did and also failed to blink. He wasn’t using them anymore. He was looking into something or someone with the eye that was hidden for everybody else.

He breathed in through his nose, deep and slow. “New players have entered the game,” he shared vaguely, while he exhaled.

“Who are they?”

The remaining five pairs of eyes travelled to Marith. She deployed her tentacles to search the forest for these supposed ‘players’ in the general direction Brad was focusing on.

“I have never sensed them before, but they don’t seem to be entirely… human,” she almost whispered. They all knew what that meant.

The group froze expectantly and waited in the clearing that was now bathing in a brighter shade of blue than before. This couldn’t mean a lot of things, but it could still mean enough. The entities moved towards the open space with speed and purpose.

“Can we join you?”

The whisper came from the dimness. Six young, human-looking creatures arrived in the middle of the clearing sooner than any of them could have anticipated.

Anton immediately spurted over to an Eastern-European man his age. Marith hadn’t caught him moving at all, but she did notice them hug and then kiss compassionately.

“Why haven’t you told me you were coming?” She could hear Anton ask.

“It was supposed to be a surprise and this was also somewhat of a covert operation,” his boyfriend joked.

They joined the group holding hands.

“Hi, how are you?” Brad asked the newcomers lamely.

Two women and four men stood before the North-American Chain on that cold and sparkling morning. Marith could feel the electricity, the tension of magical peers finding each other, crackle in the crisp mountain-air.

“Apart from the obvious dark activities in this area we are doing quite well. Thank you for asking,” a slender woman from East-Africa answered.

“Who are you exactly?” James inquired.

“Pupils, like you,” a doe eyed girl with large, light-brown curls and a heart-shaped face, that had a remarkable resemblance to Anton’s boyfriend, answered patiently.

“What are you doing here?” Marith asked, with a shiver. She was either still shaking from her outburst or the voltage of their sudden company was getting to her.

“Joining you, if the demand is still there…”

“Are you here,” Vanessa started, reading Marith’s mind, “with permission?”

What is it?

Mutiny.

This explained Nate’s premonition perfectly. Marith shuddered again. It was an uncontrollable quiver that ran up and down her spine and then her arms and legs. She hoped nobody had noticed.

“Do we need it?” The young man, holding Anton’s hand, asked.

“No,” Vanessa answered with a honey-sweet tone, a sly smile and a shrug. “Just curious.”

He answered the devious look on her face with a flick of his eyebrows and a wily smile of his own.

“I threw Anica off that mountain and I want to serve the Oracle that we send, after we discovered her. What the others think is irrelevant,” a dark twenty-something spoke raucous and strident. “I am Pedro by the way.”

He had black hair, dark eyes, high cheek bones and a deep skin tone. His thick, waving hair was tied back in an impressive man-bun. His wild hairdo, his unkempt beard and some leather jewellery that looked homemade, but could very well be from a famous designer, made him look homeless to the untrained eye. Marith, however, knew that look, having lived close to Amsterdam for a large portion of her life, and she surmised he was likely well off.

“Alexander,” Anton’s boyfriend introduced himself. “I helped Anton obtain the Perpetual Arrow. We understand it has been put to use,” he smiled friendly around the group.

Vanessa didn’t recognize Alexander. He hadn’t joined his fellow Pupils from Siberia when they had jumped to meet Kyle, Juliette and herself in the Corridors. The Mage that had joined them had been the Turkish guy that had birthed the Birdman, in the most inconceivable way.

“And this is my twin-sister, Theresa,” Anton continued eloquently.

Theresa smiled sweetly and glanced around their new fellowship. James appeared to be sappily staring back at her.

“I am Joshua,” a muscular twenty-something with a heavy accent, that Marith couldn’t place, said. “You can totally call me Josh,” Josh said with a discarding hand gesture. “We saw you kill the anchor. Mighty beast,” he added.

“Yeah,” a Pupil from the Asian Chain nodded. “We saw you hunt for the creature.”

“Then Oracle came to us,” the African woman continued.

She introduced herself as Meriyem. She came from Ethiopia, the country that Oracle and dr. Sybling had been born in.

She was tall and skinny. Her head was buzzed and her eyes were light. At first sight she looked like a high-end supermodel. At second sight she looked surprisingly like Cecile and Sybil.

“Is there any chance you are related to Oracle and dr. Sybling?” Anton wondered with a frown, eyeing her up and down.

“Yes, I am.” She had been waiting for this question. “I am a distant cousin. We come from the same bloodline. To answer your next question,” she spoke serenely, but with the authority Marith had grown accustomed to when it came to the Sybling sisters, “I am also a Prophet.”

“We rebelled and our Chains agreed, together with Oracle and Watchmaker, that each continent would send a Pupil. Now here we are!” Pedro clarified enthusiastically. “Don’t worry… We are quite keen on staying alive ourselves,” he continued with a warm smile, slight lines appearing around his eyes. His was referring to the content of Marith’s meltdown.

“Y-you could hear that?” Marith wondered startled.

“Yeah,” he nodded with a curious, but demure smile. “I have hyper-sensitive senses, even for a Pupil, but I can also take senses away and pass them around,” he shared.

“Why are there six of you?” William, suddenly realising something, wondered. “You said that each continent send a Pupil. That would make five of you.”

“We needed six of us, so we can form two new triangles,” Theresa enlightened. “Alexander and I decided to go on this adventure together.”

To everyone’s relief James’s whole mood of totalitarian commander in chief melted into a charming and agreeable cloud of lightness and wonder when Theresa spoke.

“That makes sense,” William answered, nodding.

Finally all eyes rested on a mysterious man with a friendly face and keen, dark eyes. He had a sturdy build, a modest beard and a short, combed-back hairdo. The dark brown leather coat and thick grey suede boots he was wearing, made him look dangerous.

“I am An.”

“Nice to meet you An,” Marith said, eyeing him intensely. “You must be a Mage as well then?”

She had done the math and had come to the only logical conclusion. Alexander was a Runner, Theresa a Prophet, Pedro a Mage, Meriyem a Prophet and Joshua clearly a Runner. That left An as the second Mage of the group.

He nodded and told the fellowship he came from a Northern region of China, called Inner Mongolia. His talent was to influence - or, better yet, to control - the elements of nature.

“I can show you,” he offered.

“Sure,” Brad nodded enthusiastically.

An turned away from the group, before his mind spat fire like a dragon, creating a wide trench in the snow. The flames didn’t arise from his mouth, but in the air about two metres from his face.

The shoulder-deep gully ran all the way to the treeline on which a pine tree caught fire and started to burn to the ground. It instantly and pleasantly illuminated and warmed their surroundings. He then put the fire out with a ray of water that formed mid-air and sped to the burning tree, not wasting any breath on words.

“I can create a thunderstorm or an avalanche as well, if you like?” He asked when he was done and the other twelve Pupils stared at him with a mix of respect and absolute horror.

“We love it, we absolutely do, but that is unnecessary. Thank you,” Pedro added, smiling politely while fearing for his existence. “Shall I go now?” He asked.

“Please,” Brad encouraged.

Pedro raised his left hand and arched his wrist forward until his hand was horizontally. He then spread his fingers, as if the fabric of reality was better controlled that way. The Mage was feeling the Web and channelling the Flow.

Suddenly he snapped the fingers of his right hand, which is when it happened.

Their minds, strangely still attached to their bodies, floated into a void. The Pupils couldn’t see, hear, smell, taste or feel anything anymore.

Marith didn’t even think about whether or not her talent, her sixth sense, was still useable. She was too occupied with being robbed of the first five so suddenly.

She didn’t know if she was screaming or not. She wasn’t aware what was happening to the rest. She was just there, with herself.

The experience was harrowing. How could one not sense anything and still be alive?

A cool mountain wind rose and blew some snow off the branches of the gigantic trees that circled the clearance. The tiny crystals blew past their faces and gave their earthly bodies severe shivers, but Pedro was the only one to notice.

The part of Marith that still was, realized this should probably be a soothing experience. It was, however, hell. The lack of impulses and the complete powerlessness regarding her own body distressed her greatly.

When Pedro released them from their sensory prison she inhaled with a gasp and glanced around with big eyes. Judging by the pale, horror-stricken faces around her the others had endured a similar experience.

“I can make the Kid think he is in the Empty again, even when he’s still here,” Pedro shared proudly.

“This has potential,” Joshua muttered, “but please never to that again.”

“I won’t,” Pedro promised with a slight smile.

“Well,” Brad started with glimmering eyes. “What can we say? Your support is unexpected, but very much appreciated,” he spoke elated, since nobody had said anything along those lines yet and it seemed to be the appropriate and polite thing to do.

That day their twelve man army had grown to eighteen Pupils strong and that was worth about just as much as finding Etienne.

“What about you guys?” Theresa wondered with a high, questioning pitch in her voice.

“We can do… stuff,” Brad started their defence.

“Such as?” Meriyem wondered critically, raising her eyebrows.

“I can locate anyone and anything,” Brad shared with misplaced bravado.

“Really? Where’s the Kid right now?” James wondered.

“Whose side are you even on?” Brad inquired tersely, not wanting to be embarrassed in front of their new troops.

James made an apologetic facial expression, shrugged playfully and resumed to staring at Theresa, who continued to pretend she wasn’t noticing.

“Marith can influence heartbeats, heal people and bring animals back form the death… that sort of stuff,” Brad summed up, “and Vanessa here can cast domes and bubbles over…well, anything.”

“Cool,” Alexander lied, because nobody else responded.

“What can you do?” Meriyem stared intensely at a mortified William, who had been praying they would skip him.

“He’s still human,” Vanessa answered hastily, as if it wouldn’t be so bad as long as she said it fast.

“Oh, I know,” Meriyem spoke with a hint of contempt in her voice, looking down on Will in every conceivable way.

“Oracle told us to keep him human. He has a purpose to serve in his current state.”

“Please tell us that your Chain is at least finished,” Meriyem said looking doubtfully at the seven Pupils of the North-American Chain.

“Yes, it is, don’t worry,” Vanessa answered. “The other five are either still in bed or otherwise engaged. We will introduce you as soon as possible.”

Meriyem thawed somewhat when she heard Vanessa’s explanations and nodded curtly at the chubby, uncomfortable human. The new triangles accepted this fact as destiny and didn’t dwell on the fact that the North-American Chain wasn’t fully formed yet. At least they had collected all the members, which was more than any of the other Chains could say.

“I think we should probably leave, now that the night is coming to an end,” Vanessa finally added, looking at the fading lights in the sky that turned a brighter blue by the minute now.

They all agreed to be shown around Sweet Lake that morning and to be treated to breakfast at Brad’s afterwards. He claimed to be decent waffle maker and had all the ingredients and toppings permanently ready, waiting in his kitchen.

“When did you guys arrive?” William informed as they started to walk away from the clearance.

“And how?” Anton wanted to know.

“We flew here and assembled in Portland,” Theresa explained.

“We weren’t going to take that Jump and almost drown,” Joshua spoke upbeat.

“Yeah, I heard that is not a nice Jump,” An agreed.

“You can say that again,” Anton reminisced, while James made concurring sounds.

“Where are you guys staying?” Jonathan wondered, when they disappeared from the Kid’s view, into the sea of snow-covered pine trees.

“The Elder that came from my family line had a similar talent to me and could only stay in remote areas, as to not turn mad. You may have noticed that certain talents resurface in new Chains, especially when the Elder that possessed the talents dies,” Pedro explained.

“Yeah, why is that?”

“Because some talents are always needed,” An interrupted. “Others occur more random, although I don’t believe anymore that anything that concerns us is random.”

“So,” Pedro continued, ignoring the paradoxical mystery in what An was talking about, “because we cannot dull our own senses we prefer to avoid populated areas. My great-great-grand-father bought a house at Sound Lake. It was a perfect holiday home, especially because that way our Elders could visit yours for longer periods of time without being noticed. My family has rented it out in the past, but there hasn’t been much demand for it in recent years, so it has mostly been unoccupied.”

“What were the Elders doing here together?” Anton informed.

“I believe they studied some of the parchment rolls under your lake and they practiced together, sort of what we are doing.”

“Which, I think we can all agree, is way better when your live is not at stake,” James added jokingly, hoping to provoke a smile from Theresa.

“Did they find anything useful in the parchment rolls?” Brad asked, not giving James’s remark any attention.

“I found a diary, years ago, and either they were clueless on how to fight the Kid or they were very secretive, because I didn’t read anything that isn’t common knowledge already,” Pedro said.

“Or there was a hidden romance between one of our Elders and your ancestor,” Vanessa remarked with a conspirational undertone.

“Only in your mind, Vanessa,” Brad commented, chuckling.

“You mean a sensitive, female mind?” She wondered, batting her eyes playfully at him.

“He wrote about how the Kid would awaken when Oracle and Watchmaker would have to be replaced. His Prophet had received powerful visions regarding Anica. That is why we were so quick to give her the Push when she revealed herself as a possible Pupil. The Elders tried to merge the pieces of the puzzle that they already had. Unfortunately, it had been too soon for them to solve it…” Pedro swallowed and kept walking, peering straight ahead, “but you’re not wrong,” he said, after a few moments of silence.

They kept wandering through, and over, the snow, down the mountain.

“He was in a relationship with a cellist from around here.”

“Marith’s a cellist,” Jonathan shared, making casual conversation.

“Seriously, Jonathan? You naïve muppet,” James remarked with a sigh.

Marith had in fact stopped walking altogether. Her lungs had stopped inhaling and exhaling and her eyes had turned milky. She saw some hazy silhouettes strolling through the forest, away from her, while she stood as still and as stiff as one of the many ancient trees they were surrounded by.

“My grandfather?” She wondered breathless.

“Probably wasn’t your grandfather,” James finished her thought.

“I never…”

“... expected that,” Vanessa said kindly, walking back towards her, to collect the stunned Mage.

“Was he a…?”

“A Prophet, as well? Yes,” Pedro enlightened some of the questions that were now running through her mind.

Everything appeared to be connected in ways Marith had never expected them to be. Months after returning to Sweet Lake and gathering a wealth of information she was still taken off guard by the strangeness of new discoveries.

“And apparently gay.” James smirked.

“Why?”

“Because he was born that way,” Alexander started tersely.

“Not what I meant.” Marith shot him a look. “I was going to say ‘why did he never mention anything, before he died?’.”

“How old were you when he died?” Anton wondered.

“Like, I don’t know… thirteen?”

“That’s probably why.”

“I had a relative that was an Elder?” She repeated herself.

Then what had happened to her actual grandfather? Maybe he had died before she could meet him and this was a decent way to cover up the age of the Elder?

“I bet that when they were young they called themselves Pupils as well,” Theresa mentioned.

“I believe you. I just need to let this sink in.”

This explained why Gene seemed to know so much more about their world than she had expected him to. Maybe her fake grandfather had expected Gene to be Rebirthed one day?

This also begged the question how much her mother knew? Probably nothing, Marith assured herself. She was too self-absorbed to notice such discrepancies.

They continued their hike down that side of the mountain. At first discussing how times had changed and how being gay was now perfectly fine, but back then they both sustained marriages to keep up appearances and to create offspring.

“When their human spouses died their relationship blossomed. At least, that was what I could deduct from his diary,” Pedro told Marith.

Later the topic of conversation circled back to their own Chain and their own struggles with darkness and the Kid – that were actually the very same thing - and the battle to come.

They reached Sweet Lake at sunrise. The morning sky looked like a professionally edited photograph. Down at the horizon the sky filled up with yellow and orange, climbing up to pink and purple, to finish off with baby blue and turquoise flowing into the residue of the dark night sky.

The crude ridges of the mountain ranges had sparkling rims to them. It wasn’t long before the sun greeted the Pupils like an opera singer would an audience, with style, panache and a bombastic presence.

Samuel was there for the tail end of things. He had to do it now. He was seeping energy and soon he wouldn’t be able to stop by unnoticed.

That morning he hadn’t possessed the strength to get out of bed before six, but as it turned out he wasn’t too late for the most relevant part of the Pupil’s gathering.

He didn’t have to come close to the group to see what they were doing. Before, at the riverside, he had been pushing his luck. The Dutch Mage had noticed something.

His eyesight was sharper than a hawk’s, his hearing could beat sonar equipment on a submarine and, most of all, he could still smell their magic from miles away. They thought they were smart, that they were hiding stuff from him, but he read them like an open book.

Of course these snowflakes would call in their cronies from all around the world, he thought bitterly, looking down on the clearance from higher terrain. On their own they were no match for him. Not even in his dissolving state.

It was time he would become more like his sadistic old self again. Purely out of self-preservation of course. He barely enjoyed it.