Rissa shook her head, but didn’t reply directly. “When can you come? The sooner the better.”

“I don’t have time off til the first full week in October. That’s fall break, I can come out then.”

Rissa shook her head again. “That’s two weeks. I think you really should try to get out here before that. A long weekend maybe? Or take some time?”

“I don’t know, I really don’t want to make them find a sub on short notice …” Jacob sounded like he wanted to agree, but wasn’t sure he should.

“If you want, Serenity and I can come to see you instead?”

Serenity winced at Rissa’s offer. He wasn’t sure if he’d be able to fly or not, given how poorly he matched his ID. There was no way he’d get through TSA easily. Even if he could, he knew the trip would be horribly uncomfortable.

Still, if Rissa said she needed to go and he needed to come with her for her brother, he’d go. He just wouldn’t enjoy it.

“That might be a good idea. I’d welcome your visit.”

Rissa stared at the phone for a moment before she managed to speak. “Sounds good, I’ll let you know when we have it arranged. And make sure you set something up with Denise; I want to meet her!”

“See you soon.” Jacob hung up.

Rissa stared at the phone for a moment before looking up at Serenity. “He’s never been that easy to convince. I think he really is worried.”

“So why were you talking about a set, like we were in a show?” That still didn’t make any sense to Serenity.

Rissa sighed and sat down in the chair properly. “He literally doesn’t believe in magic. He can’t see it if it’s right in front of him. So I decided years ago to treat it as a TV show. He can believe in that, and when he hears us talking about it, it just translates in his head like we’re talking about a show. It makes things easier, but I’m still not sure if it was a good idea or not.”

“It was a good idea. It’s what let you keep contact with him. He won’t talk to his mother at all, and he barely talks to me.” Russ looked sad as he said that. “Someone in the family needs to keep up with him.”

The call from Jacob threw their plans into the air. Serenity barely had time to mention Nightwitch’s advice about an assistant before Rissa was shoving him, Russ, and Red out the door with instructions to check out as many malls as they needed to.

Katya caught up with them before they reached the edge of the dungeon. “You are going to a place of buying and selling, yes?”

“A shopping mall? Yes, but we’re not going to go in. We’re going to check out the damage in the parking lot, not buy stuff.” Red didn’t slow down as she spoke, but Katya easily kept up.

“You will be there. I can look myself, see what is sold and bought and for what value. It is important to know what is already done when you move, so you can do the new thing and sell more at the price people will pay.”

Serenity blinked. Had Katya just said that she needed to do market research so that she could select a profitable niche market where her family could capture market share, without using any of those words?

“I’ll go into the mall with her once we confirm the area’s clear,” Russ said. “I won’t be useful for the tracking part anyway; that’s not my specialty. I’m afraid I’m mostly just a strong arm.”

Katya laughed at Russ’s words. “No one who says that is just a strong arm. Hale says things like that sometimes, and he’s far more than that. Still, company me and explain. I will be happy to hear what you say.”

Serenity was almost sorry he’d miss it; seeing what Katya thought of a modern Earth shopping mall would be interesting. What would she think of the dance studio and the “Bouncing Fun” store? Would that be stranger than the lingerie shop or the hat store?

Red had a minivan. It was a better choice for the four of them than Rissa’s car, even though Serenity was slightly smaller as a human than as a chimera. It was still a surprise; he hadn’t realized Red had driven from wherever she called home. Somewhere out west?

He could ask, he didn’t always have to assume. “Where are you from, Red?”

“Originally? Ohio, but these days I live in Nevada.” Red shrugged. “It was a long drive, but when Rissa called I had to change plans. Even with the detour it was faster than Adrian, so I shouldn’t complain.”

“Rissa called?” He knew he’d been busy dealing with the dominated people, but had he been pushing her away that much? Was that why she wasn’t sure how he’d feel about a child? Why hadn’t she told him Red was coming?

“Yeah, she needed someone to pick up Katya. She also wanted me to check out where they’d been living, something about treehouses, but Echo said she wasn’t opening the gates for an overnight. She did say she’d like you to visit. Something about unlocking something, but she wasn’t very clear.” Red opened the minivan’s door and hopped in. “She invited Rissa, too. I think she wants to show the place off.”

Serenity nodded. “Who’s Adrian?” He hadn’t heard the name before.

“Theo’s Guardian. They’re out in the Yukon somewhere last I heard, but for some reason he’s driving. She isn’t with him; apparently she’s staying behind to finish up whatever they’re there for while they head this way.” Red paused, then looked puzzled for a moment. “I’m not really sure why he’s still coming. I think Russ called him in when you and Rissa were captured or something like that?”

“Theo told him to go ahead and head our way, she’d follow next week. I think she wants some time away from him.” Russ closed his door. “You’ll understand when you meet him, he can be a bit much sometimes.”

Once they drove off, Serenity’s mind went back to Rissa. Was he ignoring her too much? She’d volunteered to stay behind after all because of her brother, but he didn’t want to push her away. At the same time, he was heading out to do something potentially dangerous, and he didn’t want to put her in danger.

Maybe the solution was to set aside some time for training with her? He’d done that back in the Tutorial, but it ended with the Tutorial. That would give him time every day with her, and she’d also be better prepared to protect herself. He didn’t want to choose her Paths for her, but he definitely could take her to some local dungeons to help her progress them if she picked the combat-oriented Paths he was afraid she would.

He was less certain how to help her with her current Path; it was aimed at visions and foresight. How could he help with that? For all that he had the Time affinity, he really wasn’t a Time mage. He knew the magic basics, but that didn’t help with applying it to Time, and everyone knew Time was one of the hardest Affinities to master.

Was that common knowledge even accurate? High Time affinities were supposed to be rare; maybe Time was hard not because it was innately more difficult but because people had lower Affinities. Probably also lower Concepts, when he thought about it; understanding Time was not easy. He suspected that was a lot of the reason his SpaceTime Concept was so much lower than his SpaceTime affinity; he simply didn’t have the understanding of Time.

Maybe that was something Rissa could help him with?

Serenity’s introspection was interrupted by Katya’s soft voice. “If you’re a shapeshifter, why didn’t you use that back on Tzintkra?”

The simplest answer was the truth. It was the answer he preferred to give, anyway. “I couldn’t. I didn’t have a human form then.” At Katya’s doubtful expression, he elaborated, “It came with my newest Path, a way to gain an additional shape. It’s why I don’t exactly look like myself.”

Katya’s expression cleared. “Oh. You are a double. Or a-” She stopped and seemed to hunt for a word before giving up and saying “infiltrator” in Bridge.

“No.” Serenity hated being compared to those Paths. He would have used the word doppelganger instead of “double”, but it was obvious she meant Paths of deception, trickery, and falsehood. “I’m-”

How much did he trust her? For that matter, how much did he trust Red?

Enough for this secret, at least. “I’m a dragon. I’m just very bad at shapeshifting.” All of the dragons he’d met were very, very good at shapeshifting. They couldn’t move in other societies very well if they weren’t. Serenity didn’t know if somewhere there were dragons that didn’t bother; if there were, the Final Reaper had probably killed them by accident.

Or maybe something had survived. He didn’t think so, but he could hope. It didn’t matter anymore.

Serenity wasn’t sure Katya believed him. It was sad; he was telling the truth - well, a big piece of it, anyway - and he was probably not being believed.

“You’re a bundle of contradictions, Serenity.” Katya smiled as she shook her head. “You seem to mean well and you definitely helped the Shining City with little reward offered. You’re an odd mix of highly experienced and very young; I can almost believe you’re really a dragon. What’s your element?”

He should have thought of that when he said he was a dragon. It was fairly well known that most dragons had an Affinity; there was an entire song about the Drinking Dragon.

Well, he’d come this far; what point was there in lying? It wasn’t like a lie would be believed anyway, and he didn’t really want to lie to Katya. “Essence. It’s sort of like the other half of mana.”

Katya seemed both startled and relieved. “Show me.”

Serenity wasn’t sure what the best way to show her was for a moment. Essence didn’t behave like mana; it generally wasn’t as flashy, and he wasn’t nearly as good at manipulating it. Even if he did, how would that show that it was his element as a dragon?

The simplest way to identify a dragon if you didn’t recognize the characteristics was the breath weapon; it would always have some relationship to the dragon’s element. Unfortunately, Serenity didn’t have a breath weapon.

Or did he? He had managed to accidentally spit out that ball of whatever-it-was when Raz startled him. Maybe he could do it again?