As Rowena struggled to keep awake in the dark of night, watching over her three friends, she began thinking through what she knew about their respective reactions to their Abilities.

The fact was that the only thing all three had in common was their extreme use of their Abilities over the last few hours. Was it possible that such intense channeling of power could be harming them? Rowena chewed on her thumbnail worriedly. She’d never heard of anyone coming to any harm from using their Abilities.

Then again– she’d never heard of anyone getting to use Abilities as quickly or with as much intensity as they had, either.

They hadn’t had much choice, though. Finnegan had been right, it turned out, when he’d spoken of the ‘relentless call of the road.’ First the thieves and the altercation at the Inn, then the wyvern– all against the backdrop of the wearisome physical exertion of miles and miles of walking every day and her anxiety in open spaces. Not to mention that it was getting hard to ignore their unusually fast Subclass development.

Rowena looked back over at her friends’ sleeping faces. She could only very barely make out their features in the dim glow of the partially covered up orb, but though Mattie was shivering, she seemed at peace curled up in Sorel’s arms. The two young women clearly had a particularly strong bond– she’d known they were close from the few weeks of Martha’s Class and Subclass education classes, but particularly over the last—

Suddenly, Rowena frowned, remembering something Kieran had said when he’d returned to their shared room at the Wandering Vine, about ‘interrupting’ the two of them if she’d stayed in their room.

Rowena clapped a hand over her mouth. Was she really this dense? Was she really so foolish?

I made a mistake choosing Secretseeker, Rowena thought bitterly. I’m the most oblivious person I know. Even Kieran had picked up on the nature of Sorel and Mattie’s relationship!

You are a bit naive, the Fog voice surfaced for the first time in a few days. But you must try to trust your instincts. Secretseeker was readily available to you for a reason.

It was tempting to fall into a good, long, wallow, something Rowena usually didn’t hold with in the slightest. Calla was the one who would throw dramatic fits and sulk in her room for hours at a time. But the last few weeks had completely upended Rowena’s life– she’d thought she’d dealt with difficult situations before, and maybe she had, but she’d never felt so targeted before. Her family life may have been a complicated mess, but no one had actively tried to harm her. Between the mysterious stranger, Damon Murderer (as she thought of him), the thieves in the Inn, and the mindless violence of the wyvern… it was all so overwhelming.

She needed to be better prepared, and she needed to fully reconcile herself with her Subclass and Abilities. They were hers for life, after all, and someday she’d need to figure out how to build a life with them, and how to make sure she and those she cared about would be protected from harm. That meant embracing her choices, and who she was. She thought about the thieves and the wyvern and shuddered.

She would start with keeping her friends safe through this night. But she herself was beyond tired, and was wondering how she could possibly manage to stay awake the whole night long when something occurred to her.

Rowena slowed her breath a little and began to focus on her Sigils, entering the subdued mental state where the Fog lived and she was more in touch with her Subclass.

Don’t activate, she thought urgently, as she considered the Calm Person and Detect Secret Abilities. Next to the two clear, bright Abilities there was shadowy feeling she got from the Influence Person Ability she’d accidentally activated so many days before. She shuddered: she didn’t want to think about how it was possible that she had that extra Ability.

Don’t activate? the Fog thought at her questioningly, but the Abilities remained latent.

Rowena ignored it, instead trying to get a feel for each of the Abilities. When she thought of Detect Secret, her mind was flooded with the abstract shape of it, and the feeling of knowledge and curiosity. Calm Person was a wave of gentleness and influence. She tried to edge as close as possible to each of them without activating them, instead trying to get a feel for the magic that presumably powered them.

What it felt like, she decided, was like pouring water through a pipe, watching it flow from one end to another. She leaned into that feeling for several minutes as she considered the idea that had been developing.

Could she reverse the flow? If she pushed the magic into the Ability from the opposite direction, would it achieve the opposite result? She had no idea what the opposite of Detect Secret would be– Hide Secret? Detect the Obvious?-- but surely the opposite of Calm Person would be imbuing the recipient with alertness and energy.

Which was exactly what she needed if she was going to keep awake for the next several hours.

You really think that this is a good idea? The Fog seemed incredulous, but also quite curious. I already told you it’s a terrible idea to use Calm Person on yourself at all. But this…

Shut up, Rowena thought. She had to at least give it a try.

She focused intently on the shape of the Calm Person Ability in her mind, and recalled the feeling of the energetic flow of the magic. Imagining the Ability as a channel for the magic, she purposefully visualized the flow going in the opposite direction from where it naturally wanted to go.

The magic fought her: it did not want to do this, and pushed back against her like a trapped cat. Rowena gasped as a headache began to form, but screwed up her face as her resolve intensified. Surely this pushback meant that what she was trying might actually be possible… previously, when she’d tried to work on the intensity levels of Detect Secret, when something didn’t work it simply failed, did nothing at all. But this…

With an immense effort, Rowena forced the flow of the magic in the opposite direction. Something seemed to give, and for a moment she was as disoriented as she would have been if she’d seen water flow up a hill rather than down it.

Inverted Calm Person, Activated!

Secretseeker Level Increased from Four to Six!

Two New Abilities Available!

A tingling sensation flowed through her body much like how she’d felt after a large cup of Thea’s strong coffee. She felt her senses perk up and her exhaustion ebb away as Inverted Calm Person took effect.

Quickly, Rowena opened her eyes and removed herself from the meditative state, remembering what had happened to Kieran when Mattie had failed to stop using her Ability quickly enough. No sense in pushing her luck any further than she already had.

But an Inverted Ability? Does anyone else know about this? she thought, looking at her hands in wonder.

Actually– the Fog piped up, but stopped short as a blast of nausea hit Rowena so fiercely that she barely managed to turn her head (fortunately, away from Sorel and Mattie) before she threw up all over the ground.

This campsite is going to smell terrible after we leave, she thought wryly, fighting to keep the noise down as much as possible as she continued to expel the little that was in her stomach, and her body continued to try to rid itself of even more. She could hardly recall experiencing a less pleasant sensation. She leaned back against the stone panting, and, worried that she’d woken everyone, guided the little glowing orb high enough to cast its pale light on the others.

She needn’t have worried– her friends hadn’t stirred in the slightest.

Which was exactly why she was grateful her Inverted Calm Person had worked, even if it had made her sick. If they didn’t wake up to the sound and smell of her vomiting, they certainly wouldn’t wake up to thieves and brigands until it was too late. A tiny grip of fear clenched Rowena’s insides: what if that… that Sylas, as Thea had named him… what if he and his goons had been Banished nearby?

That thought had been haunting her for the last few days, though she knew it was unlikely that, this far from the Inn, they’d be anywhere near the thieves. Still, it was the main road to Arcania, and as such, she had to assume they had at least already gone by this way. She hoped the wyvern had gotten them.

Rowena got up, went to the packs they’d abandoned across the horseshoe shaped ring of stones, and dragged them over. She pulled out a waterskin and took a swig, first rinsing her mouth and spitting it out and then letting herself drink as much as she wanted. This proved to be a mistake, as she almost immediately retched it back up again. She contented herself with smaller sips, instead.

A sharp edge of anxiety coursed through her body and mind, and Rowena found herself wishing she’d just built a fire and made some coffee, danger be damned. She was awake, to be sure, but at what cost?

Rowena had been vaguely aware of the possibility of danger when she’d taken the leap toward the Heartstone several days before, but she hadn’t had the time to really sit and think about the whole situation. That she and her friends were different from everyone else was obvious– they were leveling far faster than anyone she’d ever heard of, but what did that really mean? Kieran just seemed excited about it, Mattie was obviously scared of her Abilities, and Sorel… it was hard to have any idea of what Sorel thought, really.

Rowena bit her lip. What was wrong with all of them? How could they fix it? She had time to think, now, so she settled in to consider these questions– and she thought she knew where she might find some answers.