The route plotted out on the inside of my mask doesn't hinder my ability to see, appearing almost as if it's a sort of projection before me. It also leads me to the top of a building near Zane's apartment, which I managed to reach within only a minute by shadow gliding.

Shadow gliding is actually amazing when going at high speeds, and it feels incredible, moving between shadows faster than I can run. I'm actually kind of disappointed I had to stop so soon, since this is where the Patron's route stopped.

I'm back in my elemental form as well, for that extra boost to my powers and life that it will give me. Just in case the Blond Boy Basher puts up more than a small fight and manages to inflict something dangerous. This way, his attack only damages the spellsuit, which will repair itself right after.

"Kieran," the Patron speaks to me, his voice entering through my right ear as if there's an earpiece there. "You have a decision to make tonight."

"Sir?" I ask as I look out across the city from this building.

"You do not need to be an assassin," he tells me. "This mission is special, and the reason I approached you sooner. It is urgent. If you do not wish to be an assassin, then after this mission, you may become a vigilante whose power is strength in darkness, much like your parents were. You can then figure out what sort of guardian you wish to be over the next few months and learn the spells associated with that."

"Learning spells would take me too long," I shake my head a little. "And it's best if I'm an assassin guardian, isn't it?"

There's a pause before the Patron's response.

"It would be optimal to have a stealth-based assassin, yes," he tells me. "But you need not be that if you do not wish so, Kieran."

"If that's what is best," I say. "Then I'll do it. I was prepared to be an assassin when I said 'yes' tonight, Patron. Besides, I don't think I could learn other abilities so fast, especially not well enough to debut as a guardian with them in the next few months."

"Do not discount yourself," he says. "You are an elemental. Do not put yourself on the level of a mere shaper. If you train in elemental form at the optimal training amount, which is the same as for normal power users, you can improve at a rate of fifty percent of the base per month. You also learn new spells more easily in this form. That is something unique to elementals. It is why Theo is as powerful as he is. And now, you, Aiden, and Zane will be improving at this rate, should you choose to."

A rate of improvement of up to fifty percent? So if I trained two hours at a time, three times a week, every week, I could improve how many five-foot shadow steps I can manage by six or seven a month, and my maximum distance by twelve and a half feet a month? That sounds… incredible.

I'm willing to bet Zane will be happy to train with me after finding out about this, so that we can both improve as best we can without alerting Lucas to our additional abilities or the fact that I'm an elemental, too. Explaining my progress might be difficult, but I'm sure the Patron will prevent Lucas from thinking about it too much.

"I will," I say. "I have a lot of catching up to do, and this form feels amazing. It feels natural."

"It should," he tells me. "If you utilize it to maximize your training, then by your birthday, you will be ready to meet Shade in person."

"Shade?" I ask. "The shadow… thingy?"

"A shadow beast," the Patron corrects. "And yes, him. If you maximize your training with this form, then you will be powerful enough to bind him to you, which will be necessary to protect the safety of the people around. He isn't evil, but his presence will cause worry should others learn of it."

To bind him to me? Like a familiar?

"Okay," I say. "And like I said before, Patron, if being an assassin is how I'm best needed, then I will be an assassin. Use me as your blade of stealth. I will get used to killing. This is something I was determined to deal with the moment I realized I was suited for being an assassin."

"Very well, then," the Patron says. "There are two new spells you should learn. The first will help you with your mission tonight. Reach for the shadows and shape them into a knife. As Shade calls you, you are a Master of Shadows. This should take little effort to do, as they are yours to command as much as lightning is Theo's, fire is Aiden's, and stone is Zane's."

"And light is Lucas's," I poke.

"Eh."

That's not a response that says he's annoyed by Lucas, but that Lucas isn't really worth noting for that. I suppose that's confirmation Lucas is just a light-shaper, if light isn't his to command the way shadows are for me.

Inhaling deeply, I hold out a hand, pulling on the shadows. It's a cloudy night again, the city cast in darkness save for the lights that escape from buildings and the occasional streetlight. Accessing the shadows and pulling them to my hand, creating a knife of them, takes me about a minute to manage, and once I finish, I'm holding a basic combat knife in my right hand.

Made of shadows, of course. If I look at it, I can see through it, the area behind appearing as if covered in shadows. Seeing this will take some getting used to.

"Excellent work," the Patron says. "Despite being made of shadows, it is as solid as you wish it to be, allowing you to cut anything you choose, should you wish it. Now dismiss the knife."

I do, and the Patron has me summon it a few times. The knife takes me around ten seconds to summon, so I guess that will be something I work on in my training. Hopefully, being able to make a knife of shadows instantly doesn't take me a year or longer.

"Good job," the Patron says after the fifth summoning and dismissal. "Now for the next spell, Kieran. And this is one you must not tell anyone you know, not even Theo, until I give permission. Look deep within yourself, to the shadows within. Draw on those to form a knife. For as strong as shadows are, they are nothing in comparison to the shadows of a shadow elemental."

Obeying, I find the core of shadows within me and draw on them, managing to create a knife in about twenty seconds. Though it takes me longer to do, I can sense just how much more dangerous this knife is. Something about it warns me of its dangers.

"This knife," the Patron tells me. "Can harm an elemental even while they're in their elemental form. It will leave an injury that will not heal by shifting forms. Forged of the core of your powers, this knife can kill an elemental, Kieran."

This is why he wanted to make sure I was okay with being an assassin, isn't it? I might need to assassinate an elemental one day, and he wanted to make sure I would be okay with it, then teach me the spell needed for it. Just in case Theo can't kill them through pure combat, I guess?

"You think I'll need to kill one of the city's elementals?" I ask.

"There are elementals in cities with less friendly Patrons than ours," he tells me. "And we may cross paths with them from time to time. It would be best to be prepared in case we cross paths and an elemental is sent to cause problems within our city. There isn't an elemental in this city who can't be dealt with through the guardians I have."

"Okay," I take a deep breath, then let it out. "Which apartment is he in?"

A new route appears on my mask, this time leading me even further away.

"You've yet to arrive," the Patron informs me. "Your stop here was only for my question and your education."

"Oh," I say, then sink back into the shadows, forgetting to release the knife as I do. "Whoa."

The knife stayed with me, still in my 'hand', despite me being made entirely of shadows now that I've entered them. I guess that saves me from having to create a knife on the way. The Patron doesn't tell me to get rid of it and use the other knife, so I just glide through the shadows, following the route he planned out for me.

"Patron?" I test seeing if he'll respond.

Would people near the shadows hear my voice if I speak? That's something to test later, I'm moving much too fast for anyone to really notice right now.

"Yes?"

"If it wasn't cloudy tonight, how much different would my route be?"

"It wasn't meant to be cloudy," he informs me. "I conjured up the clouds specifically to give you an easier route and increase your strength, speed, and toughness for the mission."

He summoned the clouds just for me? Wait, if that's the case…

"A few days ago-"

"Yes, those clouds were for you," he says. "I knew the incident would occur and felt it best to trust you to deal with the situation than Sovirna. Consider it an additional test of your character, if you will. I saw the opportunity to see how you would react, and you pleased me."

If he tested to see how I'd react, did he look for opportunities to test Zane and Aiden, too? Probably, and they definitely passed, to have still been made the offers.

The Blond Boy Basher seems to live tailward, in a middle district near its border to the lower districts. The route plotted out takes me up to the seventeenth floor of a building, to a rather specific window, actually. When I try to sense the shadows inside, something I realize I can do with ease while in this form, I find them… feeling weird.

Pushing deep, I sense no one in this particular apartment, but it's the one the Patron stated the Blond Boy Basher and Cyrus are in. He did mention a dimensional lock, though, so I try to sense additional shadows, ones that are there but not there. Soon, I'm sensing a second layer to the apartment, though it feels like trying to sense them through a layer of something viscous.

There's a smaller figure wrapped in shadows, tied up in a room past two doors. In the living room, there's another figure, pacing about, muttering to himself about how he finally found his target and all he needs to do now is locate the family.

That sounds like he wasn't targeting random people, but actually looking for Lucas's family. Why?

…because of teleportation being able to bypass his dimensional lock. That's why Cyrus is kept in shadows – so that he can't teleport out and for help. If he did, then Lucas would probably show up and obliterate this man from existence.

The Blond Boy Basher was trying to find the teleporters of the city so that he could kill them. That way, there would be no way someone could come after him. He knew that they had blond hair and a young boy was one of them, so he was kidnapping ones he suspected might be them to try to find the right one.

This is just a theory, but it would make sense.

I wait until I can see his face through the shadows, verifying he's the man the Patron assigned me to assassinate, then I teleport into the apartment behind him, emerging from the shadows with knife in hand. Not giving myself time to think, I thrust my knife into the man's back.

The knife sinks in easily, quicker than a hot knife in butter, and when I pull it out, I don't give myself time to think about it, I just reach up and slash his throat. The Blond Boy Basher drops to the ground, and I flip him onto his back, then drive the knife into his chest for good measure, before releasing the knife from existence, feeling the shadows returning to my core when I do.

There's blood on my suit now. And my gloves. It's not the dark red of drying blood but a brighter, fresher color, with a slight shine to it in the light of the room. The killer's body is beneath me, blood still flowing even in his death. It takes time for it to stop, just like when Isaac accidentally destroyed the school.

"Noxulkin," the Patron's voice is calm, neutral. "Leave. Now. Zignarl will handle the boy. You are finished for the evening. If you wish for a route home, just command the mask to display the route to where you wish to go. If you wish to just glide through shadows for awhile, then you are more than welcome to do that. But avoid being seen in your guardian uniform."

"Yes, sir," I respond, then meld back into shadows and glide my way out of here.

Since it seemed like the Patron was making a suggestion, I follow it and just glide around the city for awhile. The high speed makes it easy to see parts of it I've never seen before, and I start doing just laps with increasing and decreasing ranges.

Killing him was so easy. My knife sunk into him like he was nothing. I expected the assassination to take more effort, for there to be a fight, a struggle, a battle. Not for it to end in moments, my target unable to even react to the attack.

Being able to move around like this, to teleport, really does give an advantage for an assassin. No wonder the Patron wanted someone who could. Am I shaking? I'm shaking, even while made of shadows and melded into shadows. I didn't know that was possible.

An hour passes as I just glide around the city, then two, then I come across a place that feels familiar. A park? Yes, that's a park. But I haven't been in this area before, we're almost to the upper districts. Why does it seem familiar?

Wait, this is the park that Shade projects to me from, isn't it? Moving through the shadows, I try to locate the beast, only to end up bumping into him – quite literally. I feel my shadowy self come into contact with another shadowy self that's hiding under the round thing with the bars that's confused me. Shade's tucked in to the shadows of it, melded in just like me. He doesn't stir, though, probably unable to actually rouse fully into consciousness. That's probably why he's contacting me through dreams, after all.

Reaching through the shadows, I touch him again, this time feeling his shadows with my hand. It's soft, like fur, and cool to the touch. His wolf form, I'm guessing? I can vaguely make it out.

For a few minutes, I just stroke Shade's fur, attempting to project my greetings to him even as he sleeps. If it works, he might tell me the next time we speak. I hope.

This helps me calm down a bit, to stop shaking even as shadows. But it's not enough. I need a friend, someone to be with at the moment. Someone to hug and snuggle. Someone who might have an update on Lucas already.

Rather than heading to Theo's apartment, I ask the mask to direct me back to the training center. It's not far from here, and when I arrive, I find it empty. No one around? Maybe Zane went home? My stuff is gone, too, so I'll assume that Theo took it. That means I can't text anyone, either, so I definitely want to go talk to Zane to see if he's heard from Lucas.

"Mask," I say. "Route to the Korriska Building, please."

A route pops up, and I follow it through the shadows, arriving within a minute. I glide up the shadows on the side of the building and sense into Zane's apartment. At first, I'm not sure of what I'm sensing, so I look through the shadows directly.

I sensed it correctly… Zane is balls-deep inside of a guy. Not just any guy, either, but Aiden. Well, it's Aiden unless there's another person with that rather unique hair and eyes around who Zane's met tonight. Since I'm off the market, Zane must have decided to hook up again. Or try a relationship with Aiden. After all, the reason he was waiting with me was because of how new I am to things.

Good for you, Zane, but I wish you'd waited so that I could talk with you. I really need someone right now. Maybe Theo is home now?

I pull away from the apartment and request a route to Theo's, then make my way there, entering it through the shadows and emerging into darkness. He's not home, but my phone is on the dining room table. Letting my spellsuit return to its necklace state, I walk over to the table without turning on the light and grab my phone, turning on the screen as I return to my humanoid form. There's a message from Theo waiting for me, from only twenty minutes ago.

Almost done with things. Should be back in thirty.

I won't be alone for too long. That's good. Hopefully.

The scene of the killer's bloody body and injuries return to me, and a sick feeling wells up in my stomach. Maybe I do need someone right now. I teleport into the bathroom, making it to the toilet in time.

Once I finish losing my dinner, I collapse against the ground, my body beginning to shake again. I killed someone. I knew I was going to have to, and I was prepared to do it, and I did it.

Deep breaths, Kieran. Everything will be okay. You took out a bad guy. A very bad guy. You saved more people from losing loved ones. You did good today. I know I did, but that doesn't change how much I'm shaking, how light-headed and sick I feel.

I killed someone. And despite having freaked out over it, despite not being as ready for it as I thought, I know I'm going to do it again. I'm not going to turn back on what I told the Patron. No, I won't – someone needs to do this job, and I want to protect this city's peace from threats.

Right now, a boy is being returned to his family, or has been returned to his family. Cyrus had it even rougher – he was kidnapped. Compared to that, what I did today is nothing. What I did was make him safe and protect others, too.

Reminding myself of that helps, but I can still feel how easily the knife slipped through the killer. I would have expected it to be like cutting meat when preparing one of those meals Lucas gave me a recipe for, but it wasn't. That has resistance to it while this didn't. It was much easier than cutting butter with a hot knife.

My body begins to shake again as I think about that. Killing was much easier than I'd expected it to be.

I don't want to be alone right now. Please return soon, Theo. Please.