Parker’s head throbbed as he slowly opened his eyes. The sun glared from overhead making him squint as he tried to sit up. He immediately felt lightheaded and laid back down.

A breeze rippled by making Parker feel a little more at ease. He had no clue where he was and couldn’t stop hoping that Master Terra was nowhere near.

When he was finally able to sit up and look around, he found himself in a field of grass. In the distance he could see a forest and some mountains. “I wonder if that’s our mountain?” Parker asked himself.

“It is,” a familiar voice responded from all around him. Parker spun around trying to find out who the voice was coming from. His heart raced until he saw Ava floating right behind him. His eyes opened wide with surprise. He figured he would never see her again when she had disappeared at his house.

“Where’d you come from?”

Parker could see Ava blush, if wind spirits could even blush. She floated closer to him, and he took a reflexive step back but then remember how sweet she was so he stopped. “I’ve been near ever since we were at your house. I just kept myself invisible. The new girl made me nervous.”

“Kendall?” Parker said laughing. “She’s not scary. She’s my little sister.” He couldn’t help but keep laughing. The thought of his sister as someone to be nervous about was utterly insane. She had to be the sweetest girl he knew, well, at least her and Alexis were.

Ava eyed him cautiously and after a moment. “What’s a ‘sister’?” Parker explained what a sister was and then Ava’s eyes went wide. “Why didn’t you say something then? I would’ve come out of hiding.”

Parker gave her a quizzical look. “Why would we have? We had no clue you were even around us.” Parker started to look around again, gauging how far he had to go to get back to the school. “Wait, were you with me the whole time? Like when Master Terra had me hostage?”

Ava nodded her head. “Yeah, I followed the boy who took you and then waited with you.”

“Why didn’t you show yourself while we were alone. I was in there for days; you could’ve shown yourself to let me know I wasn’t alone.” He grew more and more heated the more he spoke even though he knew it wasn’t her fault. Based on everything he knew about her; it didn’t surprise him even for a second that she had stayed hidden.

“What if those people had shown up? What would they have done to me?” she asked sheepishly. Parker hadn’t thought about it like that. What would they have done to her? His heart started to beat faster, feeling even worse for raising his voice at her.

“Couldn’t you just disappear? Then they wouldn’t be able to do anything to you.”

She stomped her foot on the ground, making dust fly up. He still couldn’t believe that she could make herself seem physical when she wanted to. He remembered back to when she poked him, it was like she was a ghost but was human at the same time.

“We were underground. I don’t do well underground. No wind down there. The wind is what makes me, me.” He could hear her heartbeat faster, or could he? Did wind spirits have hearts to beat? Maybe it was just his own heart beating faster and faster. “Take the wind away and I might as well just be nothing.”

Parker understood. He started the conversation feeling like he had a firm foot to stand on but by the end it was like he was trying to stand using two wet noodles as legs. “Hey, would you do me a favor?”

She tilted her head. “Probably…” Parker couldn’t figure out why she always sounded nervous to do or say anything. Something in the past must have happened to her for her to be like this or maybe that’s just how wind spirits were; she was the only one he’d ever met.

“Would you come back to Lancastre with me?”

Ava’s eyes grew wide with fear. “Why…?”

“I want you to meet Master Sora. He’s in charge of the house I’m in and he’s even kind of in charge of the whole school.”

The trip back took longer than Parker would’ve liked it to. He couldn’t figure out how to use his Space Imperial and take Ava with him. With the others, they had always just touched each others arm when they made the jump over to each other’s Space Imperials.

Even when Ava tried to make herself solid, Parker would just disappear without her. The first time it happened, Ava panicked and disappeared quickly. Parker returned and had to call her name out for several minutes before she appeared by him again.

When they finally got back to the bridge that led across the lake, Ava pointed out that he could’ve used his little trick and she could’ve just met him at the school, similar to what they’d done going to his house.

“Couldn’t have said that any earlier?” he groaned.

“I didn’t know what it was that you were doing. You just explained what it was when we were almost at the top of the mountain.” She started to get a little sassy with him which made him smile. He had started to see a different side of her during their trip alone. “Maybe if you’d explained it better at the beginning, we would’ve been back hours ago.” She stuck her tongue out at him just like a nine-year-old would.

“Hey, does your personality change with the age of person you’re appearing to be?” he asked intrigued.

“Not really. It’s just a look for me. The personality depends on how I’m feeling that day.” She said it with a half-smile like she was remembering something unpleasant. Parker made a joke as they got to the end of their path that brought her back to reality.

They laughed as they walked over the bridge and through the front doors of the castle. Before they could even make it to the dining hall Alexis came sprinting at them and hug tackled Parker to the ground. Ava burst out in a fit of giggles as she watched it happened.

“What happened to you?” Alexis half screamed, half cried at him.

After having a minute to get up off of the floor and dust himself off he said, “Long story. Come with me, I’m taking Ava up to see Master Sora.” Alexis hadn’t even noticed that Ava was with him.

As they walked to Master Sora’s chambers, Caleb, Hailee and Ana had caught up with them and listened as Parker explained that Ava had actually been with them the whole time, just invisible.

When they got to Master Sora’s chambers, he was standing outside of his door, looking out of the window on the other side of the corridor. “Welcome back, we’ve missed you.”

“How long exactly was I gone?” No one had mentioned it during the journey to his chambers because they were all enthralled in his story about where Ava had been and when she finally showed herself again.

“You’ve been missing for a week!” Alexis exclaimed. “I’ve been… we’ve been so worried about you.” She blushed as she caught herself.

Parker filled everyone in on everything that had happened. They had pretty much already figured all of it out since Master Terra had disappeared from the school a few days ago. They were all surprised at what his plans were, Hailee the most by far. Who could blame her though? She was a part of his awful plans. He wasn’t even sure how Hailee was handling this as well as she was. Her dad wanted to take away everything that she was but on the other side her mom wanted to use her in order to kill half of the world’s population. Parker wouldn’t wish for anyone to be put into that position.

After they finished their conversation Parker introduced Ava to Master Sora and asked if she would be able to stay in the school with them. She’d been a big help getting Parker back after Master Terra was done with him. Master Sora seemed very hesitant to allow Ava to stay at the school which surprised Parker. She was so nice and non-threatening. Why wouldn’t he want her to stay at the school?

It seemed like hours, but they were released to finish out their day. It was almost dinner time, so they just made their way to the dining hall. Students roamed the corridors, talking in small groups as they walked aimlessly. Everything at school was starting to seem trivial the more bad things kept happening to them.

Parker was pretty tired of being a key part of whatever was going to happen in the end. Why couldn’t he just be a normal student, like Eliott or Emma?

“How do you eat?” Ana asked Ava bluntly. The others stared at her as if trying to bore a hole through her head so that they could escape the heavy silence.

“I’m made of wind Ana, what would I eat?” Ava replied with some sass. Everyone started laughing, happy that Ava took the blunt question with a sense of humor.

Dinner continued with everyone having a good time, getting back to the way things were. So much had changed though in their time at school. It had only been a little over two years and Caleb had lost an eye, they all became Omnis, except Ana, their house had been destroyed and they were a part of a plot that would result in at least one death no matter what.

When they got up to their house for the night, Monty was curled up in a little ball by the fire. Someone had created a small bed for him. “They let you keep Monty here?” Parker asked, happily surprised by the little critter.

“Let us keep probably isn’t the way I would put it,” Caleb said. “But… what they don’t know won’t hurt them. Everyone here promised to not talk about it to anyone else.”

Everyone laughed and took seats around the room. Parker found it hard to enjoy the new common room to its fullest potential since it just reminded him of what happened to Caleb. He knew he shouldn’t let it get to him since Caleb didn’t, but he couldn’t help it.

He sat back a little, keeping to himself. The others talked and carried on like nothing had happened. Parker noticed how much emptier it was now that there were two less years of new Imperials. It was hard to believe how much had changed in the short time they’d been there.

Alexis got up from her chair and walked over to Parker, plopping down on the open cushion next to him. Subtly, she snuggled into him, being as nonchalant as physically possible. Parker’s heart started to race, and he quickly looked at the others to see if anyone was looking.

He caught each of their eyes because they were all staring at the two of them. Caleb winked and Parker realized that they were fully aware that he and Alexis had told each other how they felt. It was then that Parker realized Hailee was laying on the other couch with her head on Caleb’s lap. At first he didn't think much about it because he knew how they each felt about the other, but then he realized it was out in the open, in front of everyone.

“Caleb, could I talk to you for a moment?” Parker asked, gesturing to the balcony.

They got up and walked out together. Parker loved how the roar of the waterfall was always so peaceful when he was on the balcony. With Lara’s Imperial lifted, the waterfall could be heard from most places in the castle, but it didn’t seem to bother anyone. It was like white noise, but not there at the same time.

“What’s up?” Caleb asked quizzically.

“What happened to keeping your crush quiet?” he whispered, even though he knew no one could overhear him. “I wasn’t gone that long!”

Parker could see Caleb blush in the sunset. “Well, we both told each other at the same time. We decided after you were taken that it was stupid to keep it secret.” He turned so Parker couldn’t see his face. “We were scared of the fact that anything could happen; especially considering everything that her parents were, I mean are, trying to do.”

Parker shrugged. “I guess that makes sense. It’s just going to take some getting used to I suppose.”

They walked back into the common room and found Ana sitting alone by the fire petting Monty. “Hey guys. The girls went to bed.” She turned her head back to Monty and watched his chest rise and fall with each sleeping breath he took.

“They could’ve said good night,” Parker said sarcastically. It bothered him a little, but not much.

“Where’s Ava?” Caleb asked.

Ana thought for a moment. “Not really sure,” she answered in a dreamy voice as though her head was somewhere else. She kept petting Monty, doing her best not to wake him up.

Parker figured that she probably just disappeared for the night and will return in the morning. “Do you think Ava sleeps?” he asked Caleb.

“No,” a faint voice whispered in his ear.

His eyes opened wide. Caleb gave him a weird look, trying to figure out why he seemed to be a little spooked.

“So, Ana, how’d your mission go?” Parker asked. Caleb shook his head vigorously, but it was too late. He saw Ana’s head drop a little and what he thought was a tear fall to the fireplace hearth. Parker turned to Caleb and whispered, “Did I say something wrong?”

“Things didn’t end so well…” Caleb mumbled.

“What happened?”

Caleb led Parker by the shoulder before continuing. They were walking down the boy’s corridor when he finally answered him. “One of her team members got hurt really bad on their mission and it was her fault.”

Parker’s eyes went wide. He couldn’t believe what Caleb said. Ana was so talented, even though she was only a second year. She was leaps and bounds ahead of most of their class.

“Just try to not bring it up around her, she’s clearly not been able to move on yet.”

——

That night came and went just as quickly as the next several weeks. Nothing too exciting happened, which didn’t stir up a single complaint from anyone. It felt nice to get back to the normal routine of meals and classes.

Parker found himself spending as much time with Alexis as possible. Which proved itself to be a little challenging since he was kind of in charge of Ava as long as she stayed. He convinced her after about a week to go exploring on her own and see if she could learn anything new or interesting.

He found that after she went off on her own, he couldn’t help but wonder what she was up to or what others were thinking or saying about her. Parker felt more protective of Ava than he did of his own sister.

When they had gotten back, Kendall found Parker and spent an hour telling him how amazing the school was and everything in it. Apparently, Master Keegan moved her straight into classes with the third years when she got here. Clearly, there parents had spent lots of time working with her after he’d left. Parker just wished he would’ve gotten a heads up to the fact that this part of the world even existed.

Before they knew it, winter had come and the snow was piled high outside. When the sun shined bright in the sky reflecting off of the snow’s surface made it nearly impossible to look outside. Parker spent as much time as he could sitting by the fire in their commons with Monty. This was the coldest winter they had had since they got to school.

Classes seemed easy now after everything they’d been through. Parker was glad that everyone didn’t ignore them anymore like they had after they became Omnis. There was definitely some tension and unease hanging in the air though.

During one of their classes, Parker and Caleb started pranking each other with their Space Imperials. It was great for laughs until Master Kingston caught them. Detention was filled with significantly less laughs.

Parker was finding homework to be a bit tedious and unnecessary because he was starting to understand what the outside world was actually like. However, the masters disagreed with his new philosophy on school. They talked about how he needed to keep his ego in check. He even caught them asking Alexis to keep an eye on him.

Why should he care about the homework for class? He knew they didn’t apply to the real world in the end. At no point would he have to write an essay over battle strategies. The world wasn’t at war with Imperials, humans were simply killing each other.

“Hey, what’s going on?” Alexis asked him in a concerned voice one night, unaware that Parker knew what the masters had asked her to do. He didn’t respond at first. He simply ignored her with a slight pout on his face. “Hey!” she said with a slightly raised voice.

That snapped him back to reality quickly. “Sorry!” He regretted it the moment it left his lips. He knew he shouldn’t have snipped back at her, but he couldn’t help it. How could she side with the masters over him?

Alexis glared at him for a moment and then just walked away. Parker could tell that she was upset with him, everyone in the room could. He quickly got up, walked to the balcony and flew to the roof.

“What are you doing here?” Caleb asked as Parker landed near him. Parker jumped a little, not expecting anyone to be up there.

The snow was blowing hard making Parker shiver. Before he responded he tried to figure out why Caleb would be up here. “It’s…” he thought for a moment. “It’s nothing. I’m just stupid is all.”

“Well… I wasn’t going to say anything…” Caleb jested with a smile and a laugh. Parker flung snowballs at him from every direction. He couldn’t imagine snowball fights without his Water Imperial anymore. It made them much more intense and exhilarating.

“Hey now,” Parker said after Caleb took the onslaught of snow. “I don’t go pointing things out about you that seem obvious.” They both laughed a little and then walked to the center of the roof. It was the only spot up there that offered even the slightest protection from the wind that rushed across the rooftop.

“So, on a real note, what’s up?”

Parker kicked the snow around a little before answering him. “Just making dumb mistakes, nothing overly new.”

“Why do you say that?”

“I snapped back at Alexis a few minutes ago and she just walked off.” Parker dropped his gaze. The moon shown through the clouds, lighting up the roof enough for Caleb to notice that Parker was really upset about something.

Caleb took a step forward and put his hand on Parker’s shoulder. “Can I help you at all?” Parker gritted his teeth and clenched his fists, shaking slightly. Caleb’s eyes grew wide, worried for his friend. “How can I help you?” he asked in a concerned voice.

“What’s the point of this?” Parker spat out.

“The point of this…” Caleb started to ask.

“Nothing we’re doing here will help us out there!”

Caleb stared in awe. He didn’t know what to say back to that. It was several minutes of standing in silence in the bitter cold that seemed to grow worse by the second before either of them said anything.

“We’re practicing here so that we’re ready when we get out there.” Caleb tried to sound reasonable as he said it, trying to convince him that he was right. The problem was that he wasn’t quite sure that Parker was all that wrong. Not completely right, but not all wrong.

Parker looked at him with a scary gleam in his eye. “Did any of our practice help us against the giant rock monster?” he yelled. “Did it stop Master Terra from kidnapping me?” The snow around Parker’s feet blew away in a burst of wind. Caleb stumbled backwards. “Did it stop Master Terra or Lara from testing on other students?”

Caleb’s head dropped. He knew Parker was right, but it didn’t help him think of what to say. “I know it didn’t but how does not doing your work help you prepare?”

Parker glared at him before he lifted his head back up. Parker knew that Caleb wasn’t wrong but there was no way he was going to admit it at that point. “It’s just a waste of time. I’m not saying it’s bad, it’s just not going to prepare me.”

“That doesn’t make sense, Parker,” Caleb said matter of factly.

“Yes, it does!” Parker spat back. The wind blew harder making them both shiver. The snow whipped up in a swirl off of the roof and disappeared into the night sky.

“You’re trying to tell me that it’s not bad but it’s pointless.” Caleb stared at him like he was as dumb as a brick. “If it’s not bad then what’s the harm in doing it?”

Parker shot a snowball at Caleb. When it hit him, he cried out in pain. He felt a small pang of guilt but was past the point of no return. Parker shot another at him and another. Snowball after snowball kept hitting Caleb pushing him back and back, closer to the edge of the roof.

Caleb couldn’t defend himself against this. Between having one eye and the darkness, he was next to defenseless to any air attacks. “Why are you doing this?” he yelled through the bitter cold wind.

“Because we’re not strong enough!” he screamed as he shot one last, giant snowball at Caleb. The moment it went into the air, regret ripped through his body. It collided with Caleb chest and sent him over the edge of the roof. “No!” Parker screamed as he ran after Caleb.

He looked over the edge, down into the dark, snow filled air. “Caleb!” he screamed into the darkness. Parker couldn’t believe how dark it was on that side of the castle. From a small beam of light let out from a window, he could just barely make out something that looked weird.

“Help!” Caleb yelled up to the roof. Parker could see his fingers slipping off of the window ledge.