Haidan didn't know how he'd been persuaded to go on an adventure such as this but somehow he was at the edge of the forest by the Guthrie's street dreading the idea of interacting with everyone.

He didn't like crowds. He preferred to quietly rest with people he was close to; around a campfire, over a movie with a bowl of popcorn nestled between them, picnics or trails. He was always the most himself when he wasn't swamped with others.

And yet, he was standing at the beginning of this trail with a bag on his back, stocked with food and water Cay had packed, looking ahead with dread.

Jack slapped his shoulder, startling him. He could always predict her movements, her mannerisms, and knew she'd smile wickedly at him with a gleam in her eyes. "Come on, hot shot, it's only a twenty-three minute hike down a mountain - what could possibly go wrong?"

Avalanches? Mudslides? Landslides? Freak storms? Spider bites? "You say that, but look at who's coming, Jack." Haidan looked around at the large group of them heading on the spontaneous trip. "What couldn't go wrong?"

Jack frowned, her eyes resting longer on Cody leading the group with Nick, her bright pink one-shoulder swimsuit peaking out over her white shirt. "$10 says someone injures themselves?"

"$20 that someone injures someone else?"

"You're on." Jack smirked. "I bet someone injures Cody."

"I bet it's you." Haidan looked between the two witches with a raised eyebrow, knowing there was a fiery tension needing to be settled. Two witches, both told they were the most powerful, and the title could only be held by one.

Jack shrugged, running her ring-clad fingers through her short, dark hair. Haidan missed the determined glare in her eyes, distracted by the sun glinting off her jewellery. The sun rays sizzled over his skin and Haidan quickly tugged his sleeves further over his wrists. "Look, I'm just saying for legal reasons I can't tell you anything so you won't be held accountable."

"That doesn't work if there's witnesses." Haidan began walking towards the track and Jack skipped further ahead.

"Who said anything about witnesses?" Jack laughed, leaping into the forest, leaving Haidan standing at the edge, hesitating.

He was meant to be discovering more about his phoenix side, his abilities. He was meant to be learning about the supernatural, he promised his mum he would learn all he could. His fingers twisted around his bag straps, his feet firmly planted on the line of the track. He could hear them all laughing ahead; the Guthrie's, Cody, Jack as well. What was he doing making memories when he was supposed to be making revelations?

"Haidan?"

Haidan jumped, turning to see Lily standing behind him. Her red hair had been twisted into a long plait by Cay, swaying to the side of her cocked head and brushing the large, white cover-up hiding her blue singlet and black shorts beneath. Haidan blinked at her curvy and pale legs in the sunlight, wondering why her socks were so high on her calves, when Lily motioned to the track with her free arm.

"Shall we go?" Lily asked quietly, her dark eyes resting calmly on him.

"Yeah," Haidan forced out, frowning at the mysterious red-head. While he could read Jack, Lily was impossible. He knew she was loyal and calm, level-headed, but there was more beneath the surface he couldn't see. "I'm surprised you're not with the others."

"I might need a hand getting down the track." Lily admitted, following Haidan's steps as they walked into the undergrowth. Darkness immediately hid the sun rays from his skin, the cold seeping in from the shadows.

"Your arm's still healing?" Haidan asked, looking back to stare at the crisp, white sling and the cream bandage compressing her static arm. "How's your shoulder as well?"

"My arm's getting there, I think." Lily held a hand out to steady her as a rock shifted beneath her trainers. Haidan paused as she regained her balance. "My shoulder's healing faster each day - thank you for that, by the way."

"Don't mention it." Haidan waved off, following the track further down the mountain. He recalled Cay storming into the kitchens yesterday where he was helping the others plate up the food for the hungry Tyrill inhabitants, needing a break. When he'd suggested taking one, asking what was holding her back, her eyes had lit up and she'd mentioned the 'famous river bend' on Mount Tyrill.

The next morning, Cay had gathered all the kids, told them to dress for a swim, and announced the spontaneous trip to the river.

Haidan shook his head as he slowly walked deeper into the forest. He could still hear the others laughing further down but they sounded miles away. What was he doing? He should have stayed back, looked into Tyrill's records for nymphs and phoenix's and other supernaturals. He needed a library.

Haidan paused. Lily stopped behind him. "Is something wrong?"

When he turned around and stared deep into Lily's eyes, trying to see past the surface she hid so well, he realised he didn't need to go to a library - he was walking with one. "Jack said yesterday you'd know more about vampires than she would 'cause you'd been in the same classes?"

"Yeah. Nova High put me in all the classes they could to teach me different levels of control, and see how other supernaturals handled their abilities."

"Could you tell me what you know while we're walking?" Haidan asked, shifting to walk alongside Lily instead of in front.

"About vampires?"

"About everything." Haidan said, blinking as they passed through thick shadows hiding Lily's expression. "I want to know about phoenix's, nymphs, witches, vampires, the rest of them. I want to know everything."

"Okay." Lily agreed. "I did promise when we first met."

"Yes you did." Haidan quickly grabbed her arm as Lily stumbled into him. "You okay?"

"Sorry." Lily flushed, righting herself. "Um, I don't know that much about phoenix's. I only knew about them last week."

"How?"

Lily sighed, tucking a lone strand of her red hair behind her ear. "Jacob, the old supernova, told me. He said I had to find the witch who could heal, the nymph who had leashed the skies, and the phoenix whose flames birthed the sun."

"Flames birthed the sun?" Haidan scowled. "What does that mean?"

"I have no idea - what do you know about your abilities?"

Haidan shoved his hands in his pockets out of habit before unveiling them to Lily, his palms spread out before him. They looked ordinary; the odd scar from his mechanic apprenticeship and the time he missed peeling the potato and caught himself. He still had smooth over his hands, paler across his palm, and sighed.

"It's weird." He admitted. "I didn't know I had this, this fire until last year. It was after I turned eighteen, a full-grown adult I guess. I was expecting a talk about tax, houses, or one from my grandparents about beginning to find someone to settle down with. I wasn't expecting my skin to have this heated rash one morning."

"A rash?"

"Kind of, but not really." Haidan remembered back to when he was praying that ordinary morning. It was sunrise, like normal. He was praying on the mat, like normal. His head was bowed and as soon as it lifted, the sun had kissed his knuckles and heat trailed under his skin. "My skin didn't look different at first, but after a few days of this happening, it looked like there were flames trapped underneath."

"I don't understand, how can they be trapped?" Lily frowned, her free arm fidgeting with her sling.

Haidan spotted a break in the canopy, the sun kissing the foliage dancing on the forest floor. He walked ahead of Lily, asking her to wait, and he drew his sleeve up and stretched his hand, hesitating with a shake of his head, and thrust it into the sunlight.

Lily gasped as the sun began to wrap around his hand. Haidan had watched again and again and still couldn't look away despite knowing what would happen - how the light would almost pass through his hand to the ground beneath, but the fire would weave under his flesh like flames tasting oxygen for the first time, building and climbing over his wrist and knuckles like wild tendrils of sun falling off the rays and flowering beneath his skin.

He yanked his hand away when it became too much to look at, darkness enveloping the path once again. Haidan yanked his sleeve down, staring at Lily. She was glowing orange, he realised, and blinked until his eyes were back to their normal brown. "That's what I mean by trapped." He cleared his throat, waiting for her to say something as she walked up to him, her brows bunched together in thought.

"It reminds me a little of a solar panel." Lily said. "You said you didn't experience the light until a few days after the rashes - maybe your body builds fire up like a battery."

Haidan frowned, flicking his dark hair out of his eyes. "Builds up to what?" he asked. "I thought phoenix's were creatures of fire? Birds or something? What's the rebirth part of it and how does that affect me?"

"When you think of a phoenix what comes to your mind?"

"Fawkes from Harry Potter."

"Uh," Lily drawled. "Well, that's wrong. Wipe everything you know about the supernatural from films or shows, it's only going to confuse you. Focus on what you know from your own experience."

"Right." Haidan said as they rounded the bend of the track, the path sharply dropping. Haidan walked down the rocks carefully, eroded enough by the wind to look like stairs, and turned back to stretch out a hand to Lily. "Well in direct sunlight I light up like a firework."

"What about the fire you created to stop the storm last week?" Lily asked, her cool grip locked around his fingers as she calmly walked over the rock stairs with a surprising amount of grace for someone with a bound arm, he admired. "How did you create that?"

"That's a little difficult to explain." Haidan admitted, haunted by the night his mum discovered his abilities for the first time.

Lily, however, locked her gaze onto him and let go of his hand. "Try me. I think I'd understand, of all people, about abilities outside the norm."

"Since when did you become bossy? You were so skittish when we first met."

Lily flushed at his teasing. "It's called 'getting used to people'. And don't think you're avoiding the question that easily."

Haidan sighed, focusing on putting one foot in front of the other, following the laughter now barely noticeable. "I was reading my father's letter in my back garden. He travels for work and prefers using good old fashioned pen and paper to communicate instead of the internet. I stopped reading and looked up when I heard a storm coming.

"I knew I'd be fine, somehow. But my mum had walked to the garden to come bring me inside the same time the storm rolled in."

Lily gently stopped him with a touch on his shoulder. "Is she okay?"

"She's fine." Haidan swallowed the lump in his throat, a haunted expression on his face. "She was carrying a candle; she likes candles, my mum. I stretched out my hand," Haidan said, reenacting the motion for Lily, "and I took the flame from the candle and threw it to the forest."

"You turned a lit wick into a forest fire?" Lily asked, eyes wide.

"Yeah." Haidan couldn't look at her, only his muddy shoes with leaves stuck all around the sides. "The fire broke up the storm's path, somehow, and it died down. I was really drained after, but it stopped the storm and my mum was safe, and that's the main thing."

"Was that the first time you used your abilities to that level before?"

Haidan paused. "...Besides the eyes shifting when I went in direct sunlight, yeah. Why?"

"How long was it when you discovered your abilities to when you created the forest fire last week?"

"Over a year - where are you going with this Lily?" Haidan asked, stopping to watch her furrow her brows. "Is this the solar panel battery theory again?"

"Batteries can charge up and charge something else; an input and output." Lily said. "I think the sun 'charges' you up, and then you can release the heat or flame, or whatever else you can do, when you choose. Depending how much you 'charge' you could release a candle flame-"

"Or a forest fire." Haidan finished. "That's an alarming thought."

"It's a theory, that's all."

"What happens if I overload my 'battery' though?" Haidan asked. The forest was silent for a heartbeat before screams slammed into their ears, making them jump, only relaxing when the laughter echoed from the base of the track with the sounds of splashing. The others had reached the lake.

"Let's not find out." Lily declared, walking on ahead. "You'd have to ask Niall about nymphs but I can tell you about the others?"

"Sure," Haidan said. "Start with witches."

As they walked Lily told him all she knew - witches could manipulate nature after years of vigorous study, vampires had low levels of nutrients so had to eat or drink everything they could to keep up with everyone else, which meant they were faster and stronger than most. Werewolves had alphas, could shift completely into wolves, and had heightened senses. Haidan noticed Lily didn't talk much about werewolves, quickly diverting to fairies.

By the time she was talking about shades, like the last supernova, they'd reached the end of the track. The forest opened up to reveal a wide river and a beach of sand and pebbles. The cool, quiet water rushed over the small banks, brushing the ankles of the Guthrie family. Cody was already tanning at the edge of the water, a pink towel to match her swimsuit. Her dark coils of hair were twisted up and out the way but Haidan was distracted by another witch.

Jack was walking out the water. Haidan blinked as the water ran over her lean legs, her olive skin glowing against her black bikini. It took more strength than he wanted to keep looking at her eyes and only her eyes, somehow it made his heart stammer and skip faster.

"-and that's about all I know with shades. Was there anything else?" Lily asked, and Haidan flushed realising he hadn't heard anything she said about shades.

"What," he cleared the lump in his throat. "What about you? You haven't mentioned you."

"I don't know what I am."

"Neither did I, but I knew a little bit of what I could do." Haidan argued, shrugging off his bag and dumping it at their feet, sitting down on the beach. They were far enough away that no one could hear them, but Cay waved at them when she saw they arrived. She and Annie were building a sand castle, Cody was tanning, and Nick, Niall and Jack were wrestling in the shallow edge of the river.

Lily sighed, sitting next to him. "Storms seem to follow me, I have an affinity for water, and my eyes glow bright grey."

"That's not much to go on."

"It's more than I had a few weeks ago." Lily undid her laces and put her socks and shoes to the side. "Oh, apparently I can throw a nose-breaking punch." She nervously laughed. "And according to Jacob, there hasn't been someone of my level of power in centuries."

Haidan didn't laugh, he was too busy staring at the red bands of scars around her ankles. When Lily leaned forward, hugging her knees , Haidan realised they matched the ones criss-crossed around her wrists. "How'd you get those scars? The red ones?"

Lily froze. "I got them during last week, a bit over a week ago, actually."

Haidan narrowed his eyes. "Why would the old supernova tell you all he knew?"

"Well, he actually withheld a bit-"

"You're the Supernova." Haidan realised. Lily dipped her head, eyes fluttering shut at the title. "You're the most powerful, aren't you? That's...that's why the rogues are after you, aren't they? How you know what they're capable of - did they give you those scars? Your injuries?"

Lily's throat bobbled. "Yes."

"Yes to what?"

"Yes to everything." Lily's voice was shaking.

Haidan blinked. "You don't look very super in that sling."

"Look, Haidan," Lily ignored his teasing again. "I don't want people knowing, okay? I don't want them in danger."

Haidan understood the fear in her eyes; he, too, had kept his power a secret to protect his family. It hadn't worked for him but maybe it would work for Lily. "Who else knows?" He asked quietly, his gaze roaming over those around them. Cody had shifted onto her back, a hat covering her face while the rest of her soaked up the little sun there was. Cay and Annie were adding moats to their sand castle, and Nick had started to see how much water he could splash on Niall and Jack.

"Jack knows." Lily said, watching her friend play and laugh with the nymph and his older brother.

"No one else?" Haidan asked. "Not even your grandma?"

Lily's hand curled at the mention of Nerida Haven. "She hasn't known me for eight years." She said tightly.

Haidan shifted his position, looking up to find Niall skating across the sand towards them. His toes barely left a mark in the beach, the light grains flying up around them both as he stopped before.

"Hey!" Niall said cheerily, holding out a hand to them both. "Come on, it's great in the water!"

"No thanks." Haidan said, leaning back on his arms. "I'm fine in the shade."

Niall smiled. "That's okay, I'll persuade you later. Lily?" His hand stretched further in Lily's direction.

Haidan watched her face tighten in hesitation but relax when she saw the gleam of joy in Niall's violet eyes. "Okay, I can't swim though." Lily grabbed the nymph's hand lightly and pulled herself up before making sure her sling was still tight over her neck.

Niall's smile grew wide and began dragging her back to the water. Haidan chuckled watching Lily pull back when Niall pulled her into the river, shrieking at how cold it was, but Niall wouldn't give up. Soon, Lily was up to her bare knees with her red ankle scars hidden beneath the surface, along with the story behind them Haidan was about to hear.

The phoenix watched the Supernova gently dodge the waves Nick was splashing at her. Lily was giggling and Haidan frowned at how awkward she was being - when was the last time she laughed and played? Had she been in fear instead of in power since learning she was the Supernova?

Haidan's gaze snapped to Jack who'd whistled at him to grab his attention. She waved at him. "Come on, hot shot! Don't make me drag you!"

"I can't swim, so no thanks!" Haidan shouted back, putting his bag under his back so he could lounge and watch as the wicked witch blink in surprise.

"I don't believe you!" Jack shouted and was soon marching up the beach towards him. Haidan spotted Cody lift her hat at Jack leaving the cool water, her dark gaze set on Lily laughing in the waves, resting a hand flat on the sand.

As Jack reached his feet, Haidan's fingers digging into the grains to ground him, to remind him to only look at her narrowed, teasing eyes, she put her ringed hands on her hips like she was about to scald him.

Haidan smirked, waiting for the first rebuke, when he saw Nick slam a wave into Lily. Her legs didn't move to balance her and she went under the surface, lost in the splash.