3.3.1

Content warnings: dissociation, passive suicidal ideation (detail below; skip if you prefer surprises)

• A character experiences frequent emotional dissociation and some depersonalization.

• Passive suicidal ideation in that a character believes they don’t deserve to live.

~.~

Kai and Haku ended up pulling an all-nighter. Haku had been out of commission long enough that they had to start sorting through timelines from scratch, and even with the two of them working together, documenting everything in sight for the upcoming week was tedious and time-consuming. They hadn’t even reached the halfway point by the time morning was upon them.

Around 8 am, Kai excused himself and made his way to the kitchen. It felt a little strange to cook breakfast—most of the Ennead ate sporadically, if at all—but mortals needed to eat, and they deserved better than stale toast and haphazardly assembled scrambled eggs.

Given how late last night’s High School Musical movie marathon had gone, Kai had no reason to rush, but between the bone-crushing exhaustion and the broken leg, he was a little unstable on his feet, so he settled for something quick and easy—an assortment of buttermilk, blueberry, chocolate chip, and cream cheese pancakes.

Unfortunately, the only syrup in the pantry was the fake stuff sold in American grocery stores, which was absolutely not something Kai would ever willingly allow in his kitchen, but it would have to do. Kai made a mental note to go to the grocery store later.

Once the pancakes were cooked, Kai transferred them into a covered metal tray Silpa had designed to keep food warm and fresh. Though it looked like a typical chafing dish, it produced better results without the need for an alcohol burner. Silpa had gifted the gadget to Kai long ago—and the memory stirred something bitter and raw in Kai’s chest, because Silpa was out there, alone, and she might not—

“Soooo, do you normally hang out in the hallway like some weird one-armed cryptid?”

Kai snapped to attention. Joel was sitting at the kitchen table, his homework spread out in front of him, and it really was a testament to Kai’s exhaustion that he hadn’t even noticed Joel walk in. Even now, Joel’s words seemed to slip through Kai’s brain like water through a sieve.

Kai was so tired—but there was no time to deal with that, so he forced himself to keep moving.

“I… tend to have two arms,” Kai said wearily. “Would you like some pancakes?”

“Stop dodging the question!” Joel said with a frown. “Yesterday, in the hallway—were you waiting for me?”

Kai paused. He did not want Joel to catch onto the fact that he had forced himself awake through layers of exhaustion, then dragged himself down the hallway just for the sake of his conversation with Joel—but he also didn’t want to lie.

“I was,” Kai admitted, leaning against the kitchen island. “Is there a problem with that?”

“Not… really,” Joel said haltingly. “I just wanted to thank you for the advice. It helped.”

“Don’t mention it,” Kai said, shaking his head. “It was the least I could do since I… should have warned him about Córdoba to begin with.”

“When, exactly?” Joel asked, face scrunched up in confusion. “You were, like, half dead when Josh brought you in, and then he was gone before you woke up.”

“I know,” Kai said bitterly.

And he did know, rationally, that it was not his fault—but his heart still ached with guilt.

“How did you know that I’d be coming down the hallway, anyway?” Joel pressed.

“Lucky guess,” Kai said grimly. “I often dream of possible futures, and yesterday, I happened to see Joshua in Córdoba. By the time I managed to wake up, the damage had been done, but I figured… I could still help you.”

“Oh.” Joel gave Kai a forced smile. “Well, I appreciate it. I’m glad my brother has someone like you watching over him.”

The statement knocked loose an assortment of guilt and shame in Kai’s chest, because Kai was truly the farthest thing from a guardian angel. If anything, he had plagued Joshua with an incessant string of curses, and only now was Joshua starting to break free.

But Joel was a child, and he did not need to be burdened with such sentiments.

In his current state, Kai did not trust himself to keep his voice free of emotion—so he just didn’t respond to Joel at all. With a slow exhale, he turned around and scanned the kitchen for any easy, routine tasks he could occupy himself with.

There were several options, but the thought of unloading the dish drainer made his leg ache the least.

Moving dishes was a lot harder with one arm and a broken leg, but Kai was used to working through pain and fatigue—both became easy to ignore with time. As Kai began to fill the utensil drawer, Joel returned to his homework. The scribbling of pencil on paper was sporadic and hesitant, mixed with the occasional frustrated sigh—and Kai’s professorial instincts were quick to pick up on the signs of a struggling student.

Still, it was always best to check before making assumptions.

Kai closed his eyes, letting sounds and smells and sensations fall away—and then, as energy signatures faded into view, he focused on those instead. Dark green outlines notated the presence of people, objects, and furniture in the landscape, but that was not Kai’s concern. He zeroed in on Joel’s homework and gave the silhouetted numbers a quick scan.

“Your math isn’t working out because you’re missing a negative sign on acceleration,” Kai said nonchalantly. His back was still to Joel as he let his sixth sense fade. “And in the first problem on that page, you used the wrong equation.”

“Wha—” Joel squinted at the paper, and for a few minutes, the only sounds in the kitchen were frantic scribbling mixed with the clatter of clean plates being shelved. Then, Joel threw his pencil down with a frown.

“You’re right,” Joel said, voice laced with suspicion. “But I don’t know how you were right. How could you tell what I was doing wrong from way over there?”

“Eyes on the back of my head,” Kai said casually, shelving the last plate in the stack. “All older brothers have them.”

“That makes a strange amount of sense,” Joel said, nodding sagely. “But like all older brothers, I think you are full of shit.”

On any other day, the comment would have gotten a laugh out of Kai, but as it was, Kai could barely muster a smile. He wasn’t sure if he even remembered how to laugh.

“The real answer is that I can tell what’s on your paper from here,” Kai explained, clearing the last stack of bowls from the dish drainer. “My powers allow me to sense energy signatures. Big objects are easier to parse, but I can also discern small or distant details—such as letters on a page.”

“That’s so cool,” Joel said excitedly. “So you have night vision? And you can read books in the dark? Does it work with movies too?”

“Screens are… a little more difficult,” Kai admitted. “Only Ridwan has truly mastered reading a screen blindfolded, and that has more to do with their ability to control light.”

“I see, I see,” Joel said with a nod. “That only answers half my question, though.”

“I’m not sure I catch your meaning.”

Kai gave the kitchen cabinets and drawers a final once-over as he spoke. Satisfied that the dishes had been properly placed, he turned his attention to the oven. It was not a horrible mess, but it certainly wasn’t clean, either. Kai went to retrieve a rag and cleaning solution from the pantry.

“My physics homework already doesn’t make sense on a good day,” Joel said with a frown. “But you caught my mistakes even though you were halfway across the room and also trying not to drop dishes on the floor.”

“Oh, that’s easy to explain.”

With a deep breath, Kai knelt in front of the oven as carefully as possible, trying not to aggravate his broken leg—but though he did not jostle the bone, a shard of pain rocketed up his leg when he bent his knee, eliciting a pained hiss. It took a minute before Kai’s voice was even enough for him to continue speaking.

“Physics is second nature to me,” Kai explained. He sprayed his rag with cleanser and started to scrub at the nearest grease spot. “I used to teach physics at the undergraduate and graduate level. It was… probably one of the more enjoyable jobs I’ve had.”

“Oh.” Joel wrinkled his nose in disgust. “I can’t believe you chose to teach the worst subject out there. No offense, of course, but also, full offense.”

And there it was, again. Kai knew he was supposed to smile here, but he couldn’t.

Kai hadn’t forgotten how to emote, per se, but every time he tried to pull together an emotion that wasn’t all-encompassing dread, the pieces just didn’t click. Hell, he was lucky if he could even find the pieces in the first place. His soul felt so alien, now, like a closet full of secondhand feelings in all the wrong sizes—some too strong, others missing completely—and none of it would ever truly be his.

Based on past experience, Kai knew things would eventually settle. He just had to be patient in the meantime and hope no one else caught on—like, for example, the painfully insightful teenager sitting at the kitchen table. The oven obscured Joel from Kai’s view, but Kai could sense the teenager’s concern regardless.

“You’re not really picking up what I’m putting down,” Joel said carefully. “But since it’s your birthday, I guess I’ll give you a pass.”

Kai stiffened. It had completely slipped his mind, but Joel was right—it was September 21st.

Birthdays had long since lost their meaning for Kai, but this one was markedly different from all that came before. There had certainly been birthdays in the past where Jinal had been unconscious or Ven had been regenerating or Mateen had been captured by Yaran, but all of those things had been temporary. This, right now, could very well be permanent. It would be his first birthday without the others—but it might also be his last birthday at all.

Kai took a deep breath and went back to scrubbing at the oven grease, perhaps with more aggression than necessary. It wasn’t like him to dwell on such things—he blamed it on the current piecemeal state of his soul.

“Are you okay?” Joel asked.

“Fine,” Kai said tersely. “I was hoping Karyme wouldn’t tell anyone.”

“She didn’t,” Joel said quickly. “I found the information while looking for something else on Silpa’s laptop.”

“Ah.” Kai grimaced. “That makes sense.”

Silpa had cataloged an encyclopedia of information about the Ennead on her laptop for the express purpose of preparing anyone for a soul hunt. It had been a contingency plan—and at the time, it had seemed so silly to prepare for the absolute worst, but Haku had insisted.

“I won’t tell anyone if you don’t want me to,” Joel said quietly. “I know that it’s… difficult to celebrate when your family is in danger.”

“It’s not that,” Kai said tightly. “It just seems like a waste of time and resources to do anything special right now. Everyone is already stretched thin, and considering how many birthdays I’ve had, today is not particularly special.”

“I don’t think anyone would mind. We celebrated Joshua’s birthday, after all,” Joel pointed out. “And it was kind of nice to have a reason to be happy!”

Kai swallowed. He could still remember sculpting the chocolate eagle for Joshua’s cake, his hands weighted with guilt and dread. He had known by that point that he wouldn’t live long enough to see the cake topper in action, but it had been nice to do something special for Joshua regardless.

Kai couldn’t imagine that any of the mortals would want to do something nice for him, but…

“I’ll… consider telling everyone,” Kai said slowly. “Later.”

Kai finished scrubbing the oven down in silence. By the time he rose to his feet, his broken leg was in pure agony, and he was seeing spots, and his head was spinning, and he decided to take all of that as a sign to stop for now. With a sigh, Kai disposed of the cleaning supplies in their proper places and took a seat at the kitchen table—which apparently gave Joel an excuse to ignore his homework once more.

“How old are you, anyway?” Joel asked, setting his pencil down.

“My age isn’t going to help you finish your physics homework,” Kai said simply.

“Awwww, come on,” Joel whined. “Don’t be like that! It’s just a simple question!”

“Hmmm… well, it seems like I’ve lost count,” Kai said, a coy smile on his face. “And I won’t remember my age unless you remember the equation for vertical displacement—how tragic!”

“Oh my god, you are full of shit,” Joel groaned, throwing his hands in the air. “Can’t I at least get a break from physics for five minutes?”

Joel’s outer lip pooched outward in a rather impressive pout as he batted his eyes at Kai. Kai bit back a smile.

“Your doe eyes are good, but unfortunately for you, Ven’s are worse,” Kai said, patting Joel on the head. “Start with d equals v times t and work from there.”

“I live in a shrine of suffering,” Joel grumbled. “And math is the priest.”

“Well, we’re not all born liking math,” Kai said patiently. “I didn’t like physics, either, when I first started.”

“Then why did you keep going?” Joel asked.

“Because I wanted a better understanding of my aerokinesis,” Kai replied. “Being able to do quick pressure calculations in my head helps me exploit my power to the fullest.”

“That’s… a lot more important than homework, though,” Joel said sullenly. “This stuff just seems so useless and confusing.”

“Let’s give you a better goal, then.” Kai ran through some quick mental math as he spoke. “You asked how old I am? The answer is equal to the time it would take, in seconds, for an object to hit the ground if it was thrown straight up with a velocity of 9,444 miles per hour from an initial height of one mile.”

For a second, Joel just gawked at Kai. Then, his expression shifted into one of contemplation. Kai could see the gears turning in Joel’s head as he started to think through how to get from point A to point B.

“This uses the formula for vertical displacement,” Joel said slowly. “Which is in meters per second, but I think I can fix that later. I… still don’t remember what the equation for vertical displacement is, but—”

“Let’s fix that, then,” Kai interjected. “You have a formula sheet, so you just need to pick the equation with the right variables. Which variables have I given you?”

“Initial velocity and initial height,” Joel said, counting off on his fingers. “And I need to find time.”

“You’re missing one,” Kai countered. “I asked you about a process over time, which means you’re looking at two time frames: the beginning and the end. You’ve told me about the beginning, but I told you something about the end, too.”

“Oh, right! You gave me the final height,” Joel said quickly. “The height at the end is going to be zero—the ground. That gives me enough to plug into d = vt, but I don’t think that’s the answer.”

“You’re on the right track,” Kai said patiently. “I’ll give you a hint. Right now, you’re accounting for initial velocity—the thing that makes the ball go up—but you’re not including the thing that makes the ball come back down.”

“Gravity,” Joel said with a frown. “I… don’t know how to include that. None of my formulas have gravity in them.”

“There’s kind of a trick to that, actually,” Kai replied. “Gravity makes objects return to earth by changing upward velocity into downward velocity. And what do we call a change in velocity?”

“Acceleration,” Joel said hesitantly. “I think.”

“Exactly. Gravity is a form of negative acceleration,” Kai agreed. “And that gives you enough information.”

“Oh! I think I get it,” Joel said excitedly, pointing to the box of equations at the top of his paper. “This equation is the right one, isn’t it?”

Kai glanced at Joel’s paper. Sure enough, Joel had figured it out, and he was genuinely excited about it, too—a stark contrast to his frustrated sulking just moments prior. It was satisfying to watch, but it also made something ache deep in Kai’s chest, because Joel’s enthusiasm was just so reminiscent of Ven’s, and—

Kai pushed that line of thinking away. Ven needed his help, but right now, Joel was the one in front of him, seeking his approval, and Kai was going to focus on that.

“See? You figured that out all on your own,” Kai said warmly. “You strike me as the type to get bored with rote memorization, so it might help to approach each test like a series of puzzles waiting to be solved. It’ll help get rid of some of this existential dread.”

“That… makes a lot of sense, actually,” Joel said with a frown. “When you said you teach physics, I thought you were just a nerd, but you’re way better at this than my teacher. It’s actually kinda cool!”

“I’ve had some practice,” Kai said casually. “Now then. If you want to figure out my age, you’ll need to convert miles per hour to meters per second, so you’ll need some more information. There are 5,280 feet in a mile, and one inch is 2.54 centimeters.”

“I take back everything I just said,” Joel groaned. “Why do you have that memorized?”

“Because I am a nerd,” Kai said pleasantly. “Hope that helps!”

Joel let out another dramatic groan, but he turned to his homework in earnest this time, and Kai watched him work with a smile.

~.~

Ilia spent her morning waiting for the inevitable.

Joshua’s frequent glaring in her direction during the movie marathon last night told her one thing: he knew about Auster. Ilia didn’t need future sight to know what this meant for her morning plans.

Though Ilia didn’t really want Joshua to be her wake-up call, she didn’t set an alarm. After using her powers so extensively, she really needed to maximize her sleep—and, predictably enough, constant nightmares about the worst possible futures made it impossible to sleep for long anyway. After four hours of tossing and turning through visions of blood and gore, Ilia gave up.

By the time Ilia finished showering and making herself look presentable, it was still only about five in the morning, so she decided to curl up in bed with a book she’d received from Jinal—a technical guide to living with Yaran’s curse. It was a pretty hefty volume, but the prose was easy enough to follow, and now that Ilia had more practical experience, she could understand the subject matter a lot better.

Ilia was halfway through the section on timeline management when the door to her bedroom slammed open. Joshua’s anger was clear in the set of his jaw and the furrow of his brow, but most of his fury simmered beneath the surface, ready to leap out as soon as Ilia said something.

Except Joshua didn’t even give her the chance to talk.

“How dare you?” Joshua hissed, storming over to the bed.

“How dare I?” Ilia did her best to keep her gaze aloof and her voice even. “Was I supposed to ask for your permission? Auster’s an adult, and he can make his own decisions.”

“And you can make decisions, too, and you should have told him no!” Joshua snapped. “He was—”

“Was what?” Ilia said thinly. “Safer without powers of his own? Don’t make me laugh.”

“And whose fault was that?” Joshua roared. “You’re the one who couldn’t predict Auster's kidnapping!”

Ilia’s first instinct was to snap back, to tell him that it wasn’t her fault—but it was true that her inexperience had put Auster in danger. Her inexperience put all of them in danger every day. With a deep breath, Ilia set her book aside.

“You’re right, and I’ll take the blame for that,” she said evenly, trying her best not to shrink under Joshua’s intense glare. “If I had been more experienced with my powers, Auster’s kidnapping would have been preventable. But.”

Ilia gulped. Joshua’s eye was twitching, and the tension in his arms—he was clearly seconds from exploding, and her next comment would probably light the fuse. But some things needed to be said out loud.

“I’m not the reason Auster was in danger to begin with,” Ilia said firmly. “And before you cut me off, neither are you. Auster is a danger to himself.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” Joshua growled.

He was still glaring down at her from up on high, leaning into her personal space to intimidate her, and Ilia decided she was done letting him get his way. She swung her legs over the side of the bed, and once she stood, the two of them were eye to eye.

“Right now, there are two things keeping you safe that Auster doesn’t have,” Ilia said in a low voice, holding up two fingers. “One: you know how to fight. You’ve had powers for half of your life, and you’ve had to learn to survive because of them.”

“I’m aware,” Joshua snapped. “Auster can’t fight worth shit, and he shouldn’t have to.”

“Let me finish,” Ilia said wearily. “The second thing is resentment. You, me, the rest of us—we’re not here because we want to be, and that’s frustrating for us. But Auster—the only thing that frustrates him about all this is that he can’t do anything to help you.”

“Oh, so you, a complete stranger, know Auster better than me?” Joshua said sharply, taking a step towards Ilia.

“This was pretty obvious to anyone with eyes!” Ilia shot back, her voice rising in frustration. “Two days ago he spent the whole day in the kitchen, and then he told Juli that he didn’t mind because at least he was being useful.”

“That doesn’t justify giving him powers!” Joshua snarled. “You’ve given him a way to be useful, sure, but you’ve also given him an excuse to put himself on the front lines!”

“Joshua,” Ilia said slowly, emphasizing every syllable. “Auster didn’t need an excuse. He was already putting himself on the front lines.”

“Like hell he was,” Joshua spat. “You don’t even—”

“All right, let’s think back, then,” Ilia snapped. “When The Necromancer tried to kidnap you, Auster could have just warned you, and you would have been able to get out of the way with your super speed, but that thought never even crossed Auster’s mind. He took the fall for you so readily despite the clear alternative—and surely even you know what that means.”

“Stop,” Joshua said quietly, quivering with rage.

“No!” Ilia said hotly. “I will not stop, because you need to hear this, and no one else is willing to tell you. He’ll do it again, Joshua! He’ll jump in front of a train for you as many times as it takes, even if you’re not standing on the damn tracks! But at least the next time Auster decides to take a bullet for you, he’ll have some sort of shield, and the next time he gets kidnapped, I’ll know where he is, and I’ll be able to help him.”

“So, that’s how you’re justifying this?” Joshua shouted. “You’re going to keep him safe by enabling him?”

“Yes, I am,” Ilia said emphatically. “His powers will make him feel useful to you, which might get rid of his desperation to prove himself with life-threatening stunts.”

“Or his powers will give him an excuse to take even bigger risks!” Joshua said angrily, wings unfurling behind him. “You can justify it all you want, but you’re just playing god!”

Just a day ago, that statement would have filled Ilia with unspeakable dread. Now, however, it just sharpened her irritation. Some of the heat drained from her expression, replaced with icy scorn.

“You’re right,” Ilia said coolly. “I was given the power to play god, and I have chosen to use it as I see fit.”

Joshua fixed Ilia with a look of complete disdain.

“I cannot believe you,” he snarled. “You’re turning this into some self-actualization story when you’re walking in the same fucking footprints that got us here?” He let out a mirthless laugh. “I guess I was wrong to think that immortals could learn from their mistakes. You’re all the same.”

A hot spike of anger shot through Ilia, because that was just completely unfair to say. Ilia was immortal, perhaps, but she was also nineteen. She did not have hundreds of years of experience to learn from. Joshua was older than her, actually, and how dare he insinuate otherwise?

“You know what? I think I get why you’re here.” Ilia’s fingers were flickering with blue, but she didn’t care anymore. “You think Auster’s powers will make him a target—but he already had a target on his back just by association, and he knew that, so he asked me for help, which I provided. I didn’t wrong Auster, so that’s not why you’re here.”

Joshua’s eyes widened in fury, and he opened his mouth to speak, but Ilia kept talking.

“You’re here because I’ve wronged you,” Ilia said icily, poking Joshua in the chest. “You’re angry at me because I’ve made it harder for you to fulfill your god-given duty to protect Auster. You’re here because for some goddamn reason, you think what you want for Auster is more important than what Auster wanted for himself.”

“You,” Joshua hissed, voice trembling with rage. “You don’t know anything! You think you have the right to—”

“That’s right, I don’t know anything,” Ilia said coldly, taking a step back. “I’m a petty immortal, doomed to make mistakes over and over and over again—so no matter how much you yell at me, I’ll never learn. Which means we’re done here.”

If Joshua yelled at her in response, Ilia never heard him. She slipped into the red-tinted mindscape, muffling the sounds of the world around her, and then she strode out the door without sparing Joshua a second glance.

~.~

“Hey, Haku,” Peter greeted, popping their head into the planning room. “I have a que—”

“Get out.”

Haku’s speech was clipped, their tone strained, and though they did not open their eyes to glare at Peter, their irritation was clear—which, of course, did nothing to deter Peter. He entered the planning room and plopped down on the beanbag right next to Haku without a care in the world.

The seer was meditating in front of a crystal ball while various pens, silhouetted in orange, scribbled words onto sticky notes around the room. It was kind of fun, actually, watching the ciphered messages sort themselves on the walls, but that was not why Peter was here.

“Aw, Haku, don’t be like that,” Peter complained, leaning into Haku’s personal space. “You wouldn’t say that if you knew what my question was.”

“And what makes you so sure of that, exactly?” Haku said thinly, opening one eye.

“Because,” Peter said, a sly grin on his face. “I want to ask you about what we saw in your head. Now correct me if I’m wrong, but you don’t actually know what we saw in there—and that uncertainty is killing you, isn’t it?”

Haku tensed. Peter’s grin widened. Got ‘em.

“What did you see?” Haku ground out.

“There was a flower representing the timeline, and to get the flower to bloom, we had to cut away the bad endings,” Peter explained. “The bad endings were your typical doom and gloom, of course, and once the flower bloomed, it showed future visions of the four of us after death. Most of them were boring, but Ilia’s corpse—that one was strange. You see, it looked old, but—”

“Ilia can’t age, so you are curious about what that could mean,” Haku finished, opening their eyes. “I see.”

“Ilia is quite curious herself, you know.”

Peter turned to find Ilia standing in the doorway, hands on her hips. She looked a little tense, and there was residual anger in her clenched fists, her cold glare, her scowl. Peter briefly wondered what could’ve set her off this early in the morning—he certainly hadn’t done anything.

“Sit, then,” Haku said tersely. Ilia complied, taking a seat on the floor next to Peter without so much as a nod of acknowledgment. As soon as she was situated, Haku began to explain in earnest.

“That vision you speak of—I have been aware of it for quite some time,” Haku said carefully. “But I cannot explain how that reality comes to pass, because—”

“You can’t?” Ilia said sharply. “What do you mean?”

“Because I haven’t traced that far,” Haku continued, giving Ilia a withering look. “That vision takes place fifty, sixty, seventy years from now? You of all people should understand why my map does not extend that far forward.”

“Because you’ve spent the last half century in prison, getting shocked every time you used your powers?” Peter offered.

“That is one reason, yes,” Haku said, pinching the bridge of their nose. “But even on a good day, I would not have a detailed map spanning more than ten years of time. It is simply inefficient to look so far ahead, given how causality works.”

“So, what, you got that vision in a dream?” Ilia asked, frowning. “My dreams are usually way bloodier than that.”

“No,” Haku replied, shaking their head. “Upon meeting someone for the first time, we see one of the many possible deaths awaiting them, yes? This vision of your funeral was what greeted me when I first met you, shortly after your birth, to suppress your powers.”

“You’re the one who gave me Jinal’s soul?” Ilia wrinkled her nose. “I always thought it was Felix.”

“Whoa, whoa, wait, back up,” Peter interjected. “What does that mean?”

“I thought I told you about this—the fact that the Ennead tried to suppress my powers,” Ilia said with a frown. “Or, wait, you weren’t there for that conversation. It was right after you got shot.”

“Oh, no, I had Joel catch me up on the details,” Peter said, shaking their head. “I just didn’t realize that suppressing the curse required Jinal’s soul.”

“It isn’t always Jinal,” Haku said evenly. It was faint, but Peter thought he caught a flicker of guilt in Haku’s eyes. “Any of our souls can be turned into jewelry, much like the bracelets you all have right now, and that jewelry can suppress the curse and hide the bearer—in theory. Twice this method has failed, and it was—”

“Not your fault,” Ilia interrupted. Haku blinked in surprise. “It’s not your fault The Necromancer found me, and I’m not—I’m not bitter about it anymore.”

“I… see,” Haku said haltingly. “In any case, that vision didn’t seem horribly strange to me at the time, because with Jinal’s soul around your neck, you should have been just as capable of aging as anyone else. But I left myself a bookmark in the timeline, so to speak, just in case The Necromancer managed to find you.”

“And then, when he did find me—I hardly saw you that month up until things went to shit, but I guess you were looking into this?” Ilia asked.

“Among other things, yes,” Haku said with a nod. “But future vision is unreliable when applied to others with Yaran’s curse, and seventy years is quite the distance to traverse, and the combination of these two things made it impossible for me to trace the events that allow you to live and die like a mortal.”

“Oh.” Ilia deflated, her expression crestfallen. “That… makes sense, I guess.”

“That said,” Haku continued, “though I cannot tell you exactly how to get there, I have a hunch about what it could mean.”

“Keep talking,” Ilia said slowly.

“Very well. This may seem off topic, but bear with me,” Haku said calmly. “Of the twenty-five people Karai selected, fourteen chose to die—which means the rest of us are here intentionally. You and The Necromancer are here for self-explanatory reasons, but what about the nine of us? What keeps us here?”

“You’ve been protecting and training Karai’s chosen as they come along, but in the grand scheme of things…” Ilia frowned. “Aren’t you just here to stop The Necromancer from getting his way?”

“And in the centuries before he was born?” Haku pressed. “What were we doing then?”

“Stopping Yaran from getting his way!” Peter chimed in. “And all the other stuff Ilia said, too.”

“Fair enough,” Haku said wryly. “But are nine people really required for that?”

“No,” Peter said bluntly, locking eyes with Haku. “What you’re doing just stretches nine people over hundreds of years until they break. It makes way more sense to have each person train their direct successor, pass the baton, then dip out whenever they want.”

“Correct,” Haku agreed, their eyes devoid of emotion. “So. Why have we opted for the more inefficient path?”

“Definitely not because of your vigor for life,” Peter said dryly. “Otherwise you wouldn’t have shattered. My guess is that something forced your hand—Jinal’s hand, specifically, since she should’ve been the first one to pass the baton.”

“You’re… on the right track.” Haku scrubbed their face with their hands. “Do you know how, exactly, we killed the other fourteen immortals?”

“You took their souls,” Ilia said grimly. “And they willingly abandoned the last pieces of consciousness tying them here. It’s the only way an immortal can die.”

This was news to Peter—and it was nice to know that if The Necromancer did manage to snag an Ennead soul, it wouldn’t be an automatic game over. For now, though, Peter finally had the last piece of the puzzle.

“Something makes it impossible for any of you to take Jinal’s soul,” Peter guessed. “Something to do with Karai.”

“Exactly,” Haku said bitterly. “Jinal carries the remains of Karai’s essence, and that makes her soul poisonous to the rest of us. We can give her a temporary resting place while she regenerates, but none of us can permanently kill her—except for The Necromancer, in theory.”

“And the eight of you are here to keep her company,” Ilia said quietly. “Because she’s stuck here until her job is done.”

“That’s the key, though. Until her job is done—and you’re the endpoint,” Haku noted, their gaze contemplative. “You are the last person Jinal was assigned to protect. And I cannot imagine that Karai condemned Jinal to hell without an escape hatch—some way to shed Yaran’s curse when the day is over.”

Several pieces clicked into place in Peter’s head—Ilia’s fight against The Necromancer, the flames turning from black to white, the reflective shields, the self-flipping coin Ilia kept fiddling with at dinner last night. Haku’s theory was interesting—and Peter decided to test it.

“Hey, catch!” Peter said cheerfully.

Before Ilia could properly react, he materialized a black ping pong ball and flung it in her direction—and really, she had the most sensitive startle reflex Peter had ever seen, because when she threw her hands up in front of her face to block the hit, she was totally unaware of the royal blue glow around her fingers. Peter, though—he was prepared, and when the ball came flying back towards him, he had already leaned well out of the path of fire. The ball—now a brilliant white—hit the wall behind him with a clack.

Ilia stared at her hands in awe and confusion—and then understanding came over her, and she turned to Peter with a glare that strongly resembled an angry puppy. Morgan would have found it endearing, maybe; Peter just found it hilarious. Ilia opened her mouth to yell at Peter, but he was ready for that, too.

“Gee, Ilia, you’re getting good at reversing things,” Peter chirped. “Wonder if you can reverse curses, too!”

Ilia paled. The fight drained from her all at once, and she turned to Haku for reassurance, or at least a sign that Peter was being ridiculous. Haku simply shrugged.

“You really think—you think I can do that?” Ilia squeaked.

“It seems likely,” Haku said nonchalantly. “I had never seen your tertiary power in person before, but it seems you have the ability to reverse an object’s characteristics. At your current level, direction and color seem most easily accessible, but your fight against The Necromancer indicates that you can convert Yaran’s energy into Karai’s—and likely vice versa.”

“How do you—you weren’t even there!” Ilia spluttered.

“I did some homework when I got back,” Haku replied, pushing their glasses up the bridge of their nose. “Understanding the past is key to reading the future.”

“Oh,” Ilia said miserably, gazing at her palms. “So I… manage to grow old because I break the curse on myself?”

“That is my theory, yes,” Haku said calmly. “Though all of the evidence is circumstantial.”

Ilia continued to stare at her hands, lost in contemplation, and Peter decided to take this opportunity to bug Haku about something more private—except Peter no longer had a telepathy crystal, so he aggressively directed his thoughts in Haku’s direction instead.

Soooo, The Necromancer’s strong will prevents any of you from taking his soul, but Ilia’s reverse curse power—that can kill him, can’t it?

There was no indication on Haku’s face that they had heard Peter—they simply closed their eyes and went back to meditating. Peter frowned. He really wanted an answer to this question, but he wasn’t stupid enough to ask out loud in front of Ilia, because the answer would freak her out. And Ilia could read thoughts, too, so asking mentally a second time might be risky. Just as Peter opened his mouth to ask Haku for a new telepathy crystal, Haku’s voice rang in his head.

Ilia’s power is unlikely to work on its own, Haku said grimly. The Necromancer carries Yaran’s residual energy. Ilia could convert this to Karai’s energy, certainly, but that would simply change the nature of The Necromancer’s power.

But it’s a start, Peter pressed, glancing in Ilia’s direction. The young woman was using her power to flip a coin repeatedly in her outstretched palm. Her misery had fallen away, revealing a renewed focus and determination.

Yes, Haku agreed. It’s a start.

~.~

When Karyme entered the kitchen, Lian and Rae were in the process of helping Kai set the table for breakfast. Kai only had one arm, but he transferred dishes from drawer to countertop with the ease of someone who was used to the limited mobility. His left foot looked like it was made of green glass—and her powers told her it was a construct made from solidified soul energy. Her powers also told her that Kai’s left leg was still broken, but Karyme decided to keep that information to herself out of consideration for Kai.

Karyme jumped in to help Kai plate the pancakes while Lian and Rae continued setting out dishes, and by the time everything was ready, the others had all filtered in. There was some exchange of small talk as everyone served themselves, but Karyme was only half paying attention—something else had caught her eye.

Joshua was rigid with anger. His jaw was clenched tightly enough to grind teeth to bits, and tension bled from his neck down into his arms and shoulders, and he was glaring at Ilia with the fury of a thousand suns. Ilia was pretending not to notice, but her movements were a little shaky, betraying a certain level of unease.

Karyme cut into her pancakes with a frown. As much as she wanted to fix the Ilia-Joshua situation, she had a feeling it would take time and effort for that conflict to smooth itself out.

At least everyone else seemed to be having a good morning. Joel was struggling through his physics homework with a determined scowl, buoyed by Kai’s words of encouragement and Auster’s sympathetic smiles. Lian and Dani were teasing Rae about xyr music taste, citing examples from last night’s movie marathon. Juli and Peter were competing to see who could guess Morgan’s favorite color first—except their suggestions were increasingly outlandish in an effort to rile Morgan up. Morgan was halfway through a rant about the inherently evil qualities of chartreuse when Peter cut her off.

“Hey, Kai, I have a request!” Peter said cheerfully. “Can I have another teleportation crystal? I kinda lost mine and I’ll probably need one for today.”

“I actually have new crystals for everyone,” Joel said with a flourish. “Haku gave them to me this morning. And since Rae and I finished plotting locations for all of the soul fragments, these crystals have a complete map now.”

“Great job, Sir Cartographer!” Juli cheered, pumping a fist in the air. “I bet Lawyer Man here gave you a hard time, but ya pulled through!”

Juli elbowed Rae with a grin on their face, earning themself a laugh from Joel. Rae simply continued to eat his pancakes as if he hadn’t heard a thing. As the crystals were passed around the table, residual chatter faded to a lull, and all eyes went to Kai—which was strange, perhaps, because he had been silent so far, but he was also the best equipped to guide today’s hunt.

“About today,” Kai said slowly. “I won’t pretend that Haku and I are capable of resurrecting the others on our own, but none of you should feel pressured to help. If any of you wish to stay here, I can take your place.”

“Bullshit,” Joshua spat. “The Necromancer is looking for soul pieces too, and you don’t stand a chance if you run into him. I bet if you walked out of here right now, The Necromancer would just shatter you again.”

Kai winced. Karyme almost winced along with him. The statement contained a lot of vitriol, even for Joshua—a testament to his current emotional state.

“Um—so I kind of also think it’s a bad idea for you to leave,” Lian said carefully. “But not—not because of what Joshua said. I just think you look really tired and injured and you should rest more.”

“Or, y’know, rest at all,” Peter said slyly. “Hey, Karyme, did Kai sleep last night?”

Karyme frowned. After Peter’s deep dive incident, she was wary of giving him information that he could use for similar escapades, but this question was harmless enough. She clicked through a couple of boxes until she found the answer she was looking for.

“It seems like the answer is no,” Karyme reported, raising an eyebrow. “Apparently he slept for a couple of hours right after he was brought back, and he’s been awake since then.”

“Oh, nice,” Peter said cheerfully. “That means Haku hasn’t slept, either!”

“Fucking fantastic,” Dani grumbled, stabbing a piece of pancake with her fork. “Our cavalry’s going to be asleep at the wheel.”

“That’s, like, triple the reason for you to not go into the field, windy man,” Juli said solemnly. “But don’t worry! None of us want the universe to get reset, so we’ll play along, right?”

As Juli looked around the table for confirmation, Karyme was reminded of a similar conversation two weeks ago, held over rice and yogurt, just before the mafia tournament. When Ridwan had surveyed the table, asking the group to help clean up the Ennead’s mess, they were met largely with annoyance and hatred. Half the group had only agreed out of obligation.

Juli’s question now was much the same—were they willing to clean up the Ennead’s mess?

A few responses hadn’t particularly changed. Peter still held a practical commitment to the goal at hand. Lian’s eyes still shone with concern, though it was magnified, now, as they started to understand the depth of the immortals’ pain.

But everyone else had changed. Rae’s gaze was clear of doubt, and his nod of assent was firm, purposeful. Dani’s annoyance had been wiped clean, replaced instead by a cool tranquility. Morgan’s jaw was set in fierce determination, her eyes shining with confidence. Ilia had quietly come to terms with her role, at some point, and her posture was straighter now, more open. Juli’s cheer and passion were focused to a point—he was no longer just along for the ride. And Joshua—he was still angry at the situation, still tired of being strung along, but he was no longer denying his personal stake in things.

Gone was the hesitance from two weeks ago. The answer was loud and clear, and Kai seemed to get the message, because he let out a resigned sigh.

“Haku, Joel, and I will act as support, then,” Kai said evenly. “The rest of you—Karyme and Rae included—should split into three teams.”

Karyme frowned. It made sense, really, that she should be in the field, since Kai could easily coordinate the teams without her, but at the same time, she was probably a liability in a fight. As if reading her mind, Dani piped up.

“Karyme’s with me,” Dani said immediately. “I don’t know who we’re planning to save next, but I’m the only one who can shield Karyme from harm.”

“Haku said we should go after Mateen,” Peter said casually, popping a blueberry into his mouth.

“What?” Lian gasped, turning to Kai in shock. “But—”

“They’re right,” Kai agreed. “You should.”

“You want us to save the guy who killed you?” Morgan said pointedly. Kai sighed.

“That was… a long time ago,” he said evenly. “And I don’t need anyone getting angry about that on my behalf. Mateen is one of the few who can reliably stand up to The Necromancer.”

“One team for Minerva and one team for Mateen, then,” Rae decided. “I’m assuming Morgan still wants to stick with Juli, but—”

“I’m switching teams,” Joshua ground out. “Sorry.”

Karyme could have seen that coming from a mile away, given Joshua’s visceral reaction to Minerva’s first memory. If Joshua hadn’t asked for it first, Karyme would have suggested the same—not because she was trying to tiptoe around Joshua, but because she was worried for him. That said, with the way Joshua was glaring daggers at Ilia, maybe some tiptoeing was necessary.

“I… don’t think it’s a good idea for you to go with Ilia,” Karyme said carefully. “So we’ll just put you on the third team for now. Assuming we’re aiming for three teams of three people, we’ll need one person to join Morgan and Juli, and Dani and I should be paired with either Ilia or Joshua.”

Karyme knew, of course, that Joshua was not actually a one-person team, since Auster would probably go with him, but she wasn’t going to be the one to bring that up.

“Not to crash Joshua and Lian’s date,” Peter chimed in, “but if we’re trying to balance the teams for combat, Lian should go with Morgan and Juli.”

“It’s not—” Lian groaned. “How do you even know about that?”

“I can read minds,” Peter proclaimed, wiggling his fingers in the air. “It’s my secret third power that I’ve been hiding from the group this whole time. Look, look—I can use it on Auster next! In my mind’s eye, I see—”

“Peter,” Juli said flatly. “Just explain your reasoning. You can bully Hoodie Man later.”

“Wow, I didn’t expect that from you, Juli,” Peter gasped, eyes wide in mock surprise. “I knew Dani was a party pooper, but you, too? What has this world become?”

“Peter,” Dani said thinly. “Focus. On the topic. At hand.”

“Sure thing!” Peter grinned. “So one person needs to go with Morgan and Juli: that’s either going to be me, Rae, or Lian. Rae’s powers work best to give melee fighters more mobility, and Morgan’s powers are completely ranged, so it’s a waste to send Rae with them. I could go, but that would be weakening the remaining teams.”

“And why’s that?” Joshua snarked. “You’re just that valuable?”

“You’re the one who said it, not me,” Peter said with a shrug. “But that’s not what I meant. Rae and I work well together in a fight because whenever Rae needs an escape hatch, I can easily materialize an object for xem to use. So Rae should go with me.”

“And the two of us shouldn’t go with Ilia, because she can teleport things already,” Rae realized. “So you’re saying Lian should go with Morgan and Juli, Karyme and Dani should go with Ilia, and you and I should go with Joshua.”

“Yup!” Peter said, popping the p. “Since Joshua and I don’t have bracelets anymore, we’d be going after Ridwan—which shouldn’t be a problem, right?”

Peter looked to Kai for confirmation, and Kai simply nodded his assent.

“Great.” Joshua looked much like he’d just swallowed a lemon. “Auster’s coming with us, too.”

“What?” Lian gasped. “But isn’t that dangerous?”

“I, um—I have powers now,” Auster said nervously, his gaze trained firmly on the floor. “And I want to help. I can’t keep sitting here while everyone else is…”

Auster trailed off, cowed by the tension in the air.

Karyme immediately looked to Joel, searching for any signs of distress. There was a hint of hurt there, but nothing close to the horrified surprise on Lian’s face. Good—Auster had told Joel in advance.

Dani and Rae were the fastest to put two and two together. They turned their attention to Ilia, who met their appraisal with an aloof facade. Morgan’s confusion was quickly ousted in favor of a glaring contest with Joshua. Juli regarded Auster with a sort of concerned self-recognition. And Peter—he looked from Auster to Joshua with a calm curiosity, as if trying to analyze their body language.

As shock faded from Lian’s face, they looked to Joshua, then followed his glare in Ilia’s direction, and a look of understanding settled over them. It wasn’t acceptance—there was a complex cocktail of hurt and confusion there that would take a while to sort through.

“What are they?” Dani asked. “Your powers, I mean.”

“I-I can make other people’s powers stronger,” Auster stammered. “And, um, it’s hard to explain, but—I can also see if anyone is using powers in the area.”

“Oh,” Lian mumbled. The smile they gave Auster was muted by residual shock. “That’s… cool.”

“I don’t think that’s a full summary of everything Auster can do,” Karyme added. “But that is all I can see for now.”

The group settled back into a tense silence. It was clear that everyone had questions for Ilia about why she had given Auster powers, but no one voiced them.

“O-okay, so, I guess those are the teams,” Joel said shakily. His smile was a little forced as he tried to inject the atmosphere with cheer. “And after consulting with everyone’s favorite seer, I now have your missions for this morning, should you choose to accept them.”

“Wait, wait, wait,” Juli interrupted. “How on earth did you get Glasses Man to tell you their secrets?”

“My charm is simply irresistible,” Joel said lightly, grinning at Juli.

“And Haku’s too tired to stand up to a flea,” Peter chimed in. “But Joel’s charm was definitely the MVP here, hands down.”

“Oh, huh, I kinda see it,” Juli said, nodding sagely. “You’ll have to teach me your secrets some time, little man.”

“Sure thing!” Joel chirped. “Together, we can take down nations!”

“Great. I suggest you hit Russia first,” Dani said flatly. “In the meantime, though, can we hear the plan?”

“Very well,” Joel said solemnly. He unrolled his physics homework as if it were a town crier’s scroll. “Team Mateen will travel to Kanem, Chad to retrieve soul fragments from Jinal and Mateen. Team Ridwan will explore Riyadh for a single fragment. And Team Minerva will brave the extreme climate of the Himalayas. There are fragments for four different people up there, so bring a jacket, I guess!”

“We’re going to freeze to death,” Morgan groaned, burying their face in their hands.

“Uh, you can control when it snows, and I can keep us warm,” Juli said with a frown. “And you’ve got your super fancy thousand dollar jacket. We’ll be fine.”

“Whoa, wait! You can’t wear leather in—”

“Why are there so many soul fragments up there?” Ilia interrupted, turning to Kai. “Did something big happen?”

“If you’re asking whether something on the magnitude of the El Jem incident happened up there, the answer is no,” Kai replied, shaking his head. “The four soul fragments are likely from discrete memories, though it’s hard for me to predict which ones.”

“What?” Lian wrinkled their nose in disgust. “Why were four of you up in the mountains at different times?”

“One of the main Temples of Karai was built up there. It was… home, for a while,” Kai said wistfully. “Ven and Mateen grew up there. Minerva and I both lived there after leaving our families. The seventh child trained there, too.”

“Seventh child?” Rae frowned. “I thought that was Ridwan.”

“An easy assumption to make, but an incorrect one,” Kai said, shaking his head. “And if you’re going to Kanem, you’ll learn about her there. Her name was Skye.”

“Skye… like the person you failed to save?” Morgan asked, brow furrowed. “The one Mateen was all angry about when he killed you in that arena?”

“One and the same,” Kai replied, closing his eyes. “Mateen killed me in retaliation for how we handled Skye’s situation. In retrospect, he was quite justified, but I wish his timing had been better—he killed me the day before my anniversary with Jinal.”

Each word out of Kai’s mouth felt like being splashed with ice water—and the fact that he sounded like a bored gas station employee only worsened the effect.

“Dude,” Juli said heavily. “You know that’s a fucked up thing to think, right? Like—that’s your life you’re talking about.”

“Y-yeah!” Lian agreed. “And—you’re acting so calm now, but in that memory I could feel how much it hurt you to die that way!”

“At the time, it did hurt,” Kai said coolly, turning his gaze to Lian. “But only because I thought my death would stick. Now, though? Reliving that memory probably hurt you more than it hurt me.”

“Then why’d you show it to us, old man?” Joshua said sharply. “To give us clues about how to beat your shadow clone in a shouting match?”

“That’s…” Kai pinched the bridge of his nose. “I don’t know whether to be honored that you have so greatly overestimated my control over what you saw or insulted that you think I would willingly put you through the worst moments of my life just to save myself.”

“Then the memory visions aren’t intentional?” Dani asked, raising an eyebrow.

“No,” Kai said bluntly. “Unbelievable though it may seem, I did not actually need anyone here to know about my brother, or my father, or my self-imposed exile. Those things should have died with Xiao Tong over a millennium ago.”

“Oh,” Lian said softly, eyes wide. “Oh, Kai, I—”

“Don’t,” Kai said thinly. “I don’t deserve the apology you’re about to give me, because having my past on display isn’t what’s bothering me. I just hate that you had to experience my trauma in first person, because—no one should have to go through that.”

“Yeah, well, from what I hear, your stuff was tame compared to Haku’s,” Peter said casually, popping a piece of pancake in his mouth. Kai let out a mirthless laugh.

“That’s not saying much,” Kai said grimly. “The only two people who might have ‘tamer’ memories than me are Ven and Silpa.”

“Fantastic,” Dani muttered. “Good to hear, since neither of those people are up next.”

“It sounds like you have a rough idea of what we’ll see, though,” Karyme noted. “Enough, maybe, to warn us ahead of time?”

“I… could,” Kai said slowly. “But only in the broadest sense. There are things even I do not know, and to receive a secondhand account from me—it would be doing the owners of those memories a disservice.”

“Well, the broadest sense is better than nothing,” Juli sighed. “I just wanna know ahead of time if I’m gonna walk into another memory that involves being burned alive.”

“I think you hit all of those already,” Kai said with a pained smile. “But I’ll let you know if anything comes to mind.”

“Gee, that’s kind of impressive, Juli!” Peter said, eyes wide in mock awe. “Three chances to see someone burning alive, and you somehow hit all three!”

“Yeah, great,” Juli said bleakly. “Can someone else please take my impressive luck?”

It looked like Peter was going to tease Juli further, but a sudden cry of frustration from Joel turned everyone’s attention to that side of the table.

“Hey!” Joel shot a betrayed pout in Kai’s direction. “That equation you gave me—one of the answers is a negative number and the other one’s a decimal!”

“You’re giving him math homework, too?” Juli asked, frowning at Kai. “Doesn’t the poor boy suffer enough?”

“Joel asked a question, and I gave him an answer,” Kai said calmly, leaning back in his chair. “An answer in the form of a physics problem, but an answer nonetheless.”

Karyme glanced over at Joshua. His expression was a mix of astonishment and awe, along with a healthy dose of “why didn’t I think of that.” Juli, on the other hand, seemed unamused.

“Ohhh, that’s a lot of numbers.” Lian peeked over Joel’s shoulder with a frown. “What was the question, anyhow?”

“I wanted to know how old he was,” Joel grumbled.

“Then the answer’s clearly the negative number,” Peter said with a grin.

“Okay, so ignoring that thoroughly unhelpful suggestion—age is technically a decimal,” Dani pointed out, brow furrowed. “No one really thinks of it that way, but unless it’s your birthday, your age isn’t a whole number.”

“You’re overthinking this,” Kai said wearily. “I came up with the problem on the spot, so I used some mental shortcuts to figure out how to get the math to work. If you’re that worried about accuracy, you can use 9444.2 miles per hour as your velocity instead.”

With a dramatic sigh, Joel started punching numbers into his calculator again. Karyme watched him with more than a little curiosity—she had never pried into Kai’s age, so the answer would be as much a surprise to her as anyone else.

“Wait.” Rae narrowed xyr eyes. “With numbers that high—you can multiply three digit numbers in your head?”

“It’s not horribly difficult,” Kai said with a lopsided shrug. “Division is harder.”

“It’s sorcery!” Lian gasped, reeling backwards. “Witchcraft of the highest degree!”

“I can create tornadoes and regenerate limbs, but the math is the sorcery part,” Kai said dryly. “I’ll keep that in mind. Maybe I can channel the magic of matrix multiplication to fix my leg.”

Joshua snorted. “You should try long division of polynomials, old man. That’s the next unit they’re covering in Joel’s math class.”

“Man, you’re plotting Joel’s demise while he’s distracted?” Juli groaned. “That’s just cold!”

Karyme laughed. One glance in Joel’s direction told her that he was fully engrossed in his heavy-duty calculator work—which was probably the most focused she’d ever seen him. Kai had gotten him good.

“Oh, huh,” Joel remarked, looking up. “This one did come out to a whole number. Eight hundred and sixty-two years old.”

The room dropped into stunned silence.

Kai had lived more than eight centuries. More than eight lifetimes, really, and that was far too much for one person to contain. Kai’s blood must be thick with history, his eyes full to overflowing with everything he had seen, and it made sense, now, why those memories would spill onto the fingers of anyone who touched his soul.

Karyme could spend her entire life trying to preserve Kai’s personal history and still she wouldn’t be able to capture it, because something so vast, so rich, so deep would always lay slightly beyond her comprehension. She understood, now, why Rae had called the Ennead gods.

“Okay, so that’s a really high number, which is kind of hard for us to fully understand,” Peter said gravely, materializing a cheap plastic calculator. “But luckily I have a solution! Juli, why don’t you explain?”

Peter materialized a marker and a small whiteboard and floated them over to Juli. For a second, Juli just gave the writing implements a blank stare—but then their gaze flitted towards Morgan, and a mischievous grin spread across their face.

“Okay!” Juli said, throwing on a fake announcer voice. “So. Years are, like, kinda abstract, right? And almost nine hundred of them—we know that’s a big number, but how big? Common folks like me, we need something more material to count by.”

“A more concrete unit of measurement,” Dani agreed, an equally nefarious grin on her face. “And money—that’s something all of us can understand.”

“Exactly!” Juli drew three dollar signs on the whiteboard. “We could use plain ‘ol dollars, but that wouldn’t fix much. Lucky for us, though, we’ve got a better currency now.”

Karyme bit back a smile. She knew where this was going now, and a glance towards Morgan told her that the other girl was blissfully unaware.

“Hmmm,” Dani mused, tapping her chin. “If I remember correctly, it was… $2000 dollars per unit of this new currency?”

“Yep, yep,” Juli said, nodding vigorously. “So now we just need to do some math…” He scribbled the number 2000 next to the dollar signs, then an equal sign, then a question mark, then Kai’s age.

“And boom!” Peter waved the calculator in the air. “If we apply our new currency of MJs—short for Morgan Jackets—we find that Kai’s age is less than half an MJ. Doesn’t that help?”

Morgan stood up fast enough to knock over her chair. Her eyes were wide with rage as she glared at Peter, then Juli, then Dani—and all three burst into laughter.

That just incensed Morgan further. She chucked a syrup-laden fork at Peter with enough force to cause serious injury, but Peter dodged without even using his telekinesis, as if to rub in the fact that Morgan couldn’t hit him.

And that was the final straw.

With a snarl, Morgan leapt at Peter. He ducked under her sloppy attack with practiced calm—and then he bolted out of the room with Morgan in heated pursuit.

“Juli,” Rae said thinly. “You do realize that you’re going to have to spend the whole morning with Morgan, right?”

“Eh, it’ll be fine,” Juli said casually. “Lian won’t let them kill me.”

“I won’t, but—" Lian frowned. “Maybe put a twelve hour pause on teasing them.”

“Sure thing!” Juli chirped, giving Lian a salute.

“Jokes aside, I have a question,” Dani said, turning to Kai. “The math problem you gave Joel—you fixed it to spit out a whole number, and like I said before, age is only a whole number on your birthday.”

“Oh my god,” Lian breathed, eyes wide. “Kai, is it your birthday?”

“Yes,” Kai said carefully. “But you don’t n—”

“Favorite cake flavor,” Lian said firmly, slamming both hands on the table. “Now.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Kai said dismissively. He locked eyes with Lian. “I’ve had more birthdays than all of you combined, several times over—this one is nothing special.”

“Nonsense. Birthdays matter, even for immortals,” Lian said stubbornly, crossing their arms. “Even if you’ve been alive a long time, the fact that you’re here is something worth celebrating.”

Kai’s poker face was a good balance of controlled and casual, but Karyme’s power let her see the cracks in his facade. He was reluctant to allow himself any pleasure while his family continued to suffer—and if that had been his only source of discomfort, Karyme would have asked Lian to back down. But when Lian insisted that Kai’s continued existence was worth celebrating, Kai’s heart rate spiked in alarm, and even now, there was disbelief in his eyes, and that hurt.

Karyme didn’t know Kai very well, but she couldn’t let that stand.

“He likes nian gao,” Karyme announced, a sly smile on her face.

“That’s—”

“And cheesecake,” Karyme continued, cutting Kai off before he could object. “Cotton cheesecake specifically, but ube cheesecake is also okay.”

Kai buried his face in his hands with a defeated sigh. Lian rubbed their hands together with what was probably supposed to be an evil cackle, except Lian was categorically incapable of sounding evil, so it was just kind of cute.

“Please don’t get me anything,” Kai mumbled. “Cake is fine, but that is where I draw the line.”

“Okay!” Lian said cheerfully, giving Kai a thumbs up. “But only because we have a lot to do today. I’ll get you a present later, after we’ve saved all your friends!”

Kai visibly tensed. He recovered quickly enough, and Karyme almost waved it off—but Lian’s statement had been basically harmless, and despite that, something there had hurt Kai enough that his near-perfect poker face broke.

With an increasing sense of dread, Karyme clicked on an indicator near Kai’s heart—and for the first time in her whole life, the pop up box was unreadable. It wasn’t a set of question marks, or a blank box, or any of the other nonsense results she’d seen before. The text in the box was redacted, scratched out with thick black marker.

Kai was intentionally hiding something from her.

Conversation continued to swirl around Karyme as everyone finished eating, but she didn’t really participate. She just couldn’t figure out what could possibly be unsettling enough that Kai would work so hard to hide it.

Whatever it was, Karyme had a sinking feeling that it would come back to bite them later.

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