by Katie Cherry
******
Nathan wakes up in the morning before his alarm goes off. He sits on his bed for a few minutes, staring at the wall, thinking of very little. Then he tries to create a simple gust of air in his room. Nothing moves. He sighs and leans back against his wall. So it was true, then. He really did lose his Gifts. One tear races down his cheek before he shakes himself and gets into his shower. It doesn’t matter. I don’t need them… I can figure out the truth myself. Gifts aren’t everything. I can’t let this destroy me… between Crystal and I, one of us needs to be strong… or at least pretend to be. We were alright before we even knew about the Gifts. There’s nothing to state that anything even has to be different now. I’ll be fine.
When he climbs onto the bus, T doesn’t wink at him. Today, he just says, “We need to talk. Find me during lunch. Bring Angela.” Nathan nods. Well, that’s good. Now he can get those two to tell him what’s going on, at least. And if he can get Angela to summon her little fairiye, she can also tell him what she knows.
When Angela climbs onto the bus, he notices dark circles under her eyes. She sits in the seat behind him. “You look…”
“Angry?” he suggests.
“No… tired. Tired of everything.”
“Well, thanks. You look tired too.”
“That’s not what I meant…” she sighs. “You and I need to have a heart to heart.”
“Yes, we do. T says to meet with him at lunch so we can all three of us have a ‘heart to heart.’”
She nods determinedly. “Alright. Sounds good.”
“Good.” After that, they don’t talk the rest of the ride to school. In fact, they don’t speak in their first class, or even their gym class together. During lunch, he opts to skip eating.
“Come on, Angela,” Nathan announces when he finds her sitting with her friends, eating lunch. “It’s time to talk.”
Ignoring the stares of the other girls, Angela nods solemnly and stands, dumping the rest of her food in the trash before leading the way out of the school. They find T’s bus parked by the tennis courts.
“Ah, you made it,” the old man greets, opening the door after he knocks on it.
“Yes,” he tartly replies. “Now who are you- really?”
He laughs. “Well you sure jump right to the point, now don’t you? But first thing’s first. Angela, dear, I do believe I have something for you.” He hands her an eye dropper filled with a murky liquid.
“…What is it?” she murmurs in confusion, holding it up to the light.
“That is what I asked him to procure for you,” a proud voice says. They look up to see Auna entering through a window. “It will help you remember whatever it is the Dragon Hunters caused you to forget.”
“What? You did this… last night?” Angela repeats, confused. “But… I thought you were out finding Greg last night.”
“I was. I just made a stop here first.”
“Wait,” Nathan interrupts. “You were looking for Greg? …Did you find him?”
“Why don’t you ask me yourself?”
“Greg!” Nathan gasps, relieved. He turns, and sure enough, the Familiar is perched happily on the top of the stairs.
“Did you miss me?”
“Oh, Greg! What happened to you?!”
“All in good time,” Auna intercedes. “There is much to tell you, Nathan. Too much to fit into this lunch break. Besides, we first need to recover Angela’s memories- they might hold the key to everything.”
“…Right,” Angela confirms nervously. “So I just… put a drop in each eye?”
“And another in each ear,” T adds.
The girl carefully lifts the dropper into the air, then tilts her head back. A drop falls into each of her eyes. She blinks them away, her eyes red like they are irritated. After putting a drop in each ear, the group gathers around with bated breath to see if it worked.
After a few seconds, Angela shrugs. “I guess we waited too long…” she suddenly passes out, falling back onto one of the seats on the bus.
“What happened?” Nathan inquires anxiously, peering over her. “Is she okay?”
“Yes,” T explains patiently. “The Knaowkuf powder put her to sleep to hide the memories. The way to get them back requires much of the same.”
“…Knaowkuf powder?” Nathan repeats, confused.
“It is a rare, memory-erasing powder from Lii,” T explains. “And the cure for it comes from the same plant.”
“So how long until…” Nathan’s question is interrupted by Angela gasping and sitting back up.
“It worked,” she whispers, her eyes on Nathan. “But you’re not going to like what I found out…”
“I don’t care,” he replies. “I need to know the truth. From all of you,” he continues, turning to look at each person, fairiye, and Familiar in the bus.
T glances at his watch. “Well, you certainly can’t know everything right now… lunch is just about over.” Following his remarks, the school bell rings. Nathan glares at the bus driver as though it was his fault.
“Fine. But after school, there will be no more secrets. No more lies.”
“No more,” Angela whispers affirmatively.
“I’ll meet you at home, Nathan,” Greg says, scooting out the door.
Nathan follows him off the bus, not looking back to see if Angela is coming as well. He’s angry that they would keep him in the dark for so long and doesn’t feel like forgiving any of them just yet. He may not even forgive them after they tell him everything.
That remained to be seen.
<<
Angela fidgets in her seat, anxiously watching the clock on the wall. In just a matter of minutes, Nathan would find her and demand to know everything… and she wasn’t sure how much she could keep from him. When he pleaded for them to stop keeping things from him, she could hear the hurt in his voice, as though he was being betrayed. There was no way she could lie to him now. She would have to trust that it was for the best for him to know everything, although the Queen had told her to keep him in the dark for as long as possible. After all, that’s obviously no longer possible, since he was so determined to wring the truth out of them all.
The bell finally rings, and Angela leaps out of her seat, already packed up and ready to go. She hurries through the door and nearly bumps into someone very familiar. “…Jake,” she sighs. “Now is not the time…”
“Oh, but it is,” he sneers. “We need to talk.”
“Too bad. I have to catch my bus.”
“Oh, it won’t take long… I just wanted to warn you that if you tell that idiot boy anything about us… you will regret it.”
“I’m afraid I don’t have any idea to what you are referring,” she replies, playing dumb.
“You know what I mean. You may remember what Bryce said to you, but Nathan is not allowed to know. If you tell him our plans, I will make sure to personally make your life a living hell.”
“How? You can’t touch me,” she smugly retorts.
“You may have a small amount of protection, Zilferian, but your brother does not.”
“Chet? But… but he…”
“We recaptured him,” Jake sneers. “Now ponder that before you go blabbing things that aren’t meant to be shared.” He backs away. “Might want to hurry and catch your bus,” he finishes before walking away.
******
Angela and Nathan step off at her stop, and she opens a note that T had slipped her as she passed him. ‘I’m afraid that I cannot meet you at your house today,’ it reads. ‘You know how you can contact me. I’ll add what little information I can to help Nathan find the truth that way.’ She sighs and tucks the note into her back pocket.
“T can’t join us,” she tells Nathan, who scowls. “Not physically, at least. But don’t worry, he can jump in for a little later if needed.”
“Fine,” he concedes. “But Auna will be joining us, right?”
“Yes, and Greg.”
“Greg knows
no more than I do,” he puffs.
“That was true before he was captured,” she confirms as they begin walking to her house. “But he has discovered things since then.”
Nathan’s face grows stormy with anger. “Why is it that I know less than everyone else does about things that concern me?!”
“Um… Nathan?”
“What?!” he bites back.
“…Are you… alright?”
“I’m fine,” he growls.
She just nods and continues walking, keeping as much space between them as possible. He’s so moody all of a sudden. He wasn’t like this before the weekend… I wonder what happened to cause this change? It has to be more than frustration at being kept out of the loop…
“Mom, dad, I’m home,” she calls as they open the door.
“Ah, good,” Ramona says as she walks in from the kitchen. “Oh, Nathan! We weren’t expecting you today, dear.”
“He just needed some help with some homework,” Angela jumps in before he can reply. “Is it okay if he stays for a while?”
“Of course,” Walter confirms from his spot at the table, lowering his tablet. “There’s always enough room at the table for another person,” he chuckles heartily, winking at Nathan.
“Oh, it probably won’t take that long,” he cautiously replies.
“Yes, well, if it does then you are welcome to have dinner with us,” he smiles at him, returning to his tablet.
“Oh… well, thank you.”
“Come on, my room’s this way,” Angela intercedes, leading the way up the stairs. She carefully closes the door behind them and drops her backpack on the ground by her bedside table before sitting down with a huff on her bed. Nathan remains standing.
She sighs. “Don’t worry, Greg and Auna will be here in a minute,” she consoles him. He doesn’t reply, standing with his arms folded and his eyes focused unwaveringly on the window. It’s only a couple of minutes before the two arrive, but to Angela, it feels like an hour. The tension in the air between her and Nathan makes her feel sick with guilt.
“Okay, no more stalling,” Nathan declares, turning to Angela. “Tell me everything.”
“I… I don’t even know where to start…”
“How about you start with who you really are,” he says without emotion. “Since I’m sure you even lied to me about that.”
“…Are you sure you don’t want to sit down?” She offers. When he doesn’t move, she sighs and begins her story. “Alright. My name is Angela Adkins. I… I grew up in Zilferia.” She hesitates and watches Nathan’s response. He nods for her to go on, his face a mask of indifference. “M…My family and I… grew up in the King’s Village, near the edge. When Patrick started adding to his ranks… he… he took my family,” she says, choking back a sob. “I wasn’t home at the time of the incident… I was gathering herbs in the woods while my brother went hunting. …When we got back, our parents were missing… My brother was enraged. He charged after them, following their tracks until he caught up with them. When he realized that it was Patrick who had taken them, he didn’t stop. He tried to attack Patrick… he didn’t even get close to succeeding, of course, but Patrick decided to enroll him in his army. They never saw me, for I was hiding amongst the trees… after they took Chet from me, I hurried to find the King and Queen, hoping that they would help me. The Queen informed me that although she couldn’t waste resources on one boy, she would try her best to rescue my family and make sure they stayed safe.
“She also needed help. So I agreed to help her and also gain her assistance in rescuing my family… which is how I ended up here. She wanted help in watching the comings and goings of the Dragon Hunters in certain realms and warn her of whatever technology they took, things like that. So for a while, I simply spied on them for her… which wasn’t hard, they almost never take off those stupid cloaks. Every once in a while when I returned to report, I was allowed to stay for a short time.” She looks up at him shyly. “…I saw you. You and Crystal… in the Games. I saw snippets of the Games themselves, and I was there when you first met Greg…” She stops for a second.
“Sorry, that’s off-topic… anyway, so when you were going to be sent home, the Queen gave me a new assignment. I was to stay here and keep an eye out for you… make sure that you were safe from the Dragon Hunters. …I’m sorry to say that part of that was keeping you ignorant of the danger in the first place. Believe me, that was not my call,” she continues, begging with her eyes for him to believe her. “Anyway, when you got here, I also got word that Chet was okay, and that you rescued him… and that the rest of my family was dead.” A tear slips out of her right eye. “I was about to demand that I be allowed to go back and be with my brother… until I saw you… up close.” A slight blush begins to rise in her cheeks. “I decided that Chet would be fine… I had the Queen promise me that he would be looked after and she said that he could even live with them in their castle.”
“So you were… assigned to babysit me?” He restates dubiously.
“Um… more to keep the Dragon Hunters from getting close to you. Although I don’t know why she trusted me with this mission so much…”
“Why not?” he asks, finally softening and kneeling in front of her. “Why wouldn’t she trust you?”
Angela lowers her head ashamedly. “I… I’m one of the rare people from Zilferia that… doesn’t have any Gifts,” she finally chokes out, another tear falling from her right eye, followed by one from her left. She quickly wipes them away with the heels of her hands ashamedly.
Nathan sighs and leans back. “Then that’s something we have in common.”
She looks up at him, confused. “But… I saw you, in the Games…”
He shakes his head before she can continue. “I did then. I had them up until yesterday, actually. …A group of Dragon Hunters attacked me… they had a magic-user with them… and he… took away my Gifts, somehow.” No tears fall from his eyes, but she can see the heartbreak on his face. She stands and pulls him into a hug. After a few seconds, he puts his arms around her and holds her close, his face nestled in the soft divet at the bottom of her neck. She can now feel him trembling. Her heart breaks for the poor boy. Not only did she fail in her job, but he lost his Gifts because of it. The only thing worse than never having Gifts is to know the taste of freedom and power they offer- and then lose it all.
“I’m sorry,” she whispers in his ear.
He pulls back. “Why?” he asks, confused.
“Because it’s my fault,” she sadly informs him. “It was my one and only job to keep you safe from them… you lost your Gifts because of me.”
He takes her face in his hands and pulls up her chin so she’ll look at him. He looks into her eyes. “This is not your fault,” he softly assures her. “…Thank you for telling me the truth,” he murmurs, softly kissing her forehead.
He turns to Auna. “Alright, what’s your story?”
The small fairiye hovers at eye level and looks at him seriously. “I am Angela’s companion. The Queen sent a request to Lii for a fairiye to be sent to help her in her task to watch and help you, and mostly to keep you safe. I now also report to the Queen, so Angela no longer has to leave your side. It is much faster that way as well, since I can travel through realms at will.”
“Seriously?” Nathan says, awed. “That’s amazing.”
“It is the biggest thing that sets us apart from our cousins, the fairies. They also cannot bond with their companions as deeply as we can.”
Nathan takes a deep breath and turns to Greg. “Now then. What do you have to tell me? What did you find out over the weekend?”
The Familiar scoffs. “You make it sound like it was a voluntary field trip. I was captured by those two creatures-“
“Dorff,” Auna supplies.
“…Those two Dorff… and stuffed in a bag and kept in an old, dilapidated farmhouse. I eventually escaped… but while I was in that bag, I heard them talking about the Dragon Hunters’ plans. I he
ard that they were going to attack Angela… and I also heard that Zarafa talks to Patrick regularly using a Hologram Square or something like that...” Nathan frowns heavily at this. “….and that Bryce’s job was to keep you from disrupting any of the Dragon Hunters’ plans… he just decided to use you to find Rex as a bonus. He’s practically Patrick’s right-hand-man… if Hunter was killed, Bryce would be next in line to lead the Dragon Hunters.”
Nathan stumbles back, sitting down hard on Angela’s bed. “I should have known…” he groans.
After a few minutes, he turns back to Angela. “You have more to tell me,” he ventures. “What is it?”
She sighs. “Well… Jake is a Dragon Hunter, not… not my ex,” she confides.
He nods tersely. “And what about your… parents… downstairs? Who are they really? Do they know about any of this?”
She shakes her head. “No. Vladimir came with me the first time and changed their memories… they think that they are my parents… and no, they know absolutely nothing about Zilferia or Dragon Hunters.”
“Alright,” he accepts, nodding. He takes a deep, cleansing breath. “Is that all? Does anyone have anything else to tell me?”
Angela fidgets a little. I should tell him… but I can’t. Jake told me… he threatened Chet if I told… although he already knows most of it now anyway thanks to Greg… “I do,” she suddenly gasps before she covers her mouth with her hands, looking mortified.
“You do?” he inquires, turning to her. “What is it?”
She sighs. There’s no going back now. “When T helped me restore my memories… I remembered that I was with Bryce and another Dragon Hunter… after you saved me from the group of Dragon Hunters that had me trapped yesterday.”
“…What?” he says, looking confused.
“I know you were that silver wolf,” she says tartly. He looks surprised, then nods.
“So, what did you remember?” he asks. After she tells him, he looks more shocked than ever. “Crystal? Are you sure they specifically mentioned her?”
“Yes,” she sighs. “But they only mentioned that you ‘can’t find out about her.’ I have no idea what that means.”