My eyes widened, "wait, what?"

Penelope nodded her head. "We have to do it, Kate. They've wronged us both, torn our lives apart for their own gain. It's time that they feel our pain, the agony they've created."

I pulled my hands out of her's. "Penelope, we can't do that. They don't deserve it."

"We have suffered, and they haven't lost anything!"

Narrowing my eyes, I stood to my feet. "Yes, they have. They may have hurt us, Penelope, but that doesn't mean that they haven't suffered in their own ways. Secta's family was ripped apart for millennia, his wife became his worst enemy, and he couldn't find his daughter. He's been fighting a war against the woman he loves, and I can't imagine how much that kills him. Cybele as you said was raised by an abusive step-mother, without her father, and now with a mother who only wants to hurt her! She lost Nocen, who is the love of her life even if you don't want to believe it! How the hell does that not sound like enough pain to you?"

Penelope stood up straight, glaring at me nose to nose. "That is never going to be enough for me. They are deserving of my revenge, and I will give it to them. If you don't side with me, Kate, I'll have to force you. That sweet sister of your's is very replaceable. I mean, look at me? Don't I look just like her?"

"Don't you dare threaten my sister!"

"I can be your new one." Penelope laughed, "and to up the stakes, I'll kill your little lover boy. He's too risky to keep around if we want to live our lives, and he's had his heart ripped out once so I think he can take it a second time."

My meraki shot out from my body like a shooting star, striking Penelope in the chest. It threw her backwards off her feet, her body colliding with the ground. On her back, she let out a laugh.

"You're learning so quickly. It's thrilling really." She sat up, her hair falling over her shoulders.

"Stop toying with her." Felix said, his cane tapping the ground. "You know what you're here to do."

Penelope stood up, her eyes turning black. Suddenly I couldn't breath, making me gasp for air. In a blur, I was on my knees, throwing up the water inside my lungs. I was drowning above water, Penelope never letting me get enough air before filling my nostrils with sea water all over again.

"Don't make me force you to join me, Kate." Penelope told me, water appearing on the ground all around me.

It surged across my hands before a wave rose out of air, hitting my body and shoving me backwards. The water was swirling, churning on all sides as I was thrown back and forth in its current. I struggled to breath, trying to force my way out of the waves but Penelope would never let me get too far; she was slowly drowning me.

I needed fire, its heat the only thing that could save me. The warmth of embers called out to me, and I reached out, snatching up its heat. The water died immediately, and I fell on my hands and knees, coughing for air.

Feeling my meraki flowing through my body, I kept a tight hold on the flames, looking up to Penelope. She sat, kneeled on the ground with her hands shaking. Her face nearly looked pained as her hand held her throat.

"So, that's what you are. That's what your meraki is." She shook her head, "it's fitting for the Prodigy. Fate made you powerful: you possess the gift to be able to control meraki in all its forms."

"She can do what?" Felix asked.

"She has the power to weaken another's meraki, and perhaps even strengthen it. She just took away nearly all my power." Penelope hissed.

I felt my fire sparking, my power surging through my skin. Out of curiosity, I released the fire that I'd taken, and immediately it left my body. Penelope sucked in air, color returning to her cheeks as her eyes returned to the color of night. In that moment I could see inside where Penelope's fire bloomed in her chest, dark and white hot.

Was she right? Could I control meraki? That's how I'd weakened Cybele and how I could see every merikian's power inside them. Was it really possible that I had the power to decide how much meraki a person could possess in any moment?

'That's your meraki, Nelina.' Karmen's voice echoed in my ear, her apparition appearing beside me. 'You're more powerful than them all.'

"Karmen, you bitch!" Penelope snarled, her eyes glowing.

'She can see you?' I asked in awe.

'You're more similar than you think.' She said with a smug smile. 'She won't let you leave unless you fight her. Give her hell for me.'

Penelope's meraki let loose as a wave burst forth from her hands, a tidal wave brushing the ceiling pounding towards me. I lifted my hands, golden light exploding from my palms. The impact of the two forces echoed in the air, but I didn't waver, energy and more strength than I'd ever felt before taking control of my body.

You can stop her, my meraki was singing inside my head. You have my power.

In my soul, a door was open, a mighty floodgate that could never be sealed again. I gasped, my body taken over by a surge of electricity that felt like Fate's lightning had struck me. My body was on fire, but I wasn't in pain. Instead, I felt more alive than ever before. Then, I surrendered to Fate's chaos, and I loved it.

From my chest, golden beams shot out like light beams, forming clouds of meraki that exploded into the room like a grenade. The glass lights shattered, the floor cracking underneath my feet as the very earth began to shudder in a mighty earthquake that was my own. The walls shook, my eyes and veins glowing like the sun.

"Get out now!" Felix was yelling, and turning my hand, I found Nocen. His fire was easy to possess, and with one tap, I watched the black seal around his soul dissolve away, cracking and splintering into dust.

He was on his knees, and then the entire room was bathed in golden light, the demons and pixies except Nocen disappeared with Maven into her portal. I retracted my meraki, the light soaking back inside me as I took a breath. I looked down at my hands, feeling the electricity that coursed inside me.

Holy shit, I could control it. I finally understood.

Nocen coughed, his hand on his chest as he braced his other palm against the ground. I rushed towards him, kneeling by his side, "Nocen?"

"Kate..." He said, looking up into my eyes. His own glowed a lovely green, and as I looked at his meraki, not a spot of darkness resided in him. "Shit, I'm free. I'm fucking free!"

"We need to get out of here, and you're the only one who can get us out." I said. Sirens began to echo from above, the ceiling shaking with the pounding of feet.

Nocen's eyes began to darken as he took my hand, "the airplane hanger. I can fly us out."

"You're a pilot?" I said in shock.

"A damn good one." He said, pulling us both up onto our feet. "I can fly us to Gabrian from here."

"You can't teleport?"

"Secta's wall is up for a reason." Nocen replied, taking both my hands in his. "Brace yourself."

With that, the entire world fell out from underneath us in a tornado of silver dust, and we were free falling. The winds were powerful, and each second I feared that they'd pull us apart, but Nocen's grip was strong.

When we reappeared back into the universe, we were shielded behind the wing of a guardian dove. The sirens were louder as Nocen punched in a few buttons, the plane's hanger door slowly dropping down towards the ground.

"They're going to find us." I said, looking around the edge of the plane. Pixies were running back and forth, securing other airplanes and grabbing weapons.

"I'll kill them then." He responded, taking my hand as he pulled us both into the plane. He walked with a long stride, yanking open the door to the cockpit and locking it behind us. "I won't let any of them hurt you, Kate. I swear it. On the other hand though, I think you can take care of them yourself."

Nocen sat down in the pilot's chair, pulling a headset over his ears. He started to push buttons and other levers before he looked to me. With a smug expression, he extended his hand to the seat beside him. My face paled, "I'm terrified of planes, falling and dying."

"I can promise you that I'm not going to let us fall and die. Just take a seat and co-pilot for me. That is, unless you want to spend more time with your new best friend, Penelope?"

"What do you need me to do?" I asked, sitting down in the chair beside him.

"When I turn on this plane, I'm putting us in full throttle" He said, "because we won't have much escape time without a quick exit. When I tell you to click a button, you better push it."

"Got it, captain." I replied, watching as he turned his back to push a few more keys. The question was digging into my brain, and I finally could say it. "Nocen, are mates real?"

"Not a good time." He said under his breath, sliding down onto his knees as he ripped off clean a piece of the steel wall to get a look at the wires underneath.

"It's a yes or no question."

"That will ultimately lead to more yes or no questions." Pulling out different colored wires, Nocen reached his hands into the machinery underneath as he began to rearrange them.

"Please." I said, my voice softer now. "Some of the things she said... is it true that he really feels that way about me?"

"That and more than you'd ever know." Nocen said without pausing his work. "It's also true that Finn and I can feel the majority of our strongest emotions, and let me tell you, I barely know you, but I feel like you're one of the two anchors that hold me to the planet like gravity. You mean everything."

A different siren echoed into the air, making me jump. I turned my head, glancing out of the front glass towards the rest of the hanger. Heavy metal doors were opening all along the back wall, figures marching in lines like soldiers. I looked back to Nocen, "we really have to go, Nocen. Like now."

"One second..." He said, his voice hanging on the 'd' at the end of his words. Finally, he was satisfied, shoving the metal plate back into the wall and sliding into his chair. Pushing the microphone closer to his lips, he said, "testing, testing. Dove ready for take-off."

"Dove not authorized for take-off." A voice echoed back. "Who is piloting this aircraft?"

"What are you doing?" I hissed.

"Nocen." He said back into the headset, "dove is leaving for take-off. Tell Felix that when we meet again, I'm ripping his spine out of his back and shoving it up his ass. My 60 year sentence is up; Hasta la vista, assholes."

He reached for the controls, pushing forward a large lever as the dove's engine roared to life. I grabbed the headset that sat in front of me, a shiver running down my spine. Relief flooded through me when the deafening howl was tuned out.

"Push the red button on your right and then the yellow, square one!" Nocen barked, pushing his own set of buttons as he grabbed hold of the control wheel. I pushed the two buttons, the entire plane letting out a screeching cry. I was thrown back into my chair as the engines went into their highest gear to propel us forward like a bullet.