Slippers trailing on the hardwood floor, still half-asleep, I made my way to the kitchen. I had had to force myself out of bed, reminding myself that an empty stomach would only make the day worse. I didn't know what the day would entail, but I felt that it would be significantly less pleasant than the day prior.

      Of course, Nathaniel was already awake and dressed. "Do you want some eggs?" He spoke to the frying he stirred on the stovetop.

      I blinked stupidly. "What?"

     He pointed at the pan. "Eggs," he repeated. "I'm making eggs. Would you like some?"

     "Yes, please..." I frowned as I took my seat at the table. "You're being oddly nice." Did he know something that I didn't? Was he trying to butter me up?

     "You need to eat," he replied plainly. "Why dirty two pans? It's not nice; it's practical."

     I rolled my eyes. He could try to maintain the aloof and careless act. It was kind of entertaining.

      "Is there something I should know?" I narrowed my eyes in the likely chance that he was also hiding something.

      "There's probably lots you should know."

      I grunted. "I meant right now. Is this whole nice act a cover up?"

      "Nope." He popped his p which seemed uncharacteristic of him. He was so hiding something.

      "There's absolutely nothing I need to worry about, other than whatever Ubel has planned for my task?" I pushed skeptically.

      Nathaniel shifted in hesitation, and I groaned again.

     "Go on," I prodded. "Please stop delaying the pending doom I'm to face. Rip the Band-Aid off."

     "We're going to start training today," he started. "As if starting ten years late isn't enough trouble, you have an extra obstacle against fighting the duhovi."

       Of course, I'd have extra obstacles. I'd expect nothing less from these people.

      "When we turn 12 and are officially deemed ready to face the duhovi, there is a ritual we complete. It's called the Preporod ritual," he continued. Who named all these Legion related events? "The duhovi are from the spirit realm and we are in the living world, we depend on this divide, but until the ritual's completion we can't travel between realms freely. It makes it much more difficult to slay a creature that isn't fully in your realm. Without participating in the Preporod you would have to focus more intently on your task, forcefully switching between realms. It's very distracting and limits your ability to fight."

      "Is that why my friends couldn't see you the first day we met?" I asked.

      Nathaniel nodded. "Children of the Legion have a natural ability to see through the realms without the ritual, that's how we knew you were unclaimed. That's the other issue, the ritual shields us when we're fighting. We can fully enter the realm and not be seen by regular people."

       "So, you're saying if we went ghost hunting together, people wouldn't see you, but they would see me swinging at what they perceive to be nothing?"

      "Yes."

       I threw my hands up. "If I don't end up in the Legion's cells, I'll probably get arrested by the regular police."

      "Like I said, it's not ideal." He placed a plate off eggs in front of me and took his own plate at the other end of the table.

      "Wouldn't it be easier if I just did the ritual, then?" I would need every advantage I could get.

      Nathaniel grimaced at his plate. "Technically, yes."

      "What does the ritual entail?" I asked desolately.

      "The only way to travel between the living and the Duha is to die and come back to life."

     "I beg your pardon?"

      "We spend six years training for it," he added as though that made the concept any more acceptable. "To simplify it, on the week of our twelfth birthday, we lay in a tub of ice and use the Letalan injection to induce cardiac arrest."

      My eggs were growing cold, appetite near inexistent. I scrubbed my face, still hoping someone would tell me this was all a dream.

      "Why the ice bath?" I eventually asked.

      "When you lower the body's temperature it decreases the risk of damage that the cardiac arrest will pose on the brain."

      "But how do you shock the person back to life?" I countered. "That's the first thing they teach in first aid: you don't mix water and electricity."

      "We don't use defibrillators unless necessary and in those cases it's a rush to dry them. The Okoro clan are our healers, and they're present for the rituals. They step in with medical aid when it becomes clear that the ritual is failing and the child's clan leader demands help."

      "What do they use instead of the defibrillator?"

      "Nothing. You're meant to be the shock," he said. "Our bodies are made to naturally oppose the injection."

       I feared the more I learned of the Legion, the more I was at risk of suffering from a naturally induced cardiac arrest. "Is it always successful?"

      "No..." he paused. "But the unsuccessful cases are very rare."

      I blinked at him twice before speaking. "I don't know why I'm still surprised." I had zero desire to add this ritual to my growing list of things that made me an anomaly.

      "So, forget the ritual. Understood." I finally bit into my eggs, beyond glad that they hadn't found me before my twelfth birthday.

       Nathaniel choked on his mouthful, grey eyes refusing to meet my brown ones. I studied him longer and it suddenly dawned on me that he had been nervous about bringing up the subject. He wasn't just worried about the potential obstacles that not completing the ritual would bring.

       "You've got to be kidding," I grumbled. I dropped my fork to drop my face in my hands. "Nathaniel if you tell me that I have to let these people kill me so that I can revive myself only to be given a chance to prove that I am worthy of living amongst your people, I will lose my shit!"

      He was silent, as though carefully choosing his words before speaking. That was never a good sign. He was trying to prevent the losing of my shit.

      "They haven't mentioned it," he tried to reassure. "I'm only worried that Ubel will think of it and jump at the chance of inconveniencing you."

       "Inconvenience?" I scoffed. "You mean jump at the chance of killing me?"

       He shifted uncomfortably. "Let's hope it doesn't come to that?"

      I snorted. Despite the severity of the topic his obvious discomfort towards trying to comfort me was comical. I looked down at my eggs, a reminder of his obvious attempt of hiding his kindness and couldn't help but giggle. Some might think I was hysterical –they were probably right. Nathaniel certainly thought so. He frowned at my shoulders that were shaking with laughter, and awkwardly took his plate to the sink.

       "Um," he started uneasily. "I'll be outside whenever you're ready...I figured we could start training today."

       "Ok." I giggled some more. "I'll be out soon. Maybe if you train me well enough, no one will worry about the potential distractions of not completing the ritual."

       He shuffled in the doorway, deeply perplexed by my laughter. He obviously wanted to get as far away from this situation as possible, but the twinkle of empathy hidden deep within him probably blared with alarm of my pending breakdown.

       "Right..." He made the wise decision of leaving. I watched him leave the kitchen with his hand reaching for the phone in his front pocket. My laughter only doubled when I surmised that he was considering calling Aadya for back up.