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Faris's words echo within my head for half of the night, tangling and spinning until I finally fall asleep.

But the next day, I wake up in a surprisingly good mood, my thoughts back in order.

Shouldn't I be in a good mood, though? There're still a few weeks before the trials, and with the essence or not, Cale can't gather everyone overnight, so I have plenty of time to work on that. And Faris's accusation is stupid. Someone's appearance, young or old, can't speak of betrayal. If I wanted to convince someone to trust me, I'd rather look aged and unhurried like...the head councilor Tikhon? Faris has probably said all that because he's still jealous I've the most talented mentor, his own place in the shaman power rating is, like, the third from the end? And isn't Faris's own devotion to Ariane about hormones of his?

My hormones are in check, I tell myself, looking over the cafeteria in the morning. I'm bigger than that and have more important things to trouble myself with. Loretto and are a team, and I can't be wrong about faer. At least because only with Loretto, I can have what I want. I can let myself doubt it. My plan will work. It must. Loretto will win, and we will change our world.

It's early, the hall is sunlit and languid and not very crowded, so it doesn't take much effort to spot Loretto seated at the table not far from the center.

As always, my mentor is alone. Fae doesn't look lonely or pathetic, though, but rather a little arrogant. Having no friends always makes you look arrogant, I suppose; people don't know anything about you and have nobody to ask, so all they do is gossip, but gossip is the ugliest, layered version of the truth. A mythical goddess's protégé? The First Blood's runaway student? Maricela's loyal servant or secret rival? Both? Loretto never answers anyone's questions straightforwardly, and it only leaves people frustrated. In the end, they stop trying to ask, stop trying to be your friend, and here you are--alone, unfriendly and therefore suspicious of everyone like Faris.

An alluring but dangerous mystery.

"Morning," I say, placing my plate with a slice of corn cake on the table and pulling the chair opposite Loretto to sit.

Loretto stops chewing faer salad, staring at me for a dumbstruck moment.

"I was wondering if you could teach me something new today?" I continue, sitting and putting a piece of cake into my mouth with my fork. "Like, fighting with magic? Or becoming invisible? Can you do that? Or fly? Or read thoughts? Or turn water into wine?"

"You shouldn't sit with me," Loretto says after a long moment, and resumes chewing.

"Because other mentees don't sit with their mentors and you, too, find it disrespectful?" But they don't live in one apartments, either. "Or because if shamans figure we care about each other at least very little, they'll use it against us? I'm afraid it's already obvious we're friends, I'm too tiresome to bear me otherwise." And I'm sick of lying low--I can't, no matter how much I try, so perhaps I should do the opposite--play careless and gullible and pretend Loretto and I don't suspect a thing about everyone else's plans, so they won't try to stop us.

"No, because I--" There's a flash in Loretto's eyes, a timid one. Fae swiftly looks away. "I might get used to it. And you won't have breakfast with me for the rest of your life, will you?"

I don't know what to answer, so I just keep staring at Loretto. It sounded frank and almost...shy. But why would Loretto be shy, fae never is; is a person walking around faer apartments naked every morning even capable of shy? I follow Loretto's lowered glance, and realize that our hands free of forks, rested on the table, happen to be amazingly close. Rather intuitively, I flex my fingers, and the tip of my index finger brushes Loretto's.

Loretto's hand tenses, but doesn't jerk away.

Preposterous, my mind instantly grumbles. Touching a shaman in public. What will people around say? And then I wanna laugh at myself. What will they say? Who cares? I'm a rebel thief who ended up being a shaman who ended up trying to stop his own brother's revolution by deceiving the empress--whatever they say will be better than this.

And it's Loretto who's supposed to worry about the public, not me. I don't mind being the opposite of mystery, I don't mind having friends.

Friends.

Loretto's shy.

Memories flash before my eyes: my mentor wasn't shy when we argued and I pressed faer against the wall by the library, but fae definitely didn't mind, either. Loretto was merely curious. And it is Loretto who acts blunter and blunter every day, putting hands on my knees in the park and my chest in the dark alley. What if...My thoughts travel back to Faris's words--my hormones are in check, but what about Loretto's?

No, I scold myself. Bullshit. We're friends, and there could be nothing else. Loretto can't mean anything else. It's stupid and unprofessional to hit on your student, and Loretto said it faerself a long time ago. You and I? That's neither logical nor sane nor possible. We're not just from different worlds--we are different worlds. And what can I possibly have to pick a centuries-old shaman's interest? Nothing.

Unexplainable glumness crawls over me the next moment.

Shooing it away, I clear my throat. "You're not wearing your rings again," I say, switching the topic. And I begin to suspect Loretto is the opposite of arrogant, really. Spending a whole year in Cabracan in the company of books? Loretto is socially awkward, good at handling papers, but not people--that's the truth behind the mysterious shaman, speaking in riddles. Fae just hasn't learned otherwise.

"I just don't feel like wearing them lately," Loretto says, calmer now, as this conversation seems to be easier for faer, and drawing faer hand on the table away from mine. "And answering your previous questions, no, I won't teach you to fight or kill with magic--magic is not for that, Eli. I can't become invisible, though I can enchant shadows quite well to merge into them at night. I can use wind to move me over, let's say, a pit, but I can't fly. You can learn to only read emotions, not exact thoughts. And"--a chuckle curls Loretto's lips--"it's impossible to turn water into wine with magic for it requires too much energy one's body can hold to change the chemical formula of the drink properly and get anything tastier than piss."

"So, technically, it's possible? If you want someone to confuse wine with piss?"

"I guess." Loretto's expression grows serious again. "But you won't succeed at that until you master channeling aura. That's what we're doing today."

"At the park again? I'm not going to sit outside now."

"Why?"

Why? Because we usually practice in the morning and spend the day in the library, but because of Faris and his stealthy way of trying to talk at night, I've slept through the dawn today. So did Loretto, I suppose, since fae had been awake and waiting for my late return yesterday and nobody woke me up today, but fae wouldn't admit it. And sitting under the local merciless sun at its zenith? "Because my skin is much paler than yours, Loretto, and I'll turn red as a crab if I spend even an hour outside in the middle of the day."

Loretto looks at me blankly.

"I'll hurt and grumble. If you can't turn water into wine, can you turn aura into sour cream to treat my sunburns?"

Sucking on faer bottom lip, thinking, Loretto then asks, "You're saying that the sun, the very thing that warms the earth and nourishes life is...dangerous to you?" As I nod, a shameless laugh escapes Loretto's chest before fae can suppress it. "Sorry. Never realized that was a thing. No, little vampire, you're right, I'm not your mommy, I won't treat your burns. But I won't let you practice inside again, either. You already broke my bathroom door with your runes written awry."

On that quarreling note, we finish our breakfast.

After that, I don't know where my mentor spends faer time while I hide from the sun at the apartments, sulking, but somewhere around noon, Loretto walks in and silently puts a small tube of sunscreen cream on the coffee table before me.

I gape at it, then at Loretto. "Thank, mommy?"

With an impenetrable expression, Loretto turns toward the front door. "Let's go."

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They say you can't know the price of happiness without learning the price of sorrow first. And, I guess, you can't enjoy victory without losing--or, in my case, thwarting the empress's plans without thwarting your own--first.

As usual, Loretto and I productively spend the day practicing magic. At least I hope it's productive, because Loretto needs to actually practice to win the trails, and all we do, it seems, is play in a kindergarten when Loretto is teaching me things fae has learned at the age of five.

Loretto somehow always manages to get rid of the spies--for a while, at least--leading us to the most unexpected, furthest corners of Tik'al through the most unexpected and convoluted paths.

And now we sit in the shadow of an arbor, its columns supporting a round roof, vines tumbling off it all around us and shadowing from the merciless midday sun. The wall enclosing Tik'al is visible nearby, high and carved and imposing, so on this furthest edge of the shaman city, the hustle and bustle of society doesn't reach us, and the sound of a lake with a waterfall somewhere in the wilderness behind the wall reaches my ears, which is calming and makes it easy to be serene.

Almost.

"I can't move the stone," I say when I finally manage to make a cocoa tree leaf dip through the air without falling to the ground three times straight, but I'm not sure if I'll manage to channel aura in a real-life situation at all.

"Which one?" Loretto asks without tearing faer eyes from the book about rare runes and sigils fae is reading sprawled on the bench opposite mine.

I glance at the pebble in my hand, then at the columns, then at the wall. "Ha. Ha. Not funny, Loretto." I pause, hesitating. "The stone you are, for the last two hours."

A ghost of a smile flickers across Loretto's lips and then dissolves. Still no tearing faer eyes from the book.

I make another attempt. "If you won't teach me to fight with aura, can you at least show me some defensive trick?" So you'll practice, too, Mentor. "For the trials? Just in case."

Faer back surrounded by lush green vines like a fairytale fairy's, Loretto finally looks up at me, dubious. But isn't it a good idea? Loretto must've read half of the library by now. And I can help faer practice now. "Shaman trails aren't about fighting each other, Eli."

"How do you figure who's the strongest, then?"

"You show your skills, any way you choose. Summon a hurricane or enchant a pigeon to shit on your head--anything, really. As a shaman, you can not just feel the magic you use, but also the magic used around you if you're attentive. Everyone's attentive at the trails. You can't convince others you're stronger, because everyone will feel exactly how strong you are, so you can only pretend to be weaker if you hold back, but who'd want that if that's a place in the court we're talking about? When the prize is the crown?" A pause. "And freedom."

I can feel magic used around me? Interesting. So, theoretically, I can sense a magical attack a few moments before it happens?

A new thought flickers across Loretto's face, and fae puts faer book away and pushes off the bench. "Perhaps you're right, though. I can show you one defensive trick. One that can save your life some time, not just in a fight."

Curiosity warming my chest, I rise to my feet, too. The wind ruffles my hair, and I prepare myself to grasp the serenity, concentrating on the air as before, but Loretto's next words stop me.

"You're dead."

I stop short. "Eh?"

"You're dead," Loretto repeats, undisturbed. Not a clue this might sound weird, at the very least. Isn't it another sign of social awkwardness? "Imagine that. And if you're dead, your body can't be a vessel for magic. It's like trying to fill a shattered jar. In other words, if another shaman attacks you or if you lose control and want to be immune to the destructive nature of aura, you've to convince this nature you're already destroyed."

Inky mist begins to form around Loretto's ring-less fingers, but I still don't have a clue what we're doing.

"When you channel aura, you feel its power," Loretto continues, approaching me, and now we're a step apart, aura around faer hand flickering around us like midnight gloom collecting inside the arbor. "It's strong and fresh and seducing like a gulp of the air after rain. You feel like you're capable of anything, you want more and more and never to let go." Aura travels through the air between us, clinging to me, prickling my forearms like frosty breath. "Unlike plainbloods, you can hold it all, therefore feel it. And it always feels like you need just a little bit more to take it under your full control. That's why power is so dangerous."

The inky mist keeps billowing around me until all I can sense is it sinking under my skin. It feels both the same and different from when I myself channeled it--the same minty blaze, but somewhat alien, detached. Under Loretto's control, not mine. My mentor is right, it seems I just need to wait a bit longer, grasp the sensation a bit stronger for it to follow me, not Loretto, but the longer I wait, the more it resists and the harder it gets. Slowly, very slowly, like when you fall asleep without noticing and realize the time has passed only when you wake up in the dark. The sun is still hot overhead, but I can't feel it now, because my lungs turn leaden, my feet stiff. So leaden and stiff that it begins to hurt at some point, and when I push the sensation away, I realize I can't.

Alarm twists my guts. "Lo--" As though my body is not my own.

"Concentrate, Eli." Loretto's expression doesn't betray faer emotions when fae is focused, that much I've figured, but it doesn't help me now, doesn't feel supportive in any way when I feel like my own skin doesn't belong to me anymore. It prickles and buzzes, aura filling my very being like cold fever. "You've to stop worrying. If you make more splashes, you drown; if you relax, you float."

I swallow, and my very throat is stuffed with lead now. No fear, no fear, magic is an illusion...I know there's nothing to fear. I'm not afraid of Loretto, and I know fae would never hurt me. But what if Loretto faerself loses control? Oh no.

No fear.

An illusion...

I can't move!

"Your worries are what let me use you," Loretto continues. More and more inky mist sinks through my skin, leaving my arms cold and smeared with the color of soot. This magic feels icy and heavy. And sinking into my every thought. "You try to fight your worries, I can feel it, Eli. You try to take control from me, stop it. Sometimes you just have to let it go, let it pass like a storm. Patience is the key to getting what you want, not stubbornness."

Patience, okay.

Magic is nature. Nature is me.

If I were dead, there'd be no worries.

No worries...

I attempt to take another breath, and it finally seems to work. And suddenly, everything disappears the next second. The lead, the stiffness, aura around Loretto's fingers and my arms. I blink, confused, but there's nothing except for a dull throbbing deep down in my chest. The sun is above our heads is hot, the sound of the waterfall behind the wall is calming. "Did it work?" I ask, looking around. "Did I beat you?"

Loretto makes a vague gesture, turning faer back to me to return to faer reading. "Not really, but you were going in the right direction. That's enough for now, we don't want to see you having a heart attack."

My heart indeed beats faster than usual, I notice now. Although there's no fear in it now or even worry, only excited inspiration, because...For my whole life, I've doing it all wrong--trying to figure a way to deprive shamans of their power instead of accepting it. Conquering it like another fear. When the truth was this simple--just believe in myself and try? Now not only can I use aura myself and, in theory, sense when and how others use aura so as to stop them, but I can also be immune to its murderous power now. All I need is to stop being afraid—convince nature in my truth, and its power will do whatever I say like...Wow. "Cale would've killed for knowing this."

Loretto stops.

I don't know what I said wrong, but I obviously did as Loretto's shoulders tense. Faer book left on the bench, Loretto looks at it for a moment, then somewhere in my direction, but not exactly at me. "I don't know why you're wasting your time here, Eli," Loretto says, faer voice suddenly brusque. "Shouldn't you be with Cale right now, then?"

"What do you mean? I can't, I'm--" I'm studying. But I don't have time to finish my sentence.

"Cale, Cale...Cale!" Loretto spins around to face me so swiftly the silky blue skirts of faer robe billow around faer feet with indignation. Loretto's eyes bore into mine. "Do you even notice how often you speak of your brother? Cale knows this, Cale thinks that...it's nauseating! I feel like he's the third with us all the time. You measure everything with Cale's opinions as though you don't even have your own. If I wanted Cale, I'd have brought him here, not you!"

I exhale through my nose, mulling over Loretto's words for a few moments, and a strange mix of resentment and melancholy coils inside me. Melancholy, because I haven't seen my family in over two months, I miss my family and my brother, why can't I mention him? But my melancholy is resentful, because my big brother who always used to come to my aid has left me with shamans for some unknown to me reason and hasn't even thought of explaining himself. "I simply value Cale's opinion," I say. "Just like yours."

"Oh! Do you now?" A cynical smile twists Loretto's lips. "Here's a thing. One day you'll have to choose between me and your brother, as my opinion is the opposite of Cale's. All the infantile, simplified ideas of dividing the world into good and evil, weak and powerful, plainbloods and aurabloods--they're not mine. They're your brother's. Did Cale convince you that shamans aren't humans, and everyone like me should be controlled? Did he inspire you to hate everyone who doesn't share you beliefs? To recklessly solve all your problems with fists? To always seek out his help, like you yourself aren't capable?"

Loretto keeps adding faer questions to the pile without even giving me a moment to reply, and resentment burns my melancholy away. Now I'm not even happy there's nobody spying on us today, for I'll gladly solve this problem recklessly by slapping this pretty, vexed mentor face in front of me or maybe even punching a little, and nobody's here to stop me. No shamanic power of faers can scare me now, and I'm vexed, too. And what right does Loretto have to criticize my family?

Yes, maybe I'm angry with my family too, maybe I feel hurt--because of many things, and I'll say those when I see them, but still, it doesn't mean that I'll let anyone--even my mentor--criticize them. I'm the only one who has the right to criticize them. Because even when I'm angry, I still love them. Because we're family no matter what, and even when we fight, we still love each other, I'll always stand up for the.

Besides, by criticizing my family, Loretto criticizes me as well. And I am capable! And I don't seek out Cale's help, only...sometimes. But that's what family is for!

"Let me guess," Loretto continues, taking a step to stand right before me again, looking down faer nose at me. "When your parents divorced, Cale and you both felt neglected? But when love equals company for you, he strives to prove himself to feel needed, so as your father moved to another city, Cale started carrying you around like a puppy for his audience?"

My hands balling into fists, I clench my teeth to refrain myself from acting out. Loretto keeps staring at me, faer posture firm, faer eyes dark, it almost looks like fae wants to demean me. But why? My own anger has always been quick to build up and doze off, leaving me guilty for my explosiveness without thinking, and Loretto's anger is nourished, unhurried, elegant. Thoughtful. As though fae has been expecting this moment, preparing. "I'm not a puppy. How do you even know my parents are divorced?"

"You really think that before throwing you my way, the council hasn't shown me your file? I know everything about you." Loretto chuckles drily. "I know even more than you do about yourself."

It must've been alarming, but my resentment doesn't care about it now. "You're wrong. A file isn't a person. Cale is smart and--"

"Smart? Did he tell you that, too? Before or after telling you that you, yourself, aren't smart enough on your own?" Something shifts in faer eyes, a flicker, just so, and Loretto's voice softens a fraction. But it feels like an unguarded moment of weakness, a moment when Loretto fails to hide it, not an attempt to cheer me up. "You carry so many things, brighter things, wiser, inside you, Eli, yet you strangle every idea of yours as you think there's nobody to appreciate those ideas. And then you always worry if you're stupid or tiresome or ugly...don't deny it, you do. But are these really your thoughts?" The warmth evaporates from faer voice once again. "Or Cale's? Your brother makes choices for you, telling you what to do for your entire life, and you let him just like when you were a kid. You're dependent and infantile. It's pathetic."

Pathetic.

Fae is not the first person to call me that.

Am I, really? My chest hollows. But...No, Cale and I, we share ideas—that's how it is. It's not pathetic. Yet I've also plenty of new ideas that Cale would hate since I live in Tik'al. And why is it Cale who always rules the game? my scornful mind whispers. Why are you the one stuck here because of stealing aura, and Cale has never risked his own life sneaking into the shaman city for a bottle of magic? Cale always calls me a catastrophe and laughs and sits in a warm, safe armchair, doing nothing, as Kofi and I risk our lives carrying out his plans. No, it's not like that. Cale is the brain of the job, he composes plans, not sits in an armchair. I hate Loretto for making me question my own family, and for what? Respecting your brother is noble! "That's what your precious intuition says, Mentor?" I ask, trying to hush my resentment with anger. "That I'm pathetic?"

Loretto shakes faer head, turning toward the bench to pick up the book, leisurely, as though our conversation is over. "Intuition is cold and objective, and it doesn't work when personal feelings are involved."

"Y--you have feelings for me?" For a moment, I forget all about my temper.

But Loretto doesn't forget faers. "Right now? Only one. Disgust." It sounds off-handedly, simply. "Your Cale is a close-minded, shamanophobic, hypocritical bully who makes you a bully and bullies you at the same time, and you don't even see that, Eli."

I want to scream now. I don't see indeed. I don't understand what is happening, why is Loretto--Loretto!--who's usually so polite and careful with accusations, annoyed with my brother who fae has never met before? And I've talked about Cale before, why does it vex my mentor now? Has Loretto been mad at me for talking about my brother all this time, and never told me?

But my frustration only makes me angrier, scratching my veins, sinking my nails into my balled hands. I stomp forward and grab Loretto's books while fae doesn't hurry to pick it. "You don't get to speak about my family like that."

Loretto glares at me from under faer brows. "Someone has to tell you the truth."

"Your truth is full of shit!"

"You are full of shit!" Fae reaches for the book in my hand. "You're impulsive, violent, and self-destructive, Eli! I can accept that, but I'm sick of you thinking it's okay to be that way because Cale says so!"

I jump away, drawing the book further from faer reach. "And I should be like you, then? Ignore the world around me and hide among hermitical books, Tayen? Avoid real people and dress in silks and ribbons like a pretentious bitch so that nobody would even dare approach and talk to me, believing bitches don't talk? Thanks for not sticking feathers in your hair as shamans did in your ancient books, then!" I toss the book onto the ground. "I myself would've never talked to you if the council hadn't thrown me your way and I wasn't chained to a bench the whole day prior and in desperate need to piss!"

Rage flares up in Loretto's eyes, pure and bright, as faer book falls into the dirt. Loretto looks up at me, blood draining from faer face. "I'd rather be a bitch of my own than an errand boy, Cale's puppy," fae hisses. "You're no heir of queens and kings, you're a clown's court lackey who doesn't know he's a lackey."

The words sting more than I anticipated, maybe because of Loretto's self-assured tone, maybe because there's some trust in them after all. And I don't understand its nature! Why don't I understand? Pathetic. "Wanna hear my own opinion? Here it is. I think you're saying all this only because you're coward and self-centered and have no family of your own, Tayen. Because it's much easier for you to rub my face in my problems and babysit me, playing caring and taking pride in that, than face your own flaws. Than admit that you're simply jealous, because you're lonely. Because everyone who ever loved and cared about you is dead."

Loretto stiffens.

My muscles cord, ready for a fight now, for if I were Loretto, I'd have beaten the shit out of someone who cut the scars already bleeding. But Loretto doesn't raise a finger. And magic, I suppose, is still not a fair fight for faer to use it against me.

Faer eyes darting from side to side as though looking for a place to run for a second, Loretto takes a step back. Hurt shines in fear pupils. "Fuck you, Montejo."

Before I can say anything else, Loretto turns around. And leaves.

I watch Loretto's figure disappear behind the vines. The wind still gently ruffles my hair and the pages of the book abandoned near my feet, but all I can now think of is hollowness in my heart. I've never heard Loretto swear before. My ears burn, not with the sun but with resentment—or frustration. Or guilt? What did just happen? Why did we have a fight out of the blue? What did I do wrong this time to start it?

I can't deny the fact that this time definitely looks like my victory, but...are we still a team? Hail to thwarting your own plans to change the world, Eli.

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Author's note:

I couldn't help myself, lol. How the fight between Eli and Lo should have actually ended: