A shiny metal button floats in midair. Lucy's face scrunches up in deep concentration. She tries her hardest to change the button into something else, anything so she doesn't look foolish in front of everyone.

The buzzing sound of the light above drowns out the whooshing sound of the button rearranging into a thick looking needle. Lucy's face bursts with pride while she stands there eagerly waiting for Elder Anna to praise her. But instead, she gets an unimpressed glare.

I know very little about the fair-haired woman standing at the front of the class, but I know it isn't in her nature to give out praise. She treats everyone equally, with suspicion and hostility. Her grass green eyes are always on the lookout for the first sign of mischief.

She's much older than she looks, some say that she has lived for five hundred years. I find it strange looking at someone who has a face of a thirty-year-old, but is so old nobody knows her real age.

"Raven, it's your turn to give us a demonstration of your gift," Elder Anna orders, her eyes bore into mine and she smiles at me. Some people light up the room when they smile, but she somehow makes it feel darker. 

I know she wants to see what the daughter of the traitorous Elizabeth is capable of. But the thought of using my gift makes my stomach tie itself in knots.

A small cage containing a large, black Rat hovers in the air, then lands in front of me. It's the same mangy, flea riddled rat that I have failed to take the life force from for two weeks.

Most apprentices take a few days to give a small glimpse into what they are capable of, but two weeks is a new record.

Xavier, a sandy-haired boy, sniggers behind me.

I don't want to hurt this beady-eyed creature in front of me, but something unwillingly sparks inside of me. It starts out as a tiny flame, then consumes me until there's an explosion of colours in my mind.

I have never felt like this before, alive and free but at the same time I'm being hit with waves of guilt. I am killing something to feel this good.

The air smells of sweat and strawberries. It never felt like this with the slugs outside' Jessie's house or the flowers in the field.

"Raven stop!" It's Elder Anna voice. She sounds far away from me. I want to tell her that I can't stop, but the words won't come out.

I'm not sure why she wants me to stop when I'm doing what she's wanted since I got here.

Shouldn't she be encouraging me?

I am lost in a haze of colours. Another plane of existence, it's terrifying, and thrilling.

I hear the sound of my body being slammed brutally against the wall before pain courses through my body.

The Rat looks bright-eyed in his tiny, dirty cage but Xavier looks terrible. I can see him clearly as my body remains pinned to the wall. His mop of sandy hair is dripping with sweat, his face is pale, his body shakes uncontrollably. He looks terrified of me. 

All the apprentice's eyes are on me. I can see it in their faces, all those stories they grew up hearing about Elizabeth filling their heads. The tales of how deadly and treacherous she was, and they have just made up their minds that I am exactly like her. I inherited her gift, then I must have inherited her casual attitude to killing.

"I didn't mean to do it,"  I choke out, my voice reeks desperation for them to believe me.

I can sense that they think I'm trying to trick them. The only person in room who seems to believe me is Elder Anna. Her green eyes now dark gold as she uses her power to keep me restrained. 

"Lucy, take Xavier to Terra," Elder Anna commands. "The rest of you sit back down. Raven, I assume that if I release you, that you will try to keep yourself under control?".

"Yes," I murmur, trying to fight the rising bile in my throat.

My body slides softly to the ground. I want to run away and hide, but I can't force my legs to work.

Elder Anna chooses Cooper to give a demonstration, ignoring that I'm still sitting on the floor. 

***

I like this room because no one ever comes here.

The floor is made up of bits of Big Ben. Most of the castle is made up of debris from a famous landmark.

Jacob Crowfield created this castle in ten minutes because he was bored. He died in this room days before the end of the war, at the hands of the Brinks he helped create. No one knows why they turned on him.

I understand Jacob more than I do any living person. The things he did were wrong, but he did them because he believed if everyone had powers then everyone would be equal. If, everyone was equal, then there would be peace throughout the world. But the universe was cruel and his creations caused war.

He was the first to be able to take life force, but more than that, when he took the life force from those with powers for a little while their powers were his. I don't know whether my mother had this in common with Jacob, but the golden leaves in my hand prove that I do.

Xavier's gift is changing anything he wants into pure gold.

"I thought I would find you here Raven," Elder Wyatt announces as he walks into the room. "You didn't turn up for lunch, and Terra informed me that you didn't show up for your history class."

"I wasn't hungry," I mutter as my stomach growls in protest at my lie. "And I forgot about history class."

"I perfected reading people's minds long ago. It is one of my many gifts so, lying to me is pointless," Elder Wyatt says, and I feel uncomfortable that he has access to my private thoughts. "I know that you're upset about what happened to Xavier this morning but hiding in this room won't help".

Elder Wyatt is the mildest mannered of the Elders, but also the bluntest. However, he's also wrong. I'm not hiding away because of what I did to Xavier. Yes, I feel guilty about it but stronger than that guilt is the memory of how good it felt when I was taking his life force.

"I want to go home. Back to Jessie's," I blurt out. I didn't even know I was going to say it until the words came tumbling out of my mouth.

"I know, but you must realize that you are too dangerous to live with the Nons. Xavier would have died today, he was lucky that Anna was there to stop you," Elder Wyatt tells me, softly.

"I don't belong here," I mutter under my breath, but he hears it anyway.

"There have only ever been two people with your gift, your mother, and Jacob Crowfield. One brought mankind to its knees, and the other broke our most sacred laws and murdered several people. As much as you hate it, Raven, you belong here where we can keep an eye on you".

The golden leaves fly out of my pocket and float in the air.

"Your little gift absorption has made that clearer than ever".

The leaves crumble into tiny pieces, then fall onto the floor as if it was nothing. I had shown them what I could do and Elder Wyatt was showing me a smidgen of what he could do. 

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