For the first time in a long while I found myself suddenly awake before the sun rose. Which was confusing because I never really liked to wake up early.

    Time to get up, you have to get that bracelet off that girl.

    I blinked, not recognizing Zach's voice there for a second. He's been getting grittier in the sound department lately.

    I'm just weak from the magic I did earlier. I'll be back to my old self in no time.

    Okay. So bracelet time or whatever. I found Jay and shook him awake, he woke up instantly but was very bewildered.

"Zara?" He blinked rapidly. "What time is it?"

"Time to resurrect my brother come on." I grabbed his hand and hoisted him up.

"What?"

"I know where we're going next."

"You do? What about Jack? Shouldn't he know where we're going? He knows this place better than we do." Jay insisted.

I hesitated as I reached for the doorknob. No, Jack doesn't know anything, you can trust me, I'm your brother Zara. Zach's floated back in, sickly sweet and endearing. I hadn't forgotten the sound of that voice.

"And Zach knows this place better than anyone, come on." Jay still looked nervous, but came with me anyways.

We had left without eating, but I was suddenly filled with this itch that I needed to go somewhere and it wouldn't go away. I going to rip out this ridiculous human fur soon if we didn't go there. Glamora, I had never felt anything like this before. It was almost unpleasant, and it kept getting worse and worse the fatter I walked. Finally Jay tapped my shoulder.

"Slow down, I can't walk that fast with these senses." he hissed, his tone was unkind which struck Zara as off-character for him and she stopped for just a moment.

"Sorry, it's just... I have to get to this place." I insisted, slowing down ever so slightly. "I don't know where it is I just... have to get there."

"Is Zach telling you to go there or something?" Jay asked, ask we strolled quickly over hard flat trails of rock and humans dens that seemed identical to the last and stretched on for seemingly miles, it was driving me up a wall.

    "I think so." I huffed out as I continued. "It feels just...really weird so I don't know honestly."

    "How do you know where you're going?"

    I glanced back at him to see his eyebrows furrowing. "I just know, okay."

    "Zara." He stopped suddenly.

    I was yanked to a stop as well and turned back towards him angrily. "What?"

    He bit his lip. "Look I'm sorry, but I'm only saying this because I care about you."

    Something about the way he said it sent shivers down my spine. I care about you.

    "How do you know that Zach has... good intentions." He said slowly.

    "What do you mean?" I scoffed. "Jay, are you actually hearing yourself right now?"

He prickled uncomfortably. "That's not what I meant I just... I've noticed you're doing a lot of blind trusting and I'm not sure if it's entirely healthy-"

"Jay!" I snapped. "How dare you? Do you think you can just say whatever you want because you're my friend? Have some respect! Zach's trying his best to reach us and this isn't helping. I can't believe you."

I turned and walked away without him, which was extremely stupid and rude of me but I didn't care, he walked slowly after me.

"Zara stop, you know you can't leave me here." He said loudly, straining to figure out where I was.

I stopped. "I don't have to talk to you though."

His hand went back on my shoulder. "Fine, then I'll do the talking."

Both our voices were edged with colder steel now, with the intention to cut into each other. Rage boiled under my skin, I was a volcano waiting to erupt. I wish I still had my claws, that way at least we could fight. Jay, despite his blindness, had always been a fairy good sparring partner. He was the only one who was brave enough most time to even get to know me.

    "Okay I'm sorry, let's change the topic. What do you think we're looking for?" He sighed, obviously still upset.

    "That girl we met yesterday had something around her wrist. I think Zach's defiantly pointing me towards that." I explained.

    "Ugh, she was annoying."

    "Seconded, but it'll be real fast I swear."

    "You can't use force every single time, Zara."

    "Shut up."

    There was a larger building ahead of us, if I squinted I could see the smaller humans running around in a large grassy field outside. I think Miranda was there. The itch came back and I almost screamed.

Miranda is in there, I'm going to use some of my powers to get you in without being noticed, but it might sting a bit. It's only because you're alive and I'm not.

Okay. I trusted Zach, he wouldn't hurt me on purpose. I grabbed Jay's hand in anticipation to cross the street, when all of a sudden my legs stopped moving.

Without Jay, only you can do this.

"What is is?" Jay asked, noticing my hesitation.

"Zach says you have to stay back here, only I can do this."

Jay pursed his lips. "He does, does he?"

I growled under my breath and he got the message, reaching out to find my hand and squeeze it reassuringly.

"Okay fine, but be fast okay, and stay safe."

The action was comforting. "I will."

Jay leaned back against a nearby wall, and I waited until the big, loud, metal boxes on wheels stopped zooming by. Then I ran across the street and came to the mouth of the collection of buildings, the whole thing seemed like one big cave.

Don't make a single sound, I'm transferring my powers to you, it'll make you invisible.

I nodded to myself, and stood completely still. All of a sudden I felt a sharp sting in my head. My hand flew up to my right eye, the green one, as a hot pain ebbed through it. I grit my teeth as my eyes started to water. The pain got really intense for a moment and my other hands flew out to a wall to steady myself. The all of a sudden it was over.

I blinked my eyes open, my vision was a little blurry but after a lot more blinking it cleared up. I felt really light and airy, it was the most unburdened I had felt in a long time.

"There you go."

Zach's voice echoed now, it was a little deeper and a lot clearer.

"Now go find Miranda, she's eating at a table with her friends, I'll tell you what to do."

I walked off, passing taller adults and other kids, they didn't even glance at me. One kid clipped my shoulder and looked sound confused, before eventually going on his way. I spotted Miranda from afar, and ran over to talk to her. I opened my mouth to ask her for her bracelet, which I spotted glimmering around her wrist, when all of a sudden the words wouldn't come out. I froze, and then had the unbearable urge to just rip it off off her, it was the same itch from before only it was so intense I started crying. The girls looked up at the mysterious noise and that's when I pounced on her wrist.

I don't really remember what happened, it was very blurry and loud and full of colors that clashed in my brain, but all of a sudden I was holding the bracelet, itch settled, Miranda was lying on the ground but I could see her with all her friends gathered around.

"Great Glamora! Is she okay? What did I just do?" I gasped, trying to lean down and check.

My body wouldn't move.

"She's fine. You did your job, now go back to your friend and tell him about how she willingly handed it over like the nice girl she is."

Zach was completely right. She was fine, probably just on the ground because the sky was so pretty today, and the only proper way to look at the sky is to either be up in it or lying on the ground. I turned and ran, passing kids with shocked faces and teachers talking into the little black rectangles in their hands. It's wasn't long before I caught back up to Jay, when i did the light and airy feeling faded and I was left with a dull ache behind my eye.

"You got it?" He asked, standing up.

"Yep." I pulled the bracelet out of my pocket and noticed it had a little bit of a stain on it, something dark and red.

No matter! I cleaned it off and put it back in my pocket. Then I took Jay's hand in my own. "Alright let's go home and plan for the next ingredient."

We have a lot of work to do.

____________________
Okay! I have an announcement

I'm going to start updating this randomly now instead of weekly, because I want to get as many chapters out as possible in a short amount of time. I'm finishing this book this year gosh darn it! I'll update whenever I can regardless if it's weekly or not. I'm 👏getting👏this👏done👏.

Also expect a slight decrease in quality I guess? Truth is guys I'm not going to rewrite this for a long long time and I really need to finish this so I can move on to other books, heaven knows I have so many planned.

That's pretty much it so exspect something...soon?

~jay