"I have decided to help," Venus said and traded a glance with Astral before looking back at me. "I think I can help Astral with the side-effects of The Sight."

"Have you done it before?" I asked and arched a brow at her.

"I have helped many different mages, yes. I've always had a special power. I fix things."

"It's not like Astral needs to be fixed. He needs help."

She smiled a kind of dead smile. "Yes. And I can help him." She leaned back in her chair and brought her teacup with her, placing it on her thigh, one leg crossed over the other.

"Good. When will you start? How long will it take?"

She took an obnoxiously long sip of her tea before replying. "It won't take long. And I can do it tonight. It's supposed to be clear tonight, don't you think? Then you can see all the stars as if someone had dropped paint on the sky." She looked out the window and sighed a bit.

Everything about her demeanour seemed fake. As if she was pretending to be oh so dramatic and quite frankly it made me wanna vomit on her dumb high-waisted trousers that would've looked better on me.

"What do the stars have to do with anything?"

"They power us. All of us. Mages and humans alike. You too, Mars, though you don't fall on either side of human nor mage."

"Not this again," I muttered under my breath, earning a kick from Astral under the table.

"What is Mars?" Astral asked, taking my hand in his.

"The clerics at the temple would call you a star-child. It's almost correct, but you're not a child of a star. You are a star."

"Right," I muttered.

"What do you mean?" Astral asked.

"It means Mars is a star personified. As I've told you before, Astral, I get the stars to come down from the sky, and I urge them to transform. One of those transformed into Mars." She smiled again and I felt my skin crawl.

"I had parents. A family."

"Yes, the temples have always been very helpful in placing you children with good families. I was saddened to hear what happened to yours. They're all very devoted to the temple and would've told you everything when you were older. I don't know why the college would've taken you instead of the temple."

I opened my mouth but closed it again. It didn't sound real, but... Maybe this was the actual truth. Why would she lie? She didn't know me, and I hadn't exactly been that friendly or nice to her, so her motivation couldn't just be out of the goodness of her heart. Or because she liked me. But then again, because I hadn't exactly been her best friend, she could be lying. To spite me. To mess with my head.

I was wrapping my mind in knots trying to figure out her ulterior motive and it was giving me a headache.

"Maybe it was fate. To bring you and Astral together." She smiled again and it was so creepy.

"Or the ones who found me didn't know what I was and then gave me to the college. Or maybe you're not my maker, maybe I'm indeed cursed and just a regular human being, and you're a liar." I dramatically shrugged.

She chuckled soundlessly, her shoulders bouncing up and down. "Perhaps. Whether you believe me or not, dear Mars, it does not matter to me nor the truth."

"But if it is the truth, what does that mean for me?" Astral asked, giving my hand another squeeze. I was appreciative of him steering this conversation back away from me.

"That means, that I know a lot about the human body as I am able to masterfully create them from just the energy of a star. Which is great news for you, wouldn't you say?" She smirked.

Astral snorted and nodded, leaning forward and grabbing his own cup, taking a sip of his tea. It was a gross tea, and I hated the smell of it. I hated everything about this dumb castle, but I'd endure for Astral. If this meant we could live the rest of his life without painful seizures, then I could live with the lies and the dumb tea.

"Yeah, I guess," Astral muttered and glanced at me. "So, what exactly will you do to me?"

"You'll see when it happens." She smiled that dead smile again that made my skin crawl. I wasn't looking forward to tonight.

Astral pointed out a weird painting, saying it looked like a distorted moth. I snorted and stepped closer to him, trying to ease the growing sense of anxiety. I wasn't comfortable with what would happen tonight. Astral was trying to cheer me up by making fun of the castle's décor. Despite him being more than supportive of Venus, he was still himself. And him being nice was short-lived.

"I wonder if being a powerful mage also means you need powerfully terrible taste," Astral said with a loud enough voice that one of the many servants heard.

They whipped their head around hard enough for their dark specs to fall down their nose and expose their eyes. They were... I couldn't even accurately describe them other as... The words 'night sky' came to mind. Black and blues covered the whole eyeball with white dots swirling around them. A big black dot was in the centre, indicating where the person was looking, but it was still hard to determine.

"Astral," I almost gasped and grabbed his arm.

He glanced at me and then at the servant, but they had put their specs back on, so their eyes were covered.

"What?" He gently pried my fingers off his arm.

"Did you see that servant's eyes?" I asked with a hushed voice. The servant turned on their heel and walked off. I could understand why, I was staring pretty hard at them, but still. That was really suspicious.

"I don't really look at their eyes. I can't. They're all wearing specs."

I groaned and threw my hands out to the sides. "Listen, they had weird eyes, alright? And I think that's why everyone's wearing specs!"

"Alright, and so what?" He scratched the back of his head.

"How does every single servant here have the same eyes?"

"Something's bad in the water?"

I was close to smacking him at that point. "No, you idiot. Something's going on."

He shrugged. "I don't know, Mars. You seem really paranoid. Even if they all did have the same eyes, what if it was part of the gift they received from Venus?"

"So, you're going to get eyes like that?" I raised my brows at him.

"No. I'm keeping these brown regular ones." He smiled a bit and put his hands on my hips, pulling me close.

"There's nothing regular about them," I murmured and kissed him.

He snorted and pulled back after lingering a little longer than he needed in the kiss. "After tonight, we'll be gone from this place. I promise."