“Today we’re working on body temperature control, because you all so obviously need to work on it.” Timkin Heks tells us. My entire group is here, to train our skills, so we can use them if it comes down to it. “Come with me. And leave your cloaks here.” Ugh, body temperature control is one of my least favorite skills to train, but Timkin insists that it’s one of the most important.
“Do we have to train that today? You already had us do appetite suppression yesterday. It’s like you want us to be miserable.” Marella says.
“It’s not like you’ll be struggling, with the fire inside you, you’ll probably start melting the snow.” Fitz says.
“Oh, we’re doing it in the cold? Let’s go!”
“Are you all done complaining? Remember that I don’t have to do this. And none of you have to be here.” Timkin says. But we all sigh and leap away with him.
“OHMYGOSHITSSOCOLD!” I’m not sure who shouted it out, but I agree with them.
“Everyone find a spot to sit down. Bonus points if you find a spot in the wind.” Timkin says. Della forced him to put a reward system in place, so if we get to 50 points, she bakes us mallowmelt. I’m at 27, and I’m in third. Fitz is in first with 34, Dex is second with 31, and behind me in fourth is Marella with 26, fifth is Maruca with 23, sixth is Biana with 19, seventh is Keefe with 16, though he would probably have a lot more if he actually showed up past the third lesson, eighth is Jensi with 13, and Tam and Linh each have 10, but they also stopped coming after just one lesson because they thought they already had enough experience from Exilium. I find a spot in the wind because I want mallowmelt, and Dex sits down next to me. I smile at him as he takes my hand. The extra warmth from his palm will be helpful. “And… start!” I try to focus my energy on the traces of heat around me. Dex’s palm, the sweat on my back, the breath coming out of my nose onto my lip. I close my eyes and focus on these things, and the cold doesn’t seem so bad. I keep focusing on them and not how my friends are starting to lose their concentration and shiver. All that matters is that I’m staying warm. “Alright, you three are good enough at this.” Timkin says, breaking my concentration. “The only other way I could think of to grow this particular skill would be to have you walk around, and I don’t think your bodyguard would appreciate that.” He steals a glance at Sandor, who looks like he’s doing his best to keep from shivering. I look around and me, Dex, Fitz, and surprisingly, Biana are the only ones left.
“Where’s everyone else?” I ask.
“If they got too cold they leaped home.” He sighs.
“Where’s Marella? She has a really hard time getting cold.”
“That’s actually why she isn’t here. She didn’t have to use the skill, so she got bored. I could tell she wasn’t using it, and I told her she wouldn’t get any points for it, and she just left.” Did he know just how annoying he was being? But he’s the one offering to teach me, so I have to be polite.
“Come on. Let’s go home.” I say to Dex. We leap to Havenfield, because he’s coming over for dinner. Edaline is making the food we’ll eat. We go up to my room, and sit on my bed. “Well, now we come to the part where we talk about what the Nverseen could possibly be up to.”
“Yeah. But everything we’ve hit was a dead end.”
“There has to have been something we missed. But I’ve replayed every memory I have of them, and I can’t find anything.”
“They're good at covering their tracks, I’ll give them that.”
“And that makes everything a hundred times harder for us.”
“Lori! Dex! Dinner!” Edaline calls. We head downstairs, and eat. Conversation at the table is light, and soon it’s time for dessert. Edaline wouldn’t tell me what she was making, so I was pleasantly surprised when she brought out a fresh tray of ripplepuffs. Of course it tasted amazing. Then Dex had to go home. What the heck is hap- I’m having flashbacks. Why did I push them back?
I’m in a blanket cocoon. I’m crying. I failed. I failed Keefe, and everyone else. I played right into Gisela’s hands. And now he’s in the guest room, trying to recover from being blasted with shadowflux and quintessence. It was all a part of his mom’s big plan to ‘fulfill his legacy’ so he can ‘embrace the change’. I told him to stay away. He promised me. What was in that note his mom supposedly sent him? Someone knocks on the door. I don’t answer.
“Lori?” Dex’s voice comes from the other side of the door.
“Dex?” He opens the door while I try to wipe off my tears.
“Have you been crying?”
“N-no.”
“You don’t have to lie to me.”
“I’m fine.”
“You’re a terrible liar, and I don’t need to be an empath to know that.” I look down. “It’s Keefe, isn’t it?”
“Yeah.”
“You know that wasn’t your fault, right?”
“But it was! I should have been better, but I-”
“No matter what you did, he still would have come.”
“No, he would have stayed away if I had tried harder to convince him.”
“There was no way you could have known what his mom would do to him.”
“We should have though. She’s said so much about his ‘legacy’ we should have realized…” I’m crying again.
“No, I can’t let you go down this route. Listen to me Lori. This. Was. NOT. Your. Fault.”
“But-”
“No buts. If you keep sitting here, then the guilt could shatter your mind. And there isn’t anyone else here who can heal it.” That’s a good point.
“Ok. But could you stay here with me for a while?”
“I’ll stay as long as you need me.” WHAT IS HAPPENING? I’m having flashbacks. Only one more. One more.
I stare into Dex's periwinkle eyes as he starts the timer. He has one minute to get into the machine with me and we can go away together. But then they find us. I feel like I'm going to throw up as the leading members of the Neverseen step into view. I wish away the flood of painful memories of the things they've done to me and Dex. And Edaline. And Fitz, Biana, Tam, Linh, Alden, Della, Marella, Jensi, and everyone else I care about. Even Stina got taken just so they could get to me. I remind myself that things here are beyond repair, and that I can make this all stop for another version of me in another universe.
"DEX STOP!" I plead as he makes that face he always does when he's about to do something incredibly stupid. He looks back at me, and runs towards me, but instead of climbing into the machine with me, he slams the thing shut! "DEX WHAT ARE YOU DOING? GET IN HERE, YOU'RE ALMOST OUT OF TIME!". He looks at me and mouths "I'm sorry," as he charges towards the evil elves. The capsule starts to fade with me in it, but not him. Him struggling to retain them so I can escape is the last thing I can see before passing out for my trip through the multiverse.

And... the flashbacks are over! I don't think this was everyone's favorite part, and I really considered not publishing it. I have one more flashback written, but it's not even the full chapter, and there's quite a bit more that happens before we get there. If anyone has any other ideas for flashbacks, just comment them, and I can write it, or explain why it didn't happen to Lori. Remember, Sophie and Lori basically lived the same life,with a few minor twists right up until when Lori came to this universe.