We left the hostel the following morning.

"We have a clue, sort of," Jeff commented, unwrapping the scroll for everyone to see. "But, so far, it's leading us nowhere."

I was beginning to feel a little guilty for my outburst. "Perhaps," I said. "If I hadn't made the Circle mad, we could have asked them for help."

"I hate to say it," Edgar scrunched his nose. "But it looked as if they didn't want to help us anyway."

Then, he gestured to a narrow road that crossed the main one. "Let's go there," he said. "Aether Realm. In London, and almost every capital, it's a part of the city that only Enchanters can see. We were there before, with the Temple, but we left when we got to the hostel. If you look at the roads, you can see how to go back there."

I saw what he meant. There was a ward between the main street and the narrow one, and if I squinted hard enough, I could see a shimmering mist between the two of them. We walked towards the Aether Realm,.

"Next time," Jeff said. "We're sleeping amongst our own."

Enchanters didn't seem to be in the business of renting as much as humans was, but I knew my friend was uncomfortable every time we were in the Human Realm. Socially awkward, though in a different way than I was, and used to rely on his magic, Jeff was stiff amongst humans.

Raegan shook her head. "It's too risky, during a quest."

When we walked down the road, I almost expected to see Melanie or Dorothea again. Maybe I could have apologised all the same. Maybe I could have asked them what they meant when they said Vitaly's death was still a mystery.

"Look at that," Raegan stopped me in my tracks. "This is why the Circle was talking about him."

She pointed at a newspaper stand. I'd never read a magical newspaper before, and I was a little sad to see it didn't have moving pictures or anything. But on the front page there was a black and white picture of Vitaly, and the words 'Dead or Alive? New leads. Mystery still unsolved fifteen years later'.

I gulped. I imagined Raegan had read my mind, and decided to look at the newspapers just when I needed it. But I didn't thank her, so it remained a little secret between she and I.

"That's sweet," Edgar grabbed the newspaper. "Let's get it --- for the quest. When something weird happens, in a period of weird happenings, it usually means everything is connected."

"First rule of magic," Jeff nodded. "Everything is literally connected."

I was about to protest, because I knew that my friends were making up a bunch of stuff just to get me to read about Vitaly. My heart had almost lept out of my chest when I read he could still be alive, though. If they asked me if I wanted to use our little money to get it, I wouldn't have said no.

But before Jeff could walk up to the cash register, a stranger put a hand on his shoulder.

Taller than all of us, a few inches taller than Jeff, he had salt and pepper hair that looked somehow a greying version of a natural strawberry blond. He was very handsome with little and sharp features, and very common brown eyes that looked almost out of place in his face.

"Brady Doyle," he introduced himself. "I've already read the newspaper, so I'll tell you everything you need to know. But first, let me just say that I've heard you speaking about a quest."

I looked at the girl behind the cash register, worried. It was not a secret, per se, but Raegan was right. The fewer people who knew it, the better it was.

She looked just like a human, with blond hair in pigtails and music blasting in headphones that looked different from the ones I'd seen before. I couldn't tell where the music was coming from, because she had no phone or iPod.

I shrugged. "Put the newspaper back, Jeff."

"It's very sensitive information, the way I imagine your quest is," Brady added. "So, it would be better if you came to my house, and we talked."

I looked at the others. It was a very weird thing to ask. Normally, I wouldn't have trusted a man who asked teenagers to go home with him. Magically speaking, it was a little less weird, because I knew how tight-lipped Enchanters were about their secrets, but it was still strange and it could possibly be dangerous.

Raegan frowned, lost in thought. "Do you have beer?" she asked, then.

"Raegan," Jeff sent her a death glare.

"Okay," she rolled her eyes. "Do you have ginger beer?"

In the end, it wasn't the beer that made us follow Brady Doyle, but the fact that we didn't have much choice, and we didn't have enough money to keep renting rooms, especially since we had nowhere to go and we'd likely waste days trying to understand the runes on the parchment.

When Brady Doyle showed us his honorary membership to the Circle, after we mentioned our misadventure, we started to trust him a little more. They'd seem very possessive about their artefacts, but they were clearly not the bad guys.

We sat at Brady's table. He lived in one of those basements that were redecorated in an industrial style to look like a little, modern apartment. 

"I'll get a Coke," I said. I was thinking of how Mister Locksley would never let me drink it — he said it worsened my ADHD.

Edgar said he wanted a lemonade.

Brady started pouring the drinks in four tall glasses, and let us drink. I was more thirsty than I thought I'd be. Every time we emptied our glass, Brady filled it again.

"I'm a little disappointed you didn't ask for tea," he said. "I hope you'll come to trust me and stay long enough to drink my personal brews."

Brady looked at us with his brown eyes. For a moment, they looked dark green. I noticed, once again, that they were unsettling. Except for the shifting color, I couldn't tell why.

Then, he smiled a little, as if he'd just thought of something funny.

"The truth is," he said. "Vitaly Malinov is alive. And you..." he looked at me. "You look just like him."

His tone sounded somewhat bitter, or disappointed. Well, if I was Vitaly's lost son who had to grow up as an abandoned orphan, I would be the one with every right to be annoyed.

"But no," Brady corrected himself then. "No, that's totally impossible. He never had a son, much less wanted one."

I didn't know whether this lifted my spirits. It would have been better to daydream about Vitaly being my father, even though he'd never showed up for me, instead of remaining as fatherless as before.

"Sorry boy," Brady said, noticing how desperate I looked. "You might have noticed that you looked an awful lot like him. You have the same eyes. Central heterochromia, that's not something you see every day. When he was your age, he looked almost like you."

He looked at me thoughtfully, as if my resemblance with Vitaly reminded him of something, something that somehow made him trust me more.

He smiled to himself once again, when he looked at my eyes.

In that moment, he struck me as a dreamer and as one of those mad geniuses. I thought the reason why he wouldn't smile to any of us was because we weren't really part of the world he was living in, in his head. No one was. He was the only one there.

"Do you want to meet Vitaly?" he asked then. "It might come as a shock, to meet someone whom the world has been undecided whether to declare dead for the past fifteen, almost sixteen, years. But he lives with me, so if you plan to stay..."

"Of course," Jeff added. "It might be nice, actually, to know someone who's known my father."

I nodded. Deep down, I still hoped Vitaly Malinov had fathered me and never claimed me. At least, one of my birth parents would still be alive.

"How far along are you in your powers?"

"At the Academy, we studied mostly theoretical stuff," I grinned.

"This just won't do," Brady Doyle commented, and my heart skipped a beat. I couldn't believe I finally found a teacher who agreed with my methods. 

"What if he asks us to show him our elemental magic?" I asked Edgar, a little worried.

"I know you're still thinking about my words," he replied. "But it was foolish to tell you — I think I just scared you. The power of the storm doesn't exist. Set has it, but the gods are different. Even if someone could cultivate it, I'm sure you wouldn't be good enough either way."

I didn't know why Edgar had ruined the moment after he'd tried, for once, to be reassuring and uplifting. I couldn't help but wonder whether he had some trick hidden up his sleeve, and in that case, what it was.

Enchanters, even Variations with half of their powers sealed, shouldn't have had the issues I was having so far in their training. They lived and breathed magic. 

It didn't matter how many books I had read about them, I still couldn't understand Enchanters. And the worst part was, when I was a kid, I used to feel the same way about humans.

"I will call Vitaly Malinov," Brady said. "He's upstairs. You must swear you will not reveal this secret --- not that anyone would believe you. I was out in London, trying to spread word that Vitaly was probably dead at he pub or on the street before I met the four of you. It's imperative that Vitaly stays hidden from the world like he has done for years."

After a little while, Malinov finally walked down the stairs.

Nothing could prepare me for what I saw.

Meeting Vitaly was like meeting a childhood hero. I had read so much about him.

As soon as he saw me, he smiled. A shy smile that I totally wasn't expecting.

He looked at my friends.

"I assure you I mean no harm, and you are truly welcome here," he told us with a melodious and high-pitched voice. "Brady told me of the quest, and I might know how to help you."

I took the chance to observe him in detail.

His eyes, so similar to mine, were maybe more green than blue. His face had very peculiar features and his cheekbones were so sharp that they made him look alien. But he was beautiful, that was beyond any doubt. Nobody could deny that, not even because of his diminutive stature and tiny proportions.

Vitaly, in fact, was slim and very short for a grown man his age.

After a few minutes, Vitaly cleared his throat and started speaking.

"How do you know what our quest is about?" Edgar asked.

"I didn't read your mind," Vitaly said truthfully. "While I can do that. One who's been around the years I have been around... I am not old, but wise. I've picked things up. But as for the quest, I assure you that Brady and I know enough of the world to know what it was about before hearing confirmation from any of you. It has something to do with Set growing restless, and with the Reapers. Am I right?"

"We're looking for the Empty Mirror," Jeff added bitterly. "Even though it might be just a legend."

"Your father always claimed it existed," Vitaly's eyes were full of pain. "Even though your grandfather disagreed. I see he's finally come around to believe it. It doesn't do well to be a cynic in a world of magic."

"Brady said he'd like to teach us space-shifting and time-changing," I offered. "Jeff's grandfather --- I mean, the Professor --- believes we shouldn't learn those spells. We often argued about it."

"I frequented the Academy when I was your age," Vitaly said, as he poured into a cup liquid from a thermos that looked like one of Brady's brews. "I am familiar with how it works. But I want to teach you something useful, and theory is not useful."

Edgar rolled his eyes. I, instead, was bracing to hear the man I looked up to say the words I wanted to hear the most.

"Here," Vitaly Malinov announced. "In the next few weeks, I will teach you how to space-shift and time-change. A little theory, mostly practice."

"Yes!" I stood up. Jeff and Raegan gave me puzzled looks. They couldn't know how much I thought of it, dreamt of it. They didn't know what it was like to not rely on your powers, and to look for something else, a skill that was infallible.

"But," Vitaly added, looking in my direction. "I think someone here has forgotten that we will use our own powers to create the shifts in the time-continuum, and not all powers are balanced the same way, am I right... what is your name?"

I felt my blood freezing in my veins. "Ryan Barnes. And how do you know about my powers?"

"I told you. I am wise. I can sense them just by looking at you. Think of it like an aura. But I've already decided how to divide you in groups. I will start the lessons as soon as possible with Jeff Tanaka and Raegan McIntosh, while you and Edgar Wollstonecraft will follow another course of study. Brady Doyle will teach you how to keep your powers in check. And then, if it's possible, you will move on to change space and time."

I felt really let down, but I couldn't show it. It didn't matter what Brady said --- the more Vitaly spoke, the more I could see our resemblance. And the more I spoke to him, the more I liked him as a teacher and as a person.

"About the quest," I finally found the courage to say. "I'd like to learn from you, but it would be better if we found a way to proceed faster. You see, Risa, my cousin, was kidapped by Set. I don't know if he's keeping her for leverage or something, but..."

"Stop right there," Vitaly's gaze was sharp enough to cut glass. "Set does not kidnap people. The gods have to come back to the council every few months at the very least, when they're actively using their powers. Where do you think he would be hiding her? That's not his style."

"But... but..." I imagined I looked like a stuttering idiot, my eyes wide and hopeful. "She disappeared, like she was engulfed by shadows. And we were battling a jackal right before she was taken..."

"Shadows?" Vitaly seemed alarmed. "Then, it wasn't Set who captured her. It was someone else, who wanted to make you believe it was him. It was the Reapers. They might have simply done it to get you on the god's bad side, or because they wanted you come get her and use her as leverage to make you help them."

"And we're supposed to help them," I couldn't help but say. "What a terrible quest."

"You have to find the Empty Mirror before either of them does," Vitaly corrected me. "Trust me, that is the most important part. Once you have it, you'll understand what is best for the Aether Realm. Do you have any clue you're stuck at?"

"How could you possibly know that?" Jeff asked, laying the parchment on the table.

"Please, I will not read your mind. I already told you so," Vitaly almost rolled his eyes. "Usually, when four teenagers on a quest stop in central London to buy a newspaper with the likes of me in front of it, just to read gossip and find out if I'm alive or dead, it means that they're stuck and they cannot continue doing whatever else they were doing before. Besides, you followed Brady home. A very risky move."

Then, Vitaly stopped speaking. His cold eyes stopped on the painting --- I couldn't tell where he was looking at. Perhaps the circle of runes and symbols. He looked ashen, like he'd just had a heart attack.

"Do you read Runic?" Edgar asked politely. "I've always wanted to learn it."

"Are there people who still speak Runic?" I asked.

"No. That's why I used the word read," Edgar corrected me, while our new teacher looked as if he was about to faint on the table. "It's a purely written language."

"I don't need to read the Runes to understand the meaning of this word," Vitaly pointed with a shaky finger at the word 'Arcane'. "Is this the first time you hear of it?"

I explained very briefly about Morgan McCarthy's flyer. Vitaly was growing paler by the minute.

"I didn't want to be the one to tell you about this," he said. "Because it's something only a handful of people know. It's one of those things people like the Circle work all of their lives to protect."

He shot a sad look at Brady, a honorary member of the archeological-obsessed group.

Brady cleared his throat, as if he wanted to be the one to explain. "What most Enchanters ignore, for their own good, is that one of us could, theoretically speaking, be able to host the power of a god."

I recalled back when Edgar and I had argued if it was possible. Apparently, it was. But it was not easy, otherwise why would the Reapers look for the Enemy Mirror?

"It's unknown, in history, if this has happened before, but it means that the gods might have as well been Enchanters like us, thousands of years ago," Brady continued, somehow unhappily. "And some people who find out, like the Reapers, want to be the ones who have a shot at godhood. When the humans who hosted the gods die, they don't simply leave this dimension like the other souls do. Mind you --- there's no proof it even happened. It's part of a legend. The spark of divinity in their soul cannot leave this dimension, it's bound to the aether. So, they leave behind an object instead of a corpse. A... um... very big object, usually a tower, a statue... something like that."

We were all too speechless to comment.

"And this empty husk, this corpse, that used to be both god and Enchanter... No one has ever seen one, but it is said that they do exist. And they are called Arcanes."