Later during that day, I went to Mister Winter's private section of the library.

I was convinced that if I could somehow break the spell, those private books would tell me something on how to cure the family curse. Maybe now that we already knew about Nathan, Jeff's grandfather had removed the spell.

He hadn't. The little serpents made out of metal were still there, guarding the books.

I tried, but nothing happened.

Then I remembered — no magic seemed to be as powerful as the kind where you could change the perception of reality. I tried to imagine the serpents opening up for me and for me only, to let me read these books.

The spell broke. The serpents slithered away from the volumes. I was in trouble now, but it didn't matter.

The books were so old and worn out that the titles were hardly readable, but there was one thing I had no doubts about — there seemed to be nothing about prophecies.

"Show me something about how to cure a family spell," I commanded.

Nothing happened.

Then, a book fell from the shelf and opened up. It was a blank book, but letters started forming on the page. The word was 'Patrick'.

At that moment, I was brought up to the strange nightmares I had as a child. In them, I saw glimpses of the future — what a teacher would wear the next day, what one of my classmates would say to taunt me — but not only that. There was, often, the name Patrick featured in them. I thought I was going crazy, so I didn't tell anyone. Who was I supposed to tell? I knew what Mrs Barnes would have thought of that.

When I saw that name again, I bit my lip to keep from screaming.

"Are you Patrick?" I asked whomever had made the words appear. "Show me how to defeat Set."

This time, other words started appearing on the page, right below the name.

'You can't. Please don't.'

But I would. Because right then I had an idea, and I practised all night on the spell.

The day after, when I showed up in front of the old MagicPound, I saw my friends were there with me.

"There was absolutely no good reason you had to do this alone," Raegan told me.

"And risk losing any of you?" I asked. "Are you out of your mind?"

"If we take Set together we stand more chances," Edgar replied. "Are you out of your mind? You went to battle him and you are clearly not the face in the Enemy Mirror. You weren't even born yet."

"I'm not sure it matters."

"Wait," Edgar furrowed his eyebrows, and tried to read my expression. "Do you think it could be me?"

I huffed. The reason was Edgar's double powers. Brady had the same gift, but I'd never seen anything like it, and it made sense that if one of us could defeat Samuel it would be Edgar. But it would be like telling him that I thought he was special, so I didn't.

"Let's go," Jeff told us. "No overthinking. We have to do this."

He was right. Overthinking something like this would have killed me.

But when we entered, the first person we saw was not Jeff's father — it was Jinn. He was always recognizable because of his tall frame and because was the one who was the closest to becoming a monster — both his features and voice were unnatural. But I could see his eyes. The look in them was pure hatred.

"Oh, why didn't the little Russian bastard show up?" Jinn asked. "I so wanted to kill him."

I wondered whether Vitaly was the face in the Mirror. Perhaps this was the reason Samuel, as Set, wanted to keep them close.

"Well, why didn't Set show up?" I replied cockily, trying not to trip on my words. "I so wanted to kill him."

Jinn laughed at that. He was laughing at me, but I told myself he had a sense of humour in order to feel better.

"And that is the reason you only met Set once. He told us that he doesn't want to kill you carelessly and then regret it later. But don't worry! Whoever survives me, will get to meet him."

Jinn moved his hand. At first, I felt like I was electrocuted. Then, like my insides were freezing. And then I felt humiliated like one of those dreams where you're naked and I had those terrible cramps like my stomach was made of ice. Oh, and I wanted to puke too.

I could see from my friends' faces that they felt the same way too.

"Let's start with you, Raegan," Jinn said. But I couldn't hear him well, it was like his voice came from thousands of miles away.

"Start?" Raegan asked, trying to fight back the tears. "I thought it was all over by now."

Jinn looked at her as if he was thinking about killing her, but then he looked away.

"You know," he said. "I noticed you a long time ago. I noticed you had... potential. Joining the Reapers, years ago, required some challenges. Like this one." He made a sewing needle appear out of thin air. "It's magical. I'll get one drop of your blood, and I'll be able to read your private secrets." He pierced Raegan's finger.

"I'll tell everyone your weak spot," he added. "Why did you want to avenge your parents so badly? You're not really violent. Not at all. You want to act like you're a true revolutionary, but it's all pretend. You could hurt somebody, to prove your point or change the world into a better place, but it would cause you great pain. I think you'd even have trouble defending your friends without feeling remorse."

But revealing Raegan's weak spot wasn't the worst part. It looked as if he was digging deep into Raegan's soul to find the information he needed. My friend was clutching her finger and trying hard not to scream — as if she was being tortured.

"Even your witty sense of humour is just a mask," Jinn added. "You want to be a bad person. You have faced a lot of wrongs and prejudices, and you feel so broken up about it you wished you were actually bad. If you were actually a bad person, all of this would make sense. It wouldn't be unfair anymore. But your heart breaks, because you know you didn't deserve this. Not at all. But it was done to you all the same. And by convincing yourself you're a bad person, you find a reason for all the bad things your parents did to you. Still, here lies your contradiction. You loved them so much, you would die avenging them. If you want to die for a better cause, and live for yourself only, if you want to be so bad, then become bad. Be one of us, Raegan. You know black magic already."

Raegan was almost passed out, barely conscious and she had a hard time breathing.

"Here's your turn, Jeff Winter," Jinn said, confirming our worst theories. "Everyone calls you Jeff Tanaka. But Winter.... I like this surname." He laughed as he said the last phrase. It was more of an evil giggle than a proper laugh this time.

He spilled a little of Jeff's blood, from his finger, and Jeff grit his teeth as if there was something poisonous that had made its way in all of his veins.

"You've got a lot of secrets, Winter," Jinn said cheerfully. "You love drawing, but you've never told your friends. You would rather have them believe that the drawings you keep in your room were made by Sean. You're very good at it. Then, why do you hide it? Because you're used to hiding things about yourself. I feel a very strong source of magic residing inside of you. You must be one of the most powerful Enchanters in the world, and your own source of magic is pain. Your grandfather knew how dangerous you could be, and he decided to restrain you. You must always be restrained."

Jeff was reacting to his words as if he was feeling physical pain, just like Raegan had done.

"But here lies your contradiction — the thing you are, but you don't want to be. Your father's son," Jinn told him. "So single-minded it drove him to madness. If you want to put that stubbornness to good use, join us."

Now Jeff, just like Raegan before him, looked as if he had been drained of all energy. I knew what was waiting for me.

"Ryan, there you are," Jinn was unstoppable. "Maybe we can convince you you're nothing until you hang around weak magic users who have issues showing they have too much power."

He spilled my blood. This was like a game to him. Telling us those things, while he hurt us with his mind, all of this was disgustingly entertaining to him.

"When you were a kid, you always thought you couldn't be loved," he said.

I was horrified. But eventually I gave up trying to think about it — the more he talked, the more I felt my whole body ache. It really felt as I'd imagined — a prickling, painful sensation that started from my finger but moved on to my circulatory system.

"Well, well," Jinn added. "What does that say about you? You know it doesn't make sense, but you still feel that way. Still, you don't do anything to buy love or affection from other people. You're selfless. Pay no mind, it's not a compliment. That's your worst trait. Not that all of your other traits are good, obviously. But putting others' needs first can lead you astray. Deep down, you know no one has ever loved or understood the real you, and so you strive to find a connection with new people. But always doing things for others and not for yourself is not living. If you really want to be some kind of superhero, you have to decide. The way you act damages your team work. You'd be more than willing to suffer for all of your friends, but have you ever asked yourself what it is they want? Sometimes we must admit that we can't have control over certain things in life — such as love, or tragedies happening to people who don't deserve them. You won't be able to suffer in their place forever, and they don't want that either. You think you'll end up doing some things for yourself, living an adventure being the first of them. But you'll only do it to prove your worth to others. If you want to stop feeling like you have to prove you're worth something, Ryan Barnes, you should really join our side."

"And Edgar Wollstonecraft," Jinn started saying, as he pricked my friend. "What is your one true weakness? Why, you need people. You put all of your hope in your trusted companion, and..."

"Stop," Edgar said. "Stop. Don't say anything more. I know what you are going with all of this. Those were what the Greeks would call fatal flaws."

Edgar grit his teeth not to scream. I'd been curious, for about a second, about what Jinn would say about me, but then I realised I didn't care.

"But our flaws, as human as they are, were not fatal!" Edgar exclaimed. "We completed the quest! We made it. We finished the one thing you never could. And why would we join you now?"

He performed a spell that made Jinn scream out in pain.

"Jeff, go tell Vitaly about Jinn," he added. "Raegan and I will take care of him. And you, Ryan, look for Samuel Winter."

"Why?" I asked, puzzled.

"Because as Jinn said," Edgar replied. "I'm putting all my trust in you. I swear to every god I wish it wasn't so, but I do."

I winced, "Thanks."

But I still went to the only adjacent room, the one in the back, and that's where I met him again.

Set looked... disappointed.

"Patrick couldn't duel, so he sent me instead," I lied, using the name I'd seen in the library.

"This... doesn't make any sense," Set replied, confused.

"Do you want to talk or do you want to fight?" I mocked him.

"You think words don't have meaning, but they do, useless orphan boy," he said in a derogatory way.

To be honest, his words hurt me indeed. I couldn't suck in air, as if I'd been punched.

"Do you want to know about my obsession? I can see that you do," he added. "Vitaly believed I'd found a way to look in the Mirror, but I didn't. It was something else. I was shown that when I reached my full potential, or was about to, only a very powerful person could defeat me."

"So, you started looking for the Enemy Mirror," I said. "And then you realised you'd got the family curse. Because it was Set who wanted the Mirror, not you. Part of his magic was in your DNA, and it could make you desire other things, like power, as well."

He nodded, reluctantly.

"And did you see the face of this person? Do you know who it is?" I asked again.

"I'd never met anybody who looked quite like that," he replied.

I laughed maniacally. The whole thing was so insane, it was somehow funny to me.

"Maybe it was just a vision," I insinuated. "Because I will be the one to destroy you, and I wasn't even born back then."

To my surprise, it was Set's turn to laugh. And I felt a little crazy, because I'd just noticed something.

It was hard to see beneath his Typhon exterior, but Set laughed a lot like I did. And even though I looked a lot more like Vitaly Malinov, Set looked a little like me too.

"Oh, I said I'd never met anybody who looked quite like that, back then. But I have now. The person staring back at me was the perfect mix of myself and Vitaly Malinov. I had my doubts about it for a while, you know. Brooke and Nathan's son, I thought, could very well grow up to look like that."

"I don't understand. Am I Nathan's son?" I asked.

"I find it hard to believe you will destroy me. You don't even know your powers," he replied. "You inherited two of them, the air and the darkness. Pay no mind, it doesn't make you invincible — from what I've seen, you can't balance them and you can use only a small percentage of both. My brother tried to keep your birth a secret for a while, because he couldn't marry your mother. And then, you disappeared. Everyone who knew about you thought I had killed you. I knew I didn't, but I had no idea where you were."

I was starting to feel nauseous.

"Now that you know who you are, do you still want to save me, Patrick Matthew Winter?"

My rage was getting the best of me. I tried to contain it.

"Then I'll challenge you to a duel man to man. If that's what you are. I've seen the way you look at your... What was the word again? Trusted companion?"

"Edgar?" I asked, shocked. I did not think there was anything especially weird between us.

"If I win, I can keep him as a guinea pig, something to test on," Set said. "After all, he's a human hybrid."

I lost control. I cast a spell. He gracefully eluded it, but I wasn't aiming at him. I was aiming at the floor.

"I knew this would be enough to make you angry," he said. "You know you are one too. A hybrid. A bastard."

I decided to ignore him. I cast another spell.

Set must have noticed his words couldn't hurt me now. He tried casting a spell in my direction. I created a protective shield.

I needed a plan, and I needed it as soon as possible.

Even though his words couldn't hurt me as they did before, he knew a lot of things about me. He could use it to his advantage and distract me.

"Yes, you're a hybrid as well," he said. "You're half human. Your mother was powerless thanks to her human relatives. Someone of the likes of you will never be able to beat me."

The truth was that I'd always believed Mister Winter's words when he said I was one, so it didn't come as a shock. Weren't they more likely to blend in amongst humans? And that was practically all I had ever done in my life. That was also the reason why sometimes I failed at spells or couldn't read minds on the first try, or why I had these strange dreams. Nobody was sending them to me. Just like Vitaly said, I was just more receptive.

But there was nothing shameful about it, right? I was the one who always told Edgar to be proud of who he was.

I surely had strengths, I just didn't know what they were yet. While both of us knew what my weaknesses were — I was easier to kill, to manipulate and I often couldn't get spells right on the first try.

I tried to mask my thoughts. I didn't want him to know how much this made me feel weak and defeated.

Set cast a spell that could kill me — but I was prepared. I shielded myself again.

And finally, I had a plan. It was one I'd been working over in my head since the day before, and I'd finally decided how to act on it.

I took the piece of the Enemy Mirror out of my pocket again.

"I think I have something that belongs to you," I said.

Set looked frightened. I wondered what it was that scared him. I didn't think breaking the Mirror again would have worked.

"You called this a family curse," Set stalled for time. "I know those are Vitaly's words. But how was it a curse if it made me stronger? It's in my blood, and you can't do anything to stop it."

I cast a spell towards Set. He prepared to cast one at me.

It's now or never, I thought, one of us gets to live and the other dies. I just had to be faster than he was.

It wasn't the Mudra for killing people. It was a Mudra for sealing worlds. I'd read it in the book Worlds, Plural, in the last section, the one about spells you had to be absolutely desperate to try.

"What have you done?" Set asked. "My powers... I..."

He looked down on the floor. "No," he gasped.

When I cast that spell on the floor, I made the coordinates of KI appear in a magic circle. And now I'd sealed the world forever.

I'd done it. It was something to be proud of, but I was feeling my energy leaving me and I was almost sure I was about to die on the spot.

Besides, I didn't dare look Set in the eyes. He was just Samuel Winter now.

His face was sweet and child-like, like Jeff's, and his hair was dirty blond again. His nose was little and upturned. But even though he was handsome again, he looked like he was about to die, too. He wanted to speak or move, but he couldn't. I cautiously approached him.

"The curse can never really leave," he said. "But I think, as it affected me on KI, that you sucked it out of me, in a way."

I flinched. I wanted to ask him if he needed my help. He must have read it in my eyes.

"I have done too many bad things in my life, boy," he explained. "Now I am feeling horrible about it, but all I ask of you is to leave me here to die. It was never my intention to keep on living after all I've done and all those I hurt."

"I didn't want to choose for you," I said, "but I just thought you needed to see Jeff. At least once."

Samuel nodded. "Bring him here."

"And wait, boy..." he added, while I was walking away. "There's something you need to know about my vision... it wasn't a simple vision, and there's more to that..."

He never finished the sentence. He crawled on the floor in agony.

If there was something I needed to know, I had plenty of time to find out. But it seemed only fair that he could say goodbye to his only son. And I couldn't leave him to die alone. I used all of my power to send a telepathic message to Vitaly and Jeff. They had to see him again before he died.

After ten minutes, or so I thought — they felt like hours — Jeff and Vitaly entered the room.

Jeff ran to us as fast as he could.

"Dad?" he asked. I could hear how sad and excited he was.

Samuel grabbed his hands.

"We were sure we could save you," Jeff sobbed.

"You did save me," Samuel pointed out. "From the curse. But I understand my mistakes. While it was rotting my magic and my blood, I was the one doing all of this. I liked that ecstatic feeling of power, like a drug, and I did a lot of stupid things in the process. I killed people..."

He stopped talking. I could see in his eyes that he was looking for Vitaly.

The Russian Enchanter approached him. His eyes looked cold and he was trying to keep a distance, but I knew how terrible he must have been feeling.

Even though he was in agony, Samuel started speaking again as soon as he saw Vitaly. "I've never respected you as I should have, Vitaly. It's true, I didn't love you the way you loved me. I made you suffer your whole life. But look how I turned out — you deserved better than that."

Vitaly smiled bitterly.

Samuel reminded me of Raegan's father, Fletcher. They had been both horrible fathers or friends in life, but they had the guts to tell you that you shouldn't have loved them. That you deserved better.

Had I ever loved someone who had done nothing but bad things to me?

Jake, I thought. He was probably facing trial at that very moment. Maybe he was already in a prison cell. I felt guilty. I knew his downfall had nothing to do with me, but I should have noticed, I should have spoken up.

And my adoptive mother. She hadn't been a great mother, she hadn't been a good person either. However, there was no doubt that I had loved her and cared for her.

Here's how Vitaly and Raegan felt. Here's how Jeff was feeling — I hadn't forgotten about him. I could see he was looking at his father with nothing but admiration in his eyes, as if Samuel hadn't been Set too.

"I would like to say one last thing to Jeff," Samuel whispered. "I am proud of you. Thank you for stopping me before it was too late. I am sorry for taking your whole family away from you. I couldn't bring myself to kill you, or my father, but I killed your mother, your uncle and I wanted to kill your cousin. But I'm happy that you were the one to save the Aether Realm from me, because it means you're so much better than I am. Now, I have to go."

He looked at Jeff, then at me and then at Vitaly. He looked longer in his eyes, like he wanted to remember them. Then, he closed his eyes.

As soon as all of us were gathered outside once again, I told Raegan and Edgar everything.

"We made it," Edgar commented as Raegan was yelling excitedly. "I never thought it possible."

"Didn't you trust me beyond belief?"

Edgar arched an eyebrow. "Then it makes sense. I'm never wrong."

Then I finally decided to tell everyone that I was Patrick Matthew Winter, and why it mattered so much.

While we were walking home, I asked, "Shouldn't we contact the authorities or something?"

"No," Vitaly replied. "Samuel would have never wanted his body to be found in that condition. When you left, I saw him using his last ounce of energy to apply a spell on his body that created a spontaneous combustion. It was the only way he wanted to go, he's been telling me for years."

I must have looked horrified, because he specified, "It's not as horrible as it seems. It's kind of like what a phoenix does."

But my head was spinning, and I couldn't wait to get home. I felt everything at once — happy, sad and shocked because I'd just found out I'd been in a divination that was told before I was even born.

As soon as we got home, I realised what I've been wanting to do. I wanted some time alone with Vitaly.

"Why did you keep all of this from me?" I asked them.

"I haven't exactly kept it from you," they replied, slightly irritated. "It's not one of the things I lied about. I knew you were Nathan's son, and I was about to tell you. But then I remembered that I'd sworn that oath of secrecy. The Awakened made me swear it. And your parents, as I'm certain you've been told, had to keep you a secret because your birth was against the laws. This means I would have never been able to tell you everything — I certainly didn't know your name or that you were in the divination."

I wondered if there was anyone else who'd realised who my parents were. Brady Doyle thought I could have been Patrick as well. That's what he was thinking about when he told me that he noticed that I looked a lot like Vitaly. He was wondering if I could be the son of Vitaly's cousin. He was trying to find out whether that boy could still be alive.

And the Awakened had told me they thought I was somebody they thought was dead. They told me that, as soon as they had seen me, they knew their plan could work. If there was anyone else in the world who could know the vision Samuel had seen, it was them.

But there was still another mystery in my past.

Who had put that spell over me? Nobody except for Samuel wondered if that face belonged to me, or so it seemed. There was nobody who could really believe that growing up without knowing I was an Enchanter could be the best thing for me.

Thinking the whole situation over made me realise I'd met my father, briefly, though at the time I thought he was Jono Mitchell. But he'd recognized me. That was why he'd given me the clue. When I'd told him of Jeff, and life at the Academy, he must have really looked at me and understood who I was.

He'd told me, 'You're right. A son deserves to complete the quest of his father.'

I felt a knot in my throat as I thought of the lighthouse, made to look like a house where the family could be reunited. Instead my mother was dead, my father's soul finally passed away, and I'd sealed KI forever so I could never go back there to see the tower.

When Vitaly left and I was alone, it was hard to keep the tears from flowing.

It's just that I had always hoped that once I found out who I was, I would be given the answers to all my problems.