The sky had finally turned the color of a firetruck. It was unlike anything I'd seen before.

Jeff caught me looking at it. "If you think the sky is strange," he said. "You should see the ground."

Risa tensed, as if she was connecting to her element, and then yelped. "I wasn't paying attention before!" she excused herself. "But I was feeling a little weird..."

Jeff held up one of his boots for us to see. It was caked in sand.

"Sand, especially the desert, and a red sky..." he said. "Those are the symbols of the god Set."

"Wait," I was finally feeling as freaked out as I should have been. "You mean to tell me that you are really pagan? You really believe in those gods? You cannot think Set is around us and he's doing... all of this."

"Not the Egyptian Set," Jeff's eyes glittered darkly. "Someone will tell you the difference soon enough... You've been raised in the Human Realm, right? They never get this part right. They're minor gods, very powerful entities who share our magic, and from which our magic comes from. Set has been absent from the council for years, but now he's back."

It seemed painfully obvious that they believed in it, so I let it slide. I'd never been a real believer of the other sort of God, seeing as I was always agnostic, but it did make me feel better to understand that they didn't think those gods had created the world or nothing of the sort. Though I suppose, they did create Enchanters, when they passed down their powers.

Up close, I couldn't tell why Jeff had looked so familiar anymore. There was something about his face that reminded me of a person I dreamt of, sure, but the similarity ended at the chiselled jaw, the upturned nose and the light brown eyes. The rest of the features were different.

"Jeff," Risa tried to explain, again. "You should really bring Ryan to the Academy of Space and Time. Not only he's a strong Hierophant, he lives with a human who cannot teach him. His mother was a human who had an illegal relationship with an Enchanter, but he should be amongst his own."

Jeff gave her an appraising look. "I thought you were an Enchanter too. Earth Hierophant, right?"

Risa nodded. "My father is already teaching me. I don't need to go to the Academy, and I'd prefer not to."

"Is it because of the headmaster?" Jeff asked. He looked a little amused. Risa did not reply.

Then, he gestured at me. "He's going, even if you're not going?"

"What do you mean by that?" I couldn't help but sound a little annoyed. "I already knew she was only taking me this far."

"You strike me as the kind of boy who'd rather joined the Academy of Space and Time for the company rather than the knowledge," Jeff said. "The Academy of Space and Time is a very important place where Enchanters can hone their techniques and learn the theoretics for the two most important spells of all — space-shifting and time-changing."

"Maybe I'd be better suited with a home education," I specified. "I've always had trouble at school. But, like my cousin said, I cannot be home-schooled."

Jeff eased up. He looked a bit kinder. " "Well," he said. "There aren't many young Enchanters left, and not all of them are qualified to study at school. Some live too far away, and have no means to afford it, others don't have the skills. Since you luckily live a few miles away from the Academy of Space and Time, I understand why you would want to give it at the very least a try."

I nodded, happy he understood. I didn't add that I wouldn't have wanted to go back to living with Locksley for anything in the world.

At first, I was really depressed of the way Jeff was welcoming me. Then, I realised that it didn't matter whether I felt like I belonged. After all, I never did. It wasn't just part of the baggage I'd always carry around from living with a cruel stepfather. I had the opinion that I was at the wrong place at the wrong time, just that the wrong time meant approximately sixteen years. My whole life felt like a mistake or a stupid prank somebody was playing on me. No, worse. My whole life felt like some sort of punishment for something I did or could have done.

Jeff peered out the window. "Well, if that doesn't complicate things," he muttered.

"What is it?" Risa asked, and then almost yelled. 

I saw it the same moment she did. It was an animal, and not a stray dog as I thought at first. It was kind of cute, sure, like a little brown wolf, but seeing a jackal out on the streets in East Sussex is not usually a good sign.

"It's magical," Jeff warned me. "It's not a real animal. More like a creature of black magic. Only Set can do that."

"So, I suppose that staying very still and paying no attention to it isn't gonna work," I said.

Jeff shook his head. "You might not be used to this, but I am. If I don't go out and attack it, I know the headmaster won't be proud of how I acted."

When Jeff lept into the street, you might think the idiotic thing to do was follow after him. But I couldn't help my reflexes sometimes. I barely knew the guy, and he wasn't even the nicest around, but I couldn't just let him fend for himself. Besides, both he and Risa had said it --- I was very strong. If, for once, I could understand how to use my power over the air, then perhaps I'd be a great asset.

Risa followed me, too, and used her powers to wrap the jackal into a whirlwind of sand. I decided to add to it, and it turned into a little hurricane. The animal yelped, and I had to remind myself not to feel any kind of pity for it. Jeff hadn't done anything yet, taken by surprise that we wanted to help, but he raised an eyebrow my way, as if to say he expected me to do worse.

With his own powers, he helped my whirlwind. He used the Mudras, the correct hand movements, to move the air. I mostly went with my gut, and I realised this was one of the reasons my magic wasn't controlled. I'd thought of it before, but you cannot find a book of Mudras at the Jubilee Library.

"Just pay attention that the jackal doesn't bite you," Jeff warned Risa and I.

"Why? Have you met one of those before?" I asked. The idea that dark creatures could sometimes attack people in the Aether Realm didn't exactly thrill me.

"No, but... it's hard to explain. When there are creatures like this particular jackal, who are not real animals, they are usually messengers of a god, or here to do their bidding. I imagine that his bite is going to be deadly, or poisoned."

"Great," I muttered. "Just great."

My adrenaline was sky high. My body felt ready to welcome a fight. But my skills were too lacking, and I really didn't want to put at risk Jeff or Risa. Especially because after a little while, the animal thrashed around and the sand that was whirling around him disappeared.

I looked at Risa. "Can you do that again?"

"I'm trying!" she replied. Jeff, in the meantime, was using the air to create a little hurricane, but he was right. The jackal was not like any usual animal. It seemed to be able to contrast his powers, and weaken us.

"I have a question about the basic spells," I said, even though I knew Jeff didn't want to be interrupted. "Is there one for, like, wounding or fighting?"

Jeff turned around to look at me, and lost concentration. He didn't seem to care. "Of course not! Those are basic, everyday spells and we are not very warlike people. The universal spell for wounding people... it's black magic."

I almost replied that he shouldn't have looked so shock, because we really needed a spell such as that right now. But I didn't. Instead, I let him go back to doing his thing.

Unluckily, his thing wasn't enough. I tried to help him, but the jackal just walked through the whirlwind. It started making its way towards Risa.

She moved her hands in a Mudra. I hadn't noticed that she seemed capable of it, too, before, or perhaps I simply hadn't paid any mind to it. A blast of sand hit the jackal's nose, and it started to sneeze very loudly. I looked at my cousin, and the guy who was starting to become a friend, and we all realised the same thing.

We had no idea how to kill the jackal, or make it go back to where it was from.

"Edgar should be joining me shortly," Jeff replied our silent question. "He knows things. He will know how to take care of this."

Whomever Edgar was, he wasn't fast enough. The jackal stopped trying to cough out the sand, and it landed on Risa, trying to bite her leg.

I was paralysed by fear and shock. I recalled Jeff's words --- he'd spoken them only minutes before. I couldn't dare control if the animal had succeeded. And if it had, who was going to check if the wound was deep, green-ish or infected? I didn't think I had it in me, at the moment.

But then the strangest thing happened. A glittering storm appeared right on Risa's head, and showered her in a misty, light blue dust. She disappeared, and, once she did, the jackal left us alone and vanished.

"Oh, damn!" Jeff commented, kicking up sand. "Set has kidnapped her. I wonder why. She's non-consequential. Of course he wasn't looking for her in the first place."

"I don't know about that," I replied, thinking about Risa's secrets. It still stung, that Jeff called her non-consequential. But at the same time, her idea of living between the two worlds without belonging to either probably hurt the Enchanters the same way it hurt me, while Jeff hadn't known her, and now I couldn't help but wonder if he ever would.

I heard the sound of footsteps behind us. I didn't really want to turn around. If it was finally Flora, I would have told her that she was too late, and the girl and the boy she might have wanted to protect had already taken care of things themselves, at their own risk. But it was petty. If Risa was right, then the Enchanters under the trapdoor had been fighting, too.

"Jeff, what the hell happened?"

It was a teenage boy speaking. I turned around to find a guy not much taller than me, but who was thin enough to appear a little lanky. He had a very pleasing face shape, but high cheekbones that made him look a bit gaunt. His eyes were expressive and dark, his hair curly and black.

I realised it was Edgar.

"You're a little late," I said. "Jeff told me you know things like taking care of Set's little sidekicks. If only you came here before, Risa wouldn't have disappeared."

"His cousin," Jeff mouthed at Edgar. And then, loudly, "This is a strong air Hierophant who wants to join the school because he wants to leave the Human Realm, where he was born and raised. Born out of an illegal relationship."

"I don't care who he is at the moment," Edgar frowned. "He could be anyone, and I wouldn't care. I have to know about what happened here."

I didn't find it particularly soothing, nor I took it as a compliment. But Jeff just said, "Jackal. From Set. It tried to bite us, and then Risa was kidnapped. It responded a little too well to the air attacks me and the new boy gave him. Well, it was mostly me."

Edgar looked at me for the first time. I noticed his eyes were a very dark blue. "Don't blame me, then. You should have fought instead of looking."

I wasn't prepared to get so angry at someone right after Risa had left. Mostly, I wanted to keep the Enchanters on my good side. If they were, I could have asked where she was and how to rescue her. I could have understood how likely it was Set would kill her. But also, I expected them to understand my grief.

The only thing that came out was, "So, you're calling me lazy?"

"I'm not calling you anything," Edgar rolled his eyes. "Though maybe inexperienced would be the correct word. I know you're in shock now, so follow us. I imagine the Professor will make an exception for you."

"Edgar," Jeff stopped him. "I told you he's strong. He's like, really, really strong."

Edgar seemed to be slightly more interested in my presence, which I didn't take as a good sign. 

"Then the Academy of Space and Time is the right place," he finally said. "There's so much I learnt since I enrolled at school."

"About school subjects, maybe," I replied, thinking of his poor social skills.

"Why, thank you," Edgar actually had the nerve to give me a little smile. "Ohda Bukhari and I are the best in the school. Jeff has raw talent that should be explored. Bill Mansfield, instead... You cannot be worse than he is. Trust me."

I only pointed in the general direction of Flora's shop. "After you," I said, because I didn't trust the trapdoor one bit.

"Well, obviously," Jeff had the arrogance to say, though he looked a little pleased that I was following them. I didn't see which other choice I had, but apparently he'd grown fonder of me after we fought together. Battling a jackal together can do that to you. I had the suspicion, however, that not even a life or death situation could work wonders for Edgar and I.

Edgar opened the door of the shop. He looked fondly at the tarot cards spread on the desk, and murmured something about Flora being scatter-brained. But then he composed himself and led the way to the back, where Jeff had pointed at the trapdoor before. It had been hours at most, but it felt like a lifetime ago, the way Risa and I had been there half arguing and half enjoying ourselves, waiting for the Enchanters to show up and then meeting Jeff.

Jeff Tanaka opened the trapdoor, and I could see a wide stairwell leading down. I tried to swallow my fear of enclosed spaces. However, it didn't look extremely uncomfortable. It looked a bit like those underground passages where you take the tube. The stairs were made of metal, and the walls of the passage had been painted teal, with light sticks in them.

"Only Enchanters can pass through the wards," Edgar muttered, descending the stairs.

"I know," I resisted the urge to elbow him. "I am one."

"Did I say you weren't?"

I stopped replying, and simply concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other when my legs felt like pudding. Once I got to the last step, I almost fainted, but the sight of what was in front of me grounded me. It was the first time I saw the Aether Realm in my life.

The underground neighbourhood was spacey enough not to give me a panic attack. However, it was hard to adjust my eyes to the fluorescent lights. And the way whole buildings could fit under there, with much more ease than the infrastructures you see in the subway could probably only be explained with magic. There weren't roads, not exactly, but the main route took to different places, with crossroads.

We walked a few miles. It was not lost on me that some of the weird things, such as certain fashion choices or snacks people were eating, were things I had already seen while walking around Brighton. It made me feel better, in a way.

Thankfully, we got to the school pretty fast. Not only was the neighbourhood quite small, there were not many people on the streets either.

"This is only the part of the Aether Realm under our portion of the city," Edgar explained to me. "But the real Aether Realm stretches under all of Brighton, and is connected with a tube that goes even deeper in the ground to all the biggest cities in England and their part of the Aether Realm. I suppose it works like that in other countries, as well."

"Wrong, the Scottish Enchanters live in the forests," Jeff said with a wry smile. "Or at least, Raegan does."

I didn't ask who Raegan was. I imagined it was a classmate of theirs.

The Academy was a small establishment, the size of a two floor country house and this was what it looked like — a common building. Still, like many of the underground structures, it was blue in colour and there were led lights positioned on the walls, on the ledge of the windows and in the doorway.

It was not the way I imagined a magical school to look like, but it looked cosy and comforting. I'd never minded a little darkness.

"So," Jeff looked at me. "New school."

 I started feeling a little uneasy. Going to school is torture for someone like me. Sitting still several hours every day. Studying. I like learning new things, but when I read the textbooks it takes about ten minutes for my mind to switch off and become impatient. And, cherry on top, I even have to be judged, to be told how I'm doing. And I have to pay respect, and call all the adults Mr and Mrs, and say good morning or have a nice day at the exact right times.

"If he's accepted, that is," Edgar added unhelpfully.

"What do you mean?" I asked, panicking.

Jeff was about to open the door, when he stopped midstep. "You're going to get in there and explain your reasons as to why you're here," he said. "Then, you're going to talk to Mister Winter, and he will decide whether or not you can stay."

I wanted to protest that I wasn't ready. It seemed obvious to me --- who would be ready for something like that? But then Jeff opened the door, and that was the moment I saw Daniel Winter staring right back at me.