As soon as the portal took us to the location of the Empty Mirror, I asked, "Why does it look like Tuscany?"

It did. When we were children, looking for endless hours at her atlases, Risa and I jokingly planned a trip around for when we would both be grown up and rich — which was as likely to happen to her as it was to happen to me. Still, our routes included her father's native country, Peru, and many of Europe's main countries. The city we wanted to see the most in Italy was San Gimignano, for I read once that there used to be secret associations of Enchanters there in the Middle Ages.

Well, that part of KI looked just like San Gimignano.

"They're stories," Jeff said, picking up a stone and throwing it at the window of a house. "They're just stupid stories. We're in a made up world. This place is probably modelled after Tuscany."

"Don't be angry," I said. "Vitaly just told us the truth."

"Don't tell me what to feel. I can't accept that my father was a Typhon!" he yelled.

"Calm down, Jeff," I whispered. "I'm sure he was different from the rest of them. Vitaly has always supported him, and he's alright, isn't he?"

Jeff frowned. "What if Vitaly was on their side, all this time? How do we know he isn't working for Set like the rest of them?"

"Jeff, in case those houses are inhabited," Raegan pointed out. "Start preparing an apology speech as to why you're going around screaming your father is a Typhon."

"Well he is! Shouldn't I scream, let it out?"

"You might be right. I do believe it's good for your health."

I realised that during my bickerings with Edgar, I almost missed the moment Raegan and Jeff begrudgingly accepted each other.

Edgar. I missed him so much. At first, I didn't want him to be reduced as just another casualty of the quest, like Nathan. Now I knew he was safe, but I couldn't help but fear he would never re-join us. Or maybe Jake had got his memories back already, and they got in some kind of fight...

And I felt nostalgia for my old life. Maybe if I had been a human, I would have been in San Gimignano with Risa on a trip. But I was in a place modelled after it with two Enchanters and we were about to try to pry a mythical object from a god's hands. Risa had been kidnapped, and since I wasn't about to exchange the Empty Mirror for her, I had no idea how to save her.

"Does the word Free-Masons mean something to you?" Raegan asked me. "Or Illuminati?"

I nodded.

"I thought so. I've heard it said, once, by Blair, one of the Traditionalists who had human relatives, that the House of the Templar's Circle looked like it belonged to the Free-Masons, or the Illuminati. So, you can point it out to us if you see it. I, of course, have seen the illustrations, but they weren't always good."

"Templar's Circle? The ancient name for the Circle," Jeff arched an eyebrow.

In the end, it wasn't even hard to find. The road that led to the House of the Templar's Circle was beautiful. A long avenue with elm trees on both sides of it.

As soon as we opened the door of the house, we found something.

"Teleportation capes," Jeff said, picking up the three hoods in front of us. "To move between worlds without the need of the spell. They're extremely rare, and they only work to bring you back where you came from. Still, seeing as they're three, they mustn't be here for us."

A letter slipped out from one of the pockets of the capes. I read it out loud:

"A gift from us to you — Samuel, Vitaly and Nathan. Wear them when you find the Mirror and use them to teleport back home.

The Awakened"

Nathan. That name proved Vitaly's story to be true. Jeff looked as if he was about to pass out.

And then, his face became completely drained of blood even though he didn't faint. I followed the direction of whatever he'd just seen.

I couldn't believe my eyes. His face confirmed my worst fears. He was completely white, had black eyes like possessed people have in some legends and looked like something... not human. Even his facial expressions looked fake, like a mask. Like he was a huge, hideous doll.

The person staring at us was not a person. It was a god, the Typhon god — Set.

I should have had more fear than I ever had in my life. But, just like before, with Jake, I was just incredibly enraged.

"What are you doing here? Do you know about our quest? Have the Reapers told you anything about us? Did you hurt Vitaly?"

"Incredible," Set commented, almost in awe. "Does this one only know how to ask questions?"

His own query was directed at Raegan and Jeff, but they both seemed unable to speak, for different reasons.

"Too bad Josephine Aleksi didn't kill your friend," Set continued. "Perhaps you were scared, when you thought she did. But you should thank her — she actually made this decision so you wouldn't have to!"

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"Do you know anything about KI? Or of fairytale worlds, in general? The story is already written. Other people can only relive it. Think of the story of the Empty Mirror. You, girl, I think you know it."

Forcing Raegan to speak, at the moment, seemed like a form of abuse. It was clear she did not want to open her mouth and make small talk with the god she spent years believing had killed her parents.

But she said, "You killed your brother Tyr. In the story."

"This is crazy," Jeff finally spoke up. "You can't prove that the quest must follow the story."

"Maybe. But it seems every time someone starts this quest, they're killing someone on the way. The so-called Arcanes are not only dead gods... in this case, they are nothing but victims. And who would have been likely to be your victim if not Edgar Wollstonecraft? He is so clever, he understood how fairytales worked — I can read his mind, you know. He sacrificed himself so you wouldn't kill him and live to regret it."

"You're lying!" I shouted. "Nothing in the world could bring me to kill Edgar!"

"What about Jeff or Raegan?" Set asked. "I could pit the three of you against each other. I really could."

"You're wrong," I said. "You're wrong. Edgar will be back, and we'll see."

I wasn't sure arguing with a god was a wise thing, but I was about to pass out from exhaustion and my friends seemed logically too traumatised to do anything. Set looked at me with a weird expression — was he impressed?

"You see, the thing about stories," Jeff declared smugly. "They need the reader to believe them, and we just don't."

At that moment, a circle appeared on the floor. It looked just like the one we'd drawn in the Academy of Space and Time, but Edgar materialised there.

His little smile when he saw me soon changed when he turned around and faced Set.

"If you died out here, and I was back home, I would have never forgiven myself," Edgar explained.

Then, we heard a crash on the second floor of the house. Set took one long look at us, and left to check out what happened.

"This is crazy," Raegan commented. "Why isn't he fighting?"

"He doesn't need to," I said. "He knows he's strong enough. Edgar, what did you mean that you were sent back home?"

"Well, not home, the Academy, speaking of which... When we saw the magic circle lighting up, I explained to Brady and Vitaly what must have happened, and they decided to follow you here in case you needed back-up. I'm afraid Set is going, unknowingly, to meet them."

"I did," we heard Set's creepy voice replying. "But I will let them be. What of them? Vitaly is trying not to use his powers too much, and Brady is almost powerless here!"

"I'll wait for one of you to kill the other," Set added. "I'm calling dibs on Ryan Barnes killing Edgar Wollstonecraft, as I predicted. Otherwise I'll grow bored and kill all four of you at the same time."

"Everybody stop!" I said when Set was about to perform a Mudra. My impertinence made him slow down for about two seconds.

"Set, god of the storm, or whatever name you prefer, don't do anything that will make you regret you're not an Arcane yet," I warned him. "I need the Empty Mirror."

Set started laughing. The sound might have been the worst I'd ever heard. "Do you think it was so easy to find the Empty Mirror, boy? Oh, I've been looking, alright. I've been looking for years!"

"Pity that you don't learn from your mistakes," I said. "This is a fairytale world. Jeff said stories are useless if you don't believe in them. He was partly wrong. Stories are useless if you don't learn from them. See, I've been thinking about it. This is why Vitaly Malinov left us, as clues to get to the Mirror, bits and pieces of the truth. Because it is too late for Vitaly to learn the lesson --- if he doesn't forgive himself for what happened, he will never get the Empty Mirror. Besides, he would have been almost powerless here, if he wasn't the hero of a quest, and if he couldn't use his powers as Jophiel. Thankfully, I'm a quick study."

Set looked panicked. Jeff and Raegan were flabbergasted. Edgar seemed to be mulling over the idea in his head, and I could almost hear him thinking that yes, it made sense...

And that was the moment Brady and Vitaly walked down the stairs.

Set turned around to look at them, and when he caught Brady's expression, he exclaimed, "What do we have here? The pacifist god, and Silver McQueen!"

The single word he spoke caused different reactions around the room. Vitaly turned as pale as the walls behind him. Jeff looked even more stricken than before, Raegan put a hand on her mouth, in shock. I was too upset to speak. Edgar's eyes sparkled.

"I would have never guessed," he whispered, growing even paler than Vitaly. "The man I looked up to, my hero, has always been here with me..."

I wondered how he had never noticed it before. How none of us had ever noticed it.

Maybe if his hair had become grey with age, he would have looked like an older version of when he was young and had silver hair. But Brady had sandy hair, probably because his natural strawberry blond had never really faded with age. And then... his eyes were a different colour.

Silver had bright blue eyes that looked lilac under certain lights. They were very recognisable, his trademark.

"Your eyes..." Edgar said.

Brady looked sad that his secret had been revealed.

"It was a simple magic trick," he said. "It takes a very strong Jurist to change the eye color for such a long time, but I am strong enough. I could change my whole appearance if I wanted to."

Set gestured something at Brady. For a split second, I was afraid it was a spell that would kill him on the spot. Instead Brady nodded, and performed a Mudra. His icy blue eyes became dark blue, almost purple. Now, it was impossible not to see that he had been Silver all along.

"I didn't know Silver McQueen was still alive," Set said.

"How would you keep up with simple human matters?" Brady sneered. "I did fake my death, but I certainly wasn't expecting anyone on the council of gods, other than Vitaly, to care. It was after Samuel Winter... Well, you can imagine. Vitaly was wrecked with grief, and he decided to own the fact that he had a place on the council as a god. He didn't have to fake his death, but I did, if I wanted to help him and stay by his side."

"Jake knew that," I realised with horror Jake's words from before, what they meant. My side, he'd said, doesn't keep secrets. "That is why he told us to meet at your grave. You were never buried... You don't have a plot anywhere."

"Thankfully," Brady joked. "I told the Enchanters I wanted to be buried in a human cemetery so they would think of it as something humiliating, the request only a foolish hybrid like me could ask. I knew they'd never come looking for me. I started using my real name, Brady Doyle, because I didn't know anyone from my old life who knew it. I became famous in the Aether Realm with my alias, and my family had always lived between worlds. I guess there would be people, like Mister Johnston, who could do a quick research on my name and understand part of the truth, but I keep on the down-low and I'd never met anybody who cared enough to want to track me."

The god looked almost human. It seemed the story reminded him of something... and I realised Vitaly's words. We had to keep in mind that, whomever was hosting the power of Set at the moment, chances were it was someone with virtues and vices much like everyone else's.

This was enough to bring my mind back to the quest.

"The Empty Mirror," I said. "I'll turn on the lights:"

The house was, in fact, in the dark, and an idea started forming in my mind.

"You fool," Set exclaimed. "Whatever you are about to do, I will not let you get away with it!"

He grabbed a strange object. I've never seen it before, but it was long and made of wood, like a wand of the old legends. He pointed it at Jeff, and I feared for the worst.

But Jeff didn't die. He simply remained stuck in place, a expression on his face worse than any I'd ever seen. He didn't even look like that when he heard his father had founded the Reapers, nor when he was told of how Samuel's friends had betrayed him.

"The tonic would have worked for a small amount of time," Set explained. "So, I used this magic staff. They don't even exist on Earth. Only on KI, because someone thought of giving Set one in a legend."

Jeff started grimacing. I'd never seen so much pain expressed on a face before, though I could have sworn I looked just the same when I was stabbed. "What have you done?"

"I put you out of your misery," Set explained. "You lost your powers completely. So, at least, you will never have to hurt again. You should thank me, really. You wouldn't have known what to do with them anymore. You were never the ambitious sort."

Jeff screamed in pain. I couldn't watch. To him, being powerless was worse than being killed. Jeff lived for his magic.

My hands itched with a new idea. I almost wished I could have used the Empty Mirror to take away Set's powers like the Reapers pretended they wanted to do. Why, if the god was evil enough to take away Jeff'...

But then I snapped out of it. I realised Set was now talking to Edgar.

"I imagine Jophiel told you how one could host the power of a god," he was saying. "Seeing as you know he's Vitaly Malinov. Why have you never considered it, Edgar Wollstonecraft?"

"It is madness," Edgar replied. "In the real sense of the world. It drives people mad."

"It is the only way to solve your problems," Set said, as if he knew something about Edgar I didn't. I guess that, as a god, he probably could sense many things about us. "Yes... all of them. You'd never be worried people are going to leave you or be disappointed in you. You would have all the power in the world. You'd even make your father proud!"

Edgar seemed to consider it for one terrible moment. Then, he looked at Set with all the arrogance he could muster and he said, "Thanks, but no thanks."

Set moved his magic staff, and red sand started forming like a small whirlwind. It flew in the air like a swarm of bees, and it hit Edgar in the face, leaving him bleeding from small cuts.

"The ampoule!" Jeff snapped out of his horror. "Thankfully, we have one for wounds from magical worlds."

Set rolled his eyes. "Use it. This is only the start of what I can do. I suppose I'll let you have this... you're too powerless to do anything else."

"This proves something you weren't willing to bet on," I said, holding back Jeff, who wanted to lunge at the god. "That we protect each other like family. Which is why I'm asking you to turn on the light, Edgar."

"Me?" Edgar asked.

"I know you're afraid of failing," I said. "But I don't think you could ever fail. Do you remember what the cards said? They said I wasn't necessarily qualified to go on the quest, but that I needed it. And I did. I learned many things about myself, who my mother was, and I am going to find a way to help my cousin. Raegan risked changing her destiny if she didn't go... By going, she can avenge her parents. Jeff is the one without whom the quest would fail. In fact, the best Enchanter out of all of us, he helped us in many occasions. But you were the hero of the quest, the best to see it through. Guide all of us, and do the right thing."

"Only an Enlightener might be able to do that..." Jeff started saying.

"Not if he uses the Mudra for revealing things the way they are," Set confirmed, his face growing pale.

Edgar didn't believe my words. But he decided to follow my advice all the same, and performed a Mudra. I could feel he was reaching from the source of magic inside him.

See, I couldn't explain it even to myself, but I knew that Edgar was capable of being just a good Enchanter as Jeff was... It wasn't the amount of power, per se, but the way he always thought of his magic was different, more advanced, from what we'd been taught by Mister Winter. And I knew that by doing the right thing now, his fear of failure would start healing. It just made sense, with the way he wanted to know everything, always, that the solution to his problems was inside of himself. And when all the lights were turned on, the house seemed like one of those parlour tricks where everything looked the same and different. And the Mirror was on the wall.