I've been finding myself wanting to ask Jeff about his amnesia or his father, now that he'd become my friend.

But speaking with others and taking the lead in conversations was an issue. It was one of those things like introducing myself.

There are days where I just have to say, 'Hello, my name is Ryan Barnes.'

And then my throat gets dry because what if the other person doesn't want me to greet them at all? And worse, what if they ask me about my family and I have to tell them my mother died? That's when I get nervous about how my voice sounds — will it be loud enough, or silent enough not to disturb, and do they expect me to shake their hand or look in their eyes when I speak?

It seemed the timing was never right either.

Just a few days after Edgar's revelation, Mister Winter said, "Today we start with the most important course in the Academy. Students, try to keep your mind on the tasks at hand. If you don't, I'll know."

Edgar looked up from his book while the others cleared the table, and said irritably, "I didn't know you practised black magic, Professor."

"I have many enemies, Wollstonecraft, do not turn into one of them," Mister Winter said. "Mind-reading is the only spell of black magic that I practise. I'd never change memories or kill someone."

"You did change the memories of humans, Professor," Raegan pointed out. "When Set first came back to the council."

Everyone was speechless, and my mouth was hanging open. Nobody told me this was what had happened... they only said they tried to sweep it under the rug. I guessed there were parts of the animosities between Enchanters and humans I didn't yet know.

"Well, those spells are hard to learn and they take their toll on us if we're doing it on Enchanters, but doing them to humans is a different thing entirely," Jake said amiably. "And the last spell — making yourself invisible... well, I never knew why it was considered amongst black magic."

This made me shudder. I knew someone like Jake would have no reason whatsoever to hurt a human being, and that I wasn't one. But after living for so many years of my life with humans I couldn't accept those words coming out of the mouth of one of my friends.

"Open your space-shifting textbook, Worlds, Plural, Volume One," Mister Winter said. "And stop bickering."

"No, wait a minute, Professor," Jake said. "Why don't Edgar tell us about it? I'm sure he's already read every textbook in his free time."

"I don't really have free time," Edgar replied simply. He looked a little pricked by the comment.

It dawned on me that while Edgar was still a very difficult person to get along with, and maybe he despised me, I'd come to think of him as a true friend of sorts after all the things we told the other. I felt the need to say something.

"There would be nothing wrong with reading about the things we're eventually going to study," I commented, raising my voice. "If the Professor ever changes his mind about practising those spells, I would want the class to be prepared."

"Open — your — book, Barnes," Professor Winter said. "Do not make me repeat these words."

I hadn't grabbed my book yet, but when I stood up to take it from the shelf, Edgar stood up at the same time as me. I noticed for the first time that he was really tall. He must have been about four inches taller than me. For some reason, that bothered me.

"To understand this concept," Professor Winter said. "First, we must say that a particle can be in two places at once. Everything I'm telling you now is quantum physics, and the humans know it as well."

"Schrodinger's cat," Ohda commented.

"It's technically incorrect," Edgar pointed out. "Schrodinger himself did not apply his idea to the famous cat."

I wondered whether he would add his footnotes to the whole lesson.

"Either way, it was an apt comparison," the Professor said. "The two universes, where the cat lives and where the cat is dead, have always existed simultaneously. One is not an alternative for the other.

Theoretically, the worlds do not have to be realistic, or look like our world. The worlds can also be different realities, with peculiar laws and even a different system of magic. This is why it's absolutely vital that we, especially the youngest of you, do not try it out. It could lead to catastrophic incidents."

The Professor was looking at me as he said this, which I didn't find very flattering.

"Every quantum transition in every star splits our universe into myriads of other universes," Professor Winter added. Even though it was really interesting, I was starting to develop a headache that would split my head into myriads of others.

"However, contrary to what Hugh Everett said, the universes are not copies of ours," Edgar added out loud. "But they can differ. They will differ, because he didn't consider magic part of the equation, but the levels of the aether will be different in every world."

"Well said, Wollstonecraft. You do have merit," the Professor said, proving I was the only one who could not upgrade from humiliation.

"In fact, scientists think of worlds that obey the laws of physics. They do not know that there are many laws of physics their ancestors chose to purposely ignore, like magic. They think we are a mutation, while it is the world that is different from how they imagine it."

"Thank you, Wollstonecraft, that was quite enough."

Still, the Professor looked pleased. 

In the afternoon, Professor Winter let us know that a man called Morgan McCarthy was visiting the school.

"He wants to talk to Jake alone about last year's quest, so don't bother the man," the Professor warned us. "He's the owner of the Odd Oddities circus."

"The Odd Oddities, huh?" I asked. I had never heard of them before.

"Just so you know," Sean offered. "They drive a hearse where they keep the stuff for their shows. And their men wear top hats, while their women wear striped socks."

"Just like in a normal circus, then," I said. "Minus the hearse."

"I went to see a human circus once," Bill told me. "I snuck out to visit the Human Realm. The clothes that these people wear are different. Dull coloured. I believe humans would say their style is steampunk."

I shrugged. I really wasn't going to judge them for the way they dressed.

Jeff, Raegan and I were not in our rooms. We decided to meet up in the library, which was the place where we went to talk about everything.

"I want to ask the new kid to teach me how to teleport," Raegan was telling Jeff. "Too bad he's kind of intimidating."

"Apparently," Jeff looked a little troubled. "You won't be able to do it at all if you're not a Jurist. But Grandpa said the Air Hierophants could learn how to fly."

"Water. That's my element." Raegan specified. Sometimes Jeff could be very distracted and lost in his own thoughts.

When I heard the sadness in Jeff's voice, however, I realised perhaps for the first time how much of a black sheep he was in his family. Raised by his grandfather, blessed to be known as a Winter, cursed to be the son of the man who lost the family name. Excellent at spells, like the man who raised him, but Jeff had a frail health that I've noticed seemed to impact his magic.

The library was so full of books, some of them were on the floor because there wasn't enough space on the shelves. Jeff picked one up, lazily. It was a theoretical book that went into depth about how to perform the spells better. Magic was a lot like meditation, and Jeff concentrated and obsessed on it like a monk. He always wanted to expand his horizons, to see what he could achieve next.

I wished I could say I had the same ambitions. While it interested me to get better at what I was learning to do, most of the time my curiosity got the better part of me.

I found a book called Famous Enchanters. I had no doubt the Winters would be in there, so I went to the chapter about them, hoping to find something about Jeff's father, so that I could know his story without asking my friend about it.

When I opened the book, there was a picture of a man. An adult, but not yet old. He had dark brown hair and green eyes. His name, written in bold, was Daniel Winter. The Professor.

It contained information about him, something along those lines:

Daniel Winter is mostly known for defeating a squad of Typhons during a trip to Ireland when he was in his twenties. He is known in the community for teaching at the Essex' Academy of Time and Space, as he's very gifted and well-read. He passed his vast knowledge and his powers down to his son Samuel.

I was shocked, I had no doubt that Samuel had to be Jeff's father. In his picture, Samuel was very young. He was blond with amber eyes. However, his upturned nose, the shape of his face and his mouth and his dark eyebrows reminded me of his son.

I decided to read what was written about him.

Samuel and his friend Vitaly Malinov are the only Enchanters featured in this book who are younger than twenty years old. Winter and Malinov always stick together, and they are very skilled. Unfortunately it seems that Samuel has started a quest of his own, looking for the imaginary Empty Mirror.

The Empty Mirror reminded me of Edgar's words and I couldn't help but shudder.

I tried to change the subject by reading what they had to say about Vitaly.

I don't know what I was expecting, but when I saw his picture I definitely wasn't ready for it.

He looked tiny and he didn't look older than fifteen, but he was exceptionally beautiful. Even his imperfect features, like his nose slightly too big for his face, made him somewhat perfect. But the real reason why he looked so very good was that he looked both masculine and feminine. He had big light blue-green eyes and long wavy reddish brown hair.

They said that he was a very powerful and talented Enchanter. He was slightly younger than Samuel, and he was of Russian heritage. He wanted to become famous to defeat Typhons all over the world. He seemed young and naive, so I wondered what his definition of defeat was.

Still, I liked his ideas.

I showed the book to Jeff, "Look at that! Your father seems amazing! I bet you got your talent from him!"

"I hope..." he replied shyly. "But I don't think so... Oh, and the Empty Mirror... I'd rather not talk about it."

"But what if it was real?" Raegan asked.

"Technically, it's imaginary," Jeff swallowed slowly. "But I will let you in on a secret. Once, listening to a conversation my grandfather was having with a friend, he mentioned that my father and Vitaly were close to finding it before Dad died."

"Well, isn't this proof enough?" Reagan asked, visibly impressed.

"I don't want to indulge in thoughts of this sort," Jeff's voice was rough. "It's because of last year. I suffer from amnesia. I don't recall almost anything about the quest. But I know someone placed a curse, or some kind of weakening spell on me, and now using my magic too much hurts me. That's why I don't use my full potential."

He looked at the floor. "Now, I am afraid I am just as useless as my father was."

"Jeff," I said. "Of course. We will never speak of this again."

Raegan agreed, and Jeff even smiled.

Since we didn't know what else to do, and my legs seriously needed to be stretched every once in a while, I decided to come up with something else.

"If we had to explore, theoretically speaking, like the Professor always tells me, where would you like to explore?"

"Well," Jeff surprised me. "I wouldn't mind breaking the rules if you have a good idea. Where would you like to go?"

"You wouldn't mind, but what if Edgar Wollstonecraft reports us to your grandfather?" I asked.

"There's no time for exploring now," a determined voice said behind my shoulders. There was judgement in it, as if the person caught me red-handed acting like an idiot. "One of Set's storms is coming."

Raegan coughed. I turned around, with a horrible feeling. Edgar Wollstonecraft was right behind me. He was so tall, he cast a shadow on our table.

"I met Morgan McCarthy," he just said. "He really wears dull clothes."

Raegan looked like she wanted to say something, but Jeff nudged her.

"Either way," Edgar added. "I'm sure Mister Winter would want us to help. I just came to get the three of you."

"Oh well," Jeff said. "I guess we'll go make ourselves useful."

When we left the library, Edgar stayed behind to talk to me. "Just so you know," he told me. "I have everything to prove to my father. I'm here to make sure he's proud of me, because I know I can do it. I don't really care about your opinion. If listening to talks of parallel universes and scientists gives you a headache, you should take panacea or just quit the course of study."

"Panacea?"

"Magical aspirin. Perhaps you should really quit the course of study."

I was about to point out how unfair it was. I could have said the Academy was the only school that would take me. I could have told him about Adrian Locksley, or simply justify myself saying that I liked physics, but that it was the constant stimuli of the classroom, the voices and the lights that fried my brain.

I didn't.

Edgar led me to a room I'd never seen before. There were drawings on the black ceiling in yellow paint, and they looked like stars. It looked like stars dying, exploding... I couldn't tell what the purpose of the room was. It didn't help that it was almost completely empty.

But I saw a stairwell, and we walked up on it. There was a trapdoor, and by opening it, I realised we would leave the underground and arrive in the Aether Realm neighborhood of Brighton.

"The gods' council is not underground," Edgar explained. "It's hidden by humans' eyes, but it's up there."

This was the reason why Set always attacked in Brighton, I realised. The sky looked like the beginning of a storm, but at least it wasn't red. The wind was howling and it was knocking down trees.

I recognised Morgan McCarthy. He was the man fighting the storm next to Mister Winter. While the Professor was using his air powers to get the air to stablise, the man, who wore striped trousers and a top hat, was fighting the darkness in the sky with his powers of the light.

"There you are," the Professor said, turning towards us. His smart coat and his short salt and pepper hair were disheveled. It was strange to see him looking anything less than perfect. "Come on, help us out!"

"Ryan, let's calm down the wind," Jeff told me. "Raegan can try to vaporise the particles of water in the air that would lead to a storm, while Edgar can locate if there are people who are hurt and find them."

I nodded. We made a good team with our different powers. In the distance, I could see some of our classmates helping, too. Jake was doing something to the ground, perhaps eliminating the positive charge Risa had told me about, while Lucretia was waiting for her turn to do something. I imagined fire wasn't of much help during a storm, but if another jackal arrived, she'd be our biggest asset.

Jeff and I walked next to his grandfather and Morgan McCarthy. A rush of wind knocked Morgan down and his bag opened, scattering of all his papers on the ground. While Jeff was doing his thing, I knelt down and collected the papers for Morgan. I used a spell to make them all fly safely in my hands, since they were pretty much everywhere.

"Thank you," Morgan smiled at me, a look of gratitude in his eyes. "The storm is calming down. This time, it wasn't a big attack. Perhaps Set was just angry. I think I should go now."

"Jake!" he shouted then. "Remember the things we talked about."

When Morgan McCarthy left, I walked back to the school with Jeff, Raegan and Edgar. I froze midstep as I noticed something on the ground.

It was one of Morgan's papers. Strange. I thought I'd picked them all up. I even used my magic for the job. But the paper, which looked like a strange file, could belong to no one else but him. It showed the picture of a tower, and there were written words I couldn't understand. They didn't even form a full sentence. But a name kept recurring --- Jono Mitchell.

The tower was striped, silver and blue all over, and it had little windows like a lighthouse. 

"Edgar," I muttered. "Do you know the spell for showing things as they are?"

Edgar obliged without putting up too much of a fight.

The words on the paper re-assembled until they formed another image.

There was a number, as if it was part of a series, and under the number there was a logo.

The palms of two hands facing one another.

Jeff shuddered. Raegan walked away from us as if it the sight had hurt her eyes.

"I know what it means," Jeff said, like it wasn't good news.

"It's the symbol of the New Faith," Raegan added, weighing her words as if it pained her to get them out.

"Oh," I said. I did not realise the importance of her words at all. I had no idea what the New Faith was. "It's too late to give it back, I reckon. Should we keep it?"

"Yes," Jeff replied, his eyes burning like cinders in the snow. It was a mischievious side of him I hadn't seen before.

On our way to the dorms, we met Ohda. Not only Ohda was great with Mudras, but she was amazing with all things mechanical — she could fix basically everything.

"Here's your phone, Ryan," she said, handing it to me. "I know you've been keeping it with you because you were waiting for your uncle Jordan to call you."

She smiled, but her eyes were sad. She knew just as well as I knew that the phone call might never arrive. Maybe Jordan even blamed me for Risa's disappearance.

"At any rate," she said. "I've used my magic to fix it for you. This way, you can't surf the net anymore. But the phone still works for receiving and making calls, even calls outside of the Aether realm."

"This is amazing! Everybody should have one!" I said, even though I knew the Enchanters didn't like technological objects. Or anything that had to do with communication, really.

"No need to thank me," she replied. "I just thought you might need it."

I was stunned. It seemed as if she really cared about me. I didn't think any of the students did, except for my closest friends. Perhaps I was wrong.

"Did you know that Ohda was good at repairing things?" Jeff asked me.

"I had noticed," I replied.

It was true. Ohda was on the short side and she looked delicate. But it wasn't the first time that I had paid attention to the fact that she almost always had band-aids on, and that her hands were the hands of a hard-working girl.

"Anyway, about the tower," I said then. "I think that, first, you should explain to me what the New Faith is."

"Of course," he looked taken aback that I didn't know. "They're a religious cult. They believe in the gods --- all of us do --- but they  practise their belief in different ways."

Raegan, who wasn't saying anything, basically snorted. But I noticed she looked on edge ever since the New Faith had been mentioned, so I paid her no mind.

"They believe all kinds of poverty and exhaustion make your powers better and, at the same time, help you repent for having them in the first place," Jeff explained. "Some of their followers have done very radical things for both the magic and the religion, like walking naked in the snow for an entire day. They're often on the news."

"I wonder if it does make one's powers better," I said. "Perhaps it wouldn't be worth it either way. But think how powerful you'd be if you did things like that!"

Jeff blushed.

"I didn't mean to offend you. Or whatever I just did."

"It's not that," he said, still red in the face. "But being a powerful Enchanter can also be a curse."

"Oh yes, especially for a Hierophant like us, Jeff," Raegan added.

"A Hierophant on a dark path is charismatic, and could lead people along..." Jeff shook his head. "Besides we are more drawn to black magic than the Jurists. After my father..."

"Well, I don't care what people say about your father," I bit back. "Better to be someone like him, who never gave in to the dark path, instead of someone who's too afraid to try like the Professor. And I think, if I had to choose someone to imitate, then I'd devote my life to killing Typhons like Vitaly Malinov."

"Vitaly Malinov didn't want to kill them," Jeff said bitterly. "But perhaps you would. Not out of anger or cruelty, but out of your personal view of the world. You could destroy it or turn it to a better place."

I didn't reply. He knew me too well. Too damn well. I knew I was cocky enough to think things like that.

"Oh, don't look at me like that," he smiled. "I'm joking, we'll graduate and we'll both be great."

"The three of us," Raegan shuffled a pack of tarots. She showed us the Aether Realm version of the Tower card. "Doesn't the picture we saw look like the real life version of the Blasted Tower?"