"How come these things never happened to you?" I asked Jeff, when explaining about the sky and the blackout. "You once told me your magic was taken directly by the pain you were feeling. How come you're holding up so good?"

I didn't add it, but it was obvious --- how could he handle all of this better than me, considering what we had discovered about his father?

I felt guilty, because Jeff still thought those horrible letters had been written by his father. I would have told him, but I wasn't sure the curse was going to let me.

"I'm not handling it well," Jeff replied to my surprise. He had a bitter smile. "I'm just not breaking down, that's all. Besides, I once told you using my pain for my magic was a curse. I do not feel that way anymore, now that I have seen first-hand what curses are. Actually, it makes me feel less anxious, so it's kind of like a medication."

I nodded. Jeff had his powers under control, which meant he had his pain under control. I could not say the same thing.

Set made me wonder whether I was jealous of him. But he could never find any animosity towards Jeff to fuel.

I wasn't jealous at all. I disagreed with my father. If someone is your real brother, and Jeff was mine, you can't be jealous. You are proud of his accomplishments.

In this, Samuel had almost proved to be the best between the two brothers. Of course, he had killed my father, but at least he had waited until he found out he had been betrayed to strike...

I felt blood curling in my veins. Was Set filling my head with those shameful thoughts about my father's death?

I found out Edgar was sitting next to me, and he was looking at me, concerned.

"Are you alright?" he asked.

I nodded slowly. The fact that I couldn't tell Edgar that his best friend was cursed was what was destroying me more than anything.

Not that I felt any less guilty in not being able to tell my other friends. What would have Jeff thought if he had known I had fallen ill with the curse that destroyed his life? And Raegan, she even broke up with Jurji when she learnt Set was still around. She couldn't let go so easily of the past. She had spent so many years trying to avenge his parents, only to fail.

But Raegan McIntosh was not a failure. And one day I would tell her that, too.

Still, Edgar had gathered the courage to tell me why he'd been distant. I couldn't bear the thought that, after he let me so close, he would find out the first person he trusted was cursed.

"After having looked for Alice almost everywhere," Jeff started telling us. "Agnes and I decided to try the abandoned warehouse when Johnston kept the baby."

"But Edgar and I had already been there," I said.

"Which is precisely why this is the last place where we looked," Jeff added. "And we found her there. She was concealed in a room. The room was made invisible thanks to some sort of spell, but Agnes was strong enough to break through the barrier."

Agnes waved a hand. "We did it together," she said. "Actually, I think Jeff did the most of it."

Jeff blushed slightly. "Either way," he continued. "The strange thing was that, when we broke the spell, the warehouse turned into a tower. At a closer look, we realised it was another spell, buried under the other. It would make the warehouse look like the Blasted Tower, from our last quest! It must be a way of taunting us, of telling us whoever it was really has it out for us."

"I did nothing something else that was strange, too," I blurted out.

"Well, say it," Jeff encouraged me.

I cleared my throat. "Well," I said. "Johnston must have led us to the warehouse on purpose! He must have told the people who work for his staff not to protect their thoughts. That way, Edgar and I would go there. And the baby was not in a concealed room like Alice because he wanted us to find him --- to wage a war against us like Sean said. In fact, when we forced him to tell us the coordinates, he said he would blame Vitaly for Alice's disappearance. I, then, took the blame."

Jeff and Raegan opened their eyes wide.

"Don't worry, it was an accident. Either way, I was wondering why Thomas Johnston would make it so easy to find the baby. It was in his plans! So, if that's where you found Alice, then Thomas Johnston is working for Jake."

"Maybe it's the other way around," Raegan commented then. "Perhaps it's Jake who's working for Johnston. Either way, this makes Thomas a traitor to the Aether realm."

"Yeah, no wonder it was so easy for Jake to escape from prison," Jeff commented. "But Agnes and I aren't done with our story."

"What else could you possibly have found there?" Jurji asked, almost dubious.

"Who, not what," Agnes said. "Selina Cooper! Turns out she and Alice have been kidnapped by the same people, after all."

"I have only one doubt," I furrowed my brows. "Why aren't they more subtle? Jake has been the perfect candidate from the start. Thomas Johnston has been extremely unkind to me already. If they didn't want to be found out, why didn't they make it a bit more mysterious?"

"It's just like with the baby," Edgar guessed what I was thinking. "They wanted to be found out! They tried to make everything as obvious as possible. They knew they weren't risking anything because you can't prove Thomas Johnston is in their group, and he decides who goes to prison and who doesn't."

"That's right," Jeff said, starting to pace around the room like I did when I was upset. "But why would they send all those clues?"

His face became horribly pale.

"Jake thinks... no, this is impossible," he said.

"Out with it," Raegan said, encouraging.

"Don't rush me! Of course, Jake thinks one of us knows who is cursed, or that one of us is being cursed themselves! That's why he called one of us 'Liar' and why he is contacting us --- he wants to force us to tell him about Set."

"But you even have no idea if the curse is still around," Jurji reminded us.

"No idea at all," Raegan commented glumly. She looked at one of the couches in the room as if she wanted to kick it, but thought better of it.

"I... I think I know who's being cursed," I said.

All of my friends had a puzzled look upon their faces. I could see that, after everything I had been through, they didn't trust me completely to say something that made sense.

I didn't trust myself to say the truth, so we were even.

"Perhaps," Edgar added unexpectedly. "What Ryan means is that he can find out. You know, with his dreams. Stuff like that."

Then, Edgar looked at me. From the look in his eyes, I understood that he knew something weird was going on with me. He just didn't know what it was.

"Yes!" Jeff said, beaming. "Ryan should dream about it."

"I don't know," Raegan, who had spent with me the last couple of days, didn't seem too sure. "Of course, I'd love for Ryan to find out if the curse is still around, but sometimes his dreams really take a toll on him."

Jeff looked guilty he even suggested it. Though, technically, it had been Edgar to come up with it.

"You know what," I said, my throat terribly dry. "I will try dreaming about it. You never know, right?"

Everybody looked at me, concerned.

There was a reason why I accepted. First of all, I would try to dream about a way I could tell my friends about the curse. If that was too vague and wouldn't work, I could try to dream about a way of breaking the curse without being killed myself.

If that wouldn't have worked either, I would try to get some sleep.

When I fell asleep, instead, I saw Jinn.

"You again?" I asked. I couldn't tell whether it was a dream.

"Your dreams are messy right now," he said. "The part of Set in you wants to manipulate them, too. And he and I want the same thing --- to break you."

"How would that be useful for you?" I asked. "If I break, the curse takes full control of me. And I wouldn't be someone you would want as an enemy."

"If you break, you become like Samuel Winter," he corrected me. "And then, it wouldn't matter to you anymore whether you're killing innocents or not, since the magic in your veins feeds on blood. If you become that sort of person, I can consider working for you."

"What the hell is wrong with you?"

"I wish I could break you," Jinn commented wistfully, looking at me.

"I wish you'd try," I replied. "I am not afraid."

I was not. Jinn had never battled Set before. I wondered how he could think he was getting out of this one alive.

"Project 101 was never completed on you," he said, unexpectedly. "You have gone through the first phase. And then, I singled out your second weakness the last time we met. Now, you'll see what it is that the Reapers did to recruit new members. You'll understand why nobody ever said no."

He looked at me, and I knew what he was seeing. Dark circles around my eyes, gaunt face, a hectic behaviour, a red tunic and long hair.

"By the way," he added with a smirk. "You're looking very much like the Russian bastard these days."

Before I could reply, I found myself in a vision. It was the same sensation as when you're in a dream and it changes in a new one, but this time I knew it was Project 101.

However, what I was seeing was fake. I was a member of the Awakened, working alongside them like my father did.

I didn't know why it was part of the vision Jinn was showing me. If I wanted to know the meaning, I had to play along.

"We'll give you a person to track down," an old man told me. "We don't know their age or gender, but they're causing quite a mess in the realms."

I followed their instructions, until I found myself in Brighton. In the human realm.

I found myself entering a room. It was common, and I had never seen it before. However, it looked like it was designed to be as common as possible, with no way to tell it apart from another. The color of the walls and the floors was a mixture of gray, white and brown that blended in my eyes and confused me. I decided not to look at it any longer.

The person was hiding behind a curtain. Which was pretty weird, but again I reminded myself what I was living was not real.

The person was sobbing. It looked like a little boy.

"What happened?" I asked. "Did someone hurt you?"

"A man," he continued sobbing. "He's a friend of the family. He... he did not hurt me. But he tried to. I know he could. He's got powers... they don't know that..."

"What's the name of this man?" I asked softly.

"Jono Mitchell," the boy said unexpectedly. 

I was caught off guard.

I tried to remember everything I knew about Jono. It was not easy, as since I heard the name, I got a terrible headache. I tugged at the curtain. When I moved it, there was no one behind it.

The vision changed again. This time, I was so close to capturing the teenager. I was ambushing him.

Which was hilarious, because in real life, I would never choose to become some kind of magical cop.

Looking at the blurred face of the teenager, I could tell he was probably Jinn as a young kid. Even as an adult, he was the closest to becoming a Typhon and he did not seem to mind his blurry features much. He, actually, seemed to consider them a trademark he was not ashamed of.

He was inside a room, which made me feel a little stalker-y, because I realized it must have been a room in his house. The only difference was that, while it didn't have any peculiar characteristic, it resembled more the room of a hospital or an infrastructure.

He was listening to a far away conversation, so I did too. After all, he was intent sticking his ear to the wall and hadn't seen me yet. The best I could do was hide behind the door.

"He's lonely," a person with a woman's voice was saying. A mother? A nurse? "Growing up in this place does things to people."

"Well, he just needs some time, that's it," a familiar voice said. "What happened with his last family was tragic. Jono Mitchell..."

A buzz exploded in my ears, preceding a migraine, and I stopped listening. I turned around, shocked, to take a good look at the boy. The hurt look in his eyes of someone who has been cast out before. Blue eyes with yellow around the iris. Choppy brown hair that looked like the boy had never learned how to comb it. All of this was very familiar.

The fifteen-year-old human, the one they sent me to arrest, was me.

Too bad I'd never even met Jono Mitchell before.

"You see," Jinn said, changing once again his vision. "The rage you kept inside yourself... the resentment, the self-loathing... it is the reason the curse could take hold of you. It is what has caused the blackout. You are Set's heir and, ultimately, the enemy you are running away from. It starts this way, you know, in your family. You call the part of you that hates you Set because it's easier, but, curse or not, the only one in your head is you."

I felt as if I couldn't speak. It was very much worse than all the times the project had been used on me combined.

"I haven't shown you anything yet," Jinn promised. "There's more to come. And don't worry --- you won't wake up until you see all of it."

The vision changed again. I realised I would not meet my past self again, but I couldn't guess what it was I had to do. There was a girl of about eleven, this time, and she did not look like me.

"What am I this time, a teacher?" I asked Jinn. "You're wrong every time. I'm never going to become a teacher either."

He shushed me, and I could see the girl becoming more focused in my point of view. I wish I could say that I was thinking about Jono Mitchell and how I'd known him, but the truth was that this felt like a dream --- a regular one, where you barely think over things.

"Hey," I greeted the girl, when I noticed she'd been looking at me. "I heard you're having trouble at school?"

She opened her eyes very wide. She started fidgeting. "They really don't get me," she said. "The teachers, I mean. They know I have ADHD, but they say I'm lazy. That I'm stupid. They don't think I'll never amount to anything."

I smiled weakly. "One thing we adults know is that, rule number one: you never listen to adults. We just say those things because we're sour and bitter."

I was not an adult. But the girl didn't know that, and I figured I'd suffered enough for a few lifetimes to crack a wise piece of advice from time to time.

"You are wired differently," I thought of Edgar's words. "Doesn't mean you're wired in a wrong way."

When her classmates came along, they started making fun of the girl.

"Oh, is that an older boyfriend? How cute," one said looking at me. "I thought you liked girls."

The others laughed and I was reminded of the Reapers laughing at Vitaly. But it also brought back something older --- the teasing I received during my life for being bisexual.

"He's a friend," the girl finally said. "Look how cool he is."

Which flattered me, but it also proved she was a figment of my imagination.

"That's right," the blond haired girl who insulted my friend said. But then she added, "but look at his face! He looks so sad."

"Yeah, right!" another one said. "Look at the circles around his eyes and at his gaunt face! He's desperate!"

After a while, they all started teasing me, and saying that they knew I was nothing but a desperate, little pathetic loser. To tell the truth, it was hard to take them seriously because they resembled creepy little spirits more than people. I almost paid them no mind.

But then, something else shook me to the core. The little girl looked at me, a bit disappointed. "Tell me it gets better," she pleaded. "Please, tell me it gets better, because I don't know what I'm going to do if it doesn't. It has to get better, right?"

I really thought hard and long about an answer. I now had magic. I knew the truth about my parents. I had people I called family.

But there was trauma, there was pain, and there were nightmares, and there was the curse.

And there was this vision I was having. If that was what I had inside of my head, how could I really say things were alright?

I suddenly realized I couldn't tell her things got better without telling her a lie.

"I'm sorry..." I said sheepishly.

The girl looked terrible when she heard the reply, truly not too different from the face one would make if her grief was tearing him apart from the inside out.

I knew how a eleven-year-old who just wanted to hear that everything would be alright, that things that were broken could be reconstructed again, was going to take this kind of news.

I knew it because I would have taken it horribly, and, once upon a time, that kid was me.

And then, I realized that, with all the due differences, the little girl was still some part of me. Gender-swapped, but still.

People often say that it would be cool to talk to your childhood self and tell him to hang on, that things would get better. However, I literally had a chance to talk to my childhood self and I said things would never get better.

"You might not join us now," Jinn said. "But one day you will. You're breaking down. Now you see for what you are. You're a pathetic, sad, little loser. But don't you worry --- you're not the only one. That's why we all want power --- we can't prove our worth in any way that's different than that."

He should not have spoken, because it put me back on the right track.

"That's the difference between you and me," I said. "I do have power. Lots of it. I just don't want to use it."

I was stubborn, and would never give up. Eventually, it would lead me on the right path. I wish I had the heart to tell that to my childhood self.

"You have all these precious beliefs about destiny and hope," Jinn taunted me. "They will betray you in the end."

"I'd rather them betray me," I said. "Than for me to betray myself."

"One last thing," he taunted me then. "Don't you want to know who Jono Mitchell is?"

"I think I'm starting to remember," I said. And in the moment, it was the truth.

I still did not remember the details, but Jono Mitchell was my adoptive mother's friend, the one she saw behind Lucas' back and the one that led to our biggest fallout.