When Edgar came out of Ana's house, it dawned on me that something might have changed forever.

When I asked him about the vision, and he only looked at me with a vacant stare, I realised I was right.

"It's Edgar's decision, if he wants to tell us about it," Agnes reminded us. "Ana specifically said he was the only one who had to hear it."

"Well, I for one, disagree," Jeff snapped. Then, he looked embarrassed that he had to snap in front of Agnes, but I knew where he was coming from. Jeff was right. All of us had sacrificed our lives, our reputations, many times over trying to save the world from Set. Edgar's divination was the last thing we needed to get rid of the curse once and for all. We did not make a pact with Luna and went all this way for nothing.

Still, I understood Edgar as well. It was a private thing. It was his decision whether he wanted to share, and I respected him either way.

"If you ask me, he's never going to tell us about it," Raegan huffed. "And we did all of this for nothing."

Agnes nudged her. Edgar looked as motionless as before. If he hadn't been walking, one might have asked whether he was all right. But he was --- at least, enough to move. He hadn't spoken yet.

"I wish you could hear yourselves," he said, finally, very unkindly. "Jeff, you only care about this quest. Even when I first befriended you, you only cared about finding the Enemy Mirror. You're as obsessed with it as your father was!"

We all stayed quiet for one horrible moment. If Jeff wanted to snap at Edgar, I would not stop him. Edgar had earned it. But Jeff didn't say anything, though he was visibly upset. I wonder what was up with Edgar. It was so difficult, trying to understand what was going on with him at all times, that sometimes I asked myself whether he was being mean on purpose every time he said something awful. But other times, I couldn't help but ask myself whether he was being kind on purpose the rest of the time.

I had to snap out of it and remind myself that Edgar was different from his frosty exterior. He could be cold and dismissive to people he didn't know or liked, but once you befriended him he was true and loyal. He was only acting this way, I tried to tell myself, because he was used to doing things on his own and taking care of every problem. Seeing an issue he couldn't fix was eating him from the inside out.

I wondered, actually, if this was his biggest flaw. Had Jinn finished talking to him during Project 101, would he have told Edgar 'there will come a problem you cannot solve, and that will destroy everything you and your friends worked for'?

Oddly enough, back then it seemed Jinn was about to mention me when speaking of Edgar's weakness. Perhaps I was the weak link of as the bonded warrior of someone like Edgar. A dead weight.

"I'm sure you'll find a solution, Edgar," I tried to tell him. "You always do."

I put one of my hands on his shoulders. As always, it required a bit of effort, but I didn't mind.

"Shut up for once, Ryan," he told me, and I was surprised to notice he had tears in his eyes. "You've always been a good friend. You believed in me when no one else did. I am glad the vision is about me and not about you."

"But...?" I asked, because I could see an objection coming from miles away.

"Not but. Because. I am glad the vision is not about you, because you're too hot headed. Too reckless. You meant well with trying to cheer me up, but if you were the hero you'd charge into it and you'd do the thinking part later. You would be doomed, along with the rest of the world."

I did my very best not to choke on my tears, but I knew I had to look horrified. 

I really didn't want to find excuses for Edgar. He had reacted very badly, and had I not been shell-shocked, I would have pointed it out.

But I knew he was used to taking things hardly and bitterly because of his family.

I knew something must have happened during his teenage years that tore their family apart completely.

Or maybe, it was more than one thing. Maybe it always is.

After a while, Edgar looked like he was out of words too. I hated how well I could read him, at that moment. He wanted to say he was sorry, but at the same time he would literally die before showing any of us he was unable to solve a problem.

No, worse, he would die before admitting it himself.

"I think we better go now," Jeff mumbled then. "We can't really stay in Wales forever."

"Maybe Edgar would like to," Agnes suggested.

Edgar shot her a dirty look. 

"You know what," I told Edgar. "Don't feel bad. We're even. I wish the vision had been about me because I am actually able to work in a team. If I'd been asked who could be the worst hero out of all of us, I think I would have said you, because you always put yourself and your damn pride first."

He looked at me with wide eyes. Surprised, hurt. Well, I could hurt his pride all he wanted, I reasoned, after he hurt mine and lashed out at Jeff.

"You're allowed to say that," he said. "But we're more similar than you think. Why did you tell me that the things we thought we disliked in the other were the things we disliked in ourselves if you couldn't handle my pride?"  

"I don't hate it or dislike it personally speaking, but it damages teamwork," I said. "The same way my hot headedness does. Gee, I wonder why you even asked me to do a blood bond like warriors do with their most trusted companions."

I knew I had hurt him. I knew I had made a fool out of him. He flinched in horror. But I couldn't really stop myself. Maybe things between us now were ruined forever, but he had hurt me first. 

"Well, we really should go back to Brighton now," Raegan pressed on.

Jeff hold our hands and created a portal to take us back home. All of us except Agnes, who had to stay in Wales to look for other Set artifacts.

"I think we need to tell all we know to our classmates," Jeff told us later. 

"Well, we don't know a lot, now, do we?" Raegan scoffed. She looked around to see if she could scold Edgar, but he had already started walking away. 

"You know he didn't mean to say those things," Jeff told me softly.

"I'm not an idiot," I said. "I know when people think I'm too hot headed, or acting stupid. Sometimes... I'm just too much to handle."

"What I mean is... I can't speak on his behalf. But I know he did not really mean it. He loves spending time with you."

"I know he acted that way because of the vision," I mumbled. "It's just one more thing he cannot solve. Do you remember how prickly he used to be about his powers?"

And then I added, "Do you think the vision is so bad it could have upset him?"

"Well, it did drive my father crazy," Jeff replied. I could see that Edgar's accusation was still stinging Jeff. Even then, he couldn't help but ask himself whether he was the crazy one. In that moment, I couldn't help but hate Edgar for the way he was making us feel.

I squeezed his shoulder. "You're very different from your father, you know?" I said. "He didn't make it this far. The Enemy Mirror is destroyed. The family curse is still out there, but it didn't fall on you! It means that you're very different from Samuel in that matter."

"Thank you, Ryan," he said. "But the Enemy Mirror is not destroyed. We've seen it in the Circle's headquarters."

Jeff was right, but I had nothing to add.

We both knew it was just a copy, but we also both knew that until the Mirror was there, it was a harbinger of doom.

We walked into the Academy to tell everyone the news. I was a little nostalgic when I recalled how it looked the year before, when fresh and warm smell of food was coming from the kitchen and it looked just like a home. Now it only smelt of sanitizing products and most of the students micro-waved their lunch.

"So, basically," Bill said, when we were finished talking. "You had access to the vision and you let only one person of the group hear it. And now he doesn't want to tell you about it, so it's like you have no divination at all."

"Bill..." Ohda whispered softly. 

"If it was up to me," Bill continued. "I would have attacked both the Summer lady and Edgar if I didn't come home with the solution. However, maybe violence is not the answer."

He smiled at Ohda, who had probably scolded Bill for matters such as these before. To my surprise, she smiled back.

"I didn't know there was a Summer still out there," Lucretia commented. "Except for Ryan, of course. Nor did I know some of them could see the future. Fascinating. I have to write it down for my studies about the genetics of the Ancient Families."

"What's important right now," Alice said. "Is that we are clearly trying to find a way to destroy the curse, but have no clue about where to start looking or why we should be even worried about it ---- I mean, Jeff is not cursed! So, we're back to the start, or worse."

"Gee thanks, always uplifting," I said.

Alice smiled. "Hey, I simply had to be the grumpy one since the Professor has decided to sit this one out."

No one commented on it, but we were all aware that my grandfather did not show up. Believe me, his presence in a room cannot go unnoticed.

"Why isn't Grandpa here?" Jeff asked. Our grandfather was very controlling. I could see Jeff was upset that he was not here, maybe the one time we needed him the most.

"I think he fears he has shocked you the last time, with his cryptic talk about Nathan," Lucretia said. She always seemed to sympathize with the Professor, for some reason.

"Well, he has upset all of us!" Ohda exclaimed. "We didn't really need to hear such gossip about people who are already dead and gone."

I thought about my father, but the thought made me very anxious. Did I want to know all the details about him, or was he better as some sort of hero in my imagination? The idea that he might have done some things that were very wrong, like Daniel had pointed out, didn't make it any easier for me to sleep at night.

Ever since I returned from the quest, I had a lot of things in my mind. Thoughts I did not like. Unpleasant memories. Thinking about my father, who had helped me with the quest even though he was dead and gone, always seemed to calm me down. But not since Mister Winter had told me these things about Nathan. Now, it was one of the million things that would keep me up at night.

When everyone was speaking loudly, and talking about the quest, I sat down on my chair.

Alice approached me. "I'm no psychic," she said. "But I can see there are a few things about yourself that you're choosing to ignore, Ryan."

"You bet" I said, thinking about Edgar.

"What I mean is... maybe I should try a different approach. My mother says she can read auras."

"She's an Enchanter," I said, serious. "Is this supposed to shock me?"

Alice smiled. "Enchanters don't read the future, except a few cases. Most of them don't think about reading auras very different things from what humans think about it."

"She sells all those stuff to read auras in her shop. I've been there for a few hours, I should know."

"Now you're mocking me," she said. "She believes in these things, I suppose. Not everyone does. She says she can read auras."

I nodded. I didn't understand where this was going, but I wasn't surprised. I barely knew Flora, yet could totally picture her reading auras and telling you things about your chakras and stuff. 

"Now, I don't know about your aura," she continued. "I cannot tell you if it special. But that you are! You are both Summer and Winter, Ryan. You are a Variation, and a hybrid. All of this means a lot of things. Some good, some bad. It mostly means that you have powers that you don't even know about."

"Lucky me. Too bad that I can't use those powers."

"What do you mean you can't? You already did! You saved the world a few months ago."

"That was luck," I said. "Beginner's luck. Now the Aether realm is probably in danger, again, and I can't do anything to save it. What if we're all doomed, and I couldn't even keep close the ones I loved the most?"

I didn't want to ramble in front of Alice, but it was too late. The words had already escaped my mouth.

"I'm sorry about Jake," she said. "I think you really enjoyed being in his company. You liked him more than I did, and I was his girlfriend."

I didn't dare telling her that I wasn't talking about Jake. I didn't dare asking her what she meant, either. 

She took a shaky breath. I might have been mistaken, but I thought it had more to do with whatever misunderstanding there had been in their relationship than with her losing Jake.

I tried my best not to think about him.

"I was writing down what you told me of the Summer family," Lucretia shouted from a distance. "Can they really see the future? All of them?"

"No, it skips most generations," I yelled back. "And Luna said that those who can see the future, can see the past and the present too."

"We all can see the present," Bill joked.

"Even those who are not especially bright," Ohda mocked him.

"If Luna said that they can see the present, she must have meant something else," Jeff reasoned. "They probably have... glimpses or visions of what's happening somewhere else."

"Are you sure, Ryan, that you can't do that?" Ohda asked. She was so logical, so down to earth, that she must have been desperate if she was asking me something like that. "If you could, you could see the future well enough to know what the prophecy means."

I shook my head. "This power is so rare... it's so important. If I could do something like that, I would know."

"Except you can," Raegan said. "And you don't even know."

When everyone turned to look at her like she was crazy, she gave us a satisfied grin. "Think about it," she added. "Your dreams."

Now everybody turned their gaze to look at me. Except for Jeff. He knew what we were talking about.

"Well... if people from the Summer family can tell the future from dreams... that would actually make sense," Alice pointed out. "Besides, that would explain how they can see the present and the past as well."

"Not that I'm saying that what you're saying is not true," Lucretia said. "But when have you ever seen the future in your dreams, Ryan?"

"Before I came here," I said, suddenly excited. 

Now my friends looked a bit scared. If there was one thing Enchanters had an illogical fear of, it was power. It was because powerful Enchanters often practised the dark magic. I wondered why it was this way --- was practising black magic more rewarding? Did it satisfy your thirst for knowledge?

"I dreamt about the icy palace on KI before school even started," I added.

"I wish I could say that it's enough proof," Bill said. "But maybe it isn't. As you said, this power is so rare and special..."

"Ryan sees the past too, in his dreams," Raegan said then. "And much more clearly than the future! We were there the night he dreamt parts of Vitaly Malinov's past. We were there, and we discussed it with him. Those were things Ryan couldn't possibly know. It couldn't be a coincidence either."

Lucretia almost rolled her eyes. She never really got used to Raegan.

"He dreamt about the present too," Jeff added then. When Jeff speaks, people tend to listen. "During our quest, he had dreams about the person who was spying on us --- Jake. The dream seemed to take place in the same moment when the conversation between Jake and Jinn was taking place. We thought it was a message from Jake back then."

"He mustn't be exceptionally good at it," Lucretia snapped. "If he hadn't been able to recognize the spy was Jake."

Raegan wanted to snap back, but I mouthed at her to let it go. Every time somebody mentioned Jake, Lucretia was understandably upset.

"If you want," I offered. "I can go to my room, lie down and see if I can dream up something."

"Well, you have this power," Alice said. "That much is clear. I shiver at the thought of the authorities finding it out... there must be a reason why those things aren't discussed anymore."