The boy sat curled up with his book, oblivious to the chatter around him.

"You're going to spend your last day reading?" The boy closest mocked.

"It's a very good book." The red-haired boy replied. "Besides, we're just graduating. It's not like I've been made admiral."

"Do you know what time period this is?" Idris asked. "The Black Hunt Campus hasn't changed much in its years, but you lived here. You'd know."

"I...I...I don't know." Calum could barely hear her voice.

Calum blinked, he was back in the woods, now the man was older and had a sword in his hand. His breaths came in heaving gasps, sweat poured down his brow. He was crouched on the ground with his other hand pressed against the throat of a deadwing.

Calum's heart skipped a beat.

The deadwing woman had a head full of unruly, curly brown hair. Her skin was paler than almost all of his ancestors, her body was covered in freckles. Her wings had thick black stripes on the primaries. Her eyes were a striking green color that glared holes into the red-haired man's face. Her ears were short and stubby, just like his.

She spit in his face. "Get on with it, coward."

The red-haired man stood up and backed away. "I can't...I can't do this."

She pulled herself off the ground and started running. The red-haired man watched her go without a word. She looked back once, before shooting into the air and away into the clouds.

Calum's vision blinked again; he was inside a house. A fire roared in the corner. The red-haired man and the half-welven woman were wrapped in blankets and sat nearby on the ground. Her wings stretched out lazily against the human-made floorboards. She was leaning against a chair and listening to him read from a book. After a few seconds of watching them, Calum realized it was a storybook, one he'd been read to by the maids when he was much younger.

"Thank you for this, I know it's not exactly exciting to read the same story over and over again." She whispered, reaching out to rest her hand against his cheek.

He leaned into her touch. "My momma read me this story when I was a kid. It doesn't bother me that you can't read, it would be my honor to pass that tradition on to our baby. Besides, it's a very good book."

Calum couldn't feel his legs. He could feel tears in the corners of his eyes, it was overwhelming. She was like him. He wasn't alone.

She smiled, "Okay I've almost got it, except the part Crow meets Robin, I can never remember what the bird said."

He eagerly flipped back a few pages, then hesitated.

"Speaking of birds, do welves have any baby traditions?"

A sour look crawled onto her face, she looked away from him. "Deadwings...my family...we do things differently than our people. We don't honor welven traditions."

His brow creased with worry over the state of his wife. "Why not?"

She lifted one of her wings. "I come from a long line of birds, who don't want to be known by the places we came from. Back in the colony, they are so...obsessed with fame, if you die there and haven't done anything for your family to be remembered well by, you're scrubbed from history. They think they can get rid of people like they're stains." She took a deep breath. "I told you this when you bonded with me, there is nothing our cultures wouldn't reject in my family. We keep it that way on purpose. As long as our legacy is dirty, we're...free."

His face softened. "You family would be proud of us-what's that thing you always say? Fakey Mid... fakle..."

"Fakio midomo eliam in kaelum," she whispered under her breath. "I make my home in the sky."

"Kaelum," he sighed. "What a beautiful word."

"It's a beautiful name for our son."

Calum sucked in a shaky, teary breath. He crouched down next to them. The firelight danced across their warm, loving faces. It was almost if they were looking at him. Calum rested a hand on each of theirs. Whatever magic held this vision together allowed him to touch them, even if they didn't notice. He held his mom's hands as his dad resumed reading the book meant for Calum.

The scene was violently ripped away from him by the horrified screams of a crowd. Calum opened his eyes and was captured by the light of a dozen torches. A dozen Black Hunt soldiers bared their swords like teeth. Calum's parents were pressed against the wall of the city. The metal fangs of the trellis gate were buried in the earth, there was no way out.

They were trying to escape.

Calum saw himself.

He was clutching onto his mother's chest, no older than two years. She had her wings wrapped around him, like that might keep him safe from the swords. The hazy memory of this moment resurfaced and hit him so hard he felt the sting on his cheeks.

"Traitor!" One of the hunt soldiers screamed in his dad's face.

His dad leaned in close and whispered so just she could hear. "I'll stall them, you need to fly to Fardown, it's the only place you'll be safe."

"What about you?" She cried. "I won't leave you."

"I'll be fine-"

"I'm not leaving," her brow furrowed and her gaze burned.

Time stopped for them in that moment. He grabbed her hand, squeezed it, and drew his sword.

"I love you." He promised, then threw himself at the soldiers.

His mom screamed, and an arrow embedded itself in her wing. Baby Calum clutched to her chest started to cry. Through heaving sobs, she finally ripped herself away from the scene and ran. Three Hunt soldiers saw it and broke away from the fight to chase her.

Calum jumped into the air.

The city square was still alive at this time of night. The Hunt soldiers quickly lost her in the crowd but Calum from above watched her throw a cloak over her wings then duck into an alley. He hovered between buildings, watching his mom skid to a halt at a dead end filled with trash and rotting food. She glanced up at the sky, almost right at him, and stretched out her wings. The arrow was still embedded there, right on the muscle. She gasped in pain.

When Calum dropped to the ground, she'd taken off her cloak and wrapped it around her baby, rocking him lovingly. The baby had stopped crying. Calum walked over to her; his hands were shaking.

"I love you Calum, your daddy loves you. I'll be right back, okay? I'll be right back."

She kicked over a crate of spoiled lettuce and placed her baby inside. He was already asleep.

"I'll be back for you." She said one last time, and ran back around the corner.

Before Calum could follow, he heard the scream, then a sickening thump of something hitting the cold cobbled ground. It was enough to stop him in his tracks. It was enough to bring him to a defeated, terrified kneel.

One Black Hunt solider turned the corner, thrust out his torch, then turned back.

Calum waited there for a few moments, processing what he'd just seen. It was enough to connect what thin shreds of memory he had left from the time. It was painful. There was a gaping wound in his chest, one that never really healed.

His parents loved him more than he could ever comprehend.

He found Idris on the other side of Colliste's gate, staring into the darkness.

"Mari's vision wasn't about her child," he said through the tears streaming down his face, "it was about me. I...I'm the ones who burns with fire, there's magic in the way I exist."

Her ears flicked back and when she turned, her face was still as stone and just as cold.

"I don't care. I got what I wanted. There's an archive of deadwings kept in the containment territories. I'll find who the two who escaped and blast their names to hell."

Calum felt his body burn.

"You think that matters?" He laughed, surprised by how angry it was. "Thanks to you, I know I come from a long legacy of dirty birds. You can't hurt us in any way that matters."

Her eyes narrowed; without warning her hand flew through the air. Calum caught the glint of her nails in the torchlight.

Her wrist slammed into his outstretched fist. He held her arm in a grip of metal and blazing courage.

"I've lived eighteen years of that, I'm not doing it anymore," he spat.

The High Welf sputtered, "You need to punished for this behavior."

Calum forced himself into her face so she could see the fangs his mom gave him.

"Adults who justify hurting children are evil." He hissed, and punched Idris Opaling in the face.

She reeled, falling to the mud in a heap. Calum stood above her, feeling his chest swell. When she whipped around, there was blood dripping down her face. Her features were contorted with rage and her fists shook. Calum couldn't find room within himself to be afraid, he'd done the impossible, he'd gotten under her skin.

"What have you done?" She wailed.

The blood dripped off her face and into the mud. Instead of pooling it seemed the ground swallowed it whole. He felt dizzy as the rocks shook underneath him. The earth knocked together roots, dirt, and feeble human walls.

Calum was ripped apart alongside them. When the two of them plunged into darkness he could still see Idris's face. In fact, it was all he could see. She was gasping and clawing at her neck, a golden glow emanated from underneath her finger nails. Her hair was swept out from its complicated braid and...Calum was having trouble processing what he was seeing...was she turning blonde?

Idris's blonde hair flowed loosely as if they stood in a powerful wind. Her skin lightened and revealed by her sudden pale complexion were thousands upon thousands of small dark marks. At first Calum thought they were freckles, until he realized they were too...organized. Her pale white fangs flashed as she struggled to breathe. Calum realized he was watching a disguise spell be undone.

He took a few steps back on whatever substance kept their aural bodies afloat.

"Who are you?"

The blonde welven woman looked at her hands and strands of hair in shock. One thing hadn't changed. Her eyes were still the color of molten gold.

Calum blinked, then he was standing back in what he recognized to be a room in the deadwing containment territories. This wasn't the same place as his ancestors', he didn't even think it was the same time period. The stone walls were worn, the wooden floorboards were full of dirt and cobwebs decorated the ceiling like wallpaper.

"No..." The blonde woman whispered underneath her breath. "It can't be..."

The door to the room swung open. Standing in the frame was a welven woman dressed head to toe in black with that haunting red chasuble draped on her front, not Idris, but the resemblance was so striking it caught Calum off guard. The welf holding open the door reminded Calum vaguely of a nun.

"It won't come out for you. The other vigils haven't seen it for weeks, the only reason we know it's still alive is the meals that disappear."

"Thank you, leave us now." The High Welf waved her hand and the Vigil closed the door.

She looked around the room, and sat down on a rickety looking rocking chair. "I know you're here, little creature."

The High Welf's tone was kind, and soft, like she was letting one in on a secret. Calum heard a slight rustling from the rafters above him. Streams of dust fell to the floor. The High Welf smiled thinly, and held out her hand. A flame danced along her fingertips, casting a wavering glow around the room.

Something-someone-scuttled invisibly across the rafters, stopping above the High Welf's head. There was a delicate thump and the dust on the floor right in front of the High Welf's chair went up in small clouds. She laughed.

"Yes, this is a neat trick, but I have something better."

She flicked her wrist. The flame leapt into the air and took the form of a bird. The bird chirped happily and zoomed around the room. A second laugh joined it, the happy giggling of a young girl. Her body materialized from the air as she chased the fire bird around the room. The little girl had a head full of honey blonde hair and two white wings. Her clothes were tattered and she was noticeably skinny. The high welf summoned the fire bird back to her hand and the little deadwing girl stopped laughing. Her golden eyes grew wide with fear.

"I'm not going to hurt you, little one," the High Welf promised. "Can you show me that disappearing trick you like? I'll let you hold my bird."

The little girl hesitated. Her gaze flicked to the small burning dove in the woman's hand. Then she spread her little white wings and, on the downstroke, disappeared into thin air. She reappeared inches away from the High Welf's hands and held out her palms eagerly.

"I'm very impressive, your magic." The High Welf said, handing her the bird. "I'd love to teach you how to use it."

The little girl stared intently at the fire bird. It hopped across her fingers and stared up at her curiously. The glint of the flame reflected in her eyes. Without warning, the little girl slapped her palms closed. The bird dissipated in her fists.

The High Welf didn't even flinch. "I'll teach you how to be a proper welfling. You'll get to leave this place. You'll be allowed to use a name. As long as you follow my teachings, of course. Do you want that?"

The little girl with wide eyes and thin pupils nodded slowly. "I want to look like you."

"Don't be ridiculous." She wasn't paying attention, to the girl. Instead she pulled out a piece of paper from her cloak and studied it for a moment. "You're going to be a great High Welf one day, Idris. You're powerful enough to save us all."