Mid-week arrived. Early that morning—after breakfast with Isaiah and Troy, and dragging Imogene out of bed—I walked to the classroom for my class with Viviane and Triti. I wasn't alone. Troy went with me. He insisted on making sure I got there without anyone having a go at me and, as future Alpha of his pack, Troy figured having him around would stop any more of Kori's lackies having a go at me. There were still plenty of people but hey, it was something.

Viviane was waiting for me inside. She seemed to be in a good mood. I won't lie. That helped me feel less on edge about the whole thing. Maybe she had good news.

"Good morning, Hathor!" Viviane exclaimed happily. "I have good news."

Fancy that. I put my bag on the large table to the side of the room. "Really?"

"Yes!" She put her arm around my shoulders and led me to the central ring. "It was short notice but your grandfather was able to call in some help from wielders of Time Magic. Triti is bringing them here. They will be here shortly."

"That's great!" I exclaimed cheerfully. Maybe there was hope after all.

We found out minutes later when Triti arrived with two new people. A man and a woman. The man was dark skinned with short, straight red hair and pale purple eyes. The woman, also dark skinned, had long, wavy red hair and violet eyes. From the way they looked, it was clear they were Lyriumian twins. A very common thing, I might add. A lot of Lyriumians are twins. My mum and her brother Nakia are a pair, so are my friends Oliva and Olivia. The man was introduced as Ajax Idan and the woman as Rhea Idan.

"It's nice to meet you," I said as we shook hands.

"And you," Rhea said.

"Indeed." Ajax smiled lightly. "We were surprised to hear from your grandfather."

"Yeah." I tugged my hair nervously. "I was surprised to hear there were others alive with Time Magic."

The twins glanced at each other. It was pretty weird. They had very similar looks to the ones my mum and uncle have when they use their mind link. Rhea and Ajax were probably having some sort of mind conversation. Or argument. Something like that.

"His Majesty Lvaane helped us leave when the Fighters of Light went on their crusade," Rhea said with a sour tone. "We had no reason to come back—"

"Until now," Ajax interrupted, placing a hand on his sister's shoulder. "We would be happy to help you learn to use your power."

I smiled. "Thank you."

We spent the next little while getting to know each other and exchanging adventure stories. I won't lie, they've been on quite a few interesting sounding ones. But that's not my story to tell. You'll have to ask them. They told me that while they didn't know much about my role as the Vessel of Time, they'd still do their best to help me learn to control my power. Which led to the most important question of the session.

"Do you know what your power is yet?" Ajax asked.

I shrugged. "I did stop time once but have no idea how."

"You can't stop time," Rhea said. "That's impossible. You most likely slowed it to the point that it appeared to stop. I presume you were the only one able to move at this point?"

"Uhm, no." I tugged my hair. "Actually, my family could all still move just fine."

"They are the immortals, correct?" Ajax asked. I nodded. "Now that is interesting."

"It's safe to say she has the Influence power," Rhea said. She frowned suddenly. "I do wish we could just call that 'Manipulation'. It would make a lot more sense."

"Ah, but the book says 'Influence'," Ajax countered with a tight smile, "so we can't do something as crazy as that."

I giggled, having thought the same thing when I first came across the term. Still, it was nice to know what my power would be. Slowing down time. That would definitely come in useful in the real world. It would maybe even give me an excuse to go on more missions with my family. Now that I finally had a power—and a pretty powerful one at that, if you ask me—I'd actually be helpful.

Unless mum does that whole overprotective thing she always does.

Somehow, our starting session, exchanging of stories and this short conversation took up an entire hour out of our two hour session. We didn't notice until Triti and Viviane said something. Deciding it was best to not start today as it would take a while, we all came to the decision that we would start our classes in our next session.

For the remaining, Rhea showed me a few meditative techniques I could use to start getting in touch with my power. I was sceptical because really? Meditation? Even so, I said I'd give it a go. If I was going to clutch at straws, I should at least use ones given to me so I felt like less of a moron.

Yeah, I'm not a meditating person. 

Rhea walked me out when our session ended, giving me some last-minute helpful tips about her Meditation 101 Class when we came face-to-face with my nemesis.

"Well, well, well," Kori drawled, Cyrus, Tyler and some others standing with her. "More time freaks have arrived."

I raised an eyebrow. "Do you just wait outside my classrooms for something to happen so you can use one of your really stupid one-liners?"

Unfortunately, she didn't answer the question. A smug smile on her face at having not falling into my trap, she said, "You time freaks shouldn't be here. We get enough shit at this school. We don't need more trouble."

"Said the bitch causing trouble," I muttered.

"Mommy can't protect you forever," Kori continued. "It's only a matter before you and your new friends are out of this place."

"That's interesting," Rhea said, placing a finger on her chin. "As far as I know, it was the Queen and the former King who signed off on us becoming tutors at the Academy."

"And the Headmaster," Ajax added, having joined us.

"Him, too," Rhea agreed. She stepped forward, getting right into Kori's face. "So us time freaks will be sticking around, darling. If you have a problem with that, you can always take it up with them."

"Oof," Ajax said with a shake of a head. "I'd advise against that, personally. Those three don't like being interrupted for nonsense."

"So, if it's okay with you, Your Highness—" Rhea bowed mockingly— "Us lesser beings won't dare be in your presence a moment longer." And with that, Rhea grabbed my hand and led me away, Ajax following close behind.

I was stunned.

Ajax must have seen the look on my face. "We've been dealing with this for most of our lives," he explained. "It sucks but you do figure out how to just get on with your life."

All I could say was, "Bullies fucking suck."

Rhea glanced back at me, "You have friends who help you out, yeah?"

"Yeah," I answered.

"Good. And you have us now, too." She winked. "Us time freaks gotta look out for each other."