After only a few days of sitting on the bare floor, Melmarc was growing accustomed to it. There was a part of him that considered the possibility that he was not actually growing accustomed to it. There was always the likelihood that his instincts that led him to sleeping on the ground were still a part of him.

  Uncle Dorthna had said that he needed therapy but nothing more on the matter.

  Melmarc sighed, staring out at the night sky. Since he’d become Gifted, a lot of things had been changing for him. In truth, he hadn’t expected much to change was he became Gifted. He had expected the only difference to be in his abilities. Born to two Gifted parents, he had expected life to be easy to navigate. But here he was, getting into a fight with a seemingly all-powerful uncle who was, in fact, not a Delver as he had been led to believe.

  You can add post-traumatic stress disorder to your array of achievements, he thought with a mocking chuckle.

  Then there was his newfound social life. It had been almost nonexistent before, bundled down to just him, Delano and Eroms. Now, it was definitely nonexistent. Speaking to none of his friends since coming back, his entire life had been nothing but one big rollercoaster.

  And tomorrow you’re going back to Brooklyn.

  Movement caught Melmarc’s attention and he turned his head. All he found was a simple flower undulating in the midnight breeze. It was a small thing, a simple thing, a gentle thing.

  For a moment, Melmarc was caught in the simplicity of its action—in its ability to just be. It was something he could no longer do, apparently. He was no longer allowed to just be, just being could lead to terrible outcomes. Melmarc wasn’t sure it had been Uncle Dorthna’s plan, but now there was a small part of him that was afraid of just being.

  Tonight the moon hung low in the sky. It cast a pale, silver light over his mother’s garden, turning the simple leaves into glimmering silhouettes. A soft breeze strolled amongst the garden, a gentle companion of the midnight Melmarc found himself sitting within. It, too, it seemed, had come to witness the garden. Or perhaps it had come to pick at his thoughts.

  Unlike most times, the garden seemed to stretch endlessly tonight, a tapestry of vibrant flowers and simple green plants with nothing unique about them. Melmarc had always wondered why his mother planted flowers that didn’t seem to play any role in the garden. Almost all the flowers were beautiful, displaying their grandeur in their different colors. There were roses, purple hibiscuses, sunflowers, jasmine, some kind of purple fern-like plant with a name that Melmarc couldn’t remember.

  Once upon a time, he’d asked his mother if the boorish green plants somehow served to enrich the soil or at least do something useful for the ecosystem. Her answer had simply been ‘no.’ They were just plants planted as all the other plants in the garden.

  Why did she plant boring plants in a beautiful garden, Melmarc had asked.

  “Because I can,” his mother had answered.

  In the garden’s seemingly endless existence tonight, and despite the boring flowers that tried to taint its beauty, it was still beautiful. Even now, it looked untouched by time. No one would be able to tell that once upon a time a man had blown through the entire place almost killing the woman of the house as he took the entire place apart in their fight.

  Still, there was something different about the garden tonight. Melmarc watched it with a discerning eye, with eyes gifted to him by his right as an [August Intruder]. He watched the flow of mana in the place. He watched each particle bounce about in the midnight air. They settled on the plants and flowers like insects in search of some kind of pollination. Vibrant and colorful in their own right, they gave the garden a kind of harmony that Melmarc could not place his finger on.

  They gave the garden a sense of peace. It almost brought a smile to Melmarc’s face as he watched it. Almost.

  “I guess it’s not peaceful enough,” Melmarc muttered, staring back up at the moon.

  Full as it was, the moon seemed to mock his sense of significance. As if telling him that no matter what he became in this life, no matter his designation, he would always be an infinitesimal part of existence. He would always be less than it.

  As his mind wrapped itself around a sense of poetry, his phone vibrated in his pocket, pulling Melmarc from his melancholy.

  Taking it out, he looked at the name on the screen and grimaced.

  The call was a long time coming. It was also a call he was supposed to be the one making not receiving.

  Answering the call, he placed it to his ear and assumed his most apologetic voice. “This humble one has committed a grave sin,” he said. “Tell him his penance and he shall obey and comply with it with immediate alacrity.”

  A smile touched his lips as a female voice came back from the other end.

  “Melly, what have I told you about people who refer to themselves in the third person?” it asked.

  Melmarc did his best to keep his smile from his voice. “That they are enamored in self-righteousness and they should learn their tenses and pronouns properly?”

  “Such a politically favorable way to put it, baby brother,” Ninra said. “But if I’m not mistaken, I think I called them foolish.”

  “No,” Melmarc corrected emphatically. “You called them annoying.”

  “And only foolish people annoy me.”

  “Name one.”

  “Tar’arkna,” she said without missing a beat.

  Melmarc paused. “Fair point.”

  “Good. Now, would ‘this one’ like to know his punishment?”

  “Maybe?” Melmarc wasn’t so sure he was ready for what Ninra was going to give him as a punishment.

  The last time something like this had happened, his punishment had been ten video calls lasting no less than an hour. A video call a day. When Ark had found out about it, he had been full of laughter. He’d gone the extra mile of asking what they always talked about.

  “Nothing, actually,” Melmarc had told him while Ninra had been on the video call. “Sometimes she introduces me to her friends. Sometimes she just goes about her day while I stay on her reading table and listen to her talk about cake recipes.”

  Melmarc could still remember the look on Ark’s face when he had told him. Ark would not be caught dead indulging his sister in listening to something as Ninra-like as cake recipes.

  “What happened, Mel?” his sister asked after a moment of silence. Her voice was heavy with worry. “You went for your mentorship program and then I heard nothing from you. the next thing I know, mom is calling me, asking if I’ve heard from you.”

  Melmarc winced just thinking about how worried his sister would’ve been.

  “Ark told me that you didn’t have a phone,” his sister continued, “so I understood why you didn’t call me. Then I hear you went on some kind of rampage and fought with Uncle Dorthna?”

  Melmarc’s lips pressed themselves into a nervous line. “In my defense,” he said, very cautiously, “it was more of a beat down than a fight.”

  “I see. And how many blows did this [August Intruder] land on his all-powerful uncle?” she asked mockingly.

  Even with her mocking tone, Melmarc knew better than to not answer.

  “No idea,” he said. “But when I woke up there was some pain in his side.”

  At the end of his words, he was met with a very surprising level of silence. It was deep, stretching over a handful of seconds.

  “What do you mean some pain in his side?” she asked, a little worried. “Did Uncle Dorthna tell you that he was in pain?”

  Melmarc shook his head before remembering that it was a phone call not a video call.

  “Not really,” he answered. “It’s just an [August Intruder] thing. It allows me to feel other people’s pain—wait, how did you know I’m an [August Intruder]?”

  Melmarc remembered very clearly that he had not told her because he had gotten the designation in the portal and hadn’t spoken to her since then.

  Thinking about it made him feel a little worse.

  “Mel,” his sister said in a soft voice.

  “Yes, Ra.”

  “I’ll knock you on the head,” she snapped at him. “What have I told you about calling me Ra? I am not some Egyptian sun god.”

  Melmarc smiled at the slight drop in tension. He had started calling his sister ‘Ra’ when he’d learnt of the Egyptian sun god from his uncle Dorthna at a young age. Back then she had been more than adamant on not being called the name and he had been more than eager to obey. Now, he had only used the name in hopes of getting this type of reaction out of her.

  “You have my deepest apologies, Nin,” he said.

  “Good boy.” There was a pause before his sister spoke again. “Now, let’s try that one more time. Mel?”

  “Yes, Nin.”

  “That you have chosen not to talk to me does not mean that I have not been talking to the rest of my family members. You just chose to be the rebellious one this time.”

  Melmarc looked up at the moon once more, feeling genuinely bad. He really should’ve called her the first chance he got. Personally, he could’ve blamed Ark. He’d been asking him to call Ninra so that he could speak to her, and he had been more than happy to refuse. But Melmarc knew that it was nothing more than an excuse. Ninra would simply ask him what happened to Uncle Dorthna’s phone, or their mom’s phone, or their dad’s phone.

  “How are you?” his sister asked, her voice soft, gentle. “I know you’ve been through a lot.”

  Melmarc’s smile was weak. His first instinct was to lie, to tell her that he was fine. But he and Ninra had never worked that way. Honestly speaking, he could say the same for him and Ark. The only difference between Ninra and Ark was that when he told Ark how he really felt when he was in a bad state, Ark simply listened and nodded and found a way to let him know that he would be alright without actually saying the words. Ninra, on the other hand, tried to help.

  So, like he always did, Melmarc told her the truth.

  “Uncle Dorthna says that I need therapy.”

  “That’s deep, since Uncle Dorthna hates therapy,” Ninra mused.

  “Therapists,” Melmarc corrected. “Uncle Dorthna hates therapists and our form of therapy. He says therapy is supposed to work differently.”

  “I’m sure he did,” Ninra said, a sound popping up from her end of the call as if something had fallen down.

  Melmarc heard his sister curse under her breath, nothing vulgar or profane, not really. Then he heard her sigh as if in acceptance.

  “You good?” he asked.

  “Yea,” she muttered dismissively. “I just broke my favorite cup… Honestly, I think it’s a good thing. I’ve been trying to hate the cup but I just can’t hate it. It’s been driving me mad.”

  Stolen novel; please report.

  Melmarc frowned as his brows drew together in remembrance. He knew his sister’s favorite cup. It was a cup that had always come home with her.

  “The one Stash gave you?” he asked.

  There was a short silence before Ninra answered. “Yes, that one.”

  “And is there a reason you’re trying to hate it?”

  “Because Stash and I aren’t talking anymore,” she said with a tired sigh.

  That was surprising. Stash was Ninra’s friend who—according to her—was not her boyfriend. In a better explanation, he was a good friend who had become something of an ‘almost boyfriend’. As much as Melmarc would like to say that he didn’t understand what that meant, he was a teenager who also knew people like Ark and Delano. He knew what an ‘almost boyfriend’ was.

  Ergo, this was a topic to thread on very lightly.

  “What happened?” he asked.

  “Switch to video?” Ninra asked, instead of answering.

  Melmarc looked around. The night wasn’t bright enough for a video call but it was bright enough to enjoy the flowers of the garden and the gentle breeze. It was bright enough to count the stars as countless as they were and flip off the moon for being so grand about itself.

  “Alright,” he answered. “Let me just go inside and—”

  “Wait, you’re outside?” his sister asked, interrupting his rising motion. “It’s one o’clock in the morning, Mel. Why are you outside?”

  Melmarc shrugged. “The moon looks pretty tonight.”

  “Poetic, too,” Ninra said, surprised. “If you were sitting down and you just got up, sit back down.”

  Melmarc paused, almost sitting back down. “Why? I thought you wanted a video call?”

  “I can’t remember the last time I spoke to poetic Mel. And if you’re outside this late at night, it must be important. We’ll have our video call tomorrow or something.”

  “I won’t be home tomorrow,” Melmarc said. “Mum’s taking me back to Brooklyn where I did my mentorship program. We’re going to pick my stuff up.”

  “Oh, yeah, I heard about that.” Ninra sounded a little satisfied. “She’s also going to have a few words with your mentor about what happened. Hopefully she punishes her sufficiently.”

  That worried Melmarc. “I hope she isn’t going to…”

  “Calm down, Mel. Mum’s punishing her not beating her up. No one’s going to be harmed.”

  Melmarc knew of one person he would like to be harmed, though. He refused to allow David Swan to go unharmed, and the harm had nothing to do with being punished. David Swan would be punished, but he would also be harmed. It was non-negotiable.

  Sighing, Melmarc sat back down on the back patio. “So why are you and Stash not talking anymore? What did he do?”

  “He moved to Afghanistan.”

  Melmarc paused. He wasn’t sure what he had been expecting but that was not it. “Isn’t that place popular for training American Gifted?”

  “It is.”

  Going to be trained was the only popular reason American Gifted went there. The country had some kind of agreement with Afghanistan that comprised of sending their military Gifted there to train.

  “But Stash isn’t Gifted,” Melmarc pointed out. “And he’s not sixteen… unless he’s been secretly hiding his age.”

  “Hardy-ha-ha,” Ninra laughed, mirthless. “Stash wasn’t Gifted because he told me that he was not Gifted.”

  Melmarc pressed his lips together in disappointment. “He lied.”

  “Like the thinly veiled scum that he is,” Ninra said with quite the level of venom in her voice. “Apparently, Stash is a B-rank [Saboteur].”

  The [Saboteur] class wasn’t a very popular class. It wasn’t rare or unique in any way. It was simply not popular. The class was almost like the [Rogue] class, except it wasn’t commonly combat savvy. Every now and again someone popped up with a way to use the class in a combat situation, but that too was rare.

  The [Saboteur] class was known popularly for rigging already existing things. A [Saboteur] was a smooth opposition to the [Crafter] class. If a [Crafter] could make something beautiful that worked beautifully, a [Saboteur] was your best chance of getting the creation to go boom when operating.

  The problem people had with the class was that no one naturally wanted things to be destroyed in a technical manner. And that was mostly all the class was good for. There were places that used those with the [Saboteur] class differently, though. There were [Saboteurs] who put their mind to using their skills differently. If there was a way to take advantage of a system that was put in place, they could do it.

  If Melmarc remembered correctly, there were historical events of people with the class coming together to topple Gifted governments and the like.

  “Did he go to train on how to be a spy or something?” Melmarc asked.

  His sister didn’t say anything immediately. It was as if she was taking her time to think about it.

  “Oh,” she said finally. “Sorry about that. I’m just here shaking my head like there’s something wrong with me, totally forgot that this isn’t a video call.”

  “I could always just go inside, Nin,” Melmarc reminded her, meaning it. The moon, stars, and garden accompanied by the night air were not beautiful enough.

  “Sit your ass back down, Mel.”

  Melmarc’s lips tilted up in a half-smile. “So, he didn’t go to learn how to be a spy?”

  “No idea. I kind of tuned him out when he told me that he was Gifted.” Ninra sighed. “I kind of lost my cool and he accused me of hating the Gifted. ’Said it was the reason he never told me the truth to begin with. Why does everyone think I hate the Gifted and think I’m better than them. I just don’t want to be Gifted.”

  “Everyone wants to be Gifted, Nin,” Melmarc said simply. “When someone like you is happy not being Gifted and doesn’t want to be, people get confused. When you’re comfortable and happy to be different, people start to look at it as pride. They start to think that you’re not really happy being yourself. They think you’re happy because you think you’re better than them. They start to project, to blame you for their insecurities.”

  “Blame me?”

  “Yes.” Melmarc nodded. “The Gifted start to think that you don’t want to be them because you’ve deluded yourself into thinking you’re better than them because you can’t accept that you’re worse. They assume that you mask your hate—because hate is a good way to usurp envy—with pride in what you are.”

  “And the non-Gifted?”

  Melmarc shrugged. “You’ve accomplished the one thing that they could not.” He looked up at the moon in the sky, remembering a time when he had not been Gifted. “Because of this, accepting that you are genuine means that they are weak. They can live with their envy because it is normal. Failing did not make them weak; it made them normal.” He sighed without knowing. “Now that you stand in front of them in success, to accept it is to accept that they are weak not normal, because your existence says that it is not normal to fail. In order to not be weak, you have to be the odd one. You have to be lying about your comfort in what they deem as mediocrity.”

  “I am the bad guy because I’m different,” Ninra mused. “Because I’m happy and comfortable being different.”

  Melmarc shrugged. “In a manner of speaking.”

  “This,” Ninra said, “this right here, Mel, is why I like poetic Mel.”

  Shaking his head, Melmarc snorted at the comment. But he was smiling.

  “You know I don’t hate the Gifted, right, Mel?” his sister said.

  “Of course I do,” Melmarc answered, it was a no brainer. “You just don’t want to be Gifted. Have I asked why you don’t want to be Gifted before?”

  “Yes. But ask it again since I’m sure you’ve forgotten.”

  That was funny because Melmarc had actually forgotten. It must’ve been a long time ago, and her answer must have been difficult to accept.

  “Why don’t you want to be Gifted, Nin?”

  “Because I’m happy with who I am, Mel,” Ninra answered simply. “I’ve always been. I’m happy with being simple, with having to fall asleep because my stamina is not seemingly endless. But do you want to know the reason I think I really enjoy not being Gifted the most.”

  “What?”

  “It’s Uncle Dorthna,” Ninra answered with a chuckle. “You should see the look on his face anytime we’re talking about being Gifted. He looks at me like I’m some terrifying calculous problem that can’t be solved because it makes no sense, like the equation itself is wrong. It’s hilarious. But ultimately, I don’t want to be Gifted because I just like being me. If it’s not broken, don’t fix it.”

  Melmarc nodded. “True enough.”

  “Anyway, Stash thought I hated Gifted more because of how angry I was with him. I find it funny that he couldn’t see that my problem was with him lying to me. Why do men do that? I didn’t like that he’d been lying to me. Why did he think he had to lie to me?”

  “People do the strangest things for the strangest reasons,” Melmarc answered. “He probably thought you wouldn’t be his friend if you found out that he was Gifted.”

  “What of when he found out that my parents are Gifted and you and Ark wanted to be Gifted?” she asked, her voice breaking a little.

  Melmarc frowned. He didn’t like hearing the hurt in Ninra’s voice. Worse, he had to explain why Stash had done what he had done. It made it sound as if he was defending the fool.

  Careful now, Melmarc thought, reminding himself to keep his bias out of the conversation.

  “Mel?” his sister’s voice interrupted his thought. This time, he didn’t just hear the pain in it, he felt it.

  It was as if something had reached into his chest and was crushing his heart. He couldn’t put a name to the pain. What he knew, though, was that he had the overwhelming urge to cry.

  “He probably couldn’t tell you because of this,” he said, forcing the words out. He was hating Stash, right now. but he was hating him a little too deeply. The emotion felt like a tangled mess, as if Stash had betrayed his trust in him, his love for him. His…

  Melmarc’s frown deepened. He was feeling Ninra’s pain, he realized. Understanding it. He really didn’t like the concept of pain that Uncle Dorthna had told him that he now had.

  “Because of this?” Ninra asked, flabbergasted.

  “Because when he found out that you might not hate the Gifted, he probably felt that telling you that he was Gifted was going to make you hate him for lying.”

  “I hate him for lying,” Ninra said, very harshly. “I hate him so much. Him and his broken mug cup that says ‘greatest pseudo psychologist alive’.”

  “I know, Nin.”

  On the other end of the phone, his sister sniffled. “He asked me to go with him, though. ’Said we could start a life together. I could transfer.”

  “Do you want to?”

  Ninra laughed. “No. I have plans, Mel. They don’t include transferring to Afghanistan. Definitely not for a guy that has been lying to me about something important for so long.”

  A sudden thought came to Melmarc and he felt the need to ask it. “Would you be willing to marry a Gifted?”

  “Why not?” his sister asked. “I’ll just be hesitant to marry a Delver. I’m not sure I want to be that woman that sits down in the office or at home wondering if today is the day I get the knock on my door with some guy or lady telling me how brave my husband was before he lost his life.”

  Melmarc hesitated slightly. There was a part of him that understood it. Their parents went on Delves that lasted a long time. But as much as he understood it, he did not truly appreciate it. Their parents always came back, after all. Their parents were powerful Delvers. Melmarc didn’t think it had ever crossed his mind often that his parents might not come back.

  “It worries you that much, does it?” he asked.

  “More than people know.”

  Now, Melmarc was tired of the night air. Getting up, he turned and opened the back door of the house. It opened into the kitchen, and he walked it. Turning on the light, he took in the spotless kitchen. Their mother had made sure that Ark had cleaned every nook and cranny before going to bed.

  Standing in the illuminated kitchen, he locked the back door and switched the call to a video call. He stood there for a while, staring at a video of himself as the call prompted his sister to switch.

  A moment later, Melmarc’s phone screen was filled with Ninra’s face. Her sharp eyes were slightly dull, rheumy from shed tears. Her hair was a mess, but it was to be expected of a bed head since she was lying down. Her cheeks were slightly flushed, and she had bags under her eyes. She looked like someone who hadn’t gotten a good night’s sleep in a while.

  She looked like a little mess, if he was being honest.

  She gave him a sheepish look and Melmarc smiled at her. His sister looked a lot like his mother right now, down but not out. Even in her sad eyes there was some touch of determination. A part of the world had let her down but she wasn’t done.

  “You really didn’t like that he lied to you, did you?” he said sadly. It showed on her face.

  Ninra somehow sniffled and chuckled at the same time. “I’m a mess, huh.” She wiped at non-existent tears. “Do I really look that bad?”

  “Not really,” Melmarc said. “You look tired. Funny enough, you still somehow manage to look beautiful. It must be mom’s genes.”

  That got a laugh out of her. “More like dad’s genes,” she objected, rolling her eyes sassily. “Dad’s the handsome one in the relationship.”

  Melmarc had never been able to see it.

  “You understand beauty better than I do. If you say the giant is the handsome one, then he has to be. Anyway—”

  “There you are.” Ark walked into the kitchen, interrupting Melmarc. “Have you seen my comic of…” he looked from Melmarc to the phone. “On a call?”

  Melmarc nodded. “Ninra’s on the other end.”

  “Aren’t you too old to be reading comic books by this time of the night, Ark?” Ninra asked.

  Ark ignored her. “Maybe I left the comic in Nin’s room.”

  Then he turned and walked back out of the kitchen.

  “You better not go in my room, Ark!” Ninra warned as he left.

  “He’s gone,” Melmarc informed her.

  “I thought I locked my room before I left.”

  “Ark knows how to pick a lock.”

  Ninra groaned. “I swear Uncle Dorthna was irresponsible for teaching a child how to pick a lock.”

  That got a raised brow reaction from Melmarc. “I learnt how to pick a lock as a child, too.”

  “I know. It doesn’t mean Uncle Dorthna was any less irresponsible.”

  Melmarc raised both brows. “You taught me how to pick a lock when I was a child.”

  Ninra paused. “Oh.”

  “Exactly.”

  “Well… in my defense, you were a responsible child, so I wasn’t very irresponsible.”

  Ark hurried back into the kitchen suddenly and moved over to Melmarc’s side. Melmarc tilted the phone slightly so that Ark and Ninra could see each other.

  “Hi, Nin,” Ark said. Then he leaned forward, peered down at the screen as if he was trying to see something.

  “What?” Ninra asked, defiant.

  Ark’s answer was simple. “You look like shit.”

  Ninra gasped dramatically.

  “Do you go around terrorizing people with that look?” Ark went on, smiling. “At this point I’m going to advocate for putting some make up on. Do you have any on hand? Or at least a fine girl that I can use to clean my eyes of all this ugly you’ve stained it with?”

  “Oh, fuck you,” Ninra laughed.

  “I’d say a lady shouldn’t use such vulgar words,” Ark shot back. “But that only applies when talking to a lady, which you are not.” He looked up at Melmarc. “If Spitfire comes looking for me, let him know I’m in Nin’s room.”

  With that, he left again, leaving Melmarc wondering how he was going to explain to Spitfire that Ark was in Nin’s room if he saw the demon. How was he even going to know if the demon was looking for Ark and not just wandering about.

  “You know what?” Ninra said suddenly, drawing Melmarc’s attention.

  He looked down at her. “What?”

  “Stash was right, I hate Gifted. Just the [Demon King] one, though. Remind me to put make up on him and take a picture when I get back, okay?”

  Melmarc nodded. “Sure thing, Nin. Sure thing.”

  Just then, Spitfire strolled into the kitchen on all fours. It looked around first, then its eyes settled on Melmarc. Melmarc could’ve sworn that there was a question in its eyes.

  Was Ark actually running from it?

  After a while, it turned around and left the kitchen. Melmarc opened his mouth to tell the demon that Ark was in Ninra’s room but just couldn’t bring himself to say the words.

  To him, it felt like telling your pet where to find your brother.

  Right now, being Gifted felt very abnormal.

  “Alright,” Ninra said. “I should leave you so you can go to sleep. You’ve got a big day tomorrow, after all.”

  Melmarc nodded. “Thanks, Nin.”

  “Do you know if you’re taking a flight or portalling in?”

  “No idea. Maybe a flight? Mom didn’t say anything about uncle Fendor.”

  Ninra looked confused. “Uncle Dorthna doesn’t want to portal you guys out?”

  “Hold up!” Melmarc’s jaw dropped. “Uncle Dorthna has a portal skill?”

  Ninra pursed her lips in dismay. It seemed like he wasn’t supposed to know about it. Rather than answer, she waved cheerily at him.

  “Bye, Mel. And I did not say anything about Uncle Dorthna and portals. If anyone asks me, I'll deny it."

  Melmarc shook his head as she cut the call and a blank screen stared back at him.

  Uncle Dorthna has a portalling skill.

  Who woulda thunk it.