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  Today I needed to start training again. If I wanted to return home, I needed to learn magic not just to gain Sylvis' approval, but to also hide my lack of aging. I would practice with or without Maverick — with or without Marge and Aidan. But I couldn't do anything without eating first.

  “Hey, Ella!” Aidan pulled up a chair next to me in the dining hall before offering a small wave.

  “Just you today?” I asked.

  He nodded. “Marge had something she needed to do this morning.”

  Right. I was the third wheel in this relationship. Part of me genuinely wondered if the two would date.

  “S-She would have come too, though!” His expression changed. Had I given away my annoyance? “S-She’s worried that you got the wrong impression… W-We’ve been so focused on training that we think we’ve forgotten to include you. I-I’m sorry.” He looked away.

  “You… noticed?” I asked, somewhat surprised.

  There was a time when Rose and Carol got into poetry together. Me, hating all things literature, declined their invitation to partake in the word weaving. For the next two weeks, it was as if the two had fallen off the grid outside of school, where they’d talk about their newfound hobby nonstop. Eventually, Rose became bored of poetry or found a new boyfriend, I don’t remember which, and everything was back to normal.

  “O-Of course.” Aidan frowned.

  "Thank you..." I mumbled just loud enough that I was sure he had heard me.

  Maybe I had judged them too soon. Making friends never came easy to me. Maybe it was because I didn't share many interests with other people, or maybe it was because I was a boring person to be around in general, I don't know.

  Right. If I was going to stay in this world, I needed to fulfill my half of the friendship and pull my weight.

  "S-So..." Aidan trailed off, awkwardly changing the subject. "What were you going to order?"

  "I always get the same thing for breakfast every day, but... I think I'm feeling eggs today. I'm going to order two eggs."

  "T-Two?!" Aidan's jaw dropped.

  "Is there something wrong with that...?" I stared back at him; his jaw was still very much agape.

  "I don't think I've ever seen anyone finish two... U-Unless their ether was severely depleted."

  Something told me these weren't normal eggs.

  "Okay, I'll just order one."

  We both put in our orders and chatted for a bit.

  "Have you learned how to use healing magic yet?" I asked, eager to learn if he had made any progress since I last tagged along. Marge had spent several days teaching in-depth lessons on how healing magic works. Of course, I still couldn't get it to work, but Aidan seemed to manage to get his to at least flicker. And hey, maybe he'd be able to teach me if he was able to figure it out!

  "I can heal scratches now. Look." He pointed to a scratch on my arm. Where had I gotten that from? Probably when Letheria dragged me against a piece of furniture in the manor. He placed his hand over the scratch, and within seconds, it disappeared.

  "Wow! I'd kill to be able to do that much..." I sighed.

  "And I'd kill to be an Ethereal." He shrugged. Ugh. He was still envious of that? I thought he, of all people, would understand how awful it is.

  Before I could reply back, our food arrived, and holy cow, what is this egg?! It was the size of an ostrich egg! In fact, it was still in its shell! The inside was cooked like a scrambled egg. How did they manage that? Cook the egg by itself and put it back in its shell? Why are we skimping on bowls now? Mmmm, I could go for a bread bowl...

  "A-Are all eggs this big?" I asked, shifting my gaze between Aidan and the egg. Come to think of it, I had seen several others eating this. I just assumed it was some sort of meal I had never heard of before.

  Aidan nodded. "Are they smaller in your world?"

  "Yeah... Like, not even half this size. Unless it's an ostrich."

  "O-Ostriches are... rare eggs?" He raised an eyebrow, trying to follow along.

  "No, they're birds that make big eggs. We usually only eat chicken eggs."

  "What's a chicken?"

  "Another bird." I sighed, trying not to lose my patience with him. It wasn't his fault that he wasn't used to animals on Earth.

  "S-Sorry..." he mumbled, and I instantly felt guilty.

  "Um... What animal did this egg come from?" I asked, trying to make him feel more useful.

  "Tupek. They only lay eggs while flying, so one person has to grab them by the neck while the other catches the egg. And then they make these high-pitched squeals when you hold them and— R-Right, it probably works the same way in your world—"

  "That's insane!" I shouted. "I think half of our farmers would have quit by now. I definitely would've."

  "You almost done?" Another person entered the conversation.

  "Maverick?!" I accidentally cracked the shell of the egg, resulting in the cooked portion spilling out onto the plate and table.

  "What? Why are you so shocked to see me? I still have to teach you magic, remember?" He stuck a finger in my eggs and licked it.

  "Never mind. I've lost my appetite." I pushed the plate away from the non-goopy side.

  “Bye…” I could faintly hear Aidan say as I was teleported away. Probably should’ve offered him a proper goodbye…

  “We’re going to find your Talent today.” Maverick crossed his arms, looking slightly more amused than he had the past few days.

  “How?” I asked, tilting my head to the side.

  “Wear these.” He handed me a pair of short black gloves. “They should be able to neutralize the magic in your hands, meaning any other part of your body should be able to use magic.”

  “Cool. Did you make these yourself?” I asked, sliding them on,

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  He shook his head. “Rosalie did.”

  “How is this supposed to help, exactly…?”

  “When you feel emotions, the first part of your body to react is your hands. We want to prevent that. Typically, your Talent should manifest whenever you’re scared—”

  “No… No, no, no, no, no. We’re not doing this again.” I slid the gloves off and threw them on the ground, but Maverick just teleported himself over and forcefully shoved them on my hands again.

  “Fine. We’ll go about this another way.” He snapped his fingers, and we ended up somewhere dark and likely indoors, as evidenced by the quietness and lack of wind. With another snap of his fingers, the light switched on, and I realized we were in the indoor arena.

  “I’m not fighting you,” I snapped.

  “Correct. You’re defending against me.” He beckoned me to follow him into the prep room. Once inside, I slipped a glove off to touch the statue, granting myself protection from what I assumed would be Maverick’s onslaught.

  Once back in the arena, Maverick summoned a sword covered in water.

  “Why water?” I asked.

  “Fire stings, ice freezes you in place, and lightning paralyzes you. Water merely increases the chance you’ll slip. Unless you want one of the other elements?” He smirked at me.

  I faked a smile back. “Water will be just fine.”

  Before I had time to process what was going on, Maverick lunged at me, and I just barely dodged in time. This was really happening…

  My heart began to race. I knew none of this was real — even if he wanted to hurt me, the barrier from the statue would protect me. Yet, something about being chased around with a sword was terrifying.

  What could my Talent be?

  Could I turn invisible? Nope, that didn’t seem to work. Or maybe it was more involved than just willing yourself to turn invisible. Could I shrink myself like Ernest? Eh… Even if that was the case, I didn’t want to relive that.

  But those were Talents normal people had. Surely an Ethereal would be able to do something more impressive than that?

  Maybe I could manipulate people in some way? No, that didn’t seem right either.

  “Think of what you’re good at. Sometimes people’s Talents reflect that,” Maverick said while sliding his sword under my armpit, narrowly missing. His movements were slower than when he fought against Finn, so I knew he wasn’t trying to hit me, which made my existing fear slowly start to dwindle. Has there been anything in your life that seemed to happen out of nowhere?”

  My hands. But obviously, that wasn’t what he was talking about. Think, Elaina! There was that one time the ice cream truck stopped in front of my house and seemingly waited for me to convince my mom to buy me ice cream despite the fact that we were still in the house… Yeah, I’ve got nothing.

  I tried several other powers. Growth, speed, teleportation; none of which I had.

  I grew tired and gave up, letting him hit me with his fake magical water sword. Crap, I forgot how much it still hurt.

  “Giving up already?” Maverick frowned at me, dissolving his sword into bubbles.

  “We’ve been at this for an hour…” I whined. “My legs hurt.”

  “…It hasn’t even been ten minutes.” He raised an eyebrow at me, looking both confused and concerned.

  “No way.” I shook my head. It definitely felt longer than that.

  “Even if we kept going, I doubt it would get us anywhere.” He sat down beside me, where I had collapsed into a sitting position upon being hit.

  “How did you first discover your Talent?” I asked, wondering if it could maybe help me. “Did you already know you had magic before then?”

  “Yeah.” His lips pursed into a thin line, obviously not fond of the memory. Maybe I shouldn’t have brought it up. “It was after I found out I was an Ethereal.”

  “And…?” I urged him to continue.

  “Rosalie found out about her Talent first. Turns out all those coincidences were her seeing the future,” he said, cleverly changing the subject.

  I had a feeling no matter how hard I pressed him, he wasn’t going to answer my initial question. I didn’t want to piss him off, so I asked more about Rosalie. “When did you two meet?”

  “Over a century ago. Are you always this nosy?” He didn’t look annoyed, but I couldn’t quite read him either.

  “I’m just trying to have a conversation and learn more about you. If you think this is some kind of interrogation, you can ask me something.”

  “You’re an open book. Anything else you’re not saying is probably too boring to say anyway.”

  “…What?!” My jaw dropped at his insult.

  “You’re not magical. Your world is boring. I don’t have any questions left to ask.”

  My blood boiled at how arrogant and self-centered he was. No wonder he didn’t have any friends! But he didn’t seem to want any either. Someone had hurt him in the past, and one day I’d find out who.

  “Anyway, my work here is done. Maybe now Sylvis will get off my ass.” With that, he teleported away.

  I hoped she didn't.

  I made my way back to the dining hall, hoping Aidan might have waited for me, but he wasn’t there. Then again, why would he be? Maybe Marge had finished…whatever she was doing, and they were by the fountains. I guess it wouldn’t hurt to check.

  “Hey, Ella! Haven’t seen you since— Whoa, okay, you’re mad at me.” Finn flinched back as I turned to look at him. Crap. Why were those my first thoughts?

  “L-Listen, about that… I’m not a womanizer like everyone says I am.” He turned away from me, blushing. He took a deep breath before turning back to me, my thoughts signaling him to continue. “I didn’t mean to come off as a jerk. I couldn’t hear your thoughts at the time.”

  “Huh?” I asked, confused. “I thought the whole point of your powers was that you couldn’t turn them off?”

  “It is. Though it also has its limits. If I’m in an area with a lot of people, it gets harder to hear anyone’s thoughts.”

  Suddenly, it clicked. His outgoing personality, the fact that he was constantly making and losing friends… It was because he was trying to surround himself with as many people as possible so he wouldn’t hear their thoughts!

  He blinked at me in surprise. “Even Aqua took a while to figure that one out.”

  “Maybe I’m just cooler.” I crossed my arms with a smirk. Could this be my Talent? Nah… I was playing myself up too much.

  “So… You’re not angry with me anymore?” He scratched at the corner of his mouth hesitantly.

  I shook my head. “I thought you were doing it on purpose. Turns out you were just having a dumb jock moment.”

  “Ouch…”

  “I’m kidding.” I smiled. “Do you happen to know where Aidan is?”

  “No, I haven’t seen him all day. Haven’t seen him much since that time we planted the pyrosnappers in Rosalie’s garden. Man, that seems like forever ago…”

  “Yeah… We really should spend more time together.”

  “We could also hang out more, just the two of us, m’lady.” He winked at me, causing me to nearly do a double-take.

  “M’lady?” I raised an eyebrow.

  “You’re an Ethereal, aren’t you? Practically equivalent to a princess, I’d bet.”

  “Are there any princesses in Meridia?” I asked, still trying to familiarize myself with how Meridian society worked.

  “Ah… Royalty works a bit differently here than it does in your world. Royalty refers to Alina and her direct descendants, half of whom possessed magic similar to an Ethereal. Most records indicate none of her children live, but there are a handful that suggest one or two might still be living.”

  “How many children did she have?”

  “Twelve.”

  I supposed that wasn’t such an unusual number when you consider some people from our own history had had over twenty.

  Royalty and Ethereals… Could Sylvis be one of those descendants? It would make a lot of sense.

  I shook my head, shaking the thought away. And from the corner of my eye, I could see Zephyr walking into the manor. Crap, I still hadn’t started that book…

  “You should get to it. He seems eager to hear your thoughts on it.” Finn smirked at me.

  “Crap!” I shouted as I ran to the elevator. I couldn’t disappoint him! Not when he carried everyone else’s expectations!

  On my way to the elevator, I stopped, lest I be seen by Marge, who was actually making an attempt to talk to Rosalie.

  “Uh, hi… I’m Marge, I just arrived here three seasons ago. I have future sight like you! Kind of… It’s like… a lamer version of yours.” Marge stumbled as she combed through her hair nervously.

  “Really?” Rosalie raised an eyebrow, crossing her arms in interest.

  “Whoa… You’re interested—” Marge started before probably realizing she said that out loud. “I mean, I can sense when something in the near future is gonna happen. Like when an acorn is gonna hit your head! Don’t worry, you’re safe from acorns right now. Oh, you’d probably know that…”

  “How interesting. I wasn’t aware there was anyone in this century who possessed a similar power to mine. Sixth Sense, I believe it's called.”

  “Wait, you’ve known other people with this power?” Marge paused. “Yeah, that makes sense.”

  “If you would like, I can teach you what they shared with me.”

  “Really?!”

  Rosalie nodded. “Come with me.”

  Maybe Rosalie wasn’t as scary as I thought. I was surprised she had a genuine interest in Marge, but also happy. It looked like her role model was everything she hoped she was.