“How wasyourevening?” Kallie asked, nudging me playfully.
“Pleasant,” Charlie responded. “Whatever you’re doing to Marcus’ cat probably isn’t fair.”
“Of course not. He loves it,” Kallie insisted. Rishi gave a yowl.
“Rishi!” Marcus called throughout the hall, somewhere up ahead of us. “Where’d he go…? Has anyone seen my cat?”
Marcus came out of the crowd. He halted when he saw Rishi in the baby carriage and Kallie pushing it around.
“Why are you torturing him?” Marcus asked. He reached out to lift Rishi from the carriage.
Kallie yanked it back. “Well, since Rishi is technically your twin brother, and I’m bonded to both of you, I think he’s half mine. Which means you have to share custody.”
“What? That’s ridiculous. He’smine,” Marcus said, and he tried to snatch Rishi away. Kallie snagged him from the carriage and held him tight.
“You should let Rishi choose,” I offered.
“How does Oberi decide who to be with?” Marcus demanded.
Whichever one of you is annoying me the least that day, Oberi said dryly, and she landed on the back of my chair.
“She goes back and forth depending on how she feels,” I said.
Marcus reached for Rishi again, but he clung to Kallie, swishing his tail and purring loudly.
“Traitor,” Marcus grumbled as we entered Hemlock’s classroom, sulking as we passed through the secret door.
We gathered around the round table with Takahashi, who was already waiting for us. Our professor wore a bright smile as he said, “It shows exceptional progress that the four of you managed to break the inferichite cuffs. Now that your powers are no longer bound, we should hone in on growing your demigod powers. I thought we should start with an assessment of what those could possibly be. We know Kallie has special abilities relating to time. If she can harness her powers to be able to go back in time, or even forward, we’ll have a better chance of beating the Warden.”
Kallie shifted in her seat and hugged Rishi closer. “I don’t know how. I only have so much access to my time powers. I can stop time, speed it up, and go forward, but the control I have over the whole thing is very limited. It seems to change day by day.”
“Perhaps you can only influence time on a minor scale, at the present moment you’re in,” Charlie suggested.
“No. I think Icango back in time,” Kallie said. “I’ve already done it once.”
“What? When?” Marcus nearly fell out of his chair.
Kallie stroked Rishi as she spoke. “Before the Darke Games, I told Ava about a strange vision I had as a child. I was playing with my brother at the palace, in the middle of the day, but during the vision, I was transported into some nighttime scene. I saw a woman with silver-blonde hair and blue wings. She was smiling at me, until the vision ended, and I was transported back to the parlor room with my brother. Up until now, the vision didn’t make any sense. But now I realize that I must’ve traveled back in time. I saw my birth mother… when she was alive.”
“That’s incredible,” I breathed.
“Yeah.” Kallie slouched in her chair. “Too bad I can’t figure out how to do it again. I don’t recall if anything prompted it, but I don’t think it took any energy out of me back then to time travel. Which is so weird, because I get exhausted when I experiment with my time abilities now.”
“There is a missing link to your time abilities that we aren’t yet aware of,” Takahashi said. “Once we discover it, it could mean access to a world of possibilities. In the meantime, we must contemplate what magic the rest of you may have.”
“How do we figure out what our powers are?” I asked.
“I think wemayhave an idea,” Takahashi stated. “From our research as the Demigod Guardians, we know that a demigod’s special magic is often linked to their more banal powers. If I were to theorize correctly, Charlie’s demigod abilities would most likely lie somewhere within the higher realms of Elf magic, while Marcus, as he has the mark of all five Casts of his coven, will be able to push the abilities of witch magic to its fullest.”
“I’ve been practicing,” Marcus said proudly. “I think I made a breakthrough with my Seer powers. I’ve been trying to read the Warden’s mind, but he’s somehow protected. I realized, what’s to stophimfrom using other Seers to spy on us through visions or mind reading? If he hasn’t been trying to read our minds already, then he’s surely searching for a Seer who can do it. I figure I can combine Seer magic with ward magic to protect our minds from other witches with mind-reading abilities.”
“Is it safe?” Charlie asked.
Marcus shrugged. “I guess we’ll find out. You’re my first test subject.”
Charlie hesitated, but he didn’t protest as Marcus approached him. It was important we blocked our minds from any magic that could be used against us, as long as we had the means. Marcus splayed his palm over Charlie’s forehead, and sparkling purple magic emitted from his hand.
Charlie tensed for a moment, before relaxing. “Did it work?”
