I sat on the pristine marble floor, my back against the wall and my knees pulled to my chest. It was difficult to find a section that didn’t have water from the vases Rosalie broke.

  What was I supposed to do now? Hide here until Rosalie gets back? I guess my room would be more comfortable. Isolation didn’t sound appealing, but it was too scary everywhere else. Maybe I’d have enough money saved up to stay at a hotel in town? But how would I explain my pink eyes? Then again, Rosalie had yellow eyes and pointed ears, and nobody seemed to question that.

  I pushed myself off the floor, deciding this was the last place I should be. I was surprised to find Aidan waiting for me outside the office. Crap, had he been waiting for me all this time?

  “D-Did you learn anything?” Aidan asked.

  I was about to reply when I remembered Rosalie must have kicked Aidan out for a reason. Was I not supposed to tell him? “No,” I answered. It was more or less the truth. I didn’t learn anything that could help us.

  “You’re lying,” he said, taking me by surprise. He sighed and began again before I could think of anything to respond with. “If you can’t tell me, you can just say so…”

  It was my turn to sigh. “What I learned is so useless it may as well be nothing.”

  “It had to be worth something if Rosalie kicked me out…” he muttered.

  “Oh? You would’ve rather stayed with Rosalie longer?” I smirked.

  “I-I never said that!” The look of horror on his face was priceless. “W-What are we gonna do now?” he asked, suddenly changing the subject away from Rosalie.

  “We?” I raised an eyebrow. “I’m leaving this place. I’m going to stay in town until this blows over.”

  “Y-You can’t leave!” He grabbed my arm so tight I couldn’t help but wince. Why was he so desperate for me to stay? “P-Please don’t leave me…” His voice was so soft I could barely hear it. He was so scared…

  “Then why are you staying? You could always stay with your sister.”

  “A-And risk my magic getting out of hand again? I’m not putting her in that kind of danger…”

  “Then you can come with me. I don’t mind sharing a room with you.”

  He blushed. Oh crap. I knew I worded that wrong.

  “W-We’d have separate beds!” I said a little too loudly. Thankfully, nobody was around us.

  “I-I know that!!!” His blush deepened. Why do I keep talking! “W-We’re just going to abandon everyone else here? What about Finn?” He thankfully changed the subject.

  “We can bring him with.” I shrugged. “Since when have you cared about him?”

  “W-Well, I heard that he’s locked himself in his room since last night… Aqua told me so this morning before you woke up. Doesn’t seem like he wants to be near anyone…”

  His mind-reading must have…

  Without thinking, I sprinted to the elevator and pulled the lever for the floor his dorm was on. I could see Aidan rushing to catch up with me, but the door closed before he could get in.

  I tapped my foot impatiently as the elevator seemed to take unusually long to get to its destination. It was probably my perception. Once it opened, I rushed to Finn’s door and knocked.

  No response.

  “Finn, I know you’re in there. Let me in!” I demanded.

  To my surprise, the door clicked open. I opened the door to find it immediately got stuck on something, opening just enough for me to squeeze through.

  His room was a lot neater than I expected. Then again, the only two teenage boys’ rooms I had been in besides Aidan’s were Matt’s and one of his friends’. Both had clothes and various items littered across their floors and hanging from their dressers.

  Finn’s room had a bed with dark blue bedding. Unlike mine, it wasn’t a canopy. To the left was a window with an easel in front of it. He likes to paint? On the left wall was a black upright piano. He can play the piano too? Just how many talents does this guy have? To the right was a desk just like where mine was, along with a dresser. All of the furniture was a deep brown chestnut color, unlike my pristine white.

  And then I realized what the door had gotten stuck on. Finn was scrunched up on the floor behind the door — his hands grabbing at his hair.

  “Finn…” I frowned as I crouched down next to him.

  No response.

  I stood up to close the door, and he immediately grabbed my wrist in a death grip.

  “I’m just going to close the door,” I explained. He seemed satisfied with this answer and released me. With the door closed, I sat beside him on the floor. “You hear thoughts more clearly, don’t you?”

  He nodded. “I can hear everyone’s in the manor. The closer they are to me, the louder they get… I can barely distinguish their thoughts from mine.” He sounded so sad and desperate. Here I was, my magic fully awakened, and I was still powerless to help him outside of silencing my own thoughts.

  I found myself wrapping my arms around his curled-up body. He jolted for a moment before relaxing. His muscles were a lot stronger than I had anticipated… But what else should I have expected? He was a lot more muscular than Matt. Gosh, I’m glad he can’t read my thoughts…

  I released him and noticed his cheeks had reddened. Not him too!

  The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  “Why did you run after Zephyr the other day?” I asked, desperately trying to get his cheeks back to their normal shade.

  His eyebrows narrowed, and I could tell this wasn’t going to go well. “There was something he was desperately trying to hide from me. The amount of self-control he has over his thoughts is unbelievable. I thought if I could catch up to him, he would eventually falter and I could learn what he was hiding, but I lost him.”

  “You said you can hear everyone in the manor’s thoughts now, right? So you should be able to hear his.”

  “Technically, yes. But I have sixty other thoughts speaking in my head at once. There’s no way I could deduce which are his, let alone decipher what they are. Everyone’s voices overlap. Occasionally, I can make out a word or two, but the rest is unintelligible.”

  I couldn't imagine what he was going through. I thought I would go mentally insane if I heard that many voices in my head at once. And yet, here he was, still managing to have a full conversation with me. To think I was just going to abandon him! I needed to end his misery, and fast.

  “That… sounds terrifying, actually,” I mumbled. “So if I find Zephyr, I might learn something?”

  “That depends on if he wants to tell you.”

  “I’ll make him tell me. I have magic now. I’m not going to go easy on him.” I stood up, getting ready to leave to find Zephyr, but Finn had grabbed my wrist again.

  “Um… Thank you… For checking in on me. It was nice being able to talk to someone without hearing their thoughts blazingly loud…” He had a sheepish grin, though he wouldn't look right at me.

  “No problem.” I smiled back.

  I left Finn’s room, and to my utter shock, Maverick was standing there in the hallway.

  "Oh, now you decide you want to talk?" I crossed my arms, rolling my eyes.

  "I came to check on Finn—"

  I stepped in front of him before he had the chance to step around me. "He's not doing so great, and I don't think talking to you will help." Or maybe it would. He wouldn't hear Maverick's thoughts. But I was salty, so I’d decided it wouldn't help.

  "Wow, someone's in a bad mood," he muttered.

  "Why wouldn't I be? This place is a death trap with everyone's magic going out of control, not to mention Sylvis is missing. And worst of all, you don't seem to care!"

  “Sylvis is missing?" He looked genuinely surprised. Did he... Did he not think to check with her about all of this? He really needed to get his priorities straight.

  “Can you teleport around and see if you can find her? Rosalie wanted to check some of the other continents, but teleportation isn't really her thing, as you know."

  He shrugged, closed his eyes, and… reopened them? “Wherever she is, I can’t reach her. It’s almost as if she’s in another dimension? Another universe? And I don’t have the power to go there.”

  “How did Sylvis end up in another dimension?!” I panicked. “This is bad! Well… If she ended up in another dimension, she can proooobably bring herself back?”

  “Unless she was kidnapped. I hear some people at the Magus Historia have powers that rival hers.”

  “And you think they could’ve kidnapped Sylvis?” I asked.

  “Possibly. Either that or she left on her own accord.” He shrugged. "Of course, I could be misinterpreting everything and she's still somewhere within our universe, just out of reach."

  "Out of reach? Where would that even be? Underground? Inside a mountain? Under the sea of clouds?" I blinked rapidly, trying to think of scenarios that fit the description.

  "That, or something more spiritual..." He trailed off. Spiritual? Somehow, I got the feeling he wouldn't elaborate.

  "What do we do in the meantime?" I asked. If finding Sylvis was a lost cause, what else could we even do?

  "We?" He raised an eyebrow. "I don't remember agreeing to help."

  "Of course you're going to help." I clenched my fists at my sides in agitation. "If we resolve the issue here, maybe we'll find a clue as to where Sylvis went. I know you better than to know you would abandon Sylvis so easily."

  "Who said I'm abandoning her?" He smirked in a way that told me I wouldn't like what was coming next. "You and Rosalie seem to have the situation under control. I'll just leave it to you two."

  "Why are you so against helping anyone?!" I shouted. He didn't want to help me with magic, he didn't want to help find Sylvis, and he definitely didn't want to help the people suffering from their magic going out of control!

  "I'm not against helping others, I just don't see why I should waste my effort when the two of you have things under control. I'd much rather spend my time... observing the situation. You see, this is the kind of chaos that I live for."

  I froze where I stood. Did he lack any and all empathy...?

  I summoned a sword — the same sword he had me use during our duel last night. I aimed for his throat, my eyes unable to make contact with his. My head was tilted down, and I could barely see through my bangs. "If you know how to stabilize the ether, you will tell me."

  The sword was trembling in my hand. Nobody would take me seriously, least of all Maverick.

  He grabbed the blade of the sword, steadying it. With his other hand, he harshly grabbed my chin, pushing it up and forcing me to make eye contact with him.

  "Tell me," he began. "If I were to stabilize the ether, your magic would likely disappear too, lowering your chances of returning home down to zero. Would you still want me to do it?"

  I paused, fully considering the weight of each option. This could be our only hope of finding Sylvis. If I were to decline, would everyone else be forced to suffer endlessly because of me? But was this really the only option? Was there a way to find Sylvis without affecting the ether? And once Sylvis returned and probably normalized the ether, my magic would still be gone anyway... At least if I helped stabilize the ether by convincing Maverick, I could maybe convince her to still let me return home.

  Okay, the answer was becoming more and more obvious.

  "Yes," I answered confidently, retrieving the blade from Maverick's hand and slitting it in the process.

  He looked at me with widened eyes. He obviously hadn't expected me to choose that answer. "Fine. If you're so desperate to make yourself a martyr, I'll help. Aidan."

  "Aidan?" I raised an eyebrow as I dissolved the sword into sparkles. It was very satisfying.

  “He has the lowest amount of ether in the manor. If we funneled some of the ether into him, maybe we could get rid of some of it. Of course, he won’t be able to tolerate all of it.”

  “I guess it’s worth a shot? But how do we do that?” I asked. "If people could funnel ether, I imagine they would’ve taken advantage of the situation and done so already."

  “Only Ethereals can manipulate ether. It’s in the name.” Huh.

  “Okay. And um... Thank you," I said earnestly before speeding off to the elevator. I looked back while waiting for the door to open and noticed Maverick followed me. “You’re coming too?” I asked.

  “Why wouldn’t I? You need my help, don’t you?” He raised an eyebrow in confusion.

  “I guess so.” It seemed like a stupid question to ask now that I thought about it. But… Maverick had never followed me anywhere in the past. He always just appeared whenever necessary, almost conveniently so.

  I really hoped this would work. It was terrifying watching everyone out of control. I hated that I had to step out of the way as the door opened and cautiously inspect it from a distance to ensure some tornado-sucking person wasn't inside. The sooner we fixed things, the better.

  The elevator came to a stop, and the door opened.

  Time to find Aidan.