'A long talk' was an understatement. Bronte cancelled half her sessions simply to talk about different kinds of DNA, and he made her eat lunch with him, and he made her stay back for two hours after school. In short, he wasted a lot of Savi's time, forced her to cancel her study date with Cerulean without a reason because it was apparently 'top-secret information', leaving him thinking she'd found some new friend who she liked better than him.

Not that they got anywhere.

Bronte was silly for telling her not to jump to conclusions, because he sure did a lot of that. He even took into consideration that Keefe might have the DNA of a gremlin, which didn't seem to fit in with anything Savi knew about her father. She just sat there, open-mouthed, listening as Bronte listed different possibilities, each one more ridiculous than the first. Finally, she had to put her foot down. She told Bronte flat-out that listing all the animals in the Lost Cities and testing Sophie and Keefe for DNA was ludicrous and a waste of time.

"It's not a waste! We will then know what DNA you were built on!" Bronte snapped. "You do know that your father registered before we realized what Lady Gisela did to his DNA. That means that he and Sophie may actually be a bad match, have too many mixes of DNA... like I said, it could have been what caused William's illness. And you may have terminal illnesses as well. It'll be hereditary. And we'll have to stop you and your sister from having any children."

"Oh," said Savi. "That's it? No kids? Okay, that works."

Bronte looked at her a little oddly. "Savannah, someone would be very shocked if you tell him that you can't have any children."

Savi's mind instantly flashed to Cerulean, since he was the only male elf her age that she knew. "Nah, Cerulean's not interested in me."

Bronte sighed but didn't push it. "Fine, you may go. Your parents were already notified of your absence."

"If they hadn't been, I'd be pulling out your hair right now."

Bronte's eyes narrowed. "That wouldn't be wise."

"Of course it wouldn't, but who cares?"

Bronte let her go without any further argument, and she light leapt home only to find Sophie at the doorway with a very cross-looking Cerulean.

"Cerulean?" Savi asked uncertainly. "I thought I said I couldn't make it for..."

"You cancelled it," Cerulean said furiously. "You promised me you wouldn't."

She had. She'd given him hope too many times. She'd cancelled their study dates too many times to count, due to family messes, other accidents, and many other things. And he'd sat by patiently.

"It was..."

"Savi. This is what, the fifth time? Are you avoiding me? Have you been at someone else's house? Sophie doesn't know anything about it, apparently."

"Don't you know why I wasn't here?" Savi asked Sophie.

"No," Sophie said. "Keefe just hailed from work saying you'd be home late."

Savi sighed. She wished Keefe would tell Sophie why, but apparently Sophie hadn't bothered to ask.

"Cerulean..."

"I want an explanation," Cerulean demanded. Then his eyes took on a more pleading look. "Please. If you don't want to be friends with me, that's fine, just... tell me." She was pretty sure it wouldn't be fine, so it was a good thing that wasn't what was going on.

Savi heaved a sigh. "Come to my room."

Cerulean was feeling angry, hurt, worried, sad, confused and skeptical, emotions she'd wished she'd never feel from him. She brought him up to her bedroom and pushed some of her things aside, hiding her photographs behind a couple of boxes.

"Okay," said Savi. "I told you why I cancelled before, right?"

"Yeah," Cerulean agreed. "But... I wish you'd just told me instead of shutting me out."

"This time," Savi said, "it wasn't planned. I'm not supposed to be telling you this because it's classified for some reason, so I won't tell you the context, but after Inflicting, Bronte and I started talking about something about my parents, and then he demanded I stayed with him so we could work it out, and... yeah."

Cerulean took a long while to process the information.

"So... Councilor Bronte forced you to stay back?"

"Yeah. He forced me." Savi fidgeted with her hair. Cerulean was currently feeling confused, suspicious and a little bit relieved.

He still didn't know she was an Empath.

That... was very good. She wasn't planning on telling him anytime soon.

"You're giving me the face," Cerulean noted.

"What face?" Savi asked wildly, grabbing her mirror from her table to examine her face.

"That look. The, I'm-keeping-secrets-from-you look."

"There's a look for that?"

"Yes, and you're giving it to me right now, along with the, oh-no-he-found-me-out look."

Savi continued examining her face in the mirror, but she couldn't find anything weird about her expression. Maybe Cerulean was just very sharp, or he was making it all up, or she was very blur and she was being super obvious.

"So... what's the secret?"

"I'll tell you next week," Savi promised.

He looked surprised. "Oh, alright."

You think I'd tell you now? Savi wondered. "So. I'm free now, did you want to do your Universe homework with me?"

"Sure, Miss I've-got-all-the-star-maps-memorized."

"Well, I do," Savi said defensively, then realized he was teasing and pulled her worksheets out of her bag. "Oh, I did them already."

His face fell.

"Then... let's do Elementism. I'm supposed to be bottling... water? Huh? Couldn't I just"

"Not water, Sav, mist. Here, read it again."

He grabbed her hand and pointed to the sentence where it did indeed say mist.

She wasn't sure what was making her heart pump more wildly, the fact that he'd called her Sav unlike the usual Savi, or the fact that he was currently holding her hand. Either way, she must have flushed crimson because he jerked his hand away.

"Argh – sorry! No touch rule, right?"

"I... never said there was a no-touch rule, but... sure."

Cerulean didn't speak much for a few minutes after that, before he managed to bottle his mist successfully. Savi was pretty sure she'd gotten it a few times, but the mist was too faded to see.

"You've got to bottle it from the side," Cerulean advised. "Like this – see?" He bottled more mist, and it was very visible.

"Impossible," Savi breathed. But she tried his trick, and it worked! "CoolnicethankssomuchforyourhelphowcanIthankyou"

"Whoa, slow down, Sav," Cerulean said, holding up a hand.

Savi flushed again. "Right."

"There's... nothing wrong with me calling you Sav, right?" Cerulean asked hesitantly.

Savi flashed him a smile. "No, nothing wrong. It's different." Then, after a long moment, she added, "I like it. But maybe keep calling me Savi in front of my parents. They won't like hearing that you've got some sort of special nickname for me."

"You going to start calling me Cheru yet?"

"Nah," Savi flung her hair over her shoulder. "Cerulean has a nice ring to it. Don't you think?"

He turned as red as a tomato. "Yeah. I do."

Did I say something wrong? Savi wondered silently. She moved on to Elvin History homework, trying to remember everything her teacher had told her about history. It was sad that photographic memory didn't record words as well. But what would that be called, anyway? Word-o-graphic memory? That sounded more like Weirdo-graphic memory.

"You're thinking about something," Cerulean mused. He sounded interested, but he was feeling worried.

"Don't be a worrywart," Savi told him.

He felt very shocked and suddenly scared, and asked, "What makes you think I'm worried?"

Savi scoffed. "When will you learn that you can't l- I mean, I was getting... vibes?"

"'When will you learn that you can't lie to an Empath?'" Cerulean quoted Keefe's favorite phrase. "Is that what you were going to say?" After a moment's hesitation, he added, "You aren't an Empath, are you?"

When she looked at the ground and didn't reply, he breathed, "You are. You're an Empath!"

"I'm hoping I manifest a few more normal abilities," Savi admitted.

"Why? Three isn't enough?" Cerulean questioned.

"No." Savi stared harder at the ground. "I just... I don't want to manifest Pyrokinesis."

A beat of silence followed.

"You know... I thought the same about Hydrokinesis," Cerulean said slowly.

"That's different. It isn't banned. Pyrokinesis is."

"That's... true," Cerulean admitted.

"It is. The more normal abilities I get, the less likely I'll manifest as a Pyrokinetic. Did you know that all my stuff has already been fireproofed? Mom and Dad are preparing for the worst. And I already know that Mom has trouble controlling her Pyrokinesis because she sparks a flame every time she's mad, and a few months ago, when she was angry at me, she burned down the greenhouse."

Cerulean looked out the window, where a well-decorated and well-built greenhouse now stood. It looked fine, but it also looked very new, and the grass had barely grown over where the dwarves had probably dug.

"I see," Cerulean said. He didn't sound like he had anything better to say. Savi honestly couldn't blame him.

"Yeah," she mumbled softly.

Every morning that she woke up and was fine, she inwardly rejoiced. No flames. No burned down room. She was fine. No Pyrokinesis.

But she wouldn't be safe until she turned sixteen and the manifesting window closed.

Until then, even if she manifested Keefe's weird Mesmerizing-like ability, she was safe.

"I didn't realize you were that scared," Cerulean admitted. "But... I mean... three abilities. You'll probably stop soon."

"I wouldn't bet on that," Savi said. "Mom has six."

"What? I thought... five?"

"Telepath, Enhancer, Polyglot, Inflictor, Teleporter and Pyrokinetic."

"Oh." He sounded genuinely shocked. "Well, maybe I'll manifest as a Telepath. What are the odds?"

"Pretty low," Savi said. "Maybe a 2% chance."

"Oh, um... Savi?" He didn't call her Sav. "I wanted to say that my brother manifested three abilities, and my parents' genetics weren't even tweaked."

"Oh. What abilities?"

"Hydrokinetic, Conjurer and Phaser. I actually think he might have been a Pyrokinetic, but I never found out. He just..." Was Exiled.

He didn't say those words. But Savi knew he was keeping them in. Not that it mattered anyway.

"So... you want to be a Telepath? Why?" she asked. Honestly, Telepathy was boring. There were so. Many. Telepaths. Sophie. Alden. Quinlin. Emery. Late Uncle Fitz. And so. Many. More.

"I just think it's kind of cool, don't you? We could be Cognates!" Cerulean said enthusiastically.

"That's... true." Why was the prospect of being Cognates with Cerulean Tsynis so daunting?

He tilted his head. "You don't seem as eager as I thought."

"I don't know. Having a Cognate didn't work out very well for my mom, I mean, they dated and broke up and damaged their connection and then he got himself killed." Well, technically he sacrificed his life to save Mom and her friends.

Cerulean looked at the ground. "It didn't have to be that way."

"But it was. I mean, you get why I'm apprehensive, right?"

"Yeah, I do, I just... it won't be like that."

"You can't guarantee it," Savi reminded him. He really couldn't.

Cerulean let out a long sigh. "Well, it doesn't matter. I'm probably not going to manifest as a Telepath anyway. We can revisit this topic if we do."

"I think that it would be unwise to do so unless Sir Tiergan tells you so," someone chimed in from the doorway. It was Tarina, Sophie's troll bodyguard.

"When have I ever done anything wise?" Savi defended herself.

Tarina shook her head. "Never. But still."

"He might not even manifest. You've got to chill, Tarina."

Tarina shook her head and muttered something about 'youngsters' before leaving. Savi exchanged a quick glance with Cerulean. "I suppose you should go," she said hesitantly.

"Why? Trying to get rid of me already?" He sounded playful, but his tone was rather hurt.

"No! I... just need to be alone now." Bronte's DNA theories had left her brain spiraling in many different directions.

"Should we organize another study date, or are you just going to cancel again?" It was meant to be teasing, but she could feel the apprehension radiating off him, along with sadness, loneliness and uncertainty.

"I hope not." She couldn't say no without lying. She felt his disappointment but didn't act on it. "Also... there's no point trying to hide your emotions anymore. I can feel them."

Jealousy sparked in his eyes. "That's right. You're an Empath." He looked away.

"What's... wrong with it?" Savi asked uncertainly.

"Nothing. I... just thought we might finally be on the same page, when I manifested as a Hydrokinetic. But then you became a Telepath, and now you're an Empath, and who knows how many other abilities you'll manifest."

"Oh, um, Cerulean?" Savi lowered her voice to a whisper. "You're the only person other than myself who knows I'm an Empath, so, just... keep it a secret, okay?"

He looked surprised. "Why? Don't you want proper training?"

"Well, just for now. I don't want another ability training class."

"Pretty sure Sophie never trained in Enhancing, Teleporting or Pyrokinesis."

"She trained a little in Pyrokinesis, and there aren't any other Enhancers or Teleporters."

Cerulean shook his head sadly. "Alright, I'll keep your secret."

She flashed him a smile. "Thanks."

His returning smile was equal parts rueful and happy as he entered the Leapmaster and disappeared.