Rowan and Michael glanced at each other.

"Are we at the right house?" Rowan mumbled.

"Yes," Jack said, tapping the ends of his fingers together. He was looking at Kaerius, who Jack shouldn't be able to see. "I told you I could help."

"You... You..." The surprise had shocked Rowan into silence.

"Are you a vampire?" Michael asked, and Jack only smiled and stepped aside.

"Come in."

Kaerius tried to step forward, but Michael and Rowan both lifted a hand to his chest to stop him.

"Not until you explain who you are and what you're doing in a vampire's home," Michael said, and Jack's features softened until he seemed amused.

"You're touching a Thalassic Mortal."

Michael yanked his hand back from Kaerius immediately.

"Don't worry, sea creatures were never a threat to you. You were led to believe that, so you'd think you had to live alone forever."

Rowan looked Jack up and down. The geeky boy who liked nobody and cared more about doing his work than being kind, the boy who knew too much about the supernatural world, the boy who Rowan thought was just obsessed with vampires.

"What's going on?" Rowan asked, and Jack looked a little guilty.

"Come in, and I'll explain everything." Jack pointed down the hall. Nobody moved. "You need to hurry. My parents have been out all day. I'm lucky you've come when they weren't home because they can't know that I'm talking with Solar's."

Michael and Rowan glanced at each other again. Their look wasn't readable to Jack, but their hard stare was always a way of telling each other to stay alert and to keep an eye on their weapons.

Michael entered the house first, then Kaerius, then Rowan. They stood awkwardly in the hallway until Jack led them to the kitchen, which had a door to the garden. "If my parents come home, you can escape out the back," Jack said as Rowan looked around the room.

Rowan wasn't sure why he expected a vampire's home to look like a goth's dream. Still, he was surprised that his house looked like every other standard home. Vampires want to fit in too, Rowan thought. With a hunter like Mandy around, he didn't blame them from keeping out of sight.

Kaerius sat at the table, but Rowan couldn't relax. He was on alert. He hovered behind Kaerius, so he was close enough to protect him if Jack couldn't be trusted.

"Are you a vampire?" Rowan asked.

"Who's this?" Jack looked at Kaerius with a raised brow and a smirk.

Kaerius pushed his chair back until it bumped into Rowan. "I soulmate of Royal," he said proudly. "I Kaerius. Strong creature of sea." Kaerius crossed his arms and stared intensely at Jack until he looked away. Even Rowan couldn't hide a pleased little smile.

"Ah, soulmates," Jack said with a nod. "I thought I sensed a bond." Jack then sat up straight and linked his fingers. "I'm not quite a vampire." He purposefully avoided Michael's gaze. "My mum's a vampire, but my dad's a fairy."

"How have I been able to see you all this time?" Rowan tried searching for anything that made Jack different from the rest. He looked human. Supernatural features were just like disabilities; not all were visible.

"You're supernatural Royalty. The bond with the sea creature finally awoke that. Also, I'm part fairy. I can make anyone see me if I want." Jack then sighed, and said, "Um... my dad's the fairy who cursed your parents."

"The fairy?" Michael asked with a perplexed frown. "Up until a few days ago, we thought the sea goddess, Mandy's mother, cursed us because of our relationship between a Thalassic Mortal and a human. Why would a fairy curse us? We don't even know you or your family."

Jack almost looked apologetic. "Mandy has a lot of enemies. Her biggest enemy is her own blood."

Michael released his frown and closed his eyes. He exhaled long as though he had held his breath for hours. "Her brother."

Jack nodded. "Luckily for you guys, my father boasts about the lives he destroys. He talks about the Solar's all the time and what he did to the family. When I met Rowan at university, I decided to get to know him, so I could choose whether his family was worthy of such a curse. So far, you guys seem alright. I've only heard bits of my dad's side of the story, and he likes to exaggerate. I'd like to hear your side."

Michael had to sit down. "Only Mandy knows the full truth. One day we were bonded, the next, we weren't, and we suddenly hated each other. Mandy didn't remember anything about being a Thalassic Mortal and loving me. She turned bitter overnight. It took me weeks to piece together what happened. Mandy would mutter about her mother and how everything was her fault. In her sleep, she would talk about her brother teaching her to hunt... I suppose her brother planted those thoughts in her head to stop the blame going back to him." For years, Michael had begged the goddess to forgive them and break the curse. If he had known it was Mandy's brother, Michael would have never stopped chasing him.

"My mum's brother is your dad?" Rowan asked Jack and rested a hand on Kaerius's shoulder. His warmth blanketed Rowan's anxious feelings.

"Correct," Jack said, not able to look at anyone other than Kaerius. "You might be confused about why my dad's a fairy and not a Thalassic Mortal. He was once the prince of the sea."

"Was your dad cursed too?"

Jack nodded. "My mother cursed him, so they could live together on land. My dad was next in line for the God duties of the sea. He fell in love with a vampire who hates the ocean, and he said it was killing him to be out of the ocean for weeks at a time. So my mother, who had a pet fairy at the time, like most vampires, made the fairy turn my dad into a fairy too. The curse only really masked his Thalassic Mortal qualities and hid them, just like what the curse did to Mandy. And just like Mandy's curse, it's reversible." Jack felt the tension in the air shift to hope. "I say I'm a half-vampire and a half-fairy, but sometimes I feel the ocean calling me. Sometimes I just want to dunk my head in freezing cold water, or jump off the cliffs into the sea, or sit in an aquarium and watch the fish all day. My dad feels it too. Curses are always flawed in some sort of way."

Kaerius felt Rowan's other hand rest on his other shoulder. His hands trembled. "Jack kill curse?" Kaerius asked. "Free Mandy?"

"I could, if I wanted to, but I still need to hear Michael's side of the story. My dad's an idiot, but I love him. If I remove her curse, he'll probably never forgive me, but I care more about what's right. If the Solar's didn't deserve this, then I need to know. You must be truthful to me. Lying will only make me reluctant to help you."

"I want to hear your side too," Michael said. He stared hard at the wooden table. "I don't really have a side to tell you. Mandy knows."

Jack drummed his fingers against the back of his hand. "Maybe I could reverse the curse on Mandy, hear her side of the story, and if she deserved to be bitter, I'll put the curse back on her."

"Don't you think she's suffered enough?" Rowan asked. "She's been like this since I was little. Whatever happened between her and her brother, don't you think this punishment has been long enough?"

Jack shrugged. "My dad says the Solar's killed his heart."

"How?"

Jack shrugged again. "It pains my dad too much to talk about it, so I never knew. I find it suspicious how my parents won't tell me. It's almost like they can't justify the severity of the curse. My dad destroyed his own sister's life, and I have the power to fix it. I just need to know the truth."

"We do too," Rowan said, pointing his gaze to his father. "I just thought my mum was someone with a horrible personality. I wish I knew about the curse earlier."

"Well, you know now." Jack took his glasses off and rubbed his eyes. "We should find Mandy, so I can remove the curse and ask her about what happened."

"Now?" Rowan asked, perking up with eagerness. "Is it complicated to remove a curse?"

"Not now. I told my parents I'd be home all day. Let's do it on Saturday because I'm not free until then. We have university, Solar."

Rowan was blinded by the desperation to see what his mother was really like. "Don't you think removing the curse is more important than your studies right now?"

Jack slowly stood up. "Rowan, I don't have to help you. If my dad finds out what I'm doing, I can say goodbye to university, this house, my parents, everything. I'm risking it all to help you and your family. The least you can give me is a bit of patience."

Rowan recollected his thoughts and stopped standing so tall. "Alright," he said quietly. "Saturday."

"Now take your dad and purple eyes out of my house before my parents get back," Jack said, returning to the blunt teenager who Rowan found familiar.

"He's called Kaerius-"

"I don't care enough to remember." Jack opened the back door, still struggling to meet Michael's eyes. Before he shut the door behind them, he said, "I hope for your sake that my father was too cruel."

Rowan wished that too as he and his soulmate and his father hurried through the back gate and down the street, away from the vampire's house; jack's house.

They walked in silence for a while until they could see the ocean peeking out from in between houses, and Kaerius's excitement distracted them.

"We go swim?" Kaerius asked, pointing to the sea. "I hungry. We eat fish?"

Rowan smiled, falling into sync with Kaerius's steps. He used to swim to make tough days feel better. "I'd love to go for a swim."

"Me too," Michael said and stopped Rowan, so he could finally hug his son.