Blaze could tell something was wrong with Lexi as soon as she sat back down in the field. She was picking at her cuticles, and she kept glancing around as if looking for someone.

His intuition was confirmed when Kayden suddenly joined them. As soon as she settled into the dirt, she sent Blaze a concerned look and jerked her head in Lexi's direction. Blaze nodded. He would try his best to make things okay.

He quickly launched into a few stories from his childhood. He talked about the time he had set his new spell book on fire and when he accidentally turned his lab partner's skin purple after drawing the wrong symbol in a rune circle. He even told stories about his mother, and how she liked to bake cookies and let him build pillow forts all over the apartment. The stories seemed to distract Lexi for a bit, but by the time they boarded the bus back to Le Lieu, she had descended into silence. She spent the ride with her forehead pressed against the dirty glass, her eyes focused on nothing.

As soon as they entered Le Lieu, Lexi headed towards the staircase. "I think I'm going to read in the room."

Blaze glanced over at Kayden and she rolled her eyes. They both knew that the only reason Lexi wanted to stay in the room was because she was hoping that Helio would stop by. She had been doing the same thing for weeks now, and not once had he visited.

"Why don't we go to the pool and lay out instead?" Kayden suggested.

Lexi sent her an I'm-not-stupid look. "You never go to the pool," she said. "Not since the first week we got here."

Kayden ignored her comment. "It's nice to get some sunshine."

"We were just in a field for five hours," Lexi said, sitting on her hip. "I don't need any more sunshine."

"Then when don't we visit Walter's workshop?" Kayden suggested. "Maybe he's working on something new?"

"I don't feel like talking much," Lexi said, reaching for the stair railing.

Kayden looked over at Blaze for support, and he racked his brain for something to say.

"What about I show you an illusion I'm working on?" Blaze ventured.

Blaze was surprised to see Lexi pause. She turned to him and tilted her head. "You make illusions?"

"He made a receptionist for his house in New York," Kayden said quickly. "He's really good at it." The compliment caught Blaze off-guard; every time he had worked on an illusion, Kayden had ignored him. Or at least, pretended to ignore him.

"Um..." Lexi looked conflicted. Her eyes kept glancing up the narrow Le Lieu staircase.

"We can do it upstairs in the room," Blaze offered.

This seemed to seal the deal. "Okay, let's head up then," Lexi said, and without another word she jogged up the stairs.

Kayden looked over at Blaze. "You shouldn't have suggested we do it upstairs."

"She wouldn't do it otherwise," Blaze said, starting up the steps. "Maybe we can keep her occupied enough to not think about you-know-who."

"Voldemort?" Kayden teased.

Blaze rolled his eyes, but he was pleased that Kayden was no longer actively avoiding him.

When they reached the hotel room, Lexi was the only one there, waiting for them on the sofa with a note between her fingers. "Aunt Karen and Mr. Merg are at dinner," she said, putting the note down on the table. "They won't be back until afterwards."

"Ah," Blaze said, unsure exactly what to think. His father and Mrs. Lee had been spending a lot more time together recently. It was weird to see his father around another woman, especially when she was Kayden's mother. It almost felt like he was betraying his own mother in some way by condoning this new arrangement. And yet, it was nice to have his father occupied with someone else; it meant he wasn't as occupied with Blaze.

Blaze reached into his pocket and pulled out the gossamer threads of the illusion spell he had been working on. Lexi's eyes widened as she took in the thin, portable rune, and she gasped when he pressed it to the floor and it turned into glowing chalk marks. Blaze murmured a chant, feeling the pull of magic tug at his gut, and suddenly a figure materialized, a faceless mannequin with tan skin and a prominent nose. Lexi jumped as it appeared.

Kayden grinned. "I'm surprised you haven't seen him do this before, Lex," she said, reclining in the armchair. "He works on this thing non-stop."

"I guess I'm always... reading." Lexi stood up and touched the illusion's arm. "Tingly."

"That's what happens when you're made of magic," Blaze said, flipping through A Progressive Book of Magic. He had been relieved when he had first seen that the illusion-making runes had not changed much from before the shift, though he still used the book as a reference to make sure he did not do something catastrophic.

When he reached the illusion section, he tossed the book to Lexi. She caught it awkwardly and gawked at him. "What's this for?"

"You're going to help me," Blaze said, smudging out a small portion of the rune with his fist and writing in a few new symbols. He looked up just in time to see the illusion's nose change shape, becoming slightly more pointed.

"Umm... how?" Lexi stared at the pages, rubbing her head gently. Blaze knew that non-ers often got headaches if they looked at spell books for too long—he remembered how his mother used to rub her temple when she would watch his father write runes.

"I'm just fooling around with this thing," Blaze admitted. "I'm not sure what I want it to be. So we can do whatever. You can make its skin blue, or give it Dumbo ears—"

"Can you make replicas of people?" Lexi asked.

Blaze knew exactly what she was thinking and he was determined to steer her away from the thought. "Like a replica of Kayden?" he suggested, adjusting a few symbols. Suddenly, the illusion had long brown hair, though the body remained distinctively male.

Lexi laughed.

Kayden raised her eyebrows. "Thanks, Blaze."

"No problem." He grinned, and looked up at Lexi. "Now help me out."

Lexi sat down and flipped through the pages. After a moment, she pointed to a string of symbols. Blaze copied them down and the illusion suddenly had thick blond eyebrows.

"Please tell me this isn't actually going to be me," Kayden said.

Lexi shook her head, her blond hair swishing across the back of her neck. "I don't think I'm qualified for such a monumental undertaking." She paused, pointing to another set of symbols. As Blaze heeded her request, she stared up at the illusion and watched as it morphed. "This reminds me a bit of painting," she said, "in a weird way."

"I mean, some people consider illusion crafting an art form," Blaze admitted. "My father sees it as a waste of time, but to each their own." He looked at Lexi. "Do you paint?"

She shrugged. "A bit. I'm not that good, but I find it relaxing. Watercolors particularly." She closed her eyes, as if conjuring images from far away. "The water is beautiful in Florida. Some days, I go down to the beach just so I can paint."

"Why didn't you buy a watercolor set while you were here?" Kayden asked. "We've been out shopping a million times."

Lexi shrugged as the illusion's skin turned a pale pink, the soft shade of rose petals. "I don't know. It just didn't cross my mind."

Blaze looked over at Kayden. Her legs were curled beneath her on the chair, streaked with lines of dirt from the field. Lexi offered her the book. "Do you want to try?"

Kayden shook her head and said the same thing she had told Blaze when he had first worked on an illusion in front of her. "I'm not really an artist."

"Then what are you?" Blaze asked.

Kayden stared at him. "What am I?"

"I mean," Blaze clarified, "what are you passionate about?"

Kayden's cheeks flushed. "I don't think I'm passionate about anything," she said pointedly, but then she strummed her fingers on the armchair. "I do like music. I... I kind of play acoustic guitar. Can't sing for the life of me, though."

Blaze had never pegged her for playing guitar. He knew she liked music—she often vocally ached for her iPod that had been left back in New Jersey—but the idea that she actually played it was foreign to him. "You never mentioned that," he said.

She crossed her legs. "You never asked." She looked down at him. "Plus, my guitar is back home. Buying another one for something to play here is not worth the expense."

"Makes sense," Blaze said. Now that she said it, he vaguely remembered seeing an acoustic guitar all those nights ago when he had sneaked into her bedroom for the very first time.

"I'll play again soon enough," Kayden said. "That is, if everything works out and the world doesn't implode."

"Are you deciding to be an optimist today?"

"It's a once every three years kind of thing," she said, her grin looking slightly mischievous.

Blaze laughed as he filled in the rune with another string of symbols that Lexi had selected. For once, things felt right. Lexi was smiling and Kayden was talking to him. And now that he had gotten a taste of that, Blaze didn't want it any other way.