I sigh as I sit in bed and recall the events from earlier this evening.

"What are you even doing? Are you trying to mess up?" Ryder sighed, "Just...keep trying."

"I am trying!" I exclaimed and sighed in frustration.

"Read the spell directly out of the book and it should be casted correctly. I don't see what you're doing wrong, but we'll just have to work on it."

"We?" I raised a brow at him, "You mean you'll be helping me more than just tonight?"

"Well, yeah," Ryder said as he looked at me with confusion, "I thought that was implied."

"Thank you!" I shouted and threw my arms around his neck.

"H--Hey," He stammered and pushed me off of him, "Yeah...whatever..."

I can't believe he offered to continuously help me improve my magic. Suddenly a knock appears at our dorm door and my eyes flicker to it. Could it be the same person who dropped the note off? I glance over to the right to make sure that Ryder and my familiars are asleep before I sneak out of bed and creep over to the door. I gently twist and pull on the handle and the door comes open.

"Hello?" I whisper and take a few steps outside the door before a hand gets placed over my mouth and my eyes widen in surprise as I get dragged away, "Mmh!"

My cry for help comes out as muffled noises and I watch as the dorm fades away out of my sight as the person who's dragging me away continues to lead me down the hallway through several dark passages only lit by the candles on the walls. Once they drag me into a dark room they lock the door before suddenly releasing me. A few moments later I gasp as I see a match light up in Solstice's hand as she lights the candle on the table. Meanwhile, I look to the side to notice that it was Tempest who kidnapped me.

"What's going on?!" I demand and cross my arms as I watch them with a guarded expression.

Tempest and Solstice exchange a glance before Solstice motions towards one of the chairs at the wooden table. I wearily walk over to the chair and sit while Solstice and Tempest both sit across from me.

"You got my note...yes?" Solstice asks and blinks as she watches me.

"That was you?" I gasp.

"Yes," Solstice nods.

"What's happening?" I ask.

"You must know that some students here have special abilities, right?" Tempest asks.

"Yeah," I nod, "I found out that Ezra can see people's magic."

"Yeah," Tempest nods, "There are a few of us in this academy with more 'special' abilities than usual. Solstice can see parts of the future."

"Really?" I ask and turn towards her and she nods.

"Yes," Solstice says, "But I can't see very much -- just glimpses."

"What did you mean by 'the cursed one' in your note?" I ask.

"Well..." Solstice frowns and glances at the table before looking back up briefly, "You see, the students who have special abilities mostly come from families that were affected in the Flare Event, although some of the students naturally have these special abilities. While some of the students who had families affected by the Flare Event just gained extra powers, others gained extra powers whenever they were cursed. My older brother's name was Lux. My family was naturally gifted with special magical abilities, as well as an affinity for music. Lux was focused on studying magical properties and interactions between familiars with their sorcerers and sorceresses. One day I was practicing on the violin in my room up on the third floor while Lux was outside on the stone path that led to our driveway and wound around the house to our garden. I remember I was standing by the window and playing whenever I heard shouting come from outside and whenever I looked out the window I couldn't see Lux. I stopped playing and rushed downstairs and ran as fast as I could outside and I found a few drops of blood leading towards the shrubs on the edge of our property line, so I walked through the plants and I moved a few tree branches out of my face here and there as I passed a few plants that had blood on them. I found Lux lying on the ground a few feet later with blood trickling down the side of his mouth and I know that he saw me for a few seconds whenever I shouted his name and ran over to him because his eyes looked at me and were full of several emotions -- regret, sadness, fear, anger... -- but he died a few seconds later. I didn't know what happened to him and as I reviewed what he was working on over the next few days I found that he had a meeting with someone just the day before he died, but he didn't have who. Whenever I called the number that he put as their contact information they didn't answer. It was a little while after my brother's death that I started having my visions. Somebody cursed my brother because he found out something that wasn't supposed to ever be found, and it ended up killing him."

"What did he find?" I ask, breathless from shock.

"Lux found out that someone who attends this academy has a special familiar who's immortal and who's locked up somewhere in the academy, and there was a curse casted upon the familiar during the Flare Event that slowly kills the person who the familiar is bonded to because the familiar is being tortured and having their life forced drained. If the person who is bonded to the familiar uses too much of their magic then it could quite possibly kill them faster, or kill them in general. We don't know who cursed the familiar of this person, but we do know who the person is," Tempest explains.

"No..." I whisper and my eyes widen, "Don't tell me that it's..."

"Ryder Axilum..." Solstice whispers.

My breath catches in my throat and the three of us grow silent for a moment.

"Whoever it is though," Tempest says with a scowl as anger flashes through her expression, "They'll pay for killing Lux."

"We want to find who killed my brother..." Solstice says quietly, "And help Ryder and the familiar...she always sounds so sad..."

"She? You can talk to Ryder's familiar?" I ask.

"No," Solstice shakes her head, "Just visions of her. I can hear her sorrow in her voice."

"Okay..." I nod, "I'll gladly help, but...why me?"

"Solstice says you're special," Tempest shrugs and smiles slightly while Solstice nods, "I believe her."

"Ezra says you have pretty colors..." Solstice says.

"Does Ezra know about any of this? Does Ryder? Does anyone else?" I ask.

"No," Tempest shakes her head, "Nobody else knows."

"If you don't mind me asking," I pause as I look at Tempest, "What happened to your left eye?"

"There's nothing actually wrong with it," Tempest says with a knowing expression on her face, "But sometimes you have to hide things about yourself. After all, you know how it goes, never reveal everything you know, and in this case, are."

"Yeah," I nod, "I get that."

I just wonder what she has to hide...

"You should go back to your dorm before someone wakes up and notices you're gone," Tempest says and blows the candle out before she stands up, "I'm going back to my dorm."

"Me too," Solstice nods and the two of them walk out of the room.

"Good thing I wasn't blindfolded then," I sigh as I walk out of the room, close the door behind me, and follow the path I was taken back to my dorm.

Along the way I spot a crumpled up piece of paper and I frown before bending down and picking it up. I smooth it out and notice that it's a picture and I turn it around to find Tempest smiling without her eyepatch, but her eyes are both closed, and a blond haired boy is standing next to her with an arm draped around her shoulders and he has his left hand in his pocket while he's kissing the side of her head.

"She must've dropped this," I mutter before carrying it back to the dorm, "I'll have to give it back to her the next time I see her. I wonder if that's Lux..."