"Kye? Kye, wake up." Liam's voice broke through my dream.

"He's not waking up. Oh well, I'll go unload the car- Ember, you wake him up gently." Liam said as the car powered down.

"Aye aye captain." Ember said and Liam huffed. There was a bit of a shuffle and then a door opened and closed.

More noises breached my dreams until I felt a hand lightly cover my face. My eyes popped open and I looked at Ember retracting his hand. "I knew you were awake."

"I was waking up when the car shut off." I yawned and my arms extended towards the ceiling of the car. My wings shuddered before curling around my arms. I slumped forward a bit, after tossing my loose braid to my back. "I feel like I slept for a couple of years."

Ember chuckled and took out two lollipops. He gave me one and popped the other in his mouth. "It was more like twenty minutes, but I'm glad you're well rested. You need sleep."

I heard a thud, and saw Liam close the trunk and move towards the front door. "Wait, where are we?"

Ember pointed towards the house. "It's the beach house. Looks like a normal house to me."

"But wasn't I packing?" I swirled the cinnamon lollipop in my mouth as it awoke my tastebuds.

"About that," Ember leaned back in the seat. "You started packing, but at some point I looked over and you were drifting off to sleep. So, I put you on the bed and finished packing for you. Liam came in and packed everything into the car and I put you in the car."

"And I slept for the whole time?"

"Yeah, and it was worrying Liam, but it's just because you went to the Underworld."

"Were Liam and Xavier affected?" I questioned.

"Yes, but we also came back at different time periods. It was your first time, it won't be a recurring thing." Ember looked at the front door and opened his car door. He came around to my side and helped me out of the car. I saw two other cars on the wide driveway and decided to look up at the house.

I craned my neck upwards.

"This is a big house." I whispered. "I don't know where it ends." The house stood tall in the night sky and covered the moon behind it.

"If you flew up there, you could see how high it went." Ember popped his lollipop upwards and pointed. My wings pulsed with his words, but he instinctively grabbed my hand.

"Don't. We are not as reclusive as we were before." Laughter in the far distance could be heard, but it was faint. "They may not be able to identify you, but they will see your outline."

My wings went back to my side, as Nicole popped her head out of the open doorway.

"Y'all coming in or what?"

"Yeah, yeah, yeah, we're coming." Ember led me towards the door. It was a small hallway, which led into a bigger room. There was a wide, marbled kitchen with two refrigerators, and four ovens. The ovens were stacked and off the ground. Right in front of it was a small kitchen island that separated the kitchen from the dining table. It was long and had many wood grained chairs.

There was a hallway to the right of the entryway and Xavier walked out of it. "Oh, Kye and Ember, we will all be staying on this level of the beach house."

"Why not any of the upper levels?" Ember asked.

"Because carrying both of you after y'all fall asleep at the beach, is not in my vacation plans." Liam sighed. "You both are bunking in my room. There is a bunk bed for y'all and I'm sleeping on an air mattress."

"Then that makes it our room and you're bunking with us." Ember smirked.

"That's what I said."

"Maybe, but I said it correctly." Ember chuckled as Liam wiped his hands over his face.

"What are we doing for dinner?" Kyle asked, changing the subject. "I know it's late but something must be open."

"Pizza? I don't know what else is open at midnight." Nicole shrugged. "Or we could all wait until morning."

They all pondered on it, and then Xavier spoke.

"I'll order the pizza- Kye and Ember, y'all can go ahead and unpack."

"Roger, Roger," Ember nodded and grabbed my hand. He started leading down the hallway when Liam called after us.

"It's the-"

"I know which room we are in!"

"How?"

Ember stopped at a door at the end of the hallway. "I smell your stinky socks." He snickered and led me into the room.

It had stacked beds and right next to it was a weak but sturdy mattress on the floor. It had folded sheets on it, and the beds had sheets on them as well. There was a ladder connecting both beds and Ember plopped on the bottom one.

"I call bottom bunk!" He snuggled into the sheets and pointed to the bunk above him. "You get the top bunk. If you do anything, I'll be able to watch you."

I looked up to the top bunk. "I think I could fly up there."

Ember was silent before answering. "Yeah, you should be able to. Just don't hit your head on the ceiling." The ceiling wasn't close to the bed, but if I miscalculated on how to get up there, then I could potentially hit my head.

But, I'd have to be a real klutz to do that- so I'll try to avoid it.

Ember must've seen my wings unfurl from around me, because he sat up on the edge of his bed. I didn't notice my thoughts, but I took a deep breath and started to focus.

Thinking back to the practice with Zine, I took in a deep breath and stared at the bed. "If I can get off the ground, then it should be easy after, right?"

"Right." Ember answered with uncertainty.

I closed my eyes and saw what I wanted to be done. Ember was shouting something, but I couldn't hear him over the flapping noise.

Wait, flapping?

"Kye, you did it!"

I opened my eyes and saw me hovering above the ground. On a whim, I thought to go down, and my wings became slits and I started to descend. I thought to go up, and my wings responded with a couple flaps. Unlike the last couple of times where the wings did their own thing, they were responsive.

51. I can fly!

"I can fly now!" I exclaimed, but lost focus and my wings did a pump upwards. Before I could fix my mistake, I hit the ceiling dead on and I instantly went to touch my head. My wings went to furl around me, while the slight ringing on the temple of my head was at the forefront of my thoughts.

Suddenly, Ember came into view and had his arm wrapped around my shoulders. My hands were covering my face, but when I took them off, I assessed the situation. Ember was at the top of the ladder, with one hand on it and the other holding me up.

"You're sleeping on the bottom bunk." He slid down the ladder and sat me down on the bed. "Very good flying until you knocked your head on the ceiling, and then lost focus."

"Sorry about that." The stinging sensation was dulled a bit, as Ember sighed and pulled a Band-Aid out of his pocket.

"Persephone always gives me these healing patches but I never use them because I heal too fast. I guess I finally have a reason to use them." He took it out of the wrapper, and put it on my forehead. It instantly stopped stinging, but when I tried to touch it, it wasn't there.

"Where-"

"As soon as it is placed on the skin, it disappears. I know harpies are supposed to have fast healing, but if Liam comes in here seeing your forehead scrape then I'd never hear the end of it." He moved to the suitcase in the corner and started opening it.

"Thanks, Ember." I walked over to him and grabbed a stack of clothes with him.

"No problem, Kye. It's what I do."

***

Ember and I finished putting all the clothes away. He was finally able to fully access the clothes he quickly packed for himself and I, and gave a long sigh. He said that he was going to go back to the Underworld (just a quick there and back) for some clothes that are actually his style, not "whatever that is" (he did reassure me that there was nothing wrong with them, but they didn't express his style enough).

Once we were done, Donna came and got us and we all met back in the kitchen for pizza. There were about five boxes, but Liam ushered me to a chair as soon as I entered. He gave me a plate of just cheese pizza (three slices) as Ember slid next to me with an entire box of meat with a side of pizza.

"I like my pizza with a hearty dosage of meat." Looking around, everyone had the same kind of pizza Ember had.

"Meat affects everyone differently and we didn't want to get you anything that could cause an allergic reaction, so we chose the safe route." Liam said, coming to sit on my right. "Hopefully that's okay with you."

"It's all good. I've had pepperoni pizza before."

"When?" Liam asked.

"With Zine and Obsidian. I only had a bite so I don't remember it well."

"Oh, that's right!" Xavier finished chewing his bite. "I totally forgot about that- but now that you mention it, you did pick the pepperoni off."

"I did that because I wasn't hungry, but I wanted to make an attempt for Zine."

"If that is the case, would you like to try one of mine?" Liam offered on of his meaty slices and I shook my head.

"I'm not that hungry, just kinda tired." I yawned, but grabbed a slice of pizza. I took a bite and pulled it away.

"Whoa! Nice cheese pull!" Ember laughed as I tried to get all the cheese in my mouth. It missed a bit and landed on my face before entering my mouth, but it was delicious. The breading and the sauce complimented the cheese greatly and made me smile widely once I finished.

I went to the next slice, but Liam was already whipping my face with a napkin. "You managed to get that literally everywhere." He laughed, as I started on my next slice. Once done, he started to eat, and everyone was munching contently on their pizzas.