The last rays of sunlight had recently faded, leaving Alex’s estate bathed in the soft glow of the setting sun. Rather than light spilling in through the windows, it spilled out from the dining-room window and into the early night. Alex could see how the light beams spread across the front lawn from his seat.
Alex rose from his seat and told Sam and Mark he was going to find Olivia. His muscles were pleasantly tired from the workout he had done earlier in the day, and with a full stomach, he felt content. The evening had gone well, and everyone was impressed with Sam's gains. There was only the smallest feeling of jealousy, seeing his young friend continue to progress while he couldn't seem to shake Rylan's words from the week before.
He made his way into the kitchen, where he found Olivia helping Gabby organize leftovers into containers.
“Hey,” Alex said, leaning against the counter. “Want to take a walk? It’s chilly out, but actually feels pretty nice.”
Olivia looked up, and a smile played across her face. “Trying to escape cleanup duty?”
“Don’t listen to her boss. This is my job. I keep trying to shoo her out, but she won’t have any of it.”
Olivia shrugged, and Alex smiled. “Some fresh air will be nice; I’ve been cooped up inside most of the day. Come with me?”
“Go on.” Gabby waved them away with her wooden spoon. “Edwin and I have got this covered. I mean it.”
They stepped onto the front porch, where the chilly evening air enveloped them. Olivia shivered and gave him a skeptical look. “This feels nice to you?” She walked back into the house and grabbed a jacket.
As he leaned against the railing, a vibration in his pocket caught his attention. Reaching for his phone, he found a text from his dad on the screen.
Dad: Your brother said he needs to talk to you. Call him.
Alex frowned before scoffing.
If Jake wanted to talk, he should be texting or calling me himself, not using Dad as a go-between.
He dismissed the message without a thought and tucked his phone back into his pocket as Olivia rejoined him. “Aren’t you from even further north? I thought this would feel like spring to you or something.” Alex teased, letting the irritation of his family dynamics roll off of him.
“No, being used to colder weather just means that I know how to prepare for it better.”
Alex chuckled, and they looked around the porch and front yard. The wrap-around porch had stone steps leading down to the roundabout drive. As they descended the steps to walk around the house, Olivia spoke up.
“This was really nice,” she said as she bumped her shoulder into Alex and grabbed his arm. “Must be much better than those stuffy family dinners you told me about.”
He let out a snort and debated telling her about the text he’d just gotten. Instead, he just gave a short answer to move the conversation along. “Yeah, no passive-aggressive comments about career choices or being compared to the favorite child.”
They circled around the grassy side of the house and picked one of the several paths that led further to the back of the property. The grounds were immaculate and well-kept. Crickets had begun to chirp in the woods nearby as they wandered along the pebbled path.
“I still can’t believe how well Sam did today and how well that class fits what he wanted,” Olivia said. “Did you see his face when he finished reading the evolution?”
“Like a kid on Christmas,” Alex agreed. “Actually, he looked more excited there than he did on actual Christmas morning,” he chuckled as he remembered Christmas wasn’t all that long ago. “The team’s really coming together. We just need Mark and Sarah to gain the levels at this point. You’ve made incredible progress, too.”
“We all have,” Olivia replied, and she stepped closer to him and let her arm slide around his. They walked like that for a moment, arms linked at the elbow and moving through the curated grounds. The carefully maintained hedges and trees led them further from the light and toward the woods.
Neither seemed to have a destination in mind, content to let their feet carry them where they would.
“Speaking of progress,” Olivia said, as they walked, ”you wouldn’t believe what happened at Elana’s the other day. A group of new recruits came and asked me to show them some combat techniques.”
“Why would that be surprising?” He raised an eyebrow and looked down at her, though as they moved closer to the woods, he saw more in the shapes of grey and mana from his eye. “You’re a Peacekeeper and really strong; to them, you probably seem like a total badass. That must have felt good, though.”
“It did,” she admitted. “Apparently, word got around about my help in one of the recent Peacekeeper contracts for Elana. You know, the one where I had to step in for Pete after he got hurt?”
“Yeah, I remember you mentioning that.”
“Yeah. Though I think they were more impressed that I did it alone, but when I tried to tell them about the difference in levels, they didn’t really seem to hear me.” She paused for a moment. “The Guild’s been pushing us hard lately. More Rift access for us, but more training and missions too. Sometimes I feel bad that I’m not here as much.”
Alex shook his head. “Don’t. The priority access alone makes it worth it. If I’d known Peacekeepers got privileges, I might not have turned down Elana’s offer.” He said the last bit jokingly, and Olivia used her already tucked elbow to nudge him.
“It’s not all perks, alright,” Olivia said in an exaggerated manner. “There’s a reason they’re pushing us so hard. Have you noticed the checkpoints getting stricter?”
They reached the edge of the woods, where the path split into different directions. Alex chose the only one that he’d explored before, knowing that it would lead to a small clearing in the woods.
“Yeah, it’s getting harder to ignore,” he said. “The Team House feels like an oasis sometimes, but…” He trailed off.
“But it also feels like we’re cut off?” Olivia finished for him.
“Exactly. And we haven’t even done anything wrong. It’s just…” He gestured vaguely with his free hand.
“The Moderators are working on it,” Olivia said. “They’re trying to find a balance. Did you know the police departments are making another push for Awakened recruits? The Guild’s trying to stay ahead of getting completely cut out of the Safe Zones, but it’s getting more and more restrictive.”
“I remember that being part of the President’s speech before Christmas.”
“Well, it seems like the push has become one of their primary focuses. I guess when crime in the Safe Zone starts to go from petty theft to super-powered robbery, they need some people who can handle that kind of threat.”
Alex nodded and rocked his head from side to side. “It’s hard to be mad at them sometimes. It seems like such a big step, but considering that is what they have to deal with… How is it working out with what the Moderators are trying to do?”
“It’s complicated. The Guild wants to maintain good relationships with law enforcement, but they also want to protect Awakened rights and not get pulled into their umbrella themselves. Some Moderators are working on ways to get around the checkpoints, but they’re trying to keep everything above board.”
“How would they even do that?”
Olivia shrugged, “The most reasonable answer would be to hire unawakened or get people who are Awakened but don’t plan to participate in combat to register with the Hunters Association and the Safe Zones as sort of liaisons. Then they would be the ones to go into the city as needed.”
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Alex grunted, noting that would still make them feel like outsiders.
They reached the clearing that Alex had remembered, and he stopped walking. The stars were clearer there, away from the house lights. A fallen log sat at the edge of the space, but otherwise, the clearing was mostly clear, if a bit overgrown.
“Can we talk about something else?” Alex asked suddenly. “All of this political stuff… I’d rather talk about us or something else.”
Olivia smiled and squeezed his arm as she, too, looked around the clearing. “Us, huh?”
“Yeah,” he said, thankful for the cover of darkness. He led her toward the log and reached into his pouch to remove one of the sturdy outdoor blankets that he’d gotten and kept rolled up. He undid the plastic buckle that held it together and unfurled it to its maximum size on the ground.
“Hey, I didn’t even think to ask,” Olivia said as she watched him move. “It’s pretty dark back here. How can you see? I have my shadow affinity and a passive that makes seeing in the dark a lot easier. Does your eye let you see in the dark?”
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“Not exactly. But I can see the mana around us, and there is something of a pattern to it.”
“What does it look like?” She held up her hand between them when he turned back to her.
“It doesn’t shine like a light, but at the same time, the different colors do look like they are lit up. So the blue of my mana will look bright but won’t cast a light on anything around it. So my right eye is a bit useless right now.”
“Does that make it hard to see?”
"A bit. It can make seeing the terrain a bit hard, but I got used to that in the caves before. And it's a lot easier now that I have [Mana Thread]. I can let one go across the ground right in front of me and see as it moves across the ground if there is something that might trip me." He looked around himself. “My hope is to use a lot of threads eventually, like the Mana Spinners did. I’m only one level from advancing the skill. Wait-” he held out his hand. “Take your jacket off.”
“Why? It’s freezing out here.”
“Humor me,” he said with a grin.
She grumbled something Alex couldn’t quite hear, but she took her jacket off and crossed her arms in front of her.
Alex smiled and reached out with a mana thread to twist the blue strand into a circle on the ground around them. He started with a larger ritual than he’d made in some time, letting it cover ten meters. The structure was a larger and weaker version of the heating ritual that he’d learned, with the base shape made up of a hexagon to distribute the heat evenly around the entire ritual circle. He dropped a small pouch of prepared materials into the central node and pulsed his mana through it to activate the ritual. Olivia gasped as the air began to warm up.
He wasn’t finished, though, and allowed a second thread to snake from his fingers and form another larger and weaker version of his most used ritual lately. The wind ritual that he’d been using to empower the mana bolts from his wand was now turned into a large and silent fan that helped to slowly churn the evening air. With a circular center and three triangles around the outside pointing clockwise, making the central structure more complicated than most of the basic rituals he used, he almost impressed himself.
The modified ritual would take the gentle, cool evening breeze and cause it to circulate around them before continuing out the other side or up into the night. The thought had been to keep the air moving around them rather than allowing the warm air to feel stagnant. The result was exactly what he’d hoped, and he breathed a sigh of relief as a nagging part of his mind worried that he’d make it too strong and cause the wind to turn into something of a tunnel around them.
“Show off. Do you know how amazing that eye looks in the dark, by the way?” She asked as Alex took off his coat and they settled on the blanket. “The gold really stands out, almost like it’s glowing.”
Alex touched the skin near his left eye self-consciously. “Really? I’ve only really looked at it a few times. I feel like that’s not a good thing if our life is about to be filled with combat. A glowing eye seems like a liability.”
She snorted. “I feel like its benefits far outweigh the negatives.”
“True.” Alex leaned his back against the log.
“Really,” she said as she leaned her head against his shoulder. “It’s beautiful.” There was a quiet pause before she added, “In a totally intimidating and manly way, of course.”
He snorted and added his final touch to the impromptu romantic setting. “I’m going to make some lights,” she sat up and looked around just before he activated [Mirage].
Small motes of soft golden light bloomed around them. He kept them simple in favor of creating a dozen of the small globes, pulling inspiration from recently seeing Sam and Valtherion’s advancements.
Olivia reached out and idly touched one, though her finger passed through it with only a slight distortion of the illusion. She looked down at the shadow her hand cast across the blanket, and she sighed happily.
Alex watched her for a moment, allowing his thoughts to wander, before speaking. “Can I tell you something?” When she nodded, he continued. “Seeing Sam evolve his class today… I’m happy for him, really happy. But it also reminded me that I have made no actual progress lately. Not in terms of levels, anyway.”
“Alex-”
“No, one second. I’ve been thinking about it a lot, especially after what Rylan said. But I’ve also been thinking about other things I want to do. It can’t always be about growing stronger, and I think that I need to be okay with letting Mark and Sarah catch up; it’s… just harder than I thought.”
Olivia’s eyebrows came together. “Rylan? What did Rylan say?”
Alex realized he hadn’t actually told her about the odd interaction the week before. “Uhm…” he puffed up his cheeks and blew out some air. “I don’t really want to talk about it, but he just showed some of his true colors. I know everyone thinks he’s turned some sort of new leaf lately, but I think it’s just a mask. The moment we were alone, he got all hostile and insulting. I can’t tell if he’s trying to be some sort of super villain or he’s just a competitive asshole.”
“Really, that serious?”
Alex shrugged. “I mean, I don’t think I’m blowing it out of proportion. He was with some dignitaries or something and was actually sort of nice. I thanked him and tried to say something, and he just snapped back once we were alone. Saying all this stuff about me plateauing and about him crushing us in the Teams Event.”
She let out a small laugh. “Does he not realize that we’re not trying to win or anything?”
He joined her in the laugh. “Well, no. I guess he just assumed we’d be trying to win, but I don’t think he realizes that Mark and Sarah are so low leveled. The goal has always been to really just focus on them.”
“Well, I’ll keep an eye on him. From what I’ve seen, he really is trying to play nice with everyone in the Guild. If it’s a mask… it’s a good one.” He grunted in response. “What are some of these ideas you have, though?”
“Hmm… well, there are a lot. There is one that is pretty big and would push me forward in power massively if I could figure it out.”
“What is it?”
“Well, just before Sam and I left Tianluo, I used my class skill and got some insight into how to improve a ritual. Eura talked me through it, and he was explaining that part of the rituals, how I was taught in the basic manual, was wrong or maybe just explained as a shortcut? Anyway, if I can figure out how to use catalysts properly or what I can use in those nodes that doesn’t require me to use materials for every ritual, it could go a long way. Especially in variability.”
“Sounds really promising. What’s stopping you?”
“Well, I think I need to learn something to go in those slots. I’ve been meaning to look more into normal spell casting, but I don’t think that will work. I thought it might be runes, but those also seem pretty complex. I’m not sure that they could just stand by themselves in the nodes. Runes might work, but to make them work, I need to dive deeper into more complex ritual structures. And then, before I start actually trying to mash totally separate magical schools of thought together, I will probably need to create a workshop or something that’s explosion-proof. I was thinking about paying someone from the Guild or trying to figure out how I can do it myself and change the mother-in-law suite out in the backyard into a sort of bomb shelter workshop.”
There was a long pause, and Alex realized how much he’d been rambling, just letting his thoughts spill from his mind.
Suddenly, Olivia burst into laughter. He felt a flash of embarrassment before he also let a smile creep onto his face. She turned to face him fully, looking up at him in the warm light. "You know what I'm hearing? I'm hearing someone who's planning for the future. Someone is building something to last. That's growth, too, Alex. Different from Sam's and Rylan's, sure, but just as important. You'll get back to those levels soon, and you'll be stronger for the work you're doing now.”
“Maybe,” he said, looking at her face and admiring how pretty she looked. The soft golden light from his illusions caught her dark hair and made her brown eyes look hazel. Even in the dim lighting, he could see the light dusting of freckles across her button nose, something he hadn’t really noticed before. Her cheeks were flushed slightly from the cold air beyond their warm bubble.
“Different isn’t bad,” Olivia said. She was quiet for some time before continuing. “You know, before the Rifts, I wanted to open a little bookstore cafe. Nothing fancy, just somewhere cozy where people could grab coffee and browse books. I even had a name picked out. ‘Chapter Break.’” She laughed softly. “Sounds silly now, doesn’t it?”
“No, it doesn’t,” Alex said, his voice quiet. “It sounds perfect, actually. Very you. I always knew you were a nerd.”
“Hey, you’ve had your nose in a book more than me lately!” She turned back to face him, and she smiled up at him.
Alex felt his heart speed up as she leaned closer, and when their lips met, it was soft and he felt his head swim. The kiss was short, but left him feeling a rush.
When they pulled apart, Olivia’s smile was mischievous. “So,” she said, breaking the tension with a playful tone, “about that workshop of yours… Exactly how many explosions are you planning on causing?”
Alex laughed, both grateful and frustrated for her ability to shift the mood so naturally. “Hopefully none, but better safe than sorry, right?”
They talked late into the night, their conversation flowing easily between future plans and teasing banter. Alex mentioned plans about hiring someone or learning to make more permanent rituals, which he could use to increase the security around the property, and Olivia insisted she should get to test his security measures once they were in place. Alex had argued that she just wanted to test her shadow abilities, and the counterpoint was that if they could stop her, they could stop most anyone. The golden lights continued to float around them, and the warm air from his ritual kept them comfortable as they sat close together, neither wanting the evening to end.