“We need to go,” Marten said, thumping his foot against the floor as he stood by the door. He had a hand on his head and was idly scratching at it, though he seemed seconds away from pulling out what little hair he had left. His gaze was unfocused and he kept taking small glances out behind him, as if expecting someone to attack him.

I frowned. I wasn’t happy with having my family time interrupted, but the look on his face was serious. I was still aware that it might just be a mask that he wore, like the rest of the Mediators did, but even if it was, it was obviously crafted to convey that he was nervous about something. Extremely nervous.

Beside me, my dad rubbed his nose a few more times. I gave him an apologetic grimace, but he didn’t even notice, dividing his attention between picking my mom off the floor and glaring at Marten.

“She’s staying here,” he said.

“When will you idiots realise that that’s what I want too?” Marten replied, though he didn’t even glance at my dad. “If she wants to stay in this town, she has to come with me.”

“What happened?” I asked. “What’s wrong.”

For some reason, Marten gave me a frustrated glare, but shook his head quickly. “I’ll tell you on the way. The faster we get there, the better. Now let’s go. Please.”

Even though he’d said please, it still sounded more like a demand than a request. He actually started to pull at his hair now, grasping at the few thinning strands that he could actually find. I glanced back at my dad, and sighed. It had been nice to see him for a few minutes, but I knew that no matter how much I didn’t want it, this was probably something that I needed to do.

“Alright,” I said, sighing. “Let’s go.”

“Yes. Let’s,” my dad said, grabbing my hand as I stood up. I looked back at him in surprise, and he gave me a gentle smile and squeezed my hand. “I’m not letting you leave us again, Lena. We’re sticking by you, this time.”

I felt myself squeeze his hand back, and I felt tears welling up in my eyes. But before I could say anything, Marten let out a frustrated huff.

“Yeah, yeah. Come along, but make it quick. We’ve got no time for touching moments. Let’s. Go.”

I opened my mouth to protest, before realising that he just said he was fine with it.

“Oh,” my dad said, clearly a bit stunned by the same revelation. “Okay.”

Marten just huffed again and left the room, letting the door swing shut behind him. My dad and I gave each other a glance before getting up.

“Mind helping me pick up your mother?” he asked.

“We’re bringing her?” I asked, looking down at my mother, who still had her cheek pressed against the floor as she continued to sleep, unbothered.

“She would have a heart attack if she woke up and saw both of us missing. I don’t think she’ll wake up anytime soon, but I’d rather not risk it,” he said, as he bent over to scoop her up. Though he was visibly tired, the immense size difference between them made it so he could pick up off the floor with relative ease. “Besides, she’s light enough that it won’t be a problem.”

“Oh yeah?” I said, trying to inject some levity in my voice. “Didn’t you just say she was heavy? I thought you didn’t want her hearing you say she was fat.”

My dad stared blankly at me, clearly not remembering the joke he’d made only a few minutes ago. He glanced out the door nervously, to where Marten was waiting.

I sighed, mourning the death of the calm I’d thought I’d managed to reclaim in my life.

“Okay,” I said. Let’s go.

Marten glared at us when we left the house, and opened his mouth, as if to yell at us, but seemed to decide against it. He started walking instead, his pace surprisingly slow for someone who seemed so anxious to move quickly.

“Don’t interrupt me. Ask questions once I’m done,” he said brusquely. Not even giving me an opportunity to reply, he continued to speak.

“As of this moment, the Otherworlder is irritated because my incompetent colleagues forced a rift between the two of you. He wants to feel a sense of closeness to you, and if you want to stay in this dingy town, you need to give him some of that, but not too much. You’re going to talk to him, apologise for avoiding him for the past few days, give him a pat on the back, and continue like nothing happened. You can imply it, but never outright say that you like him or love him. Don’t hug him, don’t kiss him, and don’t fuck him. You’ll be interacting with him regularly for about five more days, and we’ll see where we can go from there. Hopefully, once he realises you’re nothing special, that’ll be the end of it and we can leave you alone.

“Your parents can tag along for now if they want, but don’t tell them anything classified or someone will kill you. No, I didn’t know about the leadership change. No, I’m not happy about it. Sera is back in the leader role, whether she likes it or not. Tenna’s proven he can’t adapt under pressure, Laush is even less experienced than him, Oren’s a socially incompetent moron, and I’m sure as shit not patient enough to deal with this fucking team. You can give him whatever excuse you want as to why you were gone, but my personal suggestion is that you were on your period. Kid doesn’t seem to know jack shit about girls other than what he’s seen on the internet. Internet is some Otherworlder invention that lets them share their opinions with every other Otherworlder in their world. Terrible idea, if you ask me.

“Any other questions?”

I stared up at him, still processing the long stream of information that he’d managed to shove into my ears in only a few breaths. I took a moment to think through it all before I realised that he’d been pretty thorough.

“I’m going to be interacting with Jamie for five days? Alone?” I asked, picking out one question that he hadn’t already answered.

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“Not alone. Can’t trust you not to fuck it up. There’ll always be at least one person nearby. Probably me, seeing how incompetent everyone else seems to be,” he grumbled as he tugged at his hair. “Better get compensated for this shit.”

Not that I was eager to disagree with him, seeing as how I could sympathise with being frustrated by the Mediators, but I doubted he was frustrated for the same reason. Besides, Marten was still another Mediator. There was no telling that anything he said was actually true.

“Why weren’t you with the team then, if you’re apparently the only one capable?” I asked, trying to poke holes in his story.

“Because that’s not my job,” he said. “I’m a shadow. The leader, second, and grunts are the ones who deal with the Otherworlder, and I do everything behind the scenes to set them up. Here I thought Sera was one of the competent ones, but apparently fucking not. Guess she couldn’t help but be a fucking teenager.”

He glared sideways at me and looked me up and down. The places that his gaze lingered made me want to cringe away and cover myself with my hands. I resisted the urge to cover myself, but couldn’t stop the uncomfortable grimace from appearing on my face.

“Oh don’t flatter yourself, girlie,” Marten scoffed as he looked away. “Might be appealing to a pair of brats, when you’re a brat yourself, but you ain’t anything special.”

I said nothing in response, not wanting to dignify him with a reaction. I looked at my dad beside me, who seemed mostly confused and was either too tired or too preoccupied with trying to follow the conversation that he hadn’t realised that Marten had just checked me out. That was good. I didn’t want him getting angry on my behalf right now. While it would feel good to have someone stand up for me, it was neither the time or place for that.

I couldn’t help but wonder if the awkward silence that followed was what Marten was aiming for, to vex me into being quiet, but by the time I thought of that, we had already arrived at our destination. The Mediators had moved their carriages right outside the one tavern in our village, and by the way that Marten was trudging towards it, I assumed they were inside.

Marten pushed open the door with enough force that it swung against its hinges and slammed against the opposite wall. There weren’t many people inside, but the few people that were, looked in Marten’s direction.

“M-Mr. Marten,” the tavern owner stammered. “How pleasant to see you. What brings you to my fine establishment?”

The tavernkeeper was a round man, who actually looked pretty similar to Marten, with his balding head and pot-bellied figure, except the tavernkeeper wore spectacles and had much kinder eyes. Currently, those very eyes were looking like they were about to cry, as they constantly darted between Marten and Jamie, who was sitting at the corner table with the rest of the Mediators.

“Ms. Arina felt a little sick and wanted a place to lie down for a bit,” he said, jerking a thumb gruffly towards my mom, who was still sound asleep in my dad’s arms. “And their daughter’s here too, I guess.”

I blinked in confusion at Marten’s terrible acting, but before I could think further on it, I noticed Jamie staring at me, giving me an awkward wave and a smile.

I stared back at him before I felt a light nudge on the side of my arm. Looking back at Marten, he gave me a raised eyebrow, and a subtle nod towards Jamie.

Taking the hint, I looked back at Jamie and gave him a wave back. After another nudge, I started walking towards him.

“Hey, Lena!” he said, once I got close enough. The greeting was echoed quietly by the Mediators that surrounded him, but not with much enthusiasm. “How’s it going? Laush told us that you went to go see your parents.”

“It was nice,” I said. The boy’s shy enthusiasm, combined with the reminder that my parents were still right behind me was enough to summon a small smile to my face. “How are you doing?”

Jamie gave me a careful smile. “I’m alright,” he said, glancing sideways at all the Mediators surrounding him.

They all gave him polite smiles, but for some reason, it felt off. Even though their expressions were perfect, as far as I could tell, there was a bit of unexplained tension in the air around them. I could see Tenna and Laush’s faces being slightly strained, and Sera was refusing to look anywhere near my direction. Oren seemed perfectly content as he sipped away at a mug of ale, but his levity stood out awkwardly in contrast to the mood of the rest of the group.

“So what have you guys been up to?” I asked, not knowing what else to say.

Jamie shrugged. “Just hanging out, I guess,” he said. “I tried ale for the first time. Not really a fan.”

“Really?” I asked. “You’ve seriously never had ale before?”

“Yeah. They don’t let you drink it until you’re twenty-one where I’m from,” he said. “So, you’ve had this before, then?”

“Yeah,” I said.

“Cool,” he replied.

I tried to think of a reply to that, but the atmosphere was a little too awkward to force the conversation forward. Jamie gave me an awkward grimace, likely realising the same, but with the way his eyes darted away from me, it didn’t seem like he had either the courage or the motivation to force the conversation either.

The vague realisation that I was still standing while everyone else in the room was sitting crossed my mind more than once, but as I stared down at Jamie, I couldn’t be bothered to fix that fact.

“Hey,” he said, finally breaking the silence. “Could we talk for a second?”

“Yeah,” I said, automatically. “What’s up?”

“I meant in private,” he said, glancing sideways at the Mediators. “You don’t mind, right guys?”

I nearly raised my eyebrow in surprise, but held back, keeping my face blank and stopping myself from glancing sideways towards the Mediators to see their reactions.

“Sure,” I said, as casually as I could.

Jamie smiled at me and stood up from his seat. None of the Mediators moved to stop him, and said nothing as he walked to the side, towards the other corner of the tavern. I spared a quick glance towards my dad to see he was grim-faced, but he didn’t say anything as Marten whispered something into his ear. I gave him a slight nod that I hoped was reassuring, and walked along with Jamie.

When we sat down, Jamie seemed to be doing his best not to stare directly at me. His gaze wandered from the side, to the ceiling, to his chair as he adjusted it a few times before he finally settled down, staring down at the table as he folded his hands together.

I wondered for a moment if I should break the silence first, but he seemed like he was building up the courage to say something, and I didn’t want to interrupt him.

Eventually, after what seemed like a minute had passed, Jamie cleared his throat and spoke.

“Um, Lena. We’re… friends, right?”

I nodded. “Yeah,” I said, surprised by how little it felt like a lie.

“And friends… tell each other things, right?”

“Yeah?” I said, a little confused.

“And you would tell me if anything… bad was happening, right?”

My eyes widened involuntarily. Thankfully he was too busy looking down at our table to notice, but I wasn’t sure it would matter if he did. The way he was talking, while he was trying to be vague, was a clear indication that he knew. He knew that the Mediators were manipulating him.

“Umm,” I said, unable to formulate words properly as my thoughts debated with themselves inside of me. “I guess?”

Should I warn the Mediators? Despite their absent morals, they were still the good guys in this situation. Jamie finding out that he was being manipulated might have him lash out against them. While I didn’t think he would kill them, given his abject horror at the idea of becoming a murderer, there was no telling what a teenager with unlimited power would do in this scenario.

Before I could decide, Jamie grimaced and looked up at me, locking eyes with me.

“Lena,” he said, his voice as serious as it was nervous. “I want you to be honest with me.”

The way that he paused made me think he wanted a response before he continued. Not trusting in myself to speak, I nodded hesitantly.

Jamie nodded back at me, but didn’t speak immediately. Multiple times, he grimaced uncomfortably and glanced away multiple times before letting out a sigh.

“Be honest with me,” he repeated. “Are you being bullied?”

All the tension immediately left my body, being replaced by confusion. I blinked a few times, unable to decide whether I’d heard him correctly or not.

“Excuse me?”