On arriving home Val finally realized how exhausted he was. He stepped out of the elevator contraptions that had brought He Symon and Raymond to his home.

"The past few days have been rough haven't they?" Raymond asked, watching them get off.

Val nodded, he looked up at the orange evening sky, four days of his life spent running, passing out and talking to strangers. After all that he was finally looking at a new life filled with possibly more excitement than he was ready for.

Just his luck.

"How about this?" Raymond suggested, "You take a break tomorrow and start your training the day after, that way you have one day to get your shit together. Sound good?"

"But Heris wanted me to start training immediately, the Incursion mission sounds very important and I want to do something."

"Don't bother, Heris likes being dramatic." Symon shrugged.

"Exactly, sure we want to catch them but they're not that big of a problem." Raymond added.

Val had noticed that they both agree on things way too easily, but that was not his main concern. He turned to Raymond. "Heris said people are going missing, how is that 'not that big of a problem.'?"

Raymond narrowed his eyes at the boy. "Listen Valerian, you are in no position to be worrying about others at your own expense. None of us are, if we all run head first into danger for others there'll be no one left to make the sensible decisions.

"I'm only thinking of your best interests when I say you need to rest before you start training. This isn't a movie or a story where everything will come easy to you. Magick takes dedication and a lot of effort so any minute of the day you get a break treasure it."

Val stared in awe, he really hadn't taken Raymond for the caring or stern type. He nodded and waited for the man to enter the machine and disappeared before turning to Symon who was staringat the space where the machinehad been with a soft amused smile. "You two go way back huh?"

"Yeah, he doesn't pay attention most times but when he decides to care about something he cares deeply." Symon said as they approached the backdoor. "He was like you, he hit awaking late so when he could do Magick he went straight into it, he loves it." Symon wished he could love Magick as much as other casters could, it had failed him time and time again.

He noticed Val was staring at him with a curious look but he ignored it, he was suddenly not in the mood to answer any more questions and he hoped Val would see that.

Antiquettes was closed, Val had noticed that and guessed that his dad was too worried to open the shop. He wondered if his mum hadn't gone to work as well. He rushed upstairs and called out.

"Mum! Dad!"

"Val? Over here." His dad's voice called. He ran to their living room to see his parents seated on the couch with one EMCC guard on either side.

On seeing him the guards nodded and waved their hands, vanishing right before the family's eyes.

Claire Cullen rushed to hug her son, her husband following right behind here. "Valerian, my baby, you're safe. Thank heavens." She squeezed him briefly before pulling back to study his clothes. "Oh no, your clothes..."

"I'm okay, just a few scratches here and there but the doctor gave me potion for those."

"You're so strong." His dad said drawing him for a hug as well.

Claire pushed him back, "Oh no you don't, this is all your fault, I said we should leave him home but you insisted your irresponsible brother stay here."

"I'm sorry I wanted someone capable around in case he awakened in a dangerous state." Ezra said equally annoyed.

"Hold up!" Val screamed gaining their attention, they both exchanged looks and Symon could tell they hadn't wanted to start that argument in his presence. "What's this about awakening in a dangerous state?"

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His parents avoided his eyes. It was Symon who answered. "Some witches and wizards don't survive their awakening, sometimes the Magick that surges through their system is just too overwhelming to handle, but that's in rare cases."

His parents turned to the stranger, "Who..." His dad began.

"Symon? Is that you?" His mum exclaimed.

Symon nodded, "Hi"

Val glared at his parents, waving to get their attention, "So you guys knew I'd awaken on my birthday but you said nothing, you still wanted to keep everything from me."

"Val, the decision to hide this from you wasn't easy for us to make." His dad explained.

"It was going to be difficult for you to grow up using Magick when we can't help with it." His mum added trying to put an arm around him.

He stepped away, "Let me guess, you don't like Magick too?"

Symon could tell part of that statement was directed at him, he said nothing, this really wasn't his business. But he tried to prevent it as much as he could. He tried to keep Val from taking the box but after that failed he had assumed things wouldn't be that bad if Val found out. He had no idea the idiot would turn him human.

"Val it's not like that, the less you know the better just calm down and forget about all this." His mum said her voice higher than usual. He could see she was getting angry but he was too, how could they hide this from him. "We can move past this, we don't mind adopting Symon, he was always part of the family anyways. Just forget about everything else, we can live normal lives."

"Too bad for us then, I'm already working for the EMCC, tough luck!" Val yelled before running past them to his room.

His parents stood stock still staring at the space where he stood before. The only sounds heard were those of the his room door slamming and the ceiling fan above them.

Ezra plopped unto the couch with a blank look on his face, "What?"

Claire looked in even worse shape, she looked about to cry. Symon sighed and helped her to the couch. He understood why it was such a big deal for them. He could explain it to their son for them but this was a family matter. One that that more than half the Magick society knew about but couldn't speak of.

He felt so sorry for them.

He felt sorry for himself. He should have run away when he found out the child who picked him up was from the Cullen family, but then it had felt so good to finally be safe. To finally be able to trust someone. He was very sure Ezra and Claire had figured out he was Magick at some point but they said nothing and let him stay with them as long as he didn't cause trouble.

"I know it's hard to accept but it's his choice, I'll do my best to make sure he's safe." He said before leaving to find Val.

He knocked on the bedroom door.

"Go away." Val yelled from inside.

"Its me you little shit."

"I know."

Symon growled before proceeding to kick the door several times. After a full minute, or two, Val finally opened up. His eyes were pink and puffy, signs he had definitely been crying.

"What?"

"This is my room too you know?" He huffed before pushing his way in. "I'm not going to baby you Val, you're a big boy now, working for the Magick Committee. You have to figure shit out on your own or talk them out." He said moving to sit on the bed. He stared at his cat basket in longing.

"But no one wants to tell me anything. Not you, not my parents... why must you hide things?"

"Your parents and I have one thing in common, we don't want to revisit the past, it's full with so much pain and regret, it covers a side of ourselves we don't want people to know about because then it'll change everything people think they know about us." He met Val's eyes. "Your parents did what they could to keep you safe. Don't be mad at them."

Deep in those words Val could also hear Symon pleading for himself as well but he was to proud to say it out right. He took a seat beside Symon on the bed, "I understand, I'm still mad though but I'll wait. I'll wait for as long as it takes until you actually feel like you can tell me everything."

Symon laughed inwardly, "You'll be waiting a while kid."

Glad that the tension in the room had finally wore itself out Val lay down on his bed. "Bed sweet bed at last. I feel like I don't want to get up for school tomorrow."

"Move over, I'm tired too." Symon scowled jostling for a space to sleep.

Val huffed and made room so they could both have some space. An easier solution would be telling Symon to have the extra room down the hall but Val wasn't going to do that. He and Symon had been sharing this room for years, he wasn't sure he wanted that to change.

He glanced at the book Kenta had given him, it was a basic introduction to Magick and its terminologies. Maybe he could get Symon to teach him a few more spells so he wouldn't look like a total dunce on Thursday when he began training.

"Hey Sy, I was wondering..." he trailed off as he finally picked out Symon's snoring. He smiled fondly, once a cat always a cat. He pulled the covers over both of them and as soon as he closed his eyes fell asleep. He'd have loved to say it was dreamless and peaceful but the case was quite the opposite. When he woke up the next morning he wouldn't be able to remember what the dreams were about.

***

"You weren't home on Sunday and you missed school on Monday and Tuesday, where the bloody hell were you?" Katie asked sternly. Val cringed, she was bringing back memories of his mum.

"Well?" Bridget inquired as well when he kept quiet for too long.

He was debating on whether he should tell them the truth or not. He had totally forgotten to ask Symon and Raymond. He decided to go with a little white lie for the time being.

"Symon had to go for surgery." He said forcing a bit of sadness into his voice.

Bridget raised a skeptical brow, "Are you being serious right now?"

"Yes, it started Sunday morning, I was so worried I wasn't able to call, that and the fact I didn't want you two to worry about us."

"That's sweet of you Val but we were still worried anyways." Katie chided.

Bridget still looked like she didn't quite believe him but she said nothing.

"So what was the problem?" Katie questioned.

"Cat worms."

"Sounds disgusting." Bridget said with a shudder.

Val gave a mental sigh of relief, he relaxed in his seat. That went more smoothly than he has imagined it would. He turned to Katie to ask for the homework he missed, he then got to finishing everything before the school day ended do he could practice Magick once he got home.

Val thought the school day went pretty well since a hunter didn't appear out of nowhere and attack him this time. He was really hoping things continued that way since he was nowhere near ready for another confrontation.

He recalled the red-head he had seen when Raymond took him to meet Blaise. He wanted to be at least half that good before he had to really fight someone.

Soon he was lost in thoughts of how amazing it would be to use magick in real fights that he had only read about in books. He didn't notice someone grab unto the sleeve of his shirt until he was roughly yanked into a small confined space and shoved against a wooden surface which he assumed was the door which had been closed behind him.

He was about to scream when the lights came on to reveal Alex with a very annoyed glint in those eyes that just left Val speechless.

"H-hi..." he tried at sounding cool. It really didn't.

"I waited for you to call on Sunday, you didn't. You didn't show up at school for two days and today you don't even look at me." Alex huffed. "That's no way to treat me Val and you'll be very sorry, unless you explain yourself."

The day he wanted to be ignored was the day he was finally noticed. Talk about the worst luck.