Harry’s funeral was a morbid affair. As is tradition, it was open-casket, to remind all of us Adepts of the ultimate price we may have to pay. The other Adepts on the ambush team were wracked with guilt, convinced that they were too slow to help him. Nobody directly accused me of failing to help him, but the implication was in the air. If I’d been able to use my powers on demand, Harry would still be alive right now. I spent most of the service staring at my hands, my mind blank. He wasn’t the first friend I’d lost, but he was the first that had died saving me. If I hadn’t been caught in the first place, he’d still be here, giving me fresh bruises as we sparred in the training arena.

Instead, Harry was dead.

Lily sat away from me at the funeral. I tried to talk to her, but she just put on a forced smile and stepped away. It didn’t look right on her. I wondered if she’d seen something that night that spooked her after I let loose on the Helk. I tried reaching out to her in the following days, but the manor’s servants always had new excuses for why she couldn’t speak to me. Eventually I stopped. I figured she would talk to me when she was ready, but I was sorely missing her usual positivity.

Whatever the case, there wasn’t going to be much in the way of physical distance between us: I’d been reassigned back to her protection. While neither of us had attended school since I started recovering from the Helk attack, we were due back soon. She’d paused her righteous crusade against the family’s treatment of the Adepts, but I was pretty sure that once she collected herself, she’d be marching on the warpath again.

Meanwhile, my mind kept circling around the unanswered questions. What had twisted the Helk into that monstrosity when it had been a pixie originally? Where had that clarity come from, that let me use my powers in such a direct manner? I tried to tap back into that well of energy again and again, but nothing ever came of it. Something had happened in that moment, where everything clicked together, and I was able to wield my own power like an expert. It wasn’t like before when I’d killed Rowan, nor was it like the previous encounter with the Helk where I’d been pressed to unleash my latent magic. This was more focused, more directed, and more controlled than those violent outbursts. I had no idea how to replicate that feeling. I just hoped that I wouldn’t have to lose any more friends on my path to understanding how to do that.

I was in my quarters the night before school picked back up, getting ready to go about my duties, when there was a knock on my door. I slid the door open, and Lily stepped in, a deep worried frown on her face.

“Heading out?” She said, looking at my collected gear.

“Yeah. No rest for the wicked, you know.” I tried to smile, but it was hard when she looked so concerned.

“Milking pixies again?” A hint of a smile crept onto her face. She was the only one I’d told that name to.

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I nodded. “Someone’s gotta do it. And wouldn’t you know it, that someone happens to be me pretty often.”

“Even after…” She trailed off and looked away.

“Yeah. The family’s official position is that the Helk was a freak occurrence, and there’s no reason to cease operations.” I shrugged. “As far as I know, this is the first time something like this has happened, after hundreds of years of milking pixies. Or maybe—”

“Or maybe it’s not, if the truth gets buried like that each time.” Lily finished for me. I met her eyes, and saw an unfamiliar hardness there. She’d been learning a lot of unfortunate truths about her family these past weeks.

“Or maybe it’s not.” I agreed with her. She sighed.

“What are we going to do?” She stepped closer to me and put her head on my shoulder. I straightened up. She’d never done that before.

I tried patting her shoulder. I wasn’t good at giving comfort. “We don’t need to do anything. This is just the way things work. Problems come up, and the Adepts deal with it.”

“Adepts like Harry.” His name caught in her throat, but she choked it out.

“Adepts like Harry.” I nodded.

“Did you know him?” She stepped away from me and looked back into my eyes.

I nodded again. “He was my mentor.”

“I didn’t.” She sat at my desk and put her head in her hands. “I know barely anything about the Adepts, about my own family’s business, and about you. I thought everything was fine, but now there’s pixies turning into monsters, and our own Adepts being tortured, and, just, it’s too much.”

I stood away from her and let her vent. “You weren’t supposed to get this involved for a long time.” I ventured. “But there’s no going back now. What’s done is done. I don’t know what it’s like to be in your position, but I can tell you what it’s like to be in mine.” I knelt down next to her. “I’m glad to have you as my, well, boss. You’re kind. The fact that you care so much about all of this proves that. It was hard keeping those secrets from you for so long, but now you know them, and there’s nothing more to hide. In a way, isn’t that a good thing?”

She nodded slowly. “I’m sorry that this has been happening to you for so long. If I’d known sooner…”

I shook my head. “It’s fine. None of it is your fault. Now, come on.”

I stood up and took her hand. She looked up at me. “What?”

“We have pixies to milk. And it’s still our turn to bring snacks to the club meeting tomorrow when school’s back in session, right?” I smiled down at her, and she laughed.

“I can’t believe you of all people are going on about the club.” She said in between giggles.

I pulled her up to her feet and gathered my things. We set out together to pick up some snacks and stay up late in the woods milking pixies. On a school night.