[Xander – 12 years]

Mr. Massey's math lesson seems easier for me to understand, even if only by a little bit. I definitely remember what he's teaching today better than I did for the past lessons. My broke brain was definitely at fault for some of it, but I'm pretty sure this is still proof that I'm just stupid.

Luke doesn't stop fidgeting the entire class and when he answers a question for Mr. Massey, it's rapid-fire speaking with lots of words. Too noisy, too noisy, too noisy! I know I said I wanted to try this, but he's way too noisy.

Though he can also apparently spin his pencil on his fingers, since he keeps doing that. At one point, Parker snatches it away and Luke doesn't seem to notice at first.

Then he grabs another and starts spinning it.

When the lesson ends, Parker pulls a brown paper bag out of his backpack and holds it out to me. This isn't leftovers from the snacks during the break, so I'm not sure what he's doing.

"Um…"

"I'm sorry about yesterday," Parker tells me.

"But that wasn't your fault, was it?" I ask. "Wasn't it 'cause those other boys were being mean? You told them to stop. And got mad at them. And lost your friendship. And that's my fault."

"That's not your fault," Parker insists. "It's theirs. They bullied you, you didn't ask them to do that. You were just there. And… I'm sorry. I should've stopped being friends with them sooner but I didn't just 'cause we've been friends a long time. So it's kind of my fault."

I'm confused but I think it'll upset Parker if I refuse the bag, so I accept it and peek inside. Lemon cookies with a powdered sugar dusting. These might be good.

"Thank you," I tell him. "I'm going to go put my homework in the bedroom's office now."

"We'll go to the pool," Luke tells me.

"Okay."

I go up to the bedroom and put my homework in the office, then check on Trenton and the others before bringing the cookies down to the kitchen and setting them on the counter (Ms. Katie says that's okay when I ask).

Luke and Parker are changed and talking by the pool once I reach it, but I don't hurry to join them since there's still time before the lesson begins. I change into my swimsuits and join them in the pool area.

"Luke," I say when I approach him.

"Yeah?" He asks, looking up and down me with a slight frown.

Did I put the swimsuits on wrong?

"I don't think my panic will be calm enough for me to get in on my own today," I tell him. "But I want to try jumping. Can you let me try that bit?"

My panic doesn't feel as strangely calm as it was yesterday, with S.G. and the others. Maybe it's just me not being as calmed down as I was yesterday, so my panic isn't? I'm not sure how it works, just that sometimes, my panic is calmer or completely broken.

"Like… you try and jump but if you don't after a certain amount of time, I jump?"

"Yeah."

"Alright," he says. "Are you ready to get in?"

"Yeah."

We move to the deep end of the pool and Luke starts to wrap his arms around me. The moment he touches me, he jerks back and falls to the ground.

"I'msorryI'msorryI'msorryIdidn'tmeantoelbowyou-"

"You didn't elbow me," Luke gets up and gives me a grin. "Don't worry about it! That was just me tripping! It's not your fault! Come on, let's do this again!"

He lied. He lied that it was just him tripping… but he was honest that it wasn't my fault. That's confusing. Why would he jerk backwards like that when he touched me but it not be my fault, if it wasn't him tripping?

"O…kay."

Luke wraps his arms around me again and after I take a deep breath, he covers my mouth and pinches my nose. That makes my panic act up even more, as does trying to jump in.

Jump, stupid body! I can't jump! I need to jump! No jumping!

My thoughts start becoming tangled up as I try to push through the panic… and then I manage to jump with a squeal through Luke's hand. We land in the water and my body goes into a bigger panic mode, but Luke keeps me from flailing around until the panic calms down.

"You okay?" Luke asks once I stop struggling.

"I don't know."

"I'm going to let go now," he says.

"Okay."

Luke lets go, and I turn onto my back to just drift in the water a little. Once I've calmed down some more, Coach Evan begins the lesson. It's more about improving my form and floating than actually swimming, though Luke and Parker roughhouse a little, too.

At least it's not me that's being roughhoused. Luke is really hyper today and it's kind of scaring me. But what if he doesn't want to protect me from the teachers anymore because constantly being low on mana doesn't feel good? I don't ever want to feel that way again now that I know what it's like to have mana. It can't feel good at all for someone who's used to having lots of it.

There's only so long he'll be nice to me for, and he's not even being paid for it.

The rest of the lesson happens without any other incidents and after, we shower and get dressed, then head to the back deck for lunch. The main part of it is just sandwiches, but Ms. Katie thinks it's a nice day out for eating on the deck.

"You came home for lunch?" I ask Mr. Trey. "Ms. Katie's cooking is that good, isn't it?"

"No," Mr. Trey chuckles. "I mean, yes, her cooking is that good, but I didn't come home for lunch. I only have essential personnel working the day before, of, and after Interception Day. I didn't go in."

"Essential personnel?" I ask. "I don't… know what that means."

"People who are necessary for operations," he explains. "Since it's a security systems company, we need IT – the people who troubleshoot and try to fix problems – there, along with members of the call center who handles when there's an alert.

"It's not the full staff which is normally there," he tells me. "And they receive double pay, a party at the office, and a separate three-day holiday to make up for it. We also rotate the members who work the holiday shifts by holiday. The next big one is Labor Day, and the workers who are at the office for any of the shifts for this holiday break won't be for that one."

That sounds cool.

"Speaking of offices," Luke says. "Mom and Dad said you could come check out my workshop. Today, even, if you want and Trey is okay with it. I was pretty excited when they told me because there's something I think you might find cool. It's a rem-"

Parker flicks him on the nose and Luke protests, then starts jabbing him in the side.

"Today?" I look at Mr. Trey. "Can I?"

"Er… they only cleared Xander to see my workshop, by the way," Luke tells Mr. Trey. "Sorry. Dad's already gone in to cover up or move some of the more sensitive things. I'm sure you know how it goes, since you work in security. The stuff that's being left out isn't sensitive so they're fine with Xander, but, well… you're an adult and that means things are a bit different."

Oh. That means Mr. Trey's going to refuse, isn't it?

"That's fine," Mr. Trey tells Luke, then looks at me. "You can go, Xander. I'll drive you there, I just can't go into Luke's workshop. Though I'm surprised they're letting Xander. Things like that are usually locked up pretty tight."

"There's nothing sensitive being left out or in view," Luke shrugs. "So they know he can't steal any of our secrets. They also know he won't try to move things without permission."

Does that mean they don't trust Mr. Trey? Oh, no. Now I'm going to get told I can't go and Mr. Trey is going to punish me for being trusted more than him.

All Mr. Trey does is snort a little, then we finish eating lunch. I'm told to get ready to go so I do and make sure to grab Trenton. When I return downstairs, Ms. Katie hands me some containers of fruit and veggies and stuff to put into my backpack. The things which didn't need to be kept cold, like cookies, were already in there from yesterday since I didn't eat all of them.

The containers are magic ones that will keep things cold, but that doesn't last forever, so they need changing.

Once everyone is ready to go, we leave. Luke and Parker ride with Luke's dad, while I ride with Mr. Trey. I want to apologize to Mr. Trey on the way over, but that only makes me feel like he might get mad at me for bringing it up and cancel this.

When we arrive at the big building that Gatewood Energy is based out of, Mr. Trey goes with Mrs. Gates and I go with Luke and his dad. Luke's office is on a higher floor and the elevator scares me, but I try not to let them know that there's panic in my chest.

"Whoooa…"

Luke's office is huge and has lots of tables, shelves, cabinets, and boxes around the walls. Racks and drawers of tools are also scattered around the room, and there are a lot of outlets on the wall. Some of the tables in here have parts of things on them, like what looks like the controller for a car, or a mana battery that's missing the actual mana container portion.

A few larger objects on the floor are covered in thick cloths…

"Um…" I look at Luke.

"Yes?"

"I accidentally used my magesight," I tell him. "I use it lots in new places and… accidentally forgot to not. Is that bad?"

It's something I started doing more after learning that Mr. Trey's house was enchanted. Now I'm learning just how much magic is in everything, but that doesn't mean I fully understand it.

"No," he shakes his head. "Dad covered up everything that has any of our company's developing secrets. Stuff that's not protected by our patents. Or moved it out of here if that wasn't too difficult."

"Oh," I look at the object that caught my attention, then look at Luke. "But covering it up doesn't affect magesight?"

"The cloths are magic," he says. "They're filled with enchantments to obfuscate what's under them. So magesight doesn't work on them."

"I don't know what obs-you-skate is," I tell him. "But… maybe the cloths are broken? I can see their enchantments fine. And that one there, the thing under it has unhappy magic."

"Unhappy magic?" He frowns. "What do you mean?"

He's frowning. I fucked up, didn't I? Stupid fucking me.

"Yeah," I nod. "It's not very happy. One part of it just says 'no' to another part. And then another part is doing the same thing that Greyson's mega computer was doing. It's not on right now, but when it's on, it's gonna heat up lots."

It's doing almost exactly the same thing as the mega computer problem Greyson asked me to help with.

"Wait, hold on," Luke looks at his dad. "You didn't use an obfuscation canvas?"

"I did," his dad says. "Three of them on each item which needed it. Xander, are you saying that you can see the enchantments anyway?"

"Yeah."

"You can see the enchantments?" Luke asks. "Like, the actual mana paths and magical etchings? Despite not physically seeing the object?"

"That's magesight, isn't it?" I ask, then remember what Greyson told me on Saturday. "Or… maybe not? Greyson said mine's mentally different. Well, he also said it's fun, but I'm not sure how it's fun."

"Probably fundamentally different," Luke says. "Yeah. He told Mom that, and you kind of mentioned it on Saturday. The canvases should've still blocked it. Can you explain a bit more on what you mean by 'unhappy'?"

"Um…" I try to think, then remember something that Greyson put into my backpack. I don't like when he messes with my backpack, but he never takes stuff from it and never puts anything really bad in it. "I'm not a very good artist, but maybe I can show you?"

I pull off my backpack and rummage through it until I find what I'm looking for: a pen similar to the one Greyson had me use on Saturday.

"Is that Trenton in there?" Mr. Gates asks.

"He wanted to come, but I told him he's not allowed to look so I put him in my backpack before getting out of the car."

This pen works similar the one Greyson let me use on Saturday, except it draws on air with light magic rather than interfacing with his projector.

I turn it on and select the right color for the first bit, then start drawing in the air. My lines aren't perfect, and I keep looking back at the canvas-covered object, but I manage to get a rough drawing of what I'm seeing.

"This here," I point at one line. "And then this one here. "They're leaking over and when their leaks meet, they make a new line, this one here. The magics in them are different than the ones for Greyson's mega computer, but they're acting similar. And when their leaks say hello to each other, they make a line that tells the rest of them to generate a heat field."

"Even the mana analyzer didn't read something like that," Luke says. "How sure are you?"

"Well…" I look at the hidden device again. "Maybe I messed up drawing the lines? But I can see the leaks even though it's not on. They're really faint, and the lines are thinner."

"Why are they leaking?" Luke asks. "Not asking you, Xander, I'm sure you don't have an answer. I'm trying to figure out why they would be leaking."

"Um…" I shift a little. "If you turn it on, maybe I could see? I can only see what's left from when it was on. The leak doesn't happen without mana flowing through it."

Luke looks at his dad, who sighs and nods.

"Okay," Luke says. "Give me a minute to hook it back up. But it shuts off pretty fast because one part just refuses to turn on. There's a fail-safe to prevent it from trying to build up too much energy. So watch closely."

I nod, then Luke uncovers the object, pulling off the three thick canvases from a device that has lots of exposed parts. They'll probably need to put a shell on it once it's done being worked on.

After adjusting a few things and putting some mana crystals into a slot, Luke turns on the machine, which powers up. Whoa. The magic is so happy but also unhappy.

"Do you need me to turn it on again?" Luke asks.

"Maybe?" I answer. "But I saw it. This bit here is really happy. It likes how it is."

"That's the part I got to work," Luke tells me. "What about the… the unhappy bit? The part that creates a heat field."

"Oh. Yeah," I turn back to the machine and then back to the drawing in the air. "This bit here can feel this other bit and so it's trying to say hello. And this bit here can feel it doing that, so it's saying hello back. It's not like normal leaky magic. Um… it's hard to describe, but I've seen this kind of leaky magic a few times when playing with some stuff at Greyson's workshop. I didn't know that they would make a baby that makes a heat field when their hellos met, though."

I never let them interact enough for that, always adjusting things so they don't talk to each other. It was Greyson's workshop, I was scared something would blow up.

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

"This is really hard to understand," Luke walks over and starts pointing on the floating image. "But… basically, these two parts are being drawn to each other? And where they meet, their energies mingle and create a new enchantment line, which generates a heat field while active?"

Oh. I guess that's another way to say it. It's not really correct, but it's correct enough that it's probably okay to confirm it.

"Yeah," I nod. "When I want to get enchantments to stop saying hello to each other, I have to put them on different pieces of metal and connect the two. Not fused. But I think it's okay if they're further apart, too. Like… maybe three or four times as far apart?"

"That's it!" Luke exclaims. "That's why it only happens when I scale it down! Because the smaller version has them closer together due to it being smaller! Wait. Would the enchantments being bigger extend the reach?"

"I don't think so?" I tell him. "I'm not good at this stuff. I don't really understand what enchantments do. Like… I can see them, and I can tell when they're happy or not, but I can't tell what they're actually doing most of the time or why they do it. But with these… I think it's okay if they're bigger? I don't think being bigger makes them notice each other from further away.

"Greyson's could," I say. "But the mana for the magic was different so that probably affected it. The parts that are saying hi are weaker, too. Like, um… what's the word? Weaker in a, um… a natural part of them? So making them bigger won't make them stronger, it just lets them do more. Like if you make a cup and then make another hold three times as much water, but with the same thickness for the glass part itself. It can hold more and might even make what you see through it look different in a different way than the smaller one does, but it'll still shatter if you drop it."

That was too much talking. I hope it made sense.

"Hm…" Luke examines the drawing in the air.

"Sorry for it being badly drawn," I tell him. "I'm not so good at that. Oh. And this part here is the one that says 'no' to the other bit. I saw it happen when the thing was on. It didn't like how short the other one is."

"How… short the other one is?" Luke asks.

"And how slim," I nod. "It wants the other bit beefier and longer. I've had that happen a few times and always fix it by doing this."

I erase part of the line that gets rejected, then make some loops, and also make the line thicken a little so that it's twice as thick once it reaches the part that rejects it, which I widen a little as well, then let narrow back down to how slim it originally was.

"This always works for me," I tell him. "The other one would prefer it to be straighter, not all curvy like this, but there's not much room for that. Um. There might be on that machine, actually. I don't know. But there usually isn't when I'm trying to make stuff."

Luke starts tapping his chin as he examines the drawing.

"Sorry for it being drawn bad," I tell him.

"Not that," he says. "What are all the colors?"

"Oh," I say. "That's what they look like to me? Greyson says that magesight is a bit different for others, so I guess maybe you guys don't have the colors. He asks me a lot to use mine on stuff and then asks me what things look like, and then he makes notes. I think he has a manual on what the colors mean."

"Want to see me do some enchanting?" Luke asks, then looks at his dad. "Can I show Xander me working with doing based on what he said, rather than showing him me making the RC car?"

The way he said that, I think means that he was originally planning on just showing me him working on the RC car. I'm curious about that, since I want to see how differently it is from how Greyson works on them.

"Go ahead," his dad tells him.

"Okay," Luke says. "Want to see it, Xander?"

"Is that okay?"

"I mean… you kind of already have the secret bits in your head," Luke tells me. "So it's not like you'll be getting anything new that we need to keep secret. But please don't tell others? Or show them how to do it, or use it yourself, or with Greyson."

"I won't," I tell him. "Greyson does things differently."

"He means the specific enchantment setups," Mr. Gates tells me. "Not the techniques you mentioned, but the overall structure. It's going to be one of our patents once it's completed."

"What's a patent?" I ask.

"Something we own," Luke tells me. "Which requires a license for others to use. Basically, if you invent something, you can patent it. Then, it's yours for twenty years and no one else can use it without your permission or you can send lawyers after them. Specific enchanting methods can't be patented – sort of like your workarounds for the problem I'm facing – but enchantment setups themselves can be. As can devices that they're used for.

"Basically," he gestures to the floating drawing. "None of the parts of this are able to be patented. But in use together, they are because it creates a specific desired function. Sort of like a chemical formula for a medicine."

"The purpose of a patent," Mr. Gates tells me. "Is to let an inventor establish themselves before facing competition, possibly from bigger companies that could push them out. The holder of a patent can also sell licenses to others for use it, earning money off of it."

"Yeah," Luke nods. "So basically, if I finish this enchantment and it works, then I could let others use it in their own generators, they'd just have to pay me a fee. And it couldn't be by itself, it would have to be only one part of it."

"Also," Mr. Gates says. "One part of that is being patented. Luke forgot that he invented a setup that counts as its own function."

"Oh, right," Luke nods. "Yeah. That one's gonna change things big-time. Anyway, want to see me do this?"

I like watching Greyson work on magitech. Maybe Luke will be a lot calmer.

"Sure."

Ten minutes later, I learn that Luke starts sparking while he works on magitech. His movements also become even faster, but he's not talking as much. How he manages to draw so cleanly despite moving so fast is beyond me and it's pretty amazing.

Luke continues to move faster and faster as he grabs things and that starts to scare me. Thankfully, Mr. Gates lets me know that it's okay to take out Trenton, so I do and hug him tight while moving a little bit further away.

After about an hour and a half of working, Luke manages to build a new version of the generator. That's what Mr. Gates says the project is, a portable magitech power generator.

Once it's ready, Luke starts hooking up the new version of the generator to a few things, then puts some mana crystals into a container in it and turns it on, taking a few steps back as he watches.

"It works!" He exclaims after about thirty seconds of watching both the generator and some monitors he's got set up. "Look! The heat is completely gone! And the energy flow is right, so it just keeps going! It doesn't stop!"

Luke suddenly turns and hugs me while jumping. Don't scream. Don't scream. Don't scream.

"Thankyouthankyouthankyou!"

Don't scream. Don't scream. Don't scream!

"Luke," his dad says. "Let go of Xander."

"What?" Luke stops jumping, then lets go and takes a few quick steps back. "Sorry, Xander! I'm just so excited! I've been stuck on this forever! Oh my goodness. Oh my gosh. Dad, how do we even pay this type of consultancy? Part of the reason things were being hidden was so that we wouldn't be asking Xander to try and use his magesight but then he went and did it and we aren't prepared for this and oh my gosh, oh my gosh, oh my gosh!"

"You wanted to ask me to use my magesight?" I ask.

"Yeah," Luke says. "But that would've been wrong for us to do so we weren't going to. I mean, I would've if my parents hadn't told me not to ask… but then you went and did it all on your own."

"Sorry…" I hug Trenton tighter.

"You're not in trouble," Mr. Gates tells me. "Part of it as to protect our secret projects, but part of it was to avoid trying to use your ability for profit. We didn't want you to feel pressured into doing it."

"Oh…" I hug Trenton tighter again. "Um… but why did you want me to use my magesight? Did you know that it's different?"

"Greyson mentioned it when he was talking to Mom when he came in for power cores on Saturday," Luke tells me. "And-"

"Sorry for interrupting," I say. "But he came in on Saturday?"

"Saturday morning, yes," Mr. Gates answers.

"Oh," I say. "So it wasn't after I asked him to stop. He probably won't, but I tried. Sorry."

"It's not like you can control him," Mr. Gates says. "And Adrian King had contacted us awhile ago and told us to contact him if Greyson didn't ever leave enough money to cover the costs of the cores he took and he'd put an end to it."

It seems that our great-grandfather was already aware of Greyson's activities… and was keeping an eye on him. That makes me feel relieved, but it's also really impressive since Greyson wasn't aware of it. Should I let him know?

Probably not. I've already interfered in other peoples' business too much.

"Oh," I say. "Um… you were saying something, Luke? Sorry for interrupting you."

"It's okay," he says. "And then Saturday, when we were talking, you'd mentioned something that made me realize that you probably perceived mana differently. I was gonna ask if you could take a look to see what you saw… but Mom and Dad told me 'no'."

Luke starts messing with his hair and judging by the surprised expression when he touches it, he wasn't aware that it was sparking. It was even when he grabbed me and started jumping, as it never stopped after he began sparking while working.

"Oh," I say as he starts patting his hair, the sparks starting to go away. "But because I did it accidentally, it's okay?"

"Basically, yeah," Luke nods. "But now it counts as a consultancy, since you took a look at things and gave me advice, and it was for a project for the company. Daaaaaaad. I don't know how to figure out a consultancy rate for something like this. Like, what he did was impossible even for a mana analyzer and he knew how to deal with it."

"Is the machine done now?" I ask. "The… generator, right?"

"Yeah," Luke nods. "It's a generator. And no, it's not done. But now that I'm past the block point, I can work on cleaning up the enchantments, optimizing the materials and layout, and so on."

I have zero idea what that means and am nervous to ask. Shouldn't that all be part of making the enchantment itself?

"Dad?" Luke looks at his dad. "What do we do? We weren't prepared for this!"

"Come on," Mr. Gates beckons for us to follow him.

We leave Luke's workshop and go to another floor, where Mr. Trey is talking with Luke's mom. They look over as we approached.

"How was it?" Mr. Trey asks.

"Luke let me watch him build a generator," I tell Mr. Trey. "But I think he meant to tell me some of what he was doing. He didn't. He got really into it."

"A generator?" Mrs. Gates looks at Mr. Gates. "Wasn't it supposed to be a remote-controlled car and a battery?"

"Xander's apparently in the habit of using his magesight in new places," Mr. Gates tells her. "And forgot to not. As Greyson told us, it seems to be pretty different in how it functions. He could detect the enchantments in the generator Luke's been working on through the three obfuscation canvases I put over it."

"Yeah!" Luke bounces a bit, his hair sparking even more than it was before. "And he was even able to tell what was wrong just looking at it! Apparently, the reason his magesight is fundamentally different, as the teleporter told you, is because he can sense states of mana that mana analyzers can't! Apparently, some of the energies from some of my enchantments were drawn to each other and that was creating a new enchantment that created a heat bubble, which is why it was heating up. And then there was just some weirdness with one of the connections between enchantments that made it just reject the input, but Xander knew how to fix that. Actually, he knew how to fix the other problem, too, which was really cool! So I rebuilt the generator using the modifications he suggested and it works! So now all that's left is the optimization and cleanup, and we can get it onto the market! Apparently, the one bit of connections wanted the other bit to be loopy and longer and wider, and I had to put in some sort of separator between the two that were drawing to each other."

"Luke?" I hope he's not mad at me for interrupting.

"Yes?"

"Please take a breath."

His parents both start laughing.

"Also, your sparks are being more sparky."

"Huh?" He screws up his face in confusion, then reaches up and touches his hair, his eyes widening a little. "Again? Seriously! Argh!"

"You know magitech?" Mrs. Gates asks.

"Only a little," I say. "And mostly because of Greyson. He tries to get me to do magitech stuff, so he made me my own work zone and gives me guides on how to do it."

"So he's how you knew what to do?" She asks.

"Sometimes," I say. "I come across a bit where an enchantment doesn't want to talk to the other because the other's too short and slim, which is how I knew what to do. And I didn't realize that enchantments talking to each other made new magics until Saturday, after Greyson asked me to look at his mega computer with my magesight and I did and we talked about what I was seeing. I usually just changed things so that they wouldn't talk to each other once I noticed that they were trying to."

"Yeah," Luke nods. "Which is like, super weird. But now I can finish the generator! But since he gave help on it, he earns a consultancy fee. I have zero clue how to figure that out. How the fu-"

"Luke!" Both of his parents exclaim.

"How do you figure out something like that for something like this?" Luke changes his wording.

As he asks that, I shuffle next to Mr. Trey.

"Mr. Trey?" I whisper to him.

"Yes, Xander?"

"What's a consultancy fee, and do I have to pay it because I looked by accident?"

"No," he chuckles. "A consultancy fee is something charged by someone or paid to someone for providing expert knowledge or services to a business. What you did counts as a consultancy, even if it wasn't expert knowledge. In this case, it's more of a specialist rather than consultant, but it'll essentially be charged the same."

"Um…"

"Basically," he says. "You provided specialized knowledge that's not easy to come by, so you get paid."

"I get paid?"

"Yes."

"I can normally figure out the rate myself," Luke tells me. "And am even authorized to have the checks cut even if I can't cut them myself, but only up to a certain amount. But this isn't something I have any experience in at all, nor does our company. At least, I don't think we do. So I don't really know how to base this, and it'd probably be above what I'm allowed to issue."

"Twenty dollars?" It wasn't hours of work, but that's more than minimum wage, right?

"Melody," Mr. Gates and the others all seem like they're trying not to laugh. "How much would it have cost to run the mana analyzer on Saturday, had we not used one of the power cores made from Luke's mana?"

"Nearly two hundred thousand," she answers.

"Xander," Mr. Gates crouches a little so that his eyes are level with mine. "On Saturday, they did something that could have cost us almost two hundred thousand dollars in an effort to learn what you were able to determine. In other words, what you did is worth more than two hundred thousand dollars."

"I'm sorry," I tell him. "But I think I misheard you. Maybe my ears aren't so good even though my brain is fixed. Did you say two hundred?"

"Thousand," Mr. Gates says.

"Two thousand?"

"Two hundred thousand."

"My brain isn't broke, but it's still stupid," I say. "It's not able to understand how I could do something worth that much."

"Worth more than," Luke tells me. "Just having different magesight alone isn't enough. You were able to understand what you were seeing and communicate what it was. On top of that, you were able to advise on how to fix the problem. That's not something that someone can just do, it's something they need experience for. That's why people get paid based on the value of it, and that value is based on what the best available outside of such experience is, but higher. The next-best thing in this case was nearly two hundred thousand dollars, and you were even better than that. I really don't know how to value this… but I also couldn't authorize the payment, so that's on Mom and Dad."

This is still confusing me, but I think I understand it a little. I have magesight that works better than a machine that analyzes mana, and I know enough about how to understand it that I was able to provide insight they couldn't get otherwise. At least, I think that's what they're saying.

Well, also that Luke isn't authorized to make payments as big as what this knowledge I have is apparently worth.

"I ran some numbers while Luke rebuilt the generator," Mr. Gates tells Mrs. Gates. "Came up with a figure that should suffice based on what little background on this we have."

"Alright," she says. "Do you want me to handle it?"

"I will," he responds, then looks at Mr. Trey. "I'll need you, though. He's under eighteen so there's no income tax, but there's still a little paperwork to fill out."

"Okay," Mr. Trey looks at me. "Come on, Xander."

"Bye, Luke," I wave to Luke, then follow Mr. Trey and Mr. Gates.

They go to another room, this one on another floor, and Mr. Gates prints up some papers, binds them together, then has Mr. Trey look through them and sign them. Mr. Trey seems surprised by whatever amount Mr. Gates is paying, but he doesn't say it while asking Mr. Gates if it's correct.

While they both sit down, I stand by the door. I wasn't told I could sit so I'm not sure if I can or not.

After Mr. Trey fills out some paperwork and signs it, the two men talk for a few minutes. When someone knocks on the door, Mr. Gates calls for them to enter and a woman carrying a folder does. She hands the folder to Mr. Gates before leaving, and he opens it up and pulls something out.

"Xander," Mr. Gates holds out the item. "This is your payment for the help earlier. Thank you much for the assistance, and please remember – don't tell anyone the designs you saw, okay?"

"Okay," I accept the paper from him.

This is a check, right? Why's it for $500,000? That's way more than $200,000. But Mr. Trey made sure the amount was correct, so I shouldn't question it. Even if he hadn't, that would just get me into trouble since it's an adult who determined the amount.

At least Mr. Trey doesn't have to worry about feeding me anymore.

"Here," I hold the check out to Mr. Trey.

"Are you giving it to me for safekeeping or because you think I should be the one to get the money to afford you?"

"So you don't have to worry about feeding me anymore."

"I'm not worried about that," he groans. "Xander, I told you, I can afford the extra cost that comes with feeding a mage. I bought a second popcorn maker just so you could have one for buttered and one for non-buttered! If I were concerned about money, I wouldn't have spent any on that!"

He looks at Mr. Gates.

"Thank you," Mr. Trey tells him. "We should probably get going. I'm going to need to talk with Xander some more, and we should probably get to the bank before it closes."

"Doesn't the money go in your account?" I ask Mr. Trey. "So it's still gonna be for feeding me."

"No, it won't," Mr. Trey stands. "I set up accounts for you after you officially came into my custody. Let's get going. Have a good day, Tristan."

"Bye," I tell Mr. Gates.

----------------------------------------

[Luke – 13 years] → starts toward the end of Xander's PoV

"Mom," I say after Xander, Dad, and Trey leave.

"You want to go back to working on the generator, don't you?"

"Well, there's also that," I look at her. "But this morning, when I went to grab Xander for the jump into the pool… I was startled so bad I fell."

"Why?" She frowns a little.

"So you know how I can faintly sense mana with physical contact, right?" I ask, and she nods. "So Xander's always had a low amount, a little bit less than average, right? When I touched him today, though… he had roughly six times as much as I can hold."

Mom frowns a little bit more.

"Are you sure?" She asks.

I roll my eyes at her, earning a light whack to the back of the head.

"Mom, feeling that much mana knocked me over," I say. "Yes, I'm sure."

"That's… certainly interesting," she says.

"Yeah, it is," I agree. "Why would Xander go from having almost no mana to having a monstrous amount? Are there even any people with that much mana?"

"Very few of the Lumaria Kings do," she tells me. "But he's not one of them and even if he were, he couldn't have generated that much mana in such a short amount of time. Even if they have monstrous amounts of mana, they don't recover with the same percentage ratios as we do. It's lower, as far as I'm aware."

"The teleporter probably does," I say.

"His teleport spell leaks more mana than you can hold," she tells me. "He probably has more than a million units of mana on the scale."

My phone pings as she says that and I pull it out to check the notification. It's a text from Tyler, so I open it up to find a picture of him in a hotel bedroom, dressed in a pair of black shorts with a white towel wrapped around his neck, hair still darkened from the shower he must've just taken.

Tyler: Civilization! And a shower! Never leave me, hot water!

So dramatic. But it looks like he and his dad are done with their hunts! He'd told me on Saturday that he probably wouldn't have signal while hunting and would message me once they returned to civilization.

It makes me happy that he actually did, since I was expecting him to use that as his excuse to stop talking with me entirely.

"Luke?" Mom asks as I start to type a response, and I look at her. "We were talking."

"Oh!" I say. "Sorry! It looks like Tyler and his dad finished their weekend of hunting! Look!"

I show her the picture, and she frowns slightly for a moment.

"You shouldn't frown so much," I tell her. "You'll get wrinkles."

"The keycard on the nightstand there," she tells me. "It's for the Grand Winter Hotel just outside of town. Since he's nearby, I take it you're going to want to see about hanging out with him?"

That puts me into a dilemma as I want to finish my generator now that I was able to fix what's wrong with it. At the same time, however, hanging out with Tyler is fun and also not a common occurrence and also probably one that won't happen very much longer.

Though I won't be able to finish optimizing the generator until after the holiday, anyway, as that usually takes at least a week or three of time… so I guess taking the rest of the day off isn't bad.

Hanging out with someone who's not in town much but does seem willing to be my friend is a good option, too.

"Can I?" I ask.

"Sure," she answers. "Why don't you ask him? I can ask Trey later if he knows what's going on with Xander's mana."

"Thanks!" I send Tyler a quick text.

Luke: You're in town? Wanna hang out?

Tyler: Yeah! Best place?

"He said yes!" I tell Mom. "I'm gonna go get cleaned up! Should I call Xavier?"

"I'll have him come over," she tells me. "You figure out where you two are going."

"Awesome!" I tell her. "Bye!"