I felt a tremendous sense of relief when the fresh air hit my face as soon as we stepped out onto the property's stoop. It was my turn to be shocked when Macaila wrapped her fingers through mine and pulled me through the crowds that had formed on the street. She weaved in and out through people, finding spaces that hadn't been there seconds before. Cass was used to Macaila's erratic methods of pushing through the crowd and followed us.

The place Macaila had in mind was more laid back and less ritzy than Hellions and Halos. The bartenders behind the bar consisted of both sexes who wore basic black t-shirts and blue jeans. They handed out more beers than cocktail glasses. The bar took up the middle of one side of the room and had seating around its perimeter. At the front of the bar, the DJ on the stage was focusing on producing music that made the walls vibrate. Coyote Rose was written on the sign above the entrance.

On the other side of the large space was the dance floor I had asked Macaila and Cass for. Couples were swing dancing in the limited space they had secured for themselves. A handful of singles were line dancing in the middle of the floor. Conversation circles had formed around the perimeter. Those people were swaying in tune with the beat. One male was moving his arms as he bounced his hips back and forth. There was an energy in Coyote Rose that hadn't been in Hellions and Halos. These people were gripping their happiness with both hands. They were accepting. I felt myself emerging from the protective barrier I had built around myself—and if only for those few hours, I lost myself in the music.

Macaila didn't have any inhibitions dancing. Her body immediately moved in accordance with the beats the DJ was producing. Cassiah was a bit more reserved, and his movement was limited to bobbing his head, tapping his foot, and swaying his upper torso. Still, a weight had been lifted off them, too, and they didn't have to observe to report back. This was a new side I was seeing of them. This was a place where they could be free—where we all could be free. I lost all sense of duty in the music and danced in our small circle with Macaila and Cass.

The lighting had been reduced to darting streaks of blues, greens, purples, and golds. The premises were packed. Quickly, I felt my shirt clinging to my back and my sweat drenching my hair. My heartbeat thumped excitedly in my chest. Because of the severe lack of music in jail, I hadn't danced for a very long time. My movements were awkward at first. As the night wore on, my body recalled grace, choreography, and dynamics.

There was a freedom in getting lost in the music. It reminded me of the times I would lose myself in my aerial rehearsals. The music would blare in the studio as I flipped through the air while Olivia sat at her desk, multitasking between paperwork and spotting me. Now, I didn't hesitate to gyrate my hips with the quick country-hip-hop beat while my fingers run upwards through my hair. I added little hops, turns, and kept my arms moving. The DJ kept a variety of songs flowing.

I caught others staring at me as I got more comfortable and confident. I was used to the attention when I danced. A man in blue jeans and a basic gray t-shirt approached me and asked me to swing dance with him. At that point, I didn't want to leave Macaila and Cass, and refused the offer. Even though we had only known each other for a short time, it was easy to laugh with them over Cass's poor dancing skills and then when Macaila and I pretended we were waltzing. When a country song pumped through the speakers, we pulled Cass with us as we joined the country line dancers.

I had started off the evening feeling fatigued and like I had just gotten ran over by a train. By the time we stumbled out of Coyote Rose when they kicked everyone out, I felt alive, as if an electrical current was shooting through my arteries. From the light in Macaila's and Cass's eyes, I knew they were feeling something similar. To go home now, to end the evening preparing for bed... it seemed anti-climactic. Not yet. The streets were still filled with pedestrians as the bars were letting out. Lines to food trucks formed. There was lighting illuminating the painted streets and buildings. "There's an ice cream parlor just around the corner that's open late. Want to go?" Macaila suggested.

"Hmmm, ice cream." I almost salivated over the thought. I wasn't even sure when the last time I had ice cream was. "Absolutely! Yes!"

Macaila threw her arm around my shoulders. "I knew I would like you! You have a sweet tooth just like me!" she exclaimed. "Cass here can be a sour puss sometimes and doesn't like to join me in my sugar-rushes."

"I just prefer savory food," Cass defended with a bemused shrug.

"Fuck a duck, Cass," Macaila laughed.

True to Macaila's word, the ice cream parlor's—the Milky Way—bright lights were shining against the darkness of early morning. We were not the only ones venturing out for a sugar binge. There was a small line at the counter and a few tables in front of the shop were occupied. A friendly heavyset man with dark hair was running the show behind the counter and serving everyone their dessert. His cheerfulness was effervescent and followed us as we walked away with our ice cream bowls in between our hands. We found a table just outside of the parlor and sat down. The illuminated clocktower of Ironton Street became a focal point for my eyes. The clock had a steampunk clockwork feeling about it.

We dug into our respective ice creams. I got a strawberry shortcake one; Macaila chose a chocolate ice cream with peanut butter mixed into it; and Cassiah opted for a blueberry sorbet.

"I haven't had a night like this one for a long time," I opened the conversation once we were seated at a table on the parlor's patio. Summer still displayed its full strength. It was three o'clock in the morning and the temperature was pleasant. A small breeze drifted past us every so often. It played with the tendrils of my hair.

"What, a fun one?" Macaila inquired. I nodded around a mouth full of ice cream. "Well, you've been hanging out with boring soldiers who only care about sex and their next dose of Ambrosia. Of course you haven't."

I bit my bottom lip against the surge of regret boiling in my stomach. The massacre was never far from my mind. I couldn't tell them about the hundred four lives I had taken. I had only known Macaila and Cass for a couple of hours and was told to befriend them. The task was one I actually wanted to do. If I was being honest with myself, I wanted to be friends with them. If they knew about the massacre, they wouldn't want to be friends.

"Where did you learn how to dance like that, anyway?" Macaila asked.

I released the breath I had been holding. "Dancing is a passion of mine," I answered. "I was rusty tonight."

"You had more than half of the club staring at you towards the end. I think you're fine." Cass nodded in agreement.

"What about you two? Any hobbies?"

"Computers." Cassiah remained nonchalant about it, but I suspected there was more to it than his broad categorization.

"He’s lives in the library," Macaila teased as she bumped her shoulder against his.

Cassiah lips formed a soft smile. "Well, it’s the only place I can go without feeling like I will be thrown out in minutes."

I blinked, wondering if Cassiah’s statement was related to classism.

"I like to experiment with potions," Macaila answered, twirling her spoon around. "I'm not that good at it."

Cassiah nudged her. "That's total bull, and you know it." Cassiah looked at me. "Her potions are rather advanced. She once made one that blew a crater through one of the Academia's walls."

Macaila slouched as she glanced around to make sure no one else was listening. No one even batted an eye; they all remained focused on their own conversations. "Shh," she hushed Cassiah, her eyes wide. She whacked his shoulder with her spoon.

"She hasn't been caught for it," Cassiah whispered conspiringly to me.

"I was testing out the potion," Macaila explained. "It was only supposed to make a small depression in the ground and generate a lot of smoke. It was meant to be distraction tool. I guess I put a little too much chimera powder in it. We were lucky enough to run away before anyone saw us at the scene, or Winters would have definitely expelled us."

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

"I thought it was pretty cool," Cassiah said.

I nodded in enthusiastic agreement. "What other potions have you made?"

Macaila shrugged, at once becoming bashful. "I experiment with a variety of stuff: remedies, charms, beauty, cooking, personal defense, luck stuff. I got into it because it's the only way I can compete with the mages who have affinities."

"You guys don't have affinities?" I inquired.

Macaila shook her head. "Not anymore." I sent her a questioning look. "I had mine for three years before it just suddenly vanished. Aerie."

"I didn't know I was mage until a couple of days ago."

"You didn't?"

"You didn't have any episodes of your magic just exploding on you?" Macaila questioned.

"Yes, but I didn't know that what I was doing could be classified as magic," I answered with a pitiful shrug. "I grew up believing magic was imaginary. Something you'd only see in movies and books."

Macaila clutched the edge of the table with her hands and leaned forward. The intensity in her eyes was potent as she stared at me. "You're saying you grew up completely mortal? Without any indication whatsoever that you may be a mage?"

I pushed a piece of hair away. "That exactly. I was planning on becoming a doctor. Made it to sophomore year in college. Was about to marry my college sweetheart and make him little babies, too."

"Who were your parents?" Macaila questioned. Her tone was so incredulous that I had to hide a small smile. At once, I felt an instant relief in my gut. It had been one of the best nights I’d had for some time. There were the preliminary feelings of a bond being formed between us. They had accepted me. I had been friendless for years, and I wanted to see if friendships could develop between myself and the two, regardless of whether I had been assigned to do it in the first place. Even though briefing them on my past was necessary to develop the friendship further, I was still afraid. I didn't know if the Resistance had briefed them on me, on the massacre that lurked in the shadows of the past. I was afraid that they would start throwing out accusations and judgment like Kyrian had and make me feel worse than I already did. Yet, their emotion was genuine. They seemed to be oblivious to that dark part of my past.

"My mom died when I was eight and she never told me who my dad was."

"Was she a mage?"

"She was, though she didn't tell me anything." I noticed that an older man sitting at an adjacent table had stopped conversing with his female companion. His movements eating his dessert became robotic. His spine was ultra-straight and his stare at the tabletop was too intense. Swallowing, I lifted my voice to a higher octave to present myself as senseless. "I don't know, though. I've been here for only three days. There's still so much for me to learn. I feel completely overwhelmed. I'm probably going to be the oldest student ever at the Academia." I laughed self-deprecatingly. Catching the change in my tone, Macaila's eyes narrowed. With a flick of my own, I sent Cassiah's and her gazes over to where the man was listening. Her eyes widened with recognition, and she was prompted into movement. She pulled out a pen and scrap piece of paper.

"I'm twenty-three," Macaila argued as she scribbled something on the paper.

"We're the same age then." Macaila pushed the paper towards me.

That's the military's spymaster. Commander Rixsyn.

"When were you born?" I questioned, surprised. I swallowed and glanced at him out of the corner of my eye. He had a strongly shaped and clean-shaven jawbone that only added to the severity of his face. His eyebrows had been allowed to run rampant. If I looked closely, I could see the hints of concealed weapons pressing out from underneath his clothing. His female companion was petite with a small button nose. She looked miserable sitting across from him, and I wondered if their 'evening out' was just a facade so that the commander could shadow me. Sebastien probably put him up to it. I felt a flare of anger within me; this shadow was inhibiting my freedom. Yet, after the past three nights, I couldn't blame Sebastien for the tail.

"October 11, 1995.” Macaila worked with me to keep the illusion alive. "Cass's is in January. I blame the stars for why he's so quiet and reserved all the time!" Teasingly, Macaila shoulder-bumped Cassiah.

"You said that you used to have magic," I recalled. "What happened?"

"My magic manifested when I was six. I levitated the entire house when I was having a tantrum. My parents took me to the evaluators soon after, and I demonstrated an affinity for aerie. They celebrated, and I was sent to the Academia under the aerie program. I was treated like a prodigy for being so young." A one-shoulder shrug accompanied her sigh. "That lasted for three years until it just disappeared. Suddenly. I just woke up and none of my spells were working. I couldn't feel my magic in me anymore.

"I underwent a lot of testing—as much as my parents could afford—and they still couldn't determine what had caused the disappearance. I wasn't the only aerie to lose her powers, either. I was out of school for a couple of months until the government stepped in and mandated my parents to enroll me in the Academia under the Nullus Program. I've been at the Academia ever since, trying to learn enough to take my exams and get the hell out of that pompous hellhole. Can you believe Magical Theory class is still mandated under the program even though all of us will never have any practical lessons on it? It's ridiculous. It's like they want to rub our noses in the fact that none of us have access to our magic, despite being mage-born." Macaila was swirling her spoon around in her bowl, mixing the liquid form of her melted ice cream with the leftover peanut butter chunks. Although her voice was light, she couldn't control the deep frown her mouth presented. She missed her magic; she missed the prodigy status.

"It's that bad?" I inquired.

"There's certainly a divide between the students who have affinities and the students who don't."

Cassiah tapped his spoon against the table. "That's why we were surprised you came up to us tonight. People like you ignore us, or act like we are so far beneath them that we don't matter."

"I came up to you because you guys actually seem like you have personalities," I asserted with a frown. I was dissatisfied by the division amongst the mages. My eyes drifted to the left, where I could see an erion broadcasting inside of the ice cream parlor. The channel was on one that I recognized as a British national news broadcast.

"Ha, she knew you were fiery the moment she saw you, Macaila!" Cassiah teased.

"Well, that's a good thing, isn't it? Because without me, she would have never seen you," Macaila shot back.

My vision sharpened when I saw what was being broadcasted. My heart plummeted to the bottom reaches of my ribcage as my jovial expression melted from my face. A horrified one took its place.

For standing right in the middle of Alexanderplatz Square in Berlin, with the Berliner Fernsehturm in the background, was a woman. A blurry closeup of her face revealed a distant gaze, almost as if her soul had vacated her body. Her arms remained at her sides, while her mouth was a narrow line across her face. However, there was no doubt she caused had the destruction surrounding her. Gigantic ravines had ruptured the concrete around her. The tracks for the public railway had been bent and torn apart, sending a train tumbling over onto its side. The art fixture that showed the different time zones across the world had been ripped in half by a ravine. Parts of buildings were missing. Sections of them were crumbling into dust, as if a giant had taken a massive bite out of their sides. As people ran away in terror, trying to avoid being consumed by the earth itself, the woman just stood there. The ravines radiated away from her. Ashes were falling from the sky.

I didn't even need the mugshot that they posted to the right side of the screen to know that the woman was me. Somehow, I found myself standing in front of the muted erion inside of the ice cream parlor. I didn't remember standing up and leaving Macaila and Cassiah behind. With dread, I stared at the erion. The broadcast was now showing a camera panning over Berlin’s battered landscape. The Reichstag’s dome was cracked in several places. The Berlin Cathedral was now just a pile of dust, while four of the columns to the Brandenburg Gate had collapsed. Large sections of the already dilapidated Berlin Wall had simply crumbled. The wide view caught the curtain of ashes falling from the sky.

I didn’t need the broadcast to tell me when the terrorist attack had occurred: I already knew in my bones when it had. I recognized the clothes I was wearing. They were the same ones I had just changed out of this evening after Jay had awakened me. The attack had taken place in the space of time I didn’t have any recollection of, in between Leander’s lesson and when I woke up. Upon awakening, I had felt like I had been buried underneath one of those collapsed buildings. When I had taken my shower, my fingers had been smeared with black stains after shampooing my hair. I had ashes in my hair. My clothes had dust from the demolished buildings.

My spine tingled from the eeriness of it all. I had lost my memory at the Union Station attack as well. I had performed impressive feats of magic at both, and yet, could not even make that die spin on one of its points in Leander's gymnasium.

"She’s still at large, believed to be in Germany presently." I read the closed captions on the erion. "Law enforcement is asking for everyone to maintain their distance if Briara Disraeli is seen, and to call 999 immediately. They warn Disraeli is dangerous and armed with unknown weapons."

"What is it? Are you okay?" Macaila questioned behind me, her voice soft and hesitant. I jumped, unaware that she and Cass had followed me into the parlor.

The look in my gaze had to be wild and frantic. Neither Macaila nor Cass took a step back from me.

I killed people again.

I felt my mouth move, though no words escaped me. It was so dry. My salvia had evaporated. I looked at Macaila and Cassiah, who both had concern written across their expressions, to Commander Rixsyn, who was staring at me through the windows as though he was waiting to see what I would do next. The pressure became too much. The fear of how many lives I had taken yesterday haunted me. Shame wrapped me in its suffocating embrace. "I have to go," I mumbled. Too ashamed, I couldn’t even bring myself to look at their faces one last time. I spun on my feet and rushed out of the parlor. The chimes hanging on the door mocked me.