I had to admit it. Jonathan was really good.

To be honest, he wasn't good in any of the conventional ways I was taught you had to be good.

But, in a lot of things, he was better.

First of all, he was a natural-born fighter. His skills with his swords were not only exceptional -- it was easy to see they were self-taught. He may not have known all the right moves, but his intellect and intuition made up for it.

He knew half of the things I knew of, or less. But his experience had come from the streets. And it had already been proved he had a lot to give, he could defeat the demon I hadn't been able to defend myself from.

I was starting to respect him more and more, and, as my respect grew, I couldn't help but trust Minx Morris more. I had initially thought the teacher wasn't much, especially compared to what I had been taught at home, but the man had looked for Jonathan specifically for the school. It showed guts, and ability to see promise where it was.

To put it clearly, I had always wanted to stray from the beaten path, and Jonathan Loreta, and Minx Morris, who both could do it so effortlessy, had become inspirations to me.

Atticus and I were the brightest scholars, and we often spent time together. But we had too many years that divided us to be really friendly towards each other, and I couldn't shake off the feeling that Roman didn't want me speaking with his brother. It seemed like Roman acted like that towards everyone, but I wasn't one to impose my presence where it was not wanted.

Another thing I liked about spending time with Jonathan was that he was new in town, and had been immune to all the gossip. I found out I liked telling it, especially when it involved my own family.

One day, I was helping him studying, when he said: "It must be hard for you to be at school. You spent the majority of your life in your family's house, surrounded by people who already knew everything there was to know about Blood Drinkers."

"Well, here I feel more free," I admitted. "Back at home there were a lot of expectations. Almost every person related to the Macbeths is a Blood Drinkers, and they're all pretty good at it. They have uncommon Skills, and they survived their Blood Tasks without a scratch."

I shuddered. Jonathan and I were nowhere near good enough for our Blood Tasks yet.

"Has there ever been a time where you didn't want to do it?" Jonathan asked it, and I understood what he meant.

"Not really," I replied truthfully. "I mean, I get why you would think that. It doesn't sound much like a decision of mine, does it? But there's so much honour in doing this, so much justice... I couldn't picture myself doing anything else. I always wanted to do something good, you know? This seems like... I mean, this is a good decision."

Jonathan nodded, and went on copying down the words I had written for him.

"But this is not the first time I spent apart from the Macbeths," I couldn't help but say.

"The first time I was younger," I added. "I was eight years old, and I decided I wanted to spend some time with my father. You might have guessed my parents are not together anymore. To be fair, they only had a brief fling. It was during a time my mother wasn't sure she wanted to live as a Blood Drinker anymore. As you may know, Blood Drinkers usually have a partner for the duration of their lives. That is, if they find the right partner. I'm not sure how it works yet, but Mira and Minx should explain it to us when we're a bit older. That wasn't what my mother and father had. They just tried to make it work for a time, you know? Obviously, it didn't. But here I am.

When I was eight years old, I was pretty sure of what the Macbeths stood for, and what was my place with them. But I grew curious. What made me a Spaulding, if there was anything? I asked my mother if I could live with my father for some time, and she accepted."

"How did it go?" Jonathan asked me.

"Not as I had hoped," I admitted. "My father is not what you'd call a serious person. And he certainly wasn't interested in making some good in the world. I don't think he even had a job, or, if he did, it was something I wasn't totally aware of."

"Anyway," I added briefly. "That made me very sure that I belonged with the Macbeths. I wanted to be a Blood Drinker even more after that."

"I'm glad you got to be one," Jonathan said. "Otherwise we would have never met."

"I was pretty much destined to be here anyway," I shrugged. "You, instead? I'm glad you made it. I'm really, really glad."

Somebody behind my back coughed. It was Atticus. I immediately blushed, even though I was sure there was nothing wrong with what I said to Jonathan.

"Do you guys want to get a room?" he smiled. "Not even Aurora and I talk to each other like that."

I was about to snap that maybe the problem was with them, but I did not want to antagonize him. And I did not want to give Jonathan the wrong impression.

Apropos of Jonathan, he threw a book in Atticus' general direction. Luckily, the older guy simply ducked, still smiling.

Sometimes I asked myself how he did it. He was one of the best Blood Drinkers in the school, probably a young prodigy, he had basically raised himself, and his little brother, on his own. He still found time to hang around with a lot of friends, have a girlfriend, and joke around. He was always full of energy, no matter how draining Roman's company seemed to be to everyone else.

I had to admit I was a little jealous of him. He could be the kind of person I would aspire to be, if we were not so different. But he was too loveable for anyone to hold him any grudge. By the time he had left the library, I had already forgotten his silly implications about Jonathan and I.

And, after all, that's all they were. Silly implications.

Jonathan was not making much progress learning how to read and write, and I was equally slow with the sword. Minx and Mira did not seem to appreciate the pact we had made.

"We are a team," Mira told me one day. "It doesn't matter if you're not good with the sword, as long as Jonathan is around to save the day. It is almost unknown of a Blood Drinker who could master more than a weapon at once."

But she had been the one to tell us to learn how to use different weapons, aside from our favorite. I guessed this was her kind way to tell me 'Drop it, you suck.'

The truth was, as Minx told me as soon as he saw me, that most swords were too heavy for me. But I would not stop at such a ridicule issue. Of course, nobody else seemed to think it was ridiculous. Jason, during a lesson, said that I was the one who was being ridiculous.

Everybody cheered more for Jonathan's desire to learn how to write and read, because they all felt like it was something every Blood Drinker should know how to do. Nobody said anything about having other strenghts, or working in a team.

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Atticus told Jonathan that he had to learn how to write and read on his own, because his father wouldn't send him to school when he was little. Of course, Atticus did everything perfectly, and so he turned out just fine. Jonathan was a bit put off by his inability to see the difference in their situations.

"Does Roman know how to write and read?" I asked him suddenly, when we were in the library one day, just the three of us.

"Of course he does," he replied, a little gingerly. "I taught him myself."

Jonathan groaned, but not very loudly, because, in that moment, the Speaker had entered the room.

"Roman still has trouble with long words," Atticus offered. If I didn't know him better, I would think he was throwing his brother under the bus.

"That's not true, you fucking Acanthoscurria hirsutissimasterni," Roman replied smugly. "It's a spider, by the way," he added helpfully when he saw the look on everybody's face.

"I do not have trouble with words," he added darkly. "I have trouble with concepts."

"That explains a lot," Atticus muttered affectionately under his breath.

"It still doesn't explain why you're in the library with them, instead of being with me. I wanted to read you some of my street poetry."

Street poetry? I really hoped I heard it wrong.

"Street poetry is not really big where I'm from, care to explain?" Jonathan asked gently.

"Basically, it's a form of improvisation," Roman said, proud of it like he had invented it himself. "You have to walk around the streets talking in poetry verses. Other people can hear you, and other poets can talk back to you."

"It might get gruesome," I added. "Or tacky. Being a genre of poetry invented on the streets, there is no sugar-coating it. Perhaps, the opposite."

"Well," Roman conceded. "It was invented by a homeless man and his prostitute wife who liked to engage in verbal fights that rhymed..."

"But the lines were pretty clever," he hastily added then. "And even now, almost fifty years later, you can't consider yourself a real street poet if you just talk trash about people, you know. There is a craft..."

"Come on, Roman, let's go..." Atticus cut him off. "I'll hear your poetry until my ears fall off. Deal? Just promise me that you won't ever go on the streets to tell it to anybody else..."

I noticed, uncomfortable, that Roman didn't promise anything.

I noticed that Jonathan's gaze was following Atticus wistfully. I felt a pang of jealousy, but before I could investigate where it was coming from, Jonathan sighed.

"It would be cool to have an older brother, uh?" he commented. "There were times where I really needed one. I guess I still do."

He blushed a little, and copied more words. His hand-writing was starting to resemble sword blows, long, swift, and intricated. I blamed it on the way he held his pen.

Thankfully, it was also getting easier to read.

"Do you think Roman will ever perform?" I asked, uneasily. He wasn't a proper Blood Drinker, being a Speaker, but he was, as Minx Morris put it, a part of the team. Sometimes, he said he was the most important part, but I had no doubt he only said that to elevate his ego. Anyway, the idea of the town, and maybe even people nearby, not taking us seriously because of this... it was making me feel unwell.

"I hope he does," Jonathan said. "If he ever asks us to hear his lines, I'll say yes."

"Suit yourself," I said, a little annoyed. Jonathan had become a better Blood Drinker in the last few weeks, but sometimes he still seemed incapable of looking at the bigger picture.

It turned out, Jonathan didn't have to wait long to have his wish fulfilled.

"Roman is working on something cool," Mira announced a couple of days after, during lunch. "I think you all should hear it!"

Mira and Minx seemed to appreciate Roman a lot more than it appeared to be humanly possible, especially for people who weren't related to him by blood. I guessed being one of the few school of Blood Drinkers who gets to teach a Speaker too must do something to you.

To his credit, Roman appeared quite embarrassed. But it was too late. Aurora and Atticus were cheering him on. Jonathan and I were silent, in quite different ways. I, for one, was silently horrified.

Carmela was laughing, but she had a tendency to snicker quite often. Cora, Evangeline and Jason weren't paying any attention to him. I noticed, surprised, that he got up and cleared his voice, after Matias had touched his arm lightly. I hadn't noticed those two had become friends.

Roman cleared his voice again, and started reciting.

I'm a poet sent from Hell,

My name's Roman, wish you well

I am here to send all of the others to the grave

You'll get it when you see the way I misbehave

I really hope you get it before it's too fucking late

So get ready for the slaughter

Call all your sons and daughters

And trust the doctor

To heal you before I build the coffin

If I do, and I will, 'cause my words cut with ease

Don't ever think I'm gonna let you rest in peace

I can Speak to your Spirit and never show you the light

'Cause my name is Roman as in "Motherfucker you will die."

Mira and Minx clapped their hands wildly. Almost every student on the table was laughing so hard they were crying.

"I think I just pissed myself," Carmela commented.

Aurora's smile was frozen in place like she had started smiling encouragingly and it got stuck there.

"This one was almost nice, bro," Atticus said aloud. "Keep going!"

Jonathan was clapping politely, and Matias was looking around proudly, as if to say Roman had been his friend before anybody else noticed how bright he actually was.

As for me, I was almost glad I couldn't find a flower pot to bury my head in. I wouldn't have trusted myself not to do it.

Roman stormed off. For the first time ever since I knew him, I could understand why he would do something like that.

"Guys!" Minx said. "We are big fans of self-expression here! I want every single one of you to congratulate Roman on his poetry before this day ends!"

Usually, it was a bit hard to take him seriously. But this time I could see he meant it.

"Poetry?" Jason asked. "Is that what you call when a weak guy pretends he's a big guy?"

Atticus felt the need to salvage the situation.

"Roman doesn't really mean it, obviously. Street poetry is all about freedom of speech, and all the other poets often threat each other like that. It's part of the game. You don't have to see it as a real thing, it's more like a play."

"Well," I said. "I'm all up for it, but I don't want him to go on the townstreets and really say stuff like that. Even if it was better, well... we have a job to do. And I expect him to become a better Speaker, who can talk to Spirits, not just metaphorically."

I realized as soon as I said it how harsh it sounded. But the truth was, Roman wasn't that much of a Speaker. I couldn't understand if he didn't try hard enough, or he didn't want to. Sometimes our personal desires can lessen our powers. Or maybe, he just looked powerful at first, but then he wasn't really much to be reckoned with.

What I'm trying to say, is that his powers seemed somewhat limited. He was pretty great at a number of things, but had not learned much at all ever since school started.

"That's it!" Minx exploded. I was a little surprised, but I guessed I had crossed the line.

"You get detention, Mister Spaulding-Macbeth. Now, come with me. Immediately." He added, when I didn't seem to understand.

I glanced at Jonathan, hoping stupidly he could get me out of this one. He just looked at me curiously.

Minx led me to a room I'd never seen before.

When we were alone, I noticed for the first time how weary he was looking. It was hard for me to get a good look at his face, he was taller than me by more than a foot.

"I hate to ask you such a thing," he started, which was a strange start for a punishment, I had to admit.

"But somebody is sabotaging... never mind, you don't have to know all the details. Unless you already do," he chuckled. "Anyway, I suspect your family is up to something sinister, and I can totally understand if you don't want to tell me. It's your family, after all. I know where your loyalties lie. And it's okay, really. I just wanted you to know that you're safe here, and you can tell me anything. I understand you wouldn't sell them out like that, obviously. But it's worth a shot, isn't it?" He patted me on the shoulder.

"I know I don't have your trust yet," he said, something breaking in his voice. "But I'm willing to fight until I get it."

"And, don't worry," he added. "Whatever happens... you won't be blamed for it."

The conversation was so strange I couldn't bring myself to talk about it with anyone. All I could think about for the next few days was how my family had a plan, that apparently didn't concern me -- they didn't even waste their time talking to me about it! And, by the words of Minx Morris, it appeared to be something big, something that could potentially destroy Blood Drinkers as we knew them.

I knew I wasn't exaggerating. Maybe most people wouldn't know what my mother was capable of, but I did. If it was true, if she still had a grudge with Blood Drinkers, things could only turn out for the worst.

A part of me was hurt. My own family didn't trust me. But I was also relieved, in a way. I didn't want to betray any of my new friends. Especially Jonathan. We were a team. Minx had told me that, when my family would make its move, he wouldn't blame me.

I could only hope that was true for all of them.

My days and nights got even busier. I had always liked playing pretend I was a detective, and now I had my chance to investigate something for real. Too bad I couldn't find any lead.

After I spent a week obsessing, I told myself Minx must have been wrong. It could happen. But, in the back of my mind, I kept myself ready to defend my true home.