“Let’s make a list,” Levi said as he and Seth settled into the hard chairs of the Havannah’s infirmary. “That way you can track your progress over the next few weeks. I think your top priorities are reading through the scrolls enough to memorize their contents and practicing each of your abilities.”

He wrote ‘reading’ at the top of the parchment set between them, then wrote ‘Child of Virtue’ and ‘Child of the Garden’ below.

“Your Virtue ability probably has a longer name now that Sin is part of it, but that isn’t important,” Levi commented, dabbing the quill into the ink again. “Do you have a name for the others?”

“Yes; Origin of Genes, Landon Clarke’s Possessions, and Quartz Explication,” Seth replied.

“Right, so that’s the one that lets you hear abilities, the one from the ghost, and the one from the orb,” Levi said absentmindedly as he wrote. “I don’t know if any of those are useful in a fight, asking the other people you’ll be working with wouldn’t be a bad idea though. We can still take some time for you to figure them out more, and to go through what’s in that Loss bag.”

“There’s more to it actually,” Seth said hesitantly. “I didn’t mention this before because I wasn’t sure about it I guess, but the Origin one is an essence use ability. Also, the other two are part of its basic effect.”

He had realized he had another essence back when his Virtue was heightened, but he hadn’t been able to figure out what it was. Apprehensive about it, but not wanting to raise another issue for his parents, he had decided to let it come up naturally when they got to Estroma for Explication.

Levi looked from Seth to the page for a moment, then leaned back with a thoughtful expression.

“Basic effect?” Levi mused, fluttering the quill’s feather as he rolled it between his fingers. “It’s still unusual to jump straight to that level of comprehension, but if the other two abilities are part of the first, it explains how you keep developing them.”

“Is that something you’ve heard of?” Seth asked, leaning back as well. “An ability that can copy others? The closest thing I could think of was Animal essence abilities that let you make yourself part fish or snake or something.”

“Imitation essence can copy other essences, obviously,” Levi replied. “I’m not familiar with Gene essence though, so I don’t know if that’s a common application. I assume that’s the ability you Explicated the other day? How does it work?”

“I don’t remember the exact wording, but the gist is pretty ingrained,” Seth said with a slight scowl. “It lets me get three abilities as part of it. To get them, I have to kill or break something though. It basically said that I murdered Landon.”

“Three from that one ability?” Levi said, raising his eyebrows. “It seems more likely that it’s letting you gain abilities up to your limit. You’ve got the two from your birthright and this Gene one, so three left.”

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“Maybe, but I don’t think so,” Seth said uncertainly. “The Explication ability does one ability at a time, and all three showed up with Origin of Genes. Even the third one I don’t have yet had a line. For the third one I have to kill an animal or something.”

“I have more questions, but you don’t know much more than I do I suppose,” Levi said, drawing lines between the connected abilities on the page. “Unless we happen to find someone familiar with what I assume is a rather uncommon essence on the way back to Lith, I won’t be able to even try to learn about it until then. You should try to figure out if you can change a copied ability for another or not, but if you have to kill things to use it then perhaps not.”

Levi drew a third line from Origin of Genes to a space below Quartz Explication and put a question mark.

“Just more to work on for your abilities I suppose,” Levi said, then gestured at the infirmary around them. “Cramming as much healing experience into you, theoretical or practical, as possible is still a large priority. Obviously we can’t injure the sailors for practice, but I told them to come find us for even the slightest twinge or ache.”

He looked down at the list he was making, which was less than a third of the page. After a moment Levi added ‘get to know Chadwick’ and slid the parchment to Seth.

“Can you think of anything else?” He asked.

“Going over the stuff you bought?” Seth offered. “I’ve never camped, worn armor, or stabbed anything. The only experience I have with all of it is making it fit together under my bed like that block stacking game of Landon’s.”

Levi pulled the list back and added ‘camping practice,’ ‘armor wearing,’ ‘weapon safety’, and ‘packing’ to it. The list had a more respectable length, and Seth mildly regretted saying anything. The first couple items sounded more enjoyable.

“Well, I guess I’ll start from the top,” Seth said, picking up the list.

He and Levi stood and Seth gave his dad a one-armed hug before they left the infirmary for their respective rooms. Seth opened his door to find Chadwick wearing only a pair of loose capris, hefting small metal bars, and glistening with sweat.

Rather than ask one of several questions that arose, Seth chose to sit at his desk and reopen the scroll that gave an in-depth overview of Wanderers. The organization was apparently based on a distant island called Elefsa in a settlement called Wanderer’s Home. Their libraries had some of the oldest continuous records in the Shattered Isles, though the scroll obliquely referred to an older group that was apparently considered unwelcome by the church.

That was as far as Seth made it in his reading before the pervasive smell of sweat and constant heavy breathing from Chadwick made him decide to relocate. He carefully picked up his scroll, grabbed the ghost backpack, and returned to the infirmary, sitting on the cot to read.

He had barely begun to read about the abilities that the Wanderers provided their members when the door to the infirmary opened and Levi stepped in carrying a scroll as well. He and Seth looked at each other for a moment.

“Chadwick is training or something,” Seth said. “He sweats a lot. And pants.”

“Gabby is numbing her sense of time passing,” Levi replied. “She just sits and stares at nothing. Totally still and silent.”

Seth snorted and got up.

“Let’s trade off then,” he said, carefully setting his scroll on a table and resting a wood block on it. “I wanted to look at the boat anyway. I’ll head up for a while and you can read, then I come back and you can do the same?”