“Okay, all you have to do is watch the glowing water,” Micah told his little cousins. Or was it second cousins? He wasn’t sure. There were so many of the little critters running around the bathhouse today, he could barely tell them apart. “And when one of them stops glowing, you check the clock and write down the time.”

“I don’t know how to read the time,” one of them said.

The three that had decided to listen to him sat on the floor in front of one of the tables in a private room. The whole herd had been fascinated by his potions when Micah had brought them out, but most ran off the minute he mentioned the word “work”. He should have used another word instead. Maybe “game” or “mission”?

This one, who claimed he couldn’t read the time, Micah did remember.

“Yes, you do,” he said. “I taught you just last week.”

“Oh! Right.”

Micah squinted at him. Would this really work?

He couldn’t have known that the bathhouse would be so busy today. He’d wanted to keep an eye on his potions while he worked, but now he couldn’t, so he had to find another way not to boggle his experiment.

He couldn’t afford to. He didn’t have a lot of Sewer water left and he wasn’t looking forward to going on his own to get more since Ryan was so busy. If Micah only needed Sewer water, he could probably just duck in, fill some waterskins, and duck out again. It’d be a shame to pay a day’s pass just for that—but that wasn’t even the problem. Micah also needed more moss soon, so he’d have to go further in anyway.

And there was always the chance the exit portal wouldn’t be behind him when he went into the Tower. It hadn’t been there the first time he went in with Ryan and Ed, after all. Only on the second time. Without it, he’d need a moment to adjust his eyes when he went inside. That was kind of spooky.

Plus, the Sewers were supposed to have some basic traps further in that Ryan had warned him about. Stone grates in the walls that could fall over and hit your legs, or hide things; uneven terrains, dead ends, dangerous vegetation, and even other monsters, like rare frogs, snakes, or spiders.

There was a reason the sock-wearers only fought singular rats on the outskirts. And yet, for some reason, Micah felt a sense of excitement when he thought about the dangers.

What kind of wonders were they meant to protect?

“Just draw a picture of the clock face if you really don’t know,” he told his cousins. “And remember, if you drink any of them, you’ll die.”

They giggled. At a death threat. Micah had no idea why. He’d tried to sound ominous, too.

Why was it that he was better at intimidating monsters than his eight-year-old cousins?

Honestly, Micah had no idea what could happen if someone drank the stuff. By all means, the light potions shouldn’t be dangerous. Most of them were basically just sewer water and moss put together and infused, after all. A few had his leftover bug collection mixed in just to see what would happen — Micah liked the idea of controlled chaos. Some others had some spices added to see what would happen, sugar and salt. Two weren’t even infused at all. He just wanted to see how long they would last and whether or not the moss would still glow if Micah grew it in regular water. Maybe he could grow it outside of the Tower? That left the questions of how and where. What was their source of nourishment inside the Tower? They got some light through holes in the ceiling — Micah didn’t know where that light came from, because he didn’t have a massive ladder to check — and they had water that was probably rich in nutrients, but what about inside the tunnel? The moss grew a little bit in the cracks all over the Sewers. Did the dim blue glow help it grow? Why did the moss even glow? What purpose did that serve the plant? Micah didn’t know of any naturally occurring plants that glowed at night. Was the moss magical somehow?

… was the glow only for the Climbers’ benefit?

So many questions.

The most important one was, in Micah’s opinion—one of the potions didn’t have the moss inside anymore, but the water still glowed very dimly after infusing it. Micah wondered if he could use that to create a reliable, pure primer of an alchemical light quality. If he could, then he could use that in lots of different potions in the future that required ‘light’ as an ingredient.

If that didn’t work, could he maybe make oil out of the moss? Depending on what caused it to glow in reaction to the Sewer water, that could be better or it could be completely useless.

And what was it in the water that made the moss glow in the first place? How could he replicate that?

“Don’t worry, Samuel,” Neil’s grandmother interrupted his thoughts from her rocking chair. “I’ll keep an eye on them and make sure they don’t drink your healing potions.”

Micah smiled at her. She’d gotten his name wrong again, but he didn’t mind. She got everyone’s names wrong nowadays.

“Thank you, Grandma Lucy,” he said and got up. Enough questions. He had chores to do.

He almost bumped into Neil on his way out.

“Ah, Micah. Just the man I was looking for,” he greeted him.

Man? Micah thought. Aww, stop it, you.

“Neil, what do you need me to do?”

“Leave,” Neil said blankly. Micah blinked. “And take as many of these pests that you can with you.”

Just then, two giggling children ran past their legs and down the hall, their feet stomping on the floor. Somehow, their voices seemed to get louder the further they ran away.

That made more sense.

“Where to?” Micah asked.

“I thought maybe the Chores Office? They don’t actually have to work. You can just let them play with the other children in the park. But the bathhouse is overcrowded and we need some space. Aunt Del is already there with a few of her own, so you can meet up with her if you like.”

So Micah was supposed to play babysitter? He didn’t mind. At least, now he knew how Lisa felt. And he’d get to watch over his light potions, so there was that.

On the topic of Lisa—

“Uhm, Neil?” he asked. “Before I go. I kind of wanted to ask if I could have tomorrow afternoon off?”

“What? Why?” he asked.

“I sort of found an instructor who can teach me—”

“An instructor? You should pick this up with your sister,” he said, about to leave again.

“No, it’s just. I kind of already made plans to meet with her tomorrow ...?”

Neil stopped and turned back to him. He had a weird expression on his face. “And you’re only just telling me this now.” He sighed. “Of course.”

Micah felt a pang of guilt when he said that. Had Neil had plans for him tomorrow? If so, Micah had screwed up. Obviously. But it hadn’t been on purpose. He’d just gotten so used to Neil and Prisha letting him run off whenever he wanted to that he hadn’t stopped to consider they might … not let him do that in the future. Or at least not want him to.

If Neil said no, how would Micah tell Lisa that he wasn’t coming? Maybe through Ryan?

“It’s alright. You can go,” Neil said before Micah could tell him that he still had the option to cancel. “It’s just, tomorrow is bound to be at least as hot as today. We really could have used your help, man.”

Neil sort of shrugged in disappointment.

Him not actually admonishing Micah was much worse than when his parents did do it. Micah had let the man down. He wanted to make it right again.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “If you really need me—”

“No, no.” He waved Micah off. “It’s fine. We’ve managed to survive before yo- HEY! Pablo!” he suddenly shouted at one of the children. “What are you drinking there?!”

Not good.

Neil stormed over before Micah could, and he pulled the jar out of the child’s hand. He frowned at it and quickly put the lid back on. Instead of turning on Micah, he asked the kid, “Why would you drink that?”

Pablo shrugged a little. Micah looked around for his bag to put the jars back inside.

“It glows,” he said. “And it smells funny. And Barry dared me.”

Barry made a meep sound and scampered off, running out of the room before Neil or Micah could stop him.

Neil actually groaned.

“You can’t just drink potions, Pav. Most of them are really bad for you. Do you understand?”

He glanced at Micah as he said it. A question.

“This one isn’t,” he quickly assured the man. A glance at the jar told him it wasn’t even infused at all. “It’s not even magical. It’s just water and moss that glows a little, like fireflies.”

“And you know that for sure?” he asked.

Micah opened his mouth, a little angry. Of course, he knew that for sure, he wanted to say. But then he remembered that he didn’t. Not really, right? He didn’t even know what alchemists normally used the moss for.

He shut his mouth again.

Neil got the message.

“How much did you drink?” he asked Pablo.

“Just a sip,” the boy mumbled, looking at the floor.

Neil sighed.

“Alright then. It’s fine. Just don’t do it again. Go on into the kitchen and get yourself some water. And then you’ll go with your cousins to the park, okay?”

“Okay,” the boy said before he ran off.

Neil looked at Micah.

“You can’t just leave your stuff lying around like this, Micah,” he said. “Around children. Not just alchemy. Things they can easily swallow or hurt themselves with, too. Just … try to be a bit more considerate in the future, okay?”

Micah tried not to sulk as he said, “Okay.”

“Samuel, is everything alright?” Neil’s grandmother interrupted them. “Is something the matter? Are you sick?”

“No, Nana. Everything’s alright,” Neil said softly. “I’m sorry for the noise.”

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

Micah was pretty sure that Tuesday was going to go down as the hottest day of the year. He felt like he was melting in the classroom. Ryan looked like he had melted next to him. He was draped over their desk like a puddle of water and had his eyes closed, looking like he was trying to block out the world.

“You know what we should do?” Micah interrupted him.

“Find an ice box to live in forever?” Ryan guessed.

Micah chuckled tiredly. “Close, but not that.”

Despite the weather, or maybe because of it, Micah couldn’t stop thinking about all the questions in his head. About Sewer moss, and its water, and the Tower. About his family. Neil, and Prisha, and his parents. A whole lot about his parents.

There was something there that Micah didn’t want to touch on, but he only had a year left before he had to do it. Suddenly, that didn’t seem like a lot of time at all.

“During summer break, when everyone’s going out camping,” Micah said. “We should say we’re going camping, too.”

“But we won’t be?”

Micah grinned. Ryan really did know what he was thinking.

“No.”

“Aw, we should totally go camping together.”

“No, no, no,” he lectured. “We can go camping some other time. This summer, we’ll be miles in the Sewers by then, discovering the secrets of everything. You’ll mimic the rats and get their Path. I’ll be making all sorts of potions.”

Ryan groaned, but somehow it sounded like a happy groan if that was possible.

“I don’t want to get a [Rat Path],” he said. “What would that even give me? [Creepy Stare]?”

“[Cowardly Attack]?” Micah tried.

“[Ridiculous Leap]?”

They chuckled.

“Then you won’t get it,” Micah said. “You’ll just level as a [Fighter]. Me, too. I’ll get the Class and we’ll both be [Fighters].”

“What would we eat?

“I’d make us sandwiches.”

“Imagine the smell.”

“I’d bring a mountain of soap.”

“Just the two of us?”

“Yeah. Against the Tower. We’d get away. At least, from this heat.”

“Ugh. I hate the heat,” Ryan said and trailed off. “That sounds awesome, Micah. I’m in.”

“Really?”

“Yeah.”

“It’s a plan, then.”

“It’s a plan.”

They went back to suffering, but it was a little less horrible than before. Of course, Micah knew they weren't actually going to go. It was just one of those promises you made. As if both of them were saying, Someday. And that was all Micha needed.

Mr. Brecht started class a few moments later, and Micah watched Ryan push himself up to do the proper greeting. He paid attention during class, too. Of course, he did. He needed good grades for school, after all.

And he’d probably spend all summer studying.

Micah was going to miss him then. He sort of did, already.

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

A few hours later, Micah knocked on the door of the Chandlers' residence. Just like before, the man with the soapy essence opened up and let him in. He didn’t seem very talkative. That didn’t stop Micah from pestering him.

“Do you have a Skill?”

No answer. It took Micah a moment to realize how stupid that question that had been. Everyone had at least one Skill, age 13 and up.

“I mean, uhm, one that makes everything around you seem so clean?”

The man frowned at Micah, a hint of a smile on his lips. Had Micah just complimented him somehow? The building was clean, though … if not exactly tidy.

“I have [Aura of Spring],” he said and gestured into the sitting room. “Lady Lisa is waiting for you.”

Micah immediately liked the man when he said that. [Aura of Spring]? That seemed a lot like what Micah had when he wore his perfume potion. He wondered what Class you had to have to get that. Or was it maybe a Path?

He stepped into the sitting room and found “Lady” Lisa lying on the couch like a dead animal, a wet towel draped over her face.

“Hey, Lisa,” he said as he set his bag down. He happily let himself fall down on the other couch.

“Hey, kiddo,” she replied, her voice muffled by the cloth. “Ugh. I should probably offer you something to drink, right? That’s what a good host would do. But that would mean I have to get up. I so do not want to get up.”

Micah shook his head. “No need. I brought my own.”

“Awesome,” Lisa mumbled.

He got his water bottle out of his bag and took a few gulps.

Lisa lazily raised her arm and made snatching motions towards him. Micah tossed her the bottle. It landed on her stomach.

“Thanks.”

Instead of drinking it, she poured some over her towel.

Micah winced. What about the couch?

Lisa didn’t seem to mind, though. She screwed the lid back on and put the bottle on the table.

Just like last time, Micah busied himself with staring the wall of medals for a while. He was too lazy to get up and read about them, but not too lazy to just ask.

“So is Garen, like, famous?” was his first question.

Lisa’s head shifted beneath the towel. Was that a nod? Micah decided he would take that as a nod.

“But we don’t talk about it,” she said. “Not in this household.”

If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

“Oh. Why?”

“Because he doesn’t like what made him famous.”

“Oh. What’s that?”

“Don’t you want to talk about something else?” she asked him. “Like, climbing, or potions, or—” he voice shifted a little, and suddenly there was a leer in her voice as she said, “Anne?”

Micah blushed a little.

“No. Why would I want to talk about Anne?” he asked back.

Lisa chuckled.

Eventually, Micah wondered, “So, is she here, or …?”

“She’s with Garen in the Tower,” Lisa said.

“Garen?”

“Didn’t you know? She’s his protégé.”

Micah didn’t know if she’d said protégé or [Protégé]. Either was impressive.

“Really?”

Garen had a protégé?

“Yeah, he’s even endorsing her to go to that new Climber’s School this Autumn.”

“Which Climber’s School?”

“You really live under a rock, don’t you?” Lisa asked. “The Climber Guild is opening up a school.”

Micah leaned up a bit.

“What?”

“Or at least, it wants to,” Lisa said. “I wouldn’t be surprised if it got shut down before it even opened. With all the changing going on to the Tower ...”

Micah waited for a moment. “Are you really going to make me ask?”

“I was planning on— “

“Which changes?” Micah interrupted her, trying to hound her a little.

Lisa just laughed.

“For one thing,” she started, “new monsters have been showing up, and kids have been collapsing whole floors on them to get them dead.”

She chuckled at that.

Micah assumed she’d meant it as a compliment. He himself? He didn’t know how he felt. Shame? Pride? Embarrassment? That feeling that made him want to run out of the room before she could talk any more about his first experience in the Tower?

Micah kind of hated that it was basically public knowledge. Forget “kind of”, he did hate it. A lot. What was it to them? Why couldn’t they just mind their own business?

But there was nothing he could do about it. Except maybe get famous for another reason someday. Or maybe infamous. He wasn’t sure if he liked that idea, though.

“Is the Salamander’s Den still closed?” he asked.

Lisa didn’t answer, but Micah took that to be a “yes”.

“Why won’t the Guild let anyone in? Wouldn’t clearing the rubble maybe help the Tower somehow?”

Now Lisa turned, the cloth still draped over her face—had she forgotten it was there?—and looked right at him.

“The Guild isn’t the one keeping people out, Micah,” she said. “The Tower is. Nobody has been able to get to the first floor of the Salamander’s Den since you’ve been there. Even the most skilled escorts.”

“Wait, really?” Micah asked.

“Yeah. The Towers are changing,” she said. “People have been spotting new monsters, new traps, new challenges. In Annevos they’re playing board games to open up treasure chests or doors. Lighthouse has been spotting more and more slimes that have items inside them. Here, people have been finding lost belongings again.”

Micah frowned.

“And that’s special?”

“Do you know how rare it was to find something you lost in the Tower a few months ago?” she asked.

Micah shook his head. Somehow, she acted like she’d seen it.

“Practically a miracle. But now people are finding things left and right. Apparently, the floors aren’t cleaning up after themselves, and people can go back to places they recently visited. It’s great for [Explorers], but it’s got a few people worried. Damaged structures haven’t been repaired. Monsters have been scarcer in some areas. Ever since the Salamander’s Den collapsed, fire crystals and their potions have been getting pricier, too, since the Guild doesn’t have all the children collecting the tiny shards for them.”

For a brief second, Micah had the ultimate fear that he’d broken the Tower.

They were going to chop his head off, weren’t they?

Then he told himself that the Towers were too … too much for something like that. Some people thought they were Gods. No way breaking one floor would change all of that, right?

He asked Lisa.

“Oh, no. Climbers have been demolishing floors since forever,” she told him. “At a certain point, [Mages] just can’t care about collateral damage anymore. But the Tower always picked up after us. Lately … it hasn’t been.”

Micah didn’t know if he should sigh in relief or— Or, he didn’t know what else there was to do. Pray? To whom? The Dwarf? The Tower? A family god or maybe a historic one? He didn’t even know any of their names.

No sense in doing that.

“So you think the city won’t allow a school because of all these changes?” Micah asked.

Lisa shifted again.

“Well, yes. That, and for other reasons. But there’s no sense in sending your children into unknown dangers, right?”

Her voice was surprisingly neutral as she said that. Micah wasn’t sure what she thought about that.

“And if they do it anyway?” he asked.

This time, her voice carried a smile. “Then that would be something, wouldn’t it?”

That was a little clearer.

Micah got his bottle and took a few more sips. Then he tossed it back to Lisa. It bounces against the couch and landed on her again. She didn’t seem to mind, but she didn’t reach for it, either. Wrong guess, then.

“I brought light potions,” he offered.

It took his instructor a moment to take the cloth off her face and sigh.

“Show me.”

Micah did. He brought out all twelve jars that he’d found in the basement. They’d been dusty and full of dead spiders, but he’d cleaned them up in order to use them for comparison experiments. Really, he needed more than twelve, but it was the best he could do for now.

Lisa, for some reason, frowned at every one of them.

Micah frowned at one, too. It wasn’t glowing anymore, even though it still had some moss inside of it. Why? What went wrong?

“You call these light potions?” Lisa asked.

“Uhm, yes?”

“This is another one of your [Essence Sight] hangups, isn’t it?” Lisa asked. “How bright are they to you?”

Micah almost groaned when he answered. He knew where this was going.

“Bright,” he said with a sigh instead. “Why? I’m assuming to normal people the light only travels like a millimeter?”

Lisa shifted a little and gave him a sympathetic look.

“Something like that.”

Micah should have known, really. Ever since he stepped into the Sewers, at least. If the water there was brighter to him, of course, his potions were, too. How bright would an actual light potion be to him, then?

Wait, no. Wrong train of thought. These were only brighter because the light essence they produced far exceeded the light itself. If there was enough of that, he wouldn’t be able to see the light essence underneath it, so there was no need to worry. He just had to learn to differentiate between the two.

The real question was, how was he supposed to get the potions to be brighter for everyone else?

He asked Lisa.

She just shrugged and told him, “You just need a higher concentration. More light, less water.”

Micah wasn’t sure how he could do that. [Infusion] worked at most with a fifty-fifty ratio of water and ingredients, after all. He didn’t know what water-to-essence ratio that produced, but it probably depended on a lot of varying factors anyway. He already knew that from [Lesser Vibrancy]. Things like the amount of heat or force he used probably played a role and the ingredients …

The ingredients.

“Do you know of any other Tower ingredients that produce light?” he asked Lisa. “Or maybe any monsters that drop light crystals?”

“Oh, there’s plenty of those,” she told him. “There a floor of massive tunnels filled with glowing fungus, rocks, and plants. It’s about halfway between the Forest, the Tunnels, and the Dark. The plants from there are bound to be brighter than Sewer moss. But still ... not by much.”

Micah was a little surprised that he was getting a straight answer. He wasn’t used to that. He quickly got out his journal and Beginner’s Guide.

“Which floor is this?” he asked as he took notes.

“Three and up,” she told him. “But you’d probably still need additional ingredients that react with those to enhance the glow. They’re barely luminous, after all. Maybe even phosphorus. I’m not sure.”

“Uhm, what are those? ‘Luminous’ and ‘phosphorus’?”

“Luminous means glowing,” Lisa told him. “In this case, I’m referring to a glow produced by a chemical reaction. Phosphor is an element that stores light and later re-emits that over time. Since this is the Tower, it could be something similar to those. The light-producing cells could be charging through a reaction, using essence, or even just straight-up magic. Some of the plants are maybe fluorescent as well, which means that they mirror the light that other plants and maybe even spells [Mages] produce. I’m not sure. But these are all terms to describe lesser glows, Micah. They often aren’t bright enough to qualify for quality light potions.”

Micah was scribbling down notes furiously. He was a little overjoyed that Lisa was taking this instructor business seriously. There was no way he would have found out all of this so quickly. Sure, he might have documented the qualities, but he would have never have had the terminology to describe them.

Even so …

“That still leaves me with my original problem,” Micah said, tabbing his pencil against his lips. He tried not to chew on it. “Intensity. How do I get the light potion to be brighter?”

“The easiest way is probably managing concentration. Have you tried distillation?” she asked.

Micah quickly shook his head.

“I only have [Infusion],” he admitted.

“Oh. Hm. Uhm, but that doesn’t change anything, does it?”

Micah cocked his head. How so?

“Any oils you can produce will have a much higher quality concentration than the whole plant. So you could always just create a small but powerful oil-based light potion. It only needs to be bright, right? You don’t need a lot of it. Otherwise, you’d have to work with isolating the light-producing cells of your ingredients by cutting them off from the rest of the plant. And that’s a lot of work, trust me.”

Huh. Micah hadn’t thought it about it that way. He nodded to show that he understood and wrote down some notes on trying that out. In the end, he would like to, but he still didn’t have a distillation set and he wasn’t looking forward to buying one.

He’d rather try the cutting-off-pieces part first, or rather second. Before that—

“What about light crystals?” he asked.

“The monsters on those floors often also glow,” Lisa told him. “Any crystals they drop will probably contain light qualities. Just maybe not pure ones. They could still just be filled with ‘phosphorus essence’, for example, and I’m not sure how much that would help your potions.”

“Still better than nothing,” Micah mumbled, thinking. He could add as many crystals as he needed, right? Enough phosphorus essence bunched together was bound to be bright.

When he finished writing everything down, he looked up with a smile

“Thank you,” he told Lisa. And he meant it.

She just rolled her eyes and drank the rest of his water. Then she sat up properly opposite of him. “Alright. Let’s wrap up alchemy then. We’ve still got real training left.”

Micah glanced at the yard outside through the window. The air was shimmering with heat essence against the shade.

“Outside?” he asked, a little disbelieving. He hadn’t thought Lisa of all people would be the one to suggest grueling work. “We’d literally melt.”

“Figuratively,” she corrected him. “But no. I want to teach you something else. Remember how you stared at Anne like a creep because you spaced out and tried to understand something from your [Essence Path]?”

Micah flushed. It was hard to forget.

Lisa laughed at his plight.

“Nobody has taught you how to meditate yet, have they?” she asked.

Micah frowned and shook his head. “No. What’s that?”

“Traditionally speaking, it’s a mental exercise meant to help a person achieve a state of inner peace,” Lisa told him. “But Tower people have since repurposed it to exercise their Path.”

Micah leaned back a bit on the couch. Suddenly, his cheeks didn’t feel so flushed anymore. This sounded familiar.

“It often involves closing your eyes and breathing slowly and steadily for a while,” Lisa explained, “just letting your mind drift. Or some people like to focus on one thing, like their breathing, a simple thought, some background noise, or maybe a specific phrase.”

Micah was breathing slowly and steadily now, but it had nothing to do with a state inner peace.

He gulped.

“A lot of people like to describe it as suddenly being someplace else. In a sort-of nothingness. A void.”

There it was.

Micah shook his head, calmly and steadily.

“Uh, no, thank you,” he interrupted her, trying to sound manly.

Lisa looked up. “What?”

“I don’t really want to learn that today,” he said as he scratched the back of his neck like Ryan liked to do. “It sounds boring, to be honest.”

Micah shrugged.

“Yeah. It is boring,” Lisa admitted with a smile, “but you still have to learn it. I’m told meditating is to your Path like repetition and discovery is to your Class. If you want to properly further your Path, you’ll probably have to meditate, Apples.”

Micah tried to look bored. Then he had a better idea and switched to disbelieving.

“I thought to further your Path was about understanding stuff?” he told her. “Which would mean studying and experimenting, right?”

Lisa blinked. It was her version of a nod when she wasn’t being expressive, Micah knew.

“True, but you have to give your mind time to properly process the information your Path is providing,” she said. “If you don’t, your mind, or Path, really, will take that time. Why do you think you keep on spacing out? It happens to people who first got their Path all the time. They have to get used to it first.”

Micah had no response to that. He didn’t really want to space out. And he definitely didn’t want to stare people like a creep again, like Lisa had said he’d done. At least he knew the reason why now. But ...

… there was no way he was going back there.

He barely remembered it. It was barely a memory. A flash of a river, red, and then pain. So much pain. Micah could do without that.

“I’ll take my chances,” he told Lisa with a smirk, like this was all just one big joke to him. Just a kid who didn’t want to learn. Nothing new.

Lisa actually groaned in response, which surprised him. When she looked down on Micah, she had a strange look on her face. Maybe disappointment or condescension?

“Listen, Micah,” she said. “I don’t want to be sound mean, but … If you really want to go climbing with Ryan someday, and maybe myself, you’ll have to at least learn how to meditate. To Tower people, it’s like a toddler learning how to walk. If you don’t learn how you’ll just drag Ryan down.”

Micah scowled. So much for not wanting to be mean.

“And just imagine this— if you don’t meditate, what’s to stop you from spacing out during a fight? You have two separate Paths, kid. One of which is really demanding. They will take what they want, whether you like it or not. What if you space out on us while we’re fighting?”

“Wait. Is that even possible?” Micah asked, shocked.

“Do you want to find out for yourself?” she asked back.

Micah didn’t know what to say.

Can I think about it? he wanted to ask, but that would tell Lisa this was a bigger deal to him than he wanted her to know. He’d already freaked out in front of her once. He didn’t want to do it again.

“Just try it?” she asked.

There was no way around it.

“Alright.” Micah sighed, a lump in his throat. “What do I do?”

Lisa pretzeled her legs and straightened her back. She leaned back a bit against the couch.

“Do as I do,” she told him, so Micah did.

For a moment, he distracted himself with trying to make both his feet overlap each other leg. He almost managed it, too.

“Now close her eyes,” Lisa told him.

I don’t want to. Micah closed his eyes.

“And breathe. Take deep, steady breaths. In … and out.”

Micah did.

“Think about which Skills you have gotten from your Paths,” Lisa said. Her voice sounded relaxed. Not quite calm.

“[Essence Sight] and [Savagery],” Micah said out loud. He peeked a little to see her reaction. There was none. Micah didn’t know how he felt about that.

“Choose one,” she said.

Micah chose [Savagery]. Obviously. He immediately saw the wolf below him, the grass poking his knees. The feeling of the glass inside his palm.

He knew this place.

“Ryan told me that one exercise he likes to do is just thinking about all the things surrounding that Skill. He has [Bird Singing], did you know?” she asked.

Micah nodded a little, still straddling the wolf. Time seemed frozen somehow in his memories.

“He likes to add different types of birds to his image of that Skill. Wait, can you even see the Skill you chose?”

Micah quickly nodded.

“Oh. Good,” Lisa said. How had she known he nodded? Was she peeking? Micah heard her breathe in relief and reminded himself to do the same.

“Then try to expand on that Skill,” she said, “that image in your head.”

“I chose [Savagery],” Micah said, feeling a little lost. “What do I do?”

“Maybe think of other things you’ve done?” Lisa tried.

Other acts of [Savagery]?

Micah immediately remembered Billy leaning forward while he ran and they were playing alleyball. It had happened a few weeks ago when Ryan first started making Micah play. Billy’s back leg was stretched forward, his ankle sort-of flat.

Micah had just … stepped on it. It hadn’t been on purpose. Well, it had, but only at that moment.

Micah knew his line of thinking then had been flawed. Games had rules, after all. And now that he knew Billy better, he thought that hurting him just make them respect him had been a mistake. Micah didn’t feel proud of it. But he didn’t feel ashamed either. He just felt … nothing. It was a means to an end. Wasn’t that just what [Savagery] was? A means to an end?

If there is a means, use it.

If there is a weakness, exploit it.

Anything goes if you want to win.

It felt like half a truth, only half of the Skill, but it was good enough. Micah thought of stepping on Billy’s ankle and the world around him lurched. It tried to reconcile two things at once. He was both on top of the wolf and standing in that alleyway. The ground was both grass and pavement.

He was doing this all wrong. Combat wasn’t a picture. Life was motion. He had to move.

“Breathe,” Lisa told him.

Micah breathed and considered. While he did, he let the memory of the wolf play out below him.

Fighting monsters is what he wanted to use this Skill for, he realized from a distance. But if knowing how to hurt people helped him do that, Micah would take it. Means to an end, he told himself.

“Can I add other people’s [Savagery] to my own?” he asked, a specific thought in mind.

“Sure,” Lisa said. “If that works for you.”

Micah imagined Ryan then, striking the rat out of the air during their first trip into the Sewers.

When an opponent was airborne—when it put itself airborne— it had little to no means to defend itself. No means to change its movement all that much. It took those away from itself. Of course, Micah would exploit that.

Micah struck the rat down and it crashed into the water. The splash ebbed away, leaving dry pavement beneath his feet. And suddenly, there was sunlight. The rat was Billy. No. Not Billy, Micah told himself. It was just some person. Because it wasn’t just Billy’s ankle that Micah could step on. If something had an ankle, you could step on it. Of course.

… also, Micah didn’t want to hurt Billy every time he thought of [Savagery]. He was a friend.

So Micah stepped on the wolf’s legs before it could get back up. Grass broke through the pavement around him and there was dirt beneath that. A shard of glass was in Micah’s hand. He did as he had before.

[Savagery].

Simple.

He opened his eyes and saw Lisa staring at him. He suspected she knew. Somehow. Actually, Micah suspected Lisa knew a lot of things. At least she had the decency not to say anything. Not at first.

“So, alchemy?” he asked.

“Alchemy,” Lisa said, nodding a little. Then, “You know, [Essence Path] is technically your alchemy Path, Micah.”

She looked at him. Just looked.

Micah sighed but nodded himself. He did know that. And he did want to further his first Path. He really did. It was better than adding acts of [Savagery] to his collection—how Ryan collected birds, Micah was supposed to collect fighting?—but then again…

Micah just didn’t know how yet. What if he went back to that place and didn’t make it this time? He needed something else first. To be stronger. Maybe ... to beat his nightmares?

Actually, he thought he might have an idea on how to do that last one. Lisa had given it to him today.

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

After talking a little about alchemy, Lisa and Micah lay on the couches and endured the heat. Micah thought of ways he could improve his light potions. He still needed a way to activate the potion, right? Or else it would just glow from the moment he made it. Otherwise, he would have to make a light potion right before every time he went into the Tower. That just seemed sloppy.

His firefly potion only glowed when he shook it. Maybe that really was best?

Lisa told him to look for a rule or reaction.

Then she pestered that man who had opened the door for Micah—Mave, short for Maverick, she called him. Even their names were similar—to get them some more water since they were too lazy to get up and do it themselves. He came back and dumped a glass over Lisa’s face, then ran off laughing.

Apparently, he didn’t care about the couch either.

Lisa cursed at him.

Micah was glad to see he was more than just the help.

She told him a bit more about the relics she knew about. There was this one charm that was supposed to let you speak any language really, really well. Micah kind of wished he had that one. Something that let him speak really, really well.

Then they gossiped about Ryan, and a little about Anne—apparently, she was just a few months older than Micah. Hopefully, she wasn’t the kind of girl who only liked older guys—and even a bit about Garen. Lisa still wouldn’t tell him what he was famous for, but she did tell them a bit about their family.

“Micah,” she’d mumbled then.

“What?”

“Nothing,” she said. “It’s just, one of our first ancestors had that name.”

“You know about your first ancestors?” Micah asked.

“Of course. Family is important,” Lisa said. “Family is above all else.”

Micah considered that for a while, his thoughts drifting.

“By the way, where are your parents?” he asked. He’d thought maybe they lived here, too.

“At home,” Lisa told him. “They don’t live in a Tower city. They live up North.”

“Near Trest?”

“Something like that.”

“So now you’re living with Garen?” Micah asked. “Whose father is he? Your mother’s or your father’s?”

Lisa frowned. “Garen isn’t related to me.”

“What? But he called you his granddaughter …” Micah said, and then he remembered the rest of that. “'Of sorts'.”

“Yeah, of sorts.” Lisa laughed. “I just call him Gramps because he’s old.”

“Not that old,” Micah said.

“Yeah, not that old …” Lisa mumbled.

“So if he’s not your family. Why are you living with him?”

Lisa shook her head then and turned over to look at Micah. “He is my family. Just not my blood.”

For some reason, Micah had never thought of that.

“Oh,” he said.