“This is stupid.”

“No, it isn’t. It’ll be fun. C’mon!”

“What if we scare Hannah and she starts crying?”

Micah … honestly hadn’t considered that. But he was already halfway up the wall and the wind was frigid, so he wasn’t about to back down now. He climbed higher toward the window.

Ryan didn’t follow. “I’ll drag mud all over.”

“It’s snow slush. It will melt.”

“It might stain?”

“Then I’ll clean it.”

“No. I’m going around front. See you in a moment, Micah,” Ryan said. He paused and added, “Don’t fall.”

Micah groaned as silently as he could. Just dragging him here had been a hassle of excuses: It’s flatbread day at the cafeteria. I wanted to train this afternoon. We can’t just go to Westhill in the middle of the week. Shouldn’t we do another team meeting? We can catch Brent up at the next one. We can go on the weekend, really.

If he wanted to head around the front, that was fine. But this was happening today. Micah was just glad he was visiting his parents. He’d apparently been sulking for days without him noticing. This should help him feel better.

He waited a moment to catch his breath, put on his best smile, and rapped on the shutters.

Wood creaked inside and someone shuffled around but—nothing happened. He frowned. Noelle had to know it was him, right? His fingers were getting cold. He didn’t want to move them to knock again, but he had to.

He shifted just as a man with a baseball bat threw the window open and looked down. It was not David.

They both stared.

“Uhm … hi?”

“Who the hell are you?”

“Micah,” he said slowly. “Is Noelle there?”

The man didn’t lower the bat. He had thinning hair and in this light, Micah wasn’t sure if it was blonde or a light brown. His frame was too broad, his face too round, but his eyes, those were familiar.

“Why?”

“Come again?”

“Why do you …” He seemed to give up. “Noelle!” he called over his shoulder. He was loud, but kept his voice low as if not wanting to make too much noise. “There’s a kid hanging from your window?”

He didn’t quite catch the reply but thought he heard, … look like?

The man considered him. A bit of the tension left his shoulders. “Brown … everything?”

“Oh, that’s—” she started.

“It’s Micah!” Ryan called at the same time as he came through the front door. By the strain in his voice, he was yanking his boots off.

“Hi. Again. As I said, I’m Micah. Who are you and can I come in?”

He would have offered him a hand to shake, but he was hanging precariously enough from the window.

The man hesitated. Ryan stormed up and pushed his way past him to help him inside. He sat on the windowsill then, legs dangling the other way, and his friend got him a towel so he wouldn’t make a mess—another thing he hadn’t considered. He took his boots and backpack off and they quickly closed the window to keep some semblance of warmth in.

That felt much better. Micah rubbed his shoulders to heat up and danced from foot to foot.

Ryan’s room had changed since the summer he’d slept on his floor. His bed had different covers. His desk looked empty and his shelf had been moved into the corner. The door to his massive closet was cracked open and missing most of its contents. Those were at school.

There was a small carpet in the left corner with a baby supply bag propped against the wall. Their rocking chair crowded the space next to it and had a quilt thrown over. A pillow on the seat.

With the three of them inside, there wasn’t a lot of room to move.

The crib was missing. Just as Micah wondered if they had carried it back downstairs, he spotted the two large boots next to the bed, a folded pair of pants on top, a briefcase in the last corner.

He could guess who the man staying here was, but he didn’t introduce himself so Ryan had to do it for him.

“Micah, this is my uncle Robert.” He gestured at him. “Robert this is Micah.”

He grunted and left the room.

Micah nodded. “Neat.”

“Don’t,” Ryan warned.

“What?”

“I can already see what you’re thinking, but he’s that way to everyone. This side of the Tower.”

“Oh?” He wasn’t from Westhill? Growing up here, it was hard to imagine there were family members who weren’t, who didn’t hate climbers. Micah smiled. “What was I thinking, just out of curiosity?”

Ryan used the towel with his foot to wipe away the last few drops underneath the window.

“‘Oh, great’,” he said in … what had to be his Micah impression—Micah hadn’t even known he even had one, “‘another person who doesn’t like me. I wonder if he had a reason or if I did something wrong?’” He sounded vaguely child-like and moping, but not necessarily childish and sulking. More like an April shower: sunny, just not right this moment. Please, come again soon.

It also had a hint of a nasal tone to it. He didn’t know if it was intentional. Either way, Micah did not sound like that. “‘Oh no, what did I do wrong?’” he added. Okay, that last bit was definitely mocking.

Micah hadn’t sounded that self-defeating in his mind. He was just trying to be mindful of others.

“And?” Ryan asked without looking.

“You’re stupid.”

“You didn’t,” Ryan said and turned around, “do anything wrong. He’s just mean. C’mon, let’s get something hot to hold on to.” He kicked the towel up and stuffed it in the hamper on their way down the stairs.

Noelle was in the kitchen, Hannah wrapped to her chest like a backpack facing the wrong way. She had an arm around the bundle to support her and was still in her pajamas and slippers. She didn’t look like she had brushed her hair yet, today. Or yesterday. There were dishes in the sink, which Micah headed toward, and a kettle on the stove already.

“Somebody knocked on the second-floor window, what was I supposed to think?” Robert was asking.

“Hi,” Micah whispered as he scooted past Hannah. He didn’t want to interrupt. Noelle gave him a glance in greeting.

Hannah didn’t react but he liked to think that she heard him. She did blink and look at Ryan, though, because of course she did. She didn’t do much else for people outside her family. Most of the time, she slept.

“You and David are the same. So jumpy—”

Robert immediately scowled. Not a fan? Micah turned on the faucet and pulled up his sleeves.

“When you hear a noise, you don’t have to immediately get a baseball bat. It might just be a bird that wandered in. Or Ryan.”

“You let your son climb in through his window, too?”

“Yes. He’s always done it. He has [Sure Grip] now, too. Plus, he thinks we can’t hear him so he’ll let his guard down for when he tries to sneak a girl in that way.”

Ryan blinked. “What?”

“Not that he’ll be doing that here, will he?” Robert asked. He sounded offended by something.

“Mom?”

“And who’s that kid? Why is he doing your dishes?”

Because you didn’t do them. Duh.

“That’s just Micah,” Noelle said as if it were obvious. She paced around the cramped kitchen like she needed to move her legs. Micah glanced her way and caught a glimmer of something mischievous in her eyes, though. She spun back on her brother. “Oh, didn’t we tell you?”

“Tell me what?”

“I could have sworn we told you during the summer festival. Well, David convinced me really.”

“Convinced you to do what?”

Speaking of David, where is he? Work?

She wrapped an arm around Micah’s chest, hugging him from the side and wrong way around. “We adopted.”

Oh, no.

Micah glanced over his shoulder.

Robert seemed flabbergasted. He glanced at each of them in turn and slowly caught on, but the emotions didn’t leave his face. The relief was feeble. “Don’t make jokes like that, Noelle.”

She chuckled and stepped away. It sounded more heartfelt than tired. Micah couldn’t blame her if she wanted some mischief right now.

“Even if it hadn’t been a joke, I wouldn’t have had to tell you, because I don’t have to tell you everything that’s going on in my life, okay? Robert, I’m thirty-three. I can do whatever I want. Always have, always will.” She waved dismissively. “And oh, yeah, that’s just Micah.”

“So I’ve been told. Repeatedly. But why was he climbing through Ryan’s window? Hannah’s window.”

She made a face. “I don’t know? They’re teenagers. They do weird things. What do you expect of me?”

He sighed and leaned with his hands against the back of a chair. “No, I meant—”

“He’s my classmate,” Ryan explained.

“Hi.”

The kettle whistled and Ryan made tea. Micah was happy when he could get his hands away from the cold water and start drying off the cups and plates. He went from damp towel to the hot mug Ryan handed him and melted against the counter.

Warm.

It felt nice. He tapped his ring against the side and stopped when he realized the others could hear it.

“He’s a little young to be classmates with you, isn’t he?”

“I skipped grades,” Micah said, because he was right there and he got the sense any time he spent occupying Noelle’s brother, or Ryan’s uncle, was time they could enjoy a little more.

“And Ryan, did he skip grades?”

He was beginning to get why Ryan thought he was mean. He looked at his friend and raised his eyebrows. Do you want me to brag about you?

He shook his head, looking tired rather than irritated.

No? He would do it himself? He didn’t say anything so Micah amended the thought, Not worth it?

“Ryan is doing well in school,” Noelle said. “Aren’t you?”

“Yes, mom.”

“You have that exam coming up soon, too, right? You’ll finally be able to go into the Tower again.”

She sounded cheerful enough, but Micah caught a hint of worry in her expression. It looked like she wanted to ask another question. And when she did, Micah wondered when he had gotten to know her well enough that he could guess. Maybe she was just too similar to her son.

“Are you excited?”

She wasn’t worried about their physical well-being, he realized, but that they wouldn’t be excited. Because of how their last trip had ended?

She was had so much to worry about already and was still worrying about them.

“Hel—” Micah started, caught himself, and choked into a cough.

Hell, yeah, he’d wanted to say. But they weren’t allowed to swear near Hannah. Was “heck” a swear-word?

They gave him a look.

“Are you alright?” Noelle asked, standing still.

He nodded and tried not to blush. “Just really excited. He— Heck, yeah? I can’t wait to kick some monster … backsides?”

They stared.

Ryan barked out a laugh and hid behind his mug. “Yeah. Me, too. I want to kick some monster backsides.”

She rolled her eyes, started pacing again, and mumbled something to Hannah’s forehead, probably about them being idiots, but the corner of her lip was tilted upward into a smile.

Robert was still glowering—maybe he and Ryan were related after all. He eased it into a frown as he said, “Right. You want to become a climber, don’t you, Ryan? How is that working out for you?”

He shrugged.

“The school is letting them into the Tower again for an exam,” Noelle said. “They’ve been waiting for months. Lots of other students dropped out to take a year off and go exploring all the new changes. They didn’t.”

No. They didn’t.

“Hm. You must be impatient.”

Micah nodded vehemently, though Robert seemed surprised when he answered instead of the others. “Some of the other schools in our district are going in a week earlier than us. It’s unfair. I’ve heard of a few that went in last week already, in other parts of the city.”

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It made him wonder how the other schools had negotiated that and not theirs, especially when they had Ms. Denner. She was driven. He would have expected her to get the best deal for them.

“Don’t be too impatient, you two. Take your time to get ready. And to get used to your team. Aside from Lisa, I mean.”

Ryan straightened up. “Uh, about that. We, uh, kind of have a new team.”

“What do you mean—” she broke off, and both she and Ryan looked at Hannah all the sudden.

Micah hadn’t noticed anything. Was something wrong?

Noelle said in a low voice, “Ryan, can you go get me the baby bag from upstairs, please? Just in case. It should be in the corner just behind the door, I think.”

He nodded. “I saw it. I’ll get it.”

Were they worried about her throwing up? Or was it something else? She was only a week old, should she be doing that at all?

Micah kind of wanted to read some of those baby guides David had mentioned himself. He barely knew anything about babies and it worried him, in case he had to. Things like this, he had to pick up from the way others acted. Maybe he could ask Prisha or one of his aunts.

“New team?” Noelle asked with a frown.

“Oh? Yeah, uhm … We had too many members, so we had to split up into smaller groups.”

“Weren’t you three enough to make a team? I thought you said you could sign up as three.”

“Well, yes. But you need four minimum for the exam. As three, you get other people assigned to you from the school. But Lisa is … with the other group. She was already signed up as one of the founders and she got into some trouble with the principal, so she couldn’t leave.”

Her eyebrows went up. “Oh.” She took a step forward to glance up the stairs and whispered, “Did they … y’know, have a fight?”

“Fight?” Micah frowned. “No?”

If anything, she and he might have had a fight. A small one. Maybe.

“Fight?” Robert echoed him, not bothering to whisper. “What is this about? Who is this Lisa?”

Noelle was grinning. “We think his girlfriend.”

“Uhm …” Micah said.

“Oh?” His voice sounded vaguely condescending. His words supported it. “Little Ryan has a girlfriend?”

“Uhm,” Micah tried to cut in, though he didn’t know if he should. “I don’t think—” Footsteps came down the stairs, he knew how well Ryan could hear, so he shut up and just vehemently shook his head instead, making intense eyes at the both of them. They weren’t like that … right?

Noelle saw and looked unconvinced. She was too busy smiling and wishing it on her son, probably. Micah had done the same with Camille, once … Right. He had made that mistake with Camille back then. He hadn’t even known Ryan was sulking and he still followed that resolution not to meddle: Would he even know if they were like that? What if they had fought?

Ryan stepped into the kitchen just as his mom said, “And get this: Guess whose ward she is?”

He looked confused. Good. He hadn’t been eavesdropping, then. Not that he had any reason to.

Robert was busy glancing at Ryan, but had half an eye on the question. “Tell me. Who?”

“Chandler. The [Dragonslayer].”

“What? Shut the front door.” That might have been the first time Micah had seen something resembling a positive emotion on the man’s face. “No way.”

Noelle nodded quickly. “He has his autograph, too, though it’s … sloppy? We’ve met him—a few times, actually—over dinner in a restaurant once. He isn’t anything like you would expect.”

Robert definitely wasn’t from Westhill, Micah thought. He could tell by the excitement on his face.

Ryan looked to him for help.

Lisa, he mouthed.

Oh, came the reply. Then a frown that said, What the hel— heck?

Noelle started telling her brother about Garen, for some inexplicable reason, and they actually looked like siblings then. It made them seem a decade younger, despite the baby held to her chest.

Robert moved to ask Ryan something with a grin and Noelle jumped in with a finger to his mouth and a, “Shhh! Shush. Don’t ruin this.”

Ryan looked from one to the other, confused.

They badgered him about other stuff instead. And then the topic shifted to the exam, and their teams, both old and new. Micah told them a little bit about the three new members they’d found.

“Really? He always wears a glove? That’s … odd.”

“Right? That’s what I said. I’ve asked him a few times, but he always gets grumpy when I do. Maybe I didn’t ask him right …”

“Maybe it’s a sensitive subject?” Robert offered, surprisingly enough. They were sitting now. “What if he has a scar or some sort of disfigurement? He could be missing a finger underneath there for all you know.”

Huh. Micah hadn’t really thought of that. Objectively, he knew how easy it was for a middle-grade healing potion to go wrong and cause trouble. Problems might be more common than he thought, outside of Westhill. But then again, he thought he would have picked up on something like that, if it were true. Any kind of oddity would affect dexterity and be a weakness; slow him down. He was pretty good at picking up on the weaknesses of others.

“Oh, didn’t your sister want to learn how to make dishes from Tower ingredients?” Noelle asked him about Brent. Another thing he had forgotten. Micah was glad he had people to talk to. “Maybe you could introduce the two. Oh, maybe you could all go to your sister’s bathhouse. It could be a team bonding-type thing. Isn’t that the type of guy-thing you’d want to do?”

She sounded a little like she was mocking them, but Micah did think it was a great idea. It might be a little far to travel all the way for a bath, though. Unless they went into the sauna and ate something afterward …?

He looked to Ryan, who just shook his head at him a little.

Micah chuckled. Prude.

The two adults were still subtly trying shift the conversation toward Lisa, but Ryan didn’t have much to say. He visibly struggled not to speak poorly of Kyle, or would switch topics, and he seemed lost when trying to find compliments for the other two. Not that there wasn’t anything to compliment, but Ryan was somewhat distant toward strangers. He had to warm up to them.

Micah was a little glad for how Brent had chewed him out back then. He hadn’t even noticed it and he didn’t know why—if it was because he was becoming more confident, or more arrogant, or simply because he was interacting with more people than he had in years; he had friends—but he had become somewhat judgemental. Maybe not judgemental, but … presumptuous? He kept on making images of the people around him, which was fine. He didn’t have much to do with them and only saw them in certain courses or around certain people, so it was okay if he thought of people like Stephanie as angelic, or Myra as ambitious, or Mason as scattered. But, he had also started forming opinions based on those assumptions, and then acting on the both of them, which wasn’t fair.

He didn’t know what to call it. He remembered the adage about assumptions and making an ass of oneself and others. Micah wanted to keep an open mind about everything. Which was why he would rather think that he had done something than assume somebody else had.

Robert was kind of an ass. But, even as he looked around at everything else in the house as if it wasn’t worth his time, he still seemed to truly care about Noelle and her baby daughter and want to help them. It was why he was here, again, after having visited on the weekend—though Micah doubted David was all too happy about that.

That all being said, there was an exception: Ryan didn’t warm up to his uncle over their entire visit. He kept on being quiet. And that really told Micah everything he needed to know about the man.

He didn’t like him.

“That’s actually why we’re here,” Ryan said when the topic of preparations came up. It almost sounded like he had to cut into the conversation. “Micah needed some money for ingredients.”

“Oh?” Noelle said. Then, “Oh! Right. I’ll just go—” She slowly got up. Micah wished he could have just gotten it himself instead of making her.

“Money?” Robert asked.

She waved him off. “Don’t worry. It’s his. He just keeps it here.”

“Why would he keep his money here?”

She rolled her eyes and left for her bedroom.

Robert looked at him and Micah suddenly realized he hadn’t said how much he needed. He jumped out of his chair to flee and knocked on her door. Just the one coin, please. He didn’t want to spend too much and only having so much on him would force him to make due.

Still, this was awkward. They had only offered to keep it in their bedroom after the two of them had moved out. Maybe Micah should have kept it somewhere else. He was just worried about spending too much. Not even on something expensive, but on lots of small things in the cafeteria or the occasional extra ingredient. Before he knew it, it would all be gone.

Awkward is better, he decided.

He thanked her when she presented the coin to him, then tried to palm it for Hannah, but she wasn’t paying attention.

They didn’t stay long. They also wanted to drop by Prisha’s after this—just to say hi—and Ryan didn’t want to be late for dinner. You could stack figurative mountains of food on your flatbread today and as long as you managed to wrap it together, it counted as one meal. Trying was half the fun. But as Ryan hugged his mom when they left, and when Prisha hugged him when they came to visit, Micah thought of someplace else he wanted to go. He told Ryan to go on ahead. He would catch up.

“Really?”

“Yeah. They probably won’t even be home.”

“If you’re sure …”

He was. Ryan left. He did seem a little happier than before, so Micah thought that alone was worth it.

He knocked on his parents’ door.

Awkwardly, he shifted from foot to foot and tried to lean over and peer through the window. The lights were out despite the sky being half-dark already, this early in mid-Winter. As he had said to Ryan, he doubted anyone was home, but he’d come anyway because … Well, he wasn’t sure. Because he missed them? A little bit, anyway.

He was here. He might as well try.

He was about to leave when he heard someone coming down the stairs. A moment later, his mom opened up.

“Yes? Oh! Micah!”

He didn’t know what to say. He went with, “Hi.”

“I— You— What brings you here?”

He shrugged. He couldn’t tell her the pure truth, could he? “I was in the area. Visiting Noelle, and Hannah, and Prisha. I thought I would see if you’re home?”

“Hannah. Right. Ryan’s little sister? I’d heard that— Oh, come in, come in.”

She waved and stepped aside so he could get out of the cold, then quickly shut the door again.

Micah stamped his boots on the mat. There were a few drops of muddy water around but otherwise, the house still looked immaculate. Maybe a little dusty. All in all, like nobody was living there.

“I wasn’t sure if you would be home,” he said.

“I wouldn’t be. Not normally. I almost didn’t hear you,” she admitted and looked around as if she had lost something, “I was upstairs, looking for—”

A sound interrupted. Tiny, squeaky, mewling. He wouldn’t have heard it at all if it hadn’t been so piercing and out of place. His mom whirled around and rushed down the hallway toward its source. Micah didn’t remember the last time he had seen his mother whirl or rush anywhere.

She almost slipped on her socks, then bent down to looked past the cupboard at the end of the hall. Her face lit up. “There you are!”

She reached into the narrow space and pulled out a tiny bundle of fur. Mostly brown with patches in different shades, a few that were white. Most of its chest, a few on its feet and tail. Whiskers pointed everywhere.

A dust bunny stuck to one of its ears and his mother pulled it off, then flicked it back into the corner. The ear still twitched afterward, as if it had an itch, and it was trying to claw its way up her sleeve.

That’s a cat, Micah thought. A kitten.

“I’ve been looking all over for her,” she said. “She keeps on hiding in corners. I’m not sure why. If I call, I can hear her meowing but I can never tell where it’s coming from. It’s time for you to eat, isn’t it?”

She set her on the mat near the door. Micah only now noticed a tray with a small metal bowl in it. It had two slots. The other was empty. His mom headed into the kitchen and came back out in a second. Was it already prepared? Had she tried to lure it out with the food or something?

The kitten tried to follow her with stiff and shaky steps. It seemed to have trouble walking on the laminate. Its tail stood up like coarse rope and it gave another heart-melting mewl when it smelled the food.

“That’s a cat,” Micah said, out loud this time.

“Yes. It is.”

“Are you … looking after it?”

“What? Oh, Mrs. Rusin normally comes in to feed her, but she couldn’t make it today so I had to drop by really quick. But of course, she had to hide again. We’re hoping she won’t need as much attention when she’s older.”

Older?

“No, I meant … Wait, it’s your cat? Since when do you own a cat, mom?”

“A few weeks, now? I saw a young woman handing them out on the street and wanted to tell her she couldn’t just do that. Let alone in this weather, even if she had little blankets to go with them. But then she held one up to me and it meowed and … Well, her name is Kiara.”

Kiara had a bit of water on her chin. She hadn’t finished her meal, but she was still meowing for some reason, and she was slipping on the laminate on her way over to them, following his mom.

She got distracted by the dust bunny from earlier and tapped it. It clung to her paw. The kitten shook it off, bristled, and swiped it away, then chased it under the furniture, which she easily fit under.

His mom smiled and shook her head.

Micah hated it.

“I’m glad you came to visit,” she said, pulling his attention away. “But I really did only stop by to feed her. I’m going to be late.” She headed for the shoe rack and started putting hers back on.

“Right.” Micah stepped back to give her space. There was a scratching sound and he glanced back to see the cat running into the kitchen. “Is it really okay to leave her here like this?”

He wasn’t sure why he was asking, or why he was asking in this tone, but if his mom needed someone to look after her or something …

“It’s only for a few more hours before your father comes home. He will look after her, then.”

“Wait, dad looks after her?”

“Oh, yes. He has to be careful what he wears, now, because she likes to climb up his shoulders.”

“And he … lets her?”

Her voice strained as she balanced on one foot to slip into her shoe. “Of course. She wants to climb everywhere. Better his shoulder than up the furniture. But surely, that isn’t all you wanted to talk about, is it? I mean, you didn’t just come all the way here to say hello, did you?”

“I actually kind of did,” Micah admitted. He frowned. “Well, no. There was one other thing I wanted to talk about, but I’m a little worried that it will come across wrong.” Especially after all his mishaps this last week.

“Oh?” Her eyebrows shot up as she reached for her jacket, but she didn’t put it on just yet.

Micah went out and said it, “I know why you didn’t try to have me kicked out of school after I broke my leg.”

She smiled—though that didn’t have to mean anything—and Micah got the sense she wasn’t angry. “That’s a bold statement to make. Could you elaborate?”

Micah nodded. It was a simple thing to understand, considering what had been on his mind lately.

“I haven’t been in the Tower in months,” he said. “The exam is coming up soon, but we’re only allowed on the lower floors. With the school backing us and our grades depending on it, we will be as safe as can be. And afterward? Afterward, I won’t go into the Tower again. For months. I’ll wait for the next exam. But those who took a year off are exploring on a daily basis.”

She hadn’t tried to have him kicked out of school because the school was keeping him out of the Tower.

“I was worried,” his mom said in a caring voice, “that if I mentioned anything, it would put stupid ideas in your head. Everyone goes through a rebellious phase. Every parent can be overprotective. But when the two meet?” She smiled at him. “I’m glad you didn’t catch those ideas on your own.”

He’d thought about it. He wasn’t going to lie. He could see the stream of people heading into the Tower every day, a lot of them Ryan’s age or not much older. He saw their smiles and knew they were leveling and earning money, discovering new monsters, traps, loot, secrets.

He was jealous and impatient, but not so much that he would drop out of the school he had worked so hard to get into. This was just a minor setback. Micah would catch up again, given half the opportunity.

His mom put on her coat and spoke in a more familiar tone, “But meanwhile, I know you are receiving an education there. I have seen the exams you’ve taken … and your test results. You really should study math more diligently, Micah.”

He scowled.

“But you’ll be going into the Tower twice this year. I doubt it will be much more often beyond that. I doubt you will level much as a [Fighter]. Not because you couldn’t, but because you love alchemy too much. Everyone has clutter Classes. So you do two years, maybe three, and then?” She shrugged. “Maybe you go to another school to receive your license, or you could begin to study medicine. You have time. That school of yours is giving you some much-needed space to think.”

So she was still going on about that. And dad, he assumed. They just weren’t being as pushy as before.

“And if I don’t?” Micah asked. “What if I decide that this is what I want to do? Who I want to be?”

She smiled. “I think you know you have better options than that. That you could do better than that.”

“How can you say that?”

“Because you haven’t raised your voice or stormed out yet. Neither of us have. You’ve been listening.”

Micah opened his mouth and closed it again. Something about the way she spoke to him irritated him—it always had—but not as much as it had used to.

Two years, maybe three … wasn’t that what Ryan wanted to do? He had always said he was unsure. What was Micah going to do after that? Join a company right away with him? Take time to get his license?

She was right. He did need space to think.

“But,” he said, “what if? What if I decide anyway?”

“Well … then we’ll see. But that’s then. Now, I really have to go. I’m well and truly late, which I rarely am, I can assure you.”

She wrapped a scarf around herself, but still made time to turn and call for the cat. When it came waddling over, she petted it and mumbled a goodbye, that she would be back later.

It purred.

Maybe it was a little cute.

“I really am glad you visited,” she said outside. “You should do it more often. And good luck on your exam.”

She held a gloved hand out to him. For what? To shake? Micah took it and awkwardly shook his own mother’s hand. He felt a shape press into his palm. When he pulled back, he found a coin.

When had she …?

He glared up at her. The distance between their faces was shorter than he was used to. “I didn’t come here for this.”

He hadn’t even considered it and didn’t want her to get any wrong ideas.

“I know you didn’t,” she said. “Still, take it. You’ll need it.”

He frowned until she added in a scolding tone on her way down the stairs, “It’s freezing outside and you’re running around without a hat or mittens. You’ll catch a cold, Micah. Don’t you dare miss any of your courses because you forgot to bundle up properly.”

He sighed in relief. Of course, she meant that. He did own more winter clothes … somewhere. If they still fit him. But he doubted his mom would allow him to refuse the money. He did need it …?

He accepted. He thanked her, they said goodbye, and he made the trek back to school with his freezing hands in his pockets. Maybe he would buy a new pair of mittens. A cooler pair than whichever he owned.

And maybe, he would make Jason a cool strength potion. Just because he wouldn’t quit school to join the others, that didn’t mean he didn’t still want to get his own "share" of the loot and experience.

A large share.