Many hundreds of years ago, the Endless War began with a mysterious being made of fire. That fire touched the heart of a unicorn and corrupted it, or so the legend goes. Since then, the fire’s touch was labeled a curse, and any who bore it was labeled a Fira and cast out. Not many knew that being a Fira could be hereditary, and the Fira had no intention of letting anyone find out.

This included a particular set of twins that lived in the red house. So far, they had hidden their Fira lineage well, as it had been mixed with that of fire fairies. The brother even bore the telltale flaming wings upon his back. However, neither of them could account for the snooping of a certain budding hero testing his newly created magic to catch spies.

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When Soral entered the common area of the red house to look for someone to test his magic on, the only ones in the room were the twins he had seen off and on. The boy with fiery wings, and the girl who appeared to be human. He considered it for a moment.

Soral had a couple conditions for who he was going to test this magic on. First, he didn’t want to know them. Second, he didn’t want to test it on assassins. There were some things he didn’t want to know. Their bands were solid red, so he figured it was probably safe to proceed. Now he had to practice how to act natural while using this magic.

The only solo activity Soral could spot in the room was a book someone had left on the sofa. He didn’t usually enjoy reading, since he found it to be a waste of valuable time, but he figured they wouldn’t know that so he plopped down and pretended to read.

Just in case, he waited a couple minutes in awkward silence before activating his new magic. He decided to try the fire fairy first. As planned, thoughts flowed into his head, but it was a bit more than he expected.

‘Isn’t that the one who released everyone’s collars?’ This thought definitely came from the fire fairy. What was surprising was the next.

‘It is, but don’t stare. I heard he is shy and easily scared away.’ This thought came from the fairy’s twin.

Neither of them were looking at him, and Soral had to deactivate the magic and listen just to be sure they weren’t just whispering about him right in front of him. The moment Soral deactivated the magic, he was met with perfect silence, aside from the sounds of him turning a page, and the slight creak of a chair as someone shifted their weight.

Didn’t this work too well? Actually, no. That wasn’t the problem. He had only tried to listen in on one person’s thoughts, but he got both, and it seemed like they were communicating. Was it some kind of mental communication available to twins? Could he do that? Soral forced himself to wait to test that theory, and reactivated the magic.

‘He could help us,’ thought the boy.

As Soral listened the two voices became more distinct, growing closer to what he imagined their actual voices to be like. He wasn’t sure if he had actually heard them speak before.

‘You know what happened last time people found out what we are,’ the girl scolded, ‘It’s not worth the risk. This might not be the best lifestyle, but at least we are safe.’

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‘Fine, but it wouldn’t hurt to befriend him,’ the boy argued and got up. He approached Soral before he could react. “‘Hi. Nice to meet you.’”

Soral flinched at the strange reverb of thoughts and actual voice clashing. “Hi,” he replied, then decided to get rid of this weird shy rumor, “I’m Soral. You probably already know me from the other day.”

“I’m Flame,” the boy replied with a wide smile. Soral had been adjusting his magic and luckily figured out how to filter thoughts and spoken words to avoid whatever that had been before. He maintained eye contact as Flame continued talking. “That is my sister, Ember.”

“Did you need something?” Soral asked, hoping to end the conversation so he could go back to eavesdropping.

‘Look, he’s caught on. You are acting too suspicious,’ Ember warned.

‘It’s fine. He’s just shy, like you said.’

Well that backfired. Maybe he should just roll with it and continue to adjust his magic as they spoke.

“I just wanted to officially greet you,” Flame told him, “We’ve seen each other around here and there, but after you did something like that, I wanted to get to know you more.”

“What about Ember?” Soral asked, looking at his reluctant twin.

‘He is definitely suspicious,’ Ember pressed.

Flame shot her a quick look. ‘It’s you who is acting suspicious. Get over here and greet him. There is no way he is going to find out we are half Fira from just that.’

And secrets. Soral had no idea what a Fira was, but these guys probably weren’t spies. Unless Fira were spies. Either way, since he had what he wanted he deactivated the magic as Ember approached for her own greetings.

“I’m not as social as my brother,” she told him, “but hi.”

With her short greeting over, she returned to where she had been. Flame gave Soral a small shrug. Soral took the opportunity to stand up.

“Hungry?” he asked, “I’m going to grab something to eat. You can join me if you want.”

He figured there was no harm in hanging out with people that were confirmed not to be assassins or spies.

The twins glanced at each other again, and Soral had to fight down his curiosity to find out what they were secretly saying. Whatever it was, they decided to join him on his trip to the kitchen. Rather than eating some of the prepared snacks, Soral tried his hand at making some of the things he had learned from Kristy.

Cupcakes were good, but she insisted he should learn to make things other than just dessert. She taught Soral how to make garlic cheese bread, but since he liked smaller portions, he experimented and made his breads roll sized.

The twins clearly hadn’t expected him to start baking. “I didn’t even know we had flour in here,” Ember commented despite herself.

“We didn’t,” Soral informed her, “I had some brought in here when they kicked me out of the other kitchens.”

“Can we have some of those?” Flame asked, mouth watering from the delicious scent wafting from the oven.

“Obviously,” Soral told them, “Why would I have invited you if I wasn’t going to share.”

It was also an apology for learning their secret, but he had no intention to tell them that. Whatever a Fira was, Ember seemed terrified of anyone finding out. Flame seemed a lot less worried, but Soral couldn’t tell if that was because he wasn’t scared of being known or if he was confident no one would find out.

The moment the piping hot garlic cheese rolled came out of the oven, Flame popped one into his mouth. Ember didn’t seem surprised, but she did shoot her brother a glare.

“Sorry. He’s heat resistant because he is a fire fairy,” she told Soral, “He likes things fresh, and it's fine since he won’t burn himself.”

“Yeah,” Soral agreed, but found himself jealous instead. He wished his mouth didn’t burn when he ate oven fresh garlic cheese rolls. Another magic idea to add to the list?

An ever growing list, with ever shrinking time to fulfill it. Not to mention, Soral had started to notice that whenever he used magic on a large scale or for a long time, his hunger increased. He never got tired, though. Sleep… That was another waste of time, and he didn’t like it anyway. Maybe it was time to cut that out. Without telling Ruena, of course.

After eating their rolls, the twins left, and Soral had to spend even more time cleaning up after himself. All the things he wanted to do, and all the wasted opportunities, he could feel them flow by with the water as he washed the bowls and pans.

In the future, he needed to plan all his solo activities at night, while everyone else was sleeping. Then he would meet Zinela early morning. But with his increased appetite, they were surely going to complain about food, so he needed to learn how to procure ingredients on his own. That meant he needed to make money. The extra hours cutting out sleep bought him were eaten up by new plans in an instant.