Chapter Twenty-Seven.

Cam yawned as he sat up on the hotel bed. He and Kris had one room, while Michael had the room connected to it by two doors. They were told to leave the one on their side unlocked so he could come over in an instant, even though the man could teleport.

As was his usual practice after waking, Cam began expanding his empathic range. First, he sensed Kris sleeping peacefully on the other bed, then the people in the rooms beside theirs and beneath. Michael was already awake, brushing his teeth, and gave the teen a mental 'good morning' when their minds brushed.

When Cam's range reached the fourth floor, it was wide enough for him to notice something on the fifth floor, just inside of the spherical range of his power. A trio of minds, one of which felt very familiar to him.

He scrambled off his bed and quickly changed into jeans and a tee, then yanked on his socks as Kris woke.

"What's going on?" Kris muttered, looking at Cam.

"Gotta go check something," Cam told him as he pulled on his sneakers and began tying them. "Go back to sleep. Tell Mr. Kendall I'll be back in a few."

"What's wrong?" Kris asked.

"Boys, time to wake up," Michael knocked on the door to their room.

"We're up!" Kris responded. "Cam's leaving!"

Michael opened the door and looked at Cam.

"Eden's here for some reason," Cam told him. "With a couple of others. They're all sleeping. I don't recognize their minds."

"I'm coming with you," Michael immediately told him.

"Fine, but stay back," Cam told him. "Eden's my friend, and Callum's being hard to wake up."

Cam poked at his cousin's mind again, still too scared to use too much power in case he hurt someone, even though he knew it was unreasonable. Callum's mind was too well-shielded, so a full-power thrust with his own mind would likely only serve as a knock to the ancient demigod's.

Kris threw on some clothes as Cam hurried out of the room, and the three of them made their way down to the fifth floor, to the room where Cam sensed Eden's mind. The younger teen immediately began knocking rapidly, even after two of the minds woke up, both immediately alert and ready for combat.

Cam only stopped the assault on the door when it was opened by a man in his early twenties.

"Jason?" The man gave him an incredulous look.

"Wait," the woman said. "That's Jason? That's Cody."

"Hi, Noah, Jade," Cam pushed his way past them and over to Eden, vigorously shaking his friend awake. "I said to keep an eye on him, not kidnap him. Eden! Wake up!"

"How many names have you gone by?" Kris asked.

"A lot," Cam shook Eden again, and the older teen finally woke up. "Your mind's all confused. What's wrong?"

"Who are you?" Eden asked.

"You ate the mint, didn't you?"

"The mint?" He asked.

"Yeah," Cam said. "When you said you were getting into some dangerous stuff to look for Greyson, Callum cooked up a mint that would erase all of your memories for you to eat, just in case someone started asking about me, 'cause he wants to be lazy in his protection. I told him to make it chocolate, but you wanted it to be mint-flavored. Something about how I'd probably eat it by accident because it was chocolate. Admittedly, that does happen a lot. Blame my dad."

"Wait," Noah and Jade said. "You're Cam?"

"Yeah," Cam looked at them. "I'm Cam. Why?"

"You're the powerful demigod everyone's after?"

"Why did you two kidnap my friend?" Cam asked. "I only asked you to keep an eye on him."

"We didn't kidnap your friend," Noah said. "We rescued him from traffickers, who had placed a platinum collar on him."

Everyone except for Michael took several steps back as Cam's eyes turned the same shade of pink as the chain of the necklace his father gave him, a look of total fury filling the teen's face.

"Ambrosius," Michael held up his hands. "Take a few deep breaths, and-"

"No!" Cam nearly yelled, and Michael snapped his fingers.

The boy froze in place, entirely still.

"Did you just… freeze him in time?" Noah asked.

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"Yes," Michael frowned. "Ambrosius seems to be a bit on edge. It seems finding out his friend being put into a platinum collar has pushed him past the edge. I don't see it, how did you remove it?"

"There are ways," Jade held up a hand, a void appearing. "Who are you?"

"My current name is Michael Kendall," Michael answered. "I am a brother of Ambroisus's, and you may have heard of my reputation for being able to kill anyone, anywhere. We came to town to buy something for Ambrosius, we weren't expecting to run into Eden here."

Michael looked at Eden, appraising the spatial mage his brother had become close friends with. He had an entire file on the teen's exploits and had found himself impressed. By himself, he managed to deal with traffickers and fae and build up a veritable arsenal of magic weapons and gear.

"So we finally meet," Michael said. "Though you have no memories. I possess the ability to restore your memories, though it might be painful for you."

"Cam should be capable of doing it with minimal pain," Callum said, and everyone turned to face the dog, who was sitting on the bed Noah had slept on. "I designed the spell for the mint to work with Cam's power. Unbind my cousin, Michael, or I will see it as a threat to him under Ulrima's very detailed list. I'm only giving you grace because Cam like syou."

Deciding not to agitate the Hound of the Line further, Michael snapped, and Cam unfroze, immediately going into the rant he had been prevented from beginning.

"Greyson was probably put into a platinum collar, and even if Jade removed Eden, he was put into one, too! Someone out there is going after my friends, and not just any friends, but ones who made a huge difference for me these last few months! If it weren't for Greyson and Eden, I'd still be on the streets, a pathetic weakling! And now Eden's lost his past, and I know you guys want me to be the one to try and restore his memories, even though I hate doing that kind of magic!

"This is going to hurt!" Cam whirled around, tears in his eyes, and pushed Eden down as he sat on top of the spatial mage. "Try not to resist, Eden. I have to do this to bring your memories back. Anyone else, and it would be too painful for you. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry I have to hurt you. Please forgive me."

Without waiting for a response, Cam put his hands on Eden's head, gripping it tightly as his pink eyes stared past the body and into the mind of the spatial mage. Immediately, the older teen began to squirm and twitch, groaning. As his groans turned to yells of pain, the elder mages in the room hastily erected soundproofing spells around the room.

When Cam finished with Eden, his eyes remained pink, his jaw tight as he glared into the distance. Then, without warning, he disappeared from the hotel room, his fist connecting into a jaw the moment he appeared somewhere else.

"WHERE IS MY FRIEND?" He roared as his mind magic assaulted the ancient demigod.

Nathaniel dropped to his knees under the pressure of his grandson's magic, and when he erected mental barriers, he found a force slamming into it with all the might of an enraged dragon. Struggling to resist, he found his mind failing, losing himself as Cam continued to batter away at him.

When Cam finished, he continued to glare, his pink gaze unforgiving. He stood taller than before, his chin held high with a new light in his eyes.

"I am Ambrosius," he said, his voice echoing out through the mansion, stopping every guard and Thornton who had begun to move toward the source of unfamiliar power that invaded their home. "Son of High God Ulrima, one of the First Gods. I am a demigod of the highest order, and no one touches my friends."

Ambrosius removed the amulet that shielded his divine power and placed it into a pocket, his aura overwhelming the estate. With a cold rage, he clamped his own mind around every last one in the mansion and squeezed, blinking out every last life present.

When he pulled the amulet back on and returned to Eden, everyone in the hotel room knew that the small, malnourished teen was no longer afraid of himself, that he had accepted his true self as a demigod.

Cam looked at Michael as his eyes returned to their natural blue.

"I think I'm going to have nightmares for awhile," he said. "I just killed one hundred and thirty-seven people."

Then, he dropped to the ground, unconscious.

"So…" Kris looked at Eden. "You've recovered a bit from… whatever that was. Any idea where he might've gone?"

"Yeah," Eden climbed off the bed and picked up Cam, gently setting him onto the bed. "I saw his grandfather while my memories were out. He probably saw that while going through my memories to unseal them from that spell. I don't really remember what he said to me, but just seeing him there probably upset Cam. Will he be okay, Callum?"

"Yes," Callum answered as Michael pulled out his phone and disappeared. "Don't expect him to be a cold-blooded killer just because he's accepted himself. It just means he'll be far less hesitant to use the powers that scared him before. Now that he's accepted himself as a demigod and for who and what he is, he should be able to take on the personality he wants to have, rather than force it and act, suffering from defying his nature. I wouldn't expect you or Kris to understand such things, as it's a demigod thing."

"He looks so peaceful," Kris poked Cam in the side. "I want to draw on his face."

"So he goes by Jason, Cody, Cam, and Ambrosius?" Jade asked.

"No," Kris looked at her as he climbed onto the bed and sat by Cam. "His real name is Ambrosius."

"When he met me on the streets," Eden said. "He went by 'Cameron', but started getting called 'Cam' due to the mage arena and using that as his name there. I guess he was 'Cody' and 'Jason' to you two. What was it the twins called him?"

"I dunno," Kris shrugged. "I forgot."

"Yeah, he goes by a lot of names," Eden said, then snapped. "Jared! They knew him as Jared. I'm sure he knows a lot of… wait, you two are a time and void mage. I thought he didn't know magicians before he came to Tejina? How did you two meet him?"

"I found him summer of last year," Jade answered. "Tried taking him under my wing to help him learn how to use his mind magics. He got scared and thought I was going to use him and ran off."

"He saved my life," Noah answered.

"Hold up," Eden said as Callum gave the time mage an amused look. "A terrified, jumpy, shy preteen mind mage with voices in his head who may or may not have had empathy when you met saved your life? Aren't time mages notoriously hard to kill? How in the hell did that happen?"

"What I'm curious about," Kris said when Noah didn't answer. "Is how many lone school mages Ambro knows. If they're a void and time mage, as you guys are suggesting – by the way, you're still holding up a void," Jade released it and dropped her hand back to her side. "And you're a spatial mage, Eden, and he knows Adam Leosvar, a shift mage, then did he also know a natural mind mage from the streets?"

"Technically," Cam moaned, sitting up and rubbing his head. "I'm still on the streets. And Eden and Adam don't count 'cause I technically met them after finding actual places to stay long-term."

"So it was just them?" Kris asked.

"No," Cam answered. "I also know a mind mage who specializes in reading thoughts and a spatial mage who can make small dimensional spaces, which he usually uses to store things, and a shift mage who transmutes inanimate objects into other objects."

"How did you save Noah's life?" Eden asked.

"I saved your life?" Cam asked Noah, stunned. "When did I do that?"