Matt woke up in his own bed for the first time in months. It was weird, he thought as he lay there, looking up at the ceiling – it felt wrong now. The mattress too soft, the pillows too firm. He wondered if it had changed, or if he had.

I don’t think I’ll go back, he mused after a couple of minutes laying there, listening to the muted sound of snow falling outside. Not today – not this week. Maybe not this month. What was the point? The only “learning” he was doing was in his morning sessions with Selwyn and missing them would be like forgetting to water a plastic houseplant. So what was he rushing back for? Not Jane, who’d made it abundantly clear she didn’t want him around. Visiting Ed in his computer hole? Seeing Giselle and sometimes Wally, maybe a few others? Creating more lies to placate Cross? Being terrified that at any moment he’d turn around to find another ominous warning or threat to his life?

He wanted to stay here. In this house, in this town. Go to a normal school, study normal things, live a normal life. He was sick of lying, sick of being afraid. He wanted to leave the Academy and never look back.

That’s not smart, countered his brain. Shut up brain, he pouted irritably. Nobody asked you.

The red face of his clock radio flashed ten and Matt knew he should get up. After all, he didn’t want to be late for the long day of nothing he had ahead of him. He rolled out of bed and began shuffling towards the bathroom. Whatever else happened, he still needed to train his mind.

At least that wasn’t completely pointless.

*****

“Cumpletely pointlass,” said Mac. His gnarled hand held her target sheet up to the light, his narrow eyes peering through the burn hole, a little left of centre. “Ah teech you and ah teech you scarface, and you still cannot hit tha side of a barn door.” He let the paper go fluttering to the ground, shaking his grey head. “Ah told them. Ah told them Ash folk, no point en trainen an empaff. No in-ate ahbilitay. Jack of ahll traids, mastah of nun.” He spat a hunk of black spittle into the dirt. Jane remained silent, her eyes fixed on the ground.

“What,” said Mac, “No lip? No snappy re-tort? Ah tayk it back gerl, mayhaps you are learnen somethen.” He pressed a button cut crudely into the booth’s wooden walls, and another target rotated up down the far end of the range. “Again.”

Except for them, the range was deserted. A collect call from a payphone outside a laundromat and two hours waiting in the snow had brought her back to Morningstar the day of Thanksgiving, but most of the other Acolytes hadn’t been that quick to return. Maybe they were lazy. Maybe they liked their homes and families better than she did. Either way, it didn’t matter. She was here, they weren’t, and she was going to train. There were no formal classes on, but she’d make do. The facilities were there and many of the Ashes lived on campus. And then there was Mac, who wasn’t one of the Ashes, but who never strayed far either. Whether the old man didn’t want to leave or had nowhere else to go to, Jane didn’t ask, and Mac didn’t share. It was irrelevant. He was there to instruct, she was there to learn, and even the constant stream of petty insults were just details.

“Watch you breathing,” he muttered, as she raised her arm and took aim once more, “You fire on tha in-breth or tha owt-breth, you gonna miss. And you miss ennuff for one day.”

Jane breathed in, held steady, and released. Her fingertips sizzled, and a bolt of lightning shot straight down the line.

“Hmm,” Mac grunted. He indented another button, and the target made its way the thousand or so feet along the length of the range. Mac held it up to the light.

Dead centre. Perfect bullseye. Jane looked blankly at the grizzled old Southerner.

“Wipe thet smug grin off you face,” he said, neither kindly nor un, not even looking at her, “Don’t mean nuthen. Aynuther twenny or so, an mayhaps ah start given you somethen difficul to shoot at.”

*****

“Another twenty or so,” Kathryn Callaghan commanded. She stirred the pot of rice and onion with one hand and filled a saucepan with water from her own reserves with the other, somehow needing to look at neither, her gaze focused unwaveringly on the recipe book open on the bench. Matt grimaced and picked up another stupid carrot.

“How much are you making?” he complained, starting to peel once more with marked unenthusiasm. Strips of dirty orange skin littered the chopping board in a mound.

“It’s K to 6,” his mother replied, sliding a heap of sliced vegetables into the heating water.

“At one picnic?”

His mum nodded, crossing the kitchen to idly refill herself from the tap. “Parents and kids.”

“It’s snowing.”

“It’s indoors.”

“Won’t it go cold?”

“Risotto is fine cold. Besides, there’ll be pyros.”

“Speaking of, how is Jonas getting out of this?”

“He’s not. JONAS!” she called, “Come and help chop vegetables please!”

“I’m watching TV!” came the nasally reply from the living room.

“Matt, go and get your brother,” Kathryn Callaghan sighed.

“Jonas,” Matt called out wearily, trudging through into the front room. He paused at the doorway, looking down at the figure of his brother sprawled on the floor. “Mom says come help.”

“I can’t even use a peeler,” the younger Callaghan blatantly lied. Nevertheless he begrudgingly rolled onto his feet and stalked haughtily into the kitchen, not even bothering to turn off the TV. Matt quietly rolled his eyes and picked up the remote from where Jonas had left it beside the bowl of milky chocolate breakfast cereal his brother had been eating for lunch.

“All darkness yields before the Dawn.”

Matt looked up at the TV to see the muscular fist of the animated Captain Dawn slamming into one of the Brothers Darkness. The cartoon shadows parted and there stood the Hero of the Era, pulsing with unstoppable light. As far as biographies went, it was impressive, Matt conceded. But the funny thing was, no matter how much of a courageous figure the cartoon Captain cut, the rueful truth was that he looked even better in real life.

*****

He looked even better in real life. On TV, in books, in her head – compressed into tiny pictures, something intangible was lost. Maybe it was his poise, his regal, solid stillness, or maybe his mere presence, his confidence, the air of true power. Jane’s fingers were intertwining themselves nervously behind her back as the white-gold figure of Dawn entered. It was all she could do to keep from bouncing uncontrollably on her feet.

She’d arrived early. Way too early, she realised, over an hour – but what else was she going to do? Sleep? Impossible. Her body had been racing with nervous energy since Wednesday, and every second that brought her closer to this moment had only made the anticipation worse. She’d run through every way this could play out in her head so many times her fantasies were becoming difficult to distinguish from reality; her fears of messing up as real and galling as any actual failures. Stay calm, she thought to herself, stay cool. You are a warrior, calm and composed.

Then he smiled his white, glorious smile at her and any composure she had melted, along with (it felt like) the muscles in her legs.

“You came,” Captain Dawn said, and Jane was once again astounded at how such a quiet voice could carry so much force. He started forwards.

“Of course,” she replied, and it was all she could do to keep her voice from trembling.

“Good,” said Dawn, and his green eyes sparkled, “Shall we begin?” He strode right past her, his golden cape rippling behind him. Jane quickly fell into his wake and they moved together down the length of the long, dark gravity chamber.

“Here will do,” the hero said quietly. They stopped and stood in still, cold silence somewhere around the middle of the hall. Captain Dawn turned and looked down at Jane, his handsome face smooth and impassive. He was at least a foot taller than her.

“I do not normally… teach,” he said, and the words came out slightly oddly, like he was unpracticed in speaking, “I am not a teacher.”

“I’m sure you’ll be amazing,” Jane gushed before she could help it. Immediately she wanted to kick herself for interrupting, not to mention sounding like an air-headed moron. To her relief, Captain Dawn’s only reaction was a small smile.

“Perhaps you should withhold judgement until after I have attempted teaching,” he suggested, with just a hint of a smirk, “Nevertheless, I thank you for your confidence.”

He paused, breathing out into the cold night, and then continued. “You are strong, Jane Walker. You wield what you have borrowed better than many who were born with it.” Jane felt her face growing hot from the praise. “But-” continued Dawn, before she could completely dissolve in self‑satisfaction, “You still avoid your greatest gift. You continue to shrink from your potential and pretend it does not exist, and in doing so you strangle your true strength.”

He turned to gaze into the open space. “But first, a demonstration. Fly.” He did not look back at her, nor did his voice waver. Jane hesitated for a moment. Then, sensing that this was all the instruction she was going to get, she took a step back and rippled her fingers. She pushed through with her arms and legs and a second later flames shot down from her palms and feet, pushing her up into the air, where she held, hovering.

“Good,” proclaimed Dawn, turning to watch as she floated five feet high, held aloft by pillars of flame, “But a question. Why do you use fire?”

“What do you mean?” asked Jane. Her flames flickered, and without even realising it she began slowly sinking back down.

“I mean,” the Captain said plainly, “Why only fire? Why not fire and lightning? Couple magnetic repulsion with thermal. Fire and ice? Heat the air below you, cool the air above.”

Her feet back on the ground, Jane didn’t know how to respond. “I don’t know sir, I just…” it took her a moment to gather her thoughts. “It’s just how I’ve been taught,” she conceded.

“And therein,” replied Dawn, touching a knuckle to his lips, “Lies the problem.”

He straightened up, if possible, even taller and peered keenly down at her. The sigil on his chest, the breaking day, gleamed gold in the dark. “You have been taught your entire life by those unwilling or unable to accept what you are – a painter of colour schooled in art by the colour-blind, and subjecting yourself, nearly always, to their limitations. Well no more. I am here, Jane Walker, to break you free of these restrictions.”

“Sir,” began Jane, “I-”

But Dawn overrode her protests with a glance. “We are here, young one,” he said calmly, “So you may embrace that you are an empath.”

For a few moments, neither of them spoke. Then, with a small, sad smile, Captain Dawn reached out and placed a steadying gloved hand on Jane’s arms – which, she only realised now, were folded across her chest, holding her in place, trying to stop her shaking. “You have been told your entire life that what you can do is evil,” he murmured, and there was kindness in his words, “But your power is nothing to be ashamed of. In fact, it is the opposite. It makes you great.” He withdrew his hand, and Jane felt a painful longing, a cold absence, linger where it had been. “I hope this is something I can teach you.”

The greatest man in the world took a step back. “Now fly – and this time, give it everything you’ve got.”