The faint light of Agni’s flames cast a menacing glow across the room. Torn and disfigured paintings were strewn everywhere. The walls and the floor were a jumble of scarred people that stared at me.

Each painting had been cut into pieces.

No. Not every single one of them. A single portrait hung at the back of the room. An elderly lady was poised elegantly, and her eyes bore into me.

I turned towards Agni. “This isn’t the bathroom.”

I was conscious of the eyes gazing on my back as I faced away from the room. A faint breeze crawled across my throat from the study, and I took a step away from it.

Then I felt something on my arm. Fingers that curled over my skin and clamped down on it.

“Wha-”

My voice cut off before I could shout, and I looked into the eyes of my attacker.

It was Amanda.

“No. It’s not the bathroom.” She frowned. “Don’t you know it’s rude to go snooping around your host's house?”

I hadn’t heard her sneaking up on me, but that thought rushed out of my mind when I heard her tone.

“Agni did it.” I outed the bird immediately. “I was trying to find the bathroom.”

Agni looked at me with a hurt expression and then flew onto Amanda’s head. Her hair was smouldering, reflecting her mood. She reached out with her hand and waited for Agni to hop onto her palm.

The bird complied. Reluctantly.

“I got up because of you.” She spoke to her phoenix. “Is Andross speaking the truth?”

Agni chirped and Amanda shook her head. “I was about to snap at him.”

She turned to me with an apologetic expression. Then her expression changed as she saw the contents of the room.

“I knew it.” She took a step forward and peeked inside. “He made a new painting. That’s… William.”

Her hair dimmed until the flames were embers, and she closed the door. She leaned against it and sighed, her tension and posture deflating.

We stood there in silence.

“That probably looked really bad to you.” Amanda broke the silence.

I looked at the subject of the painting that had been torn in half. That was my friend.

“It's worrying me.” I didn’t deny it. “That painting of him is sending warning signals to all the wrong places.” I kept my voice low, so I didn’t wake up her father. “It’s destroyed, Amanda. Alexis tore through it.”

A grudge for losing was one thing. I could understand a teenager’s anger at being humiliated, but the painting had looked personal.

Amanda pushed herself off the wall and tiptoed past me.

“I can explain, but let’s go inside the room. It’s more soundproof. We’ll wake my dad up if we keep talking here.” She made her way to my room with Agni in hand.

I nodded but then stopped and opened the door opposite Alexis' study room. This was the bathroom I’d been looking for.

I waved Amanda forward and told her I’d join up with her.

A couple of minutes later I walked into the guest room and saw Amanda sitting at the foot of the bed. Agni had flown over to where Gold was sleeping. The puffer had slept right through the entrance of the newcomers.

The warmth of the room clung to me as I sat down beside Amanda and rested my head against the mattress. She didn’t look angry anymore, just sad.

I gave her a moment.

I’d seen something I wasn’t supposed to. Alexis’ study was a private area, and his strange habits were his own. There was still worry in my heart, but a few minutes of thinking it over made me realise that I was in the wrong. That painting wasn’t intended for the eyes of strangers. It was a private possession meant for Alexis' eyes only.

However, I couldn’t ignore it.

I looked at Amanda and relief bubbled through me. At least it had been an accident. If I’d been snooping on purpose my entire friendship would have been at risk. I looked over at Agni and saw the bird was nodding off to sleep.

Maybe she had been tired and led me to the wrong room by mistake.

Amanda shifted beside me, and I saw her intertwine her fingers as she thought of what to say.

“Alexis likes to paint when he’s upset.” Amanda’s voice was soft. “He always has, and he’s great at it.”

I remembered the paintings I had seen. Only two had made a big impression on me, The portrait of William and the portrait of the elderly lady.

Both had been well crafted.

“He paints the people that make the biggest impressions on him.” Amanda talked slowly. “William obviously made an impact.”

“His body was shredded in half.” It hadn’t been painted that way.

The canvas itself had been destroyed.

Amanda fell quiet again. I couldn’t imagine what must be going through her mind, but it couldn’t be easy trying to explain a family issue to a friend.

“It’s not Alexis destroying the paintings.” She whispered. “That’s my dad’s handiwork.”

The air was quiet as I took in the information.

“I- I see.”

My head cleared as I realised my misunderstanding.

This was a private matter.

An overwhelming sensation of guilt crossed over me. Amanda didn’t have to tell me this. She did it for my peace of mind. I wasn’t entitled to hear more, and it was a privilege that I had been told anything at all.

I turned towards Amanda and paused when I saw her eyes. Their edges were tinged with water, and I went quiet. She wasn’t looking at me anymore, or at anyone.

She wanted to talk.

“He’s always wanted Alexis to be head of the family, not me.” Amanda’s voice barely reached my ears. “My brother had everything that I didn’t, except for the bloodline. His reputation is good, he gets invited into private social circles and he has friends.”

“Except he didn’t want to do it. Neither of us did. My dad goes on and on about wanting to be one with nature, but he can’t let go of his reputation.” She brought her knees in and cradled her chin on them protectively. “He told Alexis the same thing he told me. We can have anything we want in our rooms, but they can’t go anywhere people can see them.”

She and her brother seemed to have it all from the outside, a noble house with a bloodline inheritor. That alone guaranteed them a high place in society.

“That’s when Alexis decided to be stubborn.” Amanda sighed. “His paintings are his own, but he didn’t want to hide them. He wanted people to see them.”

Her hair drifted across her face. Her hands wrapped around her legs, and I raised my hand to pat her back. Then I dropped it.

“My dad destroyed them. Not all at once, and never when they were in Alexis’ study, but my brother kept bringing them out. A statement born out of their shared stubbornness. He wanted my dad to accept him for who he was, not who my dad wanted him to be.”

A new emotion trickled across her features.

Pride.

“It doesn’t matter now. He unlocked his bloodline, and he doesn’t have a choice anymore. He’s going to be the head of the household. The rest of the family has already agreed, and my dad wants everyone to know it so that he can’t back out.”

There was a catch in her voice as she spoke. I had the feeling that she meant this announcement would come sooner rather than later.

“Is he challenging William again?” I frowned.

Fighting held a higher standard of reputation in this world than in my old one. It wasn’t done for entertainment; it was done to show personal strength and climb the social hierarchy.

I hadn’t seen Alexis’ bloodline in action. Its ins and outs. Its weaknesses and strengths. They were all unknown to me.

I didn’t know if William would be able to fend off Alexis even if the boy still hadn’t mastered control of his abilities.

William was a brilliant tactician, but I hadn’t seen him fight seriously since we had fought against each other.

“Don’t be silly.” She gave me a watery smile. “He’s going to fight me. It’ll be a public match in the school arena, so that there’s no doubt to the public. Our bloodline is made for battle. To our household the only thing that matters is strength.”

Her body shivered and my heart sank. She wouldn’t be hurt physically, her family wouldn’t allow that, but there was more than one kind of damage. The results of the fight would spread far and wide and her family would make sure of that.

The students would know, the teachers would know, and society would be told. To her this was a single battle, but the losses would spread beyond the match.

She would lose her position in the household and her reputation in the academy. All in one fell swoop.

She was just a teenager.

Thoughts raced through my mind. I wanted to offer solutions, and try to solve the problem, but I also knew that wasn’t what she needed. This was an issue out of my reach. A matter between Amanda and her family. Interfering wasn’t an option.

What could I do?

The answer was simple, I could be there for my friend.

We sat in silence. Agni had gone to sleep, and her flames had died down. The only light was the moon’s rays peeking through the curtains.

Amanda’s legs stretched out and she raised her head. The moment had passed, and I could see her usual cheer expanding across her features. Then her mood dampened again.

“I’m sorry.”

Amanda spoke.

“This is way too much to pile onto you. We haven’t even known each other for that long.”

Now that she had let out her thoughts, her heart was letting through the emotions she’d held back. Embarrassment crossed her features, mixed with shame and a spattering of worry.

She didn’t know how I was going to react.

I thought over her words. She was right. We had known each other for a few days and gotten along well, but it had still been a short amount of time.

Did that matter to me?

I took in a breath and my thoughts gave way to my emotions. I didn’t want to tell her what was awkward or strange, I wanted to tell her what I felt.

“There’s no manual for friendship.” I spoke the first words that came to me. “You were comfortable talking about this to me, and I felt comfortable hearing it.”

I took in her worried expression and gave her a smile.

“We’re reading the same book and we’re on the same page. Just because we’re reading a little faster than others doesn’t mean we’re doing it wrong.”

She blinked in surprise. “Did you make it a book metaphor for me?”

“It took all of my intelligence.” I admitted. “Good thing you told me you like books or I’d have been stuck.”

“Yeah… it is a good thing.” Amanda smiled

She stretched her arms out and gave me a pat on the back.

“You’re a good friend, not at all a pit donkey.” She stood up. “I should be getting to bed. I guess Agni is staying with you tonight.”

The phoenix was fast asleep next to Gold. Her body lit up gently as she breathed in and out, a barely noticeable glow in the light of the moon.

Amanda tiptoed quietly to the door, and then turned around. She had a smile on her face, and she gave me a small wave.

Then the door closed behind her.

My mind drifted as I drifted back to sleep. There was a gnawing in my mind. A familiar sensation that annoyed me into staying awake.

My mind was trying to piece together an unsolved puzzle.

It was happening more now that my intelligence stat had increased. I would see puzzles and connections that my mind recognised subconsciously but couldn’t put together without my full attention.

Instead of sleeping I dropped into meditation, and soon a cityscape filled my vision as I landed in the middle of my old home city on Earth.

Curious.

Usually, I created the structure on purpose, and I would enter into the blank space beforehand and build it up. I took a deep breath and soothed my mind, slowly relaxing my body and falling deeper into nothingness.

My mind cleared and the buildings around me disappeared, replaced by a single area. The connection eating at my concentration was in this room.

Alexis’ study.

The torn portraits were blurry, and the floor didn’t exist. I hadn’t been paying attention to them, so I couldn’t remember them well enough to recreate them.

Amanda’s father was consistent, and I could see the cuts across the blurry canvases. Their finer details were lost to me, but that single method of destruction was clear in my mind.

There were only two portraits that could be fully recreated.

I walked towards the portrait of William. All around me the other portraits had all been slashed. That fact had bothered me, but I hadn’t been able to place my finger on why until I saw William’s portrait in front of me.

Every other portrait had fallen to a knife, but William’s was torn asunder from the waist down. Someone had dug their nails into it and ripped it apart. This was the detail that had been gnawing at me.

Only William’s painting had been clawed into.

It wasn’t an act of uncaring destruction.

This was personal.