“Said what?” Hugo whispered back to Nobomi. All he had said was his name and what they were doing today. He couldn’t imagine how that would be offensive.

“Don’t you dare greet me without saying my name,” the lead boy said.

Whoops. Hugo actually knew this one. If you were acquainted with a nox, you always had to greet them by name. Only strangers and family could be greeted without saying their name. The problem was that he didn’t know anyone’s name. This was going to be tough.

“Oh, do we know each other? I was confused because you got my name wrong. Please, tell me your name,” Hugo said, trying to play it off.

“I am Meluzmi Madoda, and the man who will beat some manners into you,” he stalked closer as he talked, his buddies following close behind.

“Well hello Meluzmi Madoda, wonderful to see you today,” Hugo said and gave a respectful bow.

This brought him up short. Hugo could practically see the gears turn as Meluzmi tried to find offense at Hugo’s greeting. Eventually he shook his head and said, “Playing nice now won’t spare you from a beating, white.”

This moron was starting to piss him off. But he didn’t want to get into a fight that might hurt his sister. Perhaps a show of power would dissuade them. He shot out a pair of mana darts at their feet.

The four of them swore and danced back. Hugo held his hands out, as if he still had enough mana to shoot more. He said, “Please be on your way, we don’t need to escalate things, Meluzmi Madoda.”

They stared at each other for a bit. Hugo was starting to sweat when he heard another voice.

“What’s all this then?” a crimson guard said. The guard were something that the nox had, similar to the shimmer corps, but most of them didn’t carry shimmer casters. Hugo had heard that the crimson guard were often corrupt, but also generally well liked.

“A simple misunderstanding,” Hugo said, “Thank you so much for intervening before any violence broke out.”

Meluzmi pointed a pair of sticks at Hugo and said, “He insulted me, I cannot allow that to stand.”

“Shut it. I don’t feel like dealing with this today,” the guard said, “All of you, just leave. Now.”

“Of course,” Hugo said with a bow.

He grabbed Nobomi and made a hasty retreat. He glanced back a few times. It seemed like the boys wanted to follow, but the crimson guard stood in the way. They eventually turned and walked the other way.

“You gotta help me out. What was that all about?” Hugo said after he was sure that the boys weren’t following.

“You didn’t call him by name, that was really rude of you,” Nobomi said.

“Yeah, no. I got that. I didn’t remember his name because of my memory problems,” Hugo said, “I wanted to know why he wanted to fight in the first place. And why was he calling me white?”

Her eyes went wide. “You really don’t remember? I thought you were joking about amnesia. Meluzmi has picked on you for like, forever. He is a jerk. He was calling you white because of our house,” she said. As she talked she grasped two hands together and swung the other two about.

Now he got it. Their house wasn’t painted garish colors, it was just white. It must have something to do with the fact that they don’t have any mages in their house. The patterns must have something to do with the mages that lived there. Meluzmi must have been calling him poor.

Walking back afterwards made him consider how long he wanted to pretend. Slipping into Xhosa’s life was causing Hugo problems, and not just because he didn’t remember anyone’s names. The boys were attacking in the first place because they felt like he wouldn’t fight back. They were on the lowest rung of the nox social ladder. If he kept pretending, it would make things difficult for him when he tried to stop the upcoming attacks.

Hugo thought about it and looked at the houses as they walked to the poor part of town. Well, the part that would be middle class housing in a human city. The richer parts of town seemed to have more colors. As they walked closer to home, fewer and fewer colors showed up. Their street had mostly two tone decorations, instead of the eight colors of the richer houses.

A thought occurred to him. He turned to Nobomi and said, “So we can paint our house the color of my domain after I have one, right? And once I have multiple domains, we can paint with multiple colors?”

She clapped her hands together and said, “Oh, you do remember some things. Good, good. That means your memory is starting to come back.” She looked around suspiciously, “But that means the hedge mages are going to attack you soon. They don’t want you to regain your full memory.”

Hugo laughed and said, “You are right, those hedge mages are the worst.” She didn’t know how right she was.

“Mom says we can only afford one domain for now, but it would only take you a few years to make enough to buy a second domain. Then my classmates will stop making fun of me,” Nobomi said, whispering the last part.

Hugo stopped walking and crouched to look her in the eye. “No one is going to make fun of you soon enough. I will make sure of it.”

That made up Hugo’s mind. He was going to pretend to be Xhosa for as long as he needed to, at least until there were more mages in the family. Nobomi was a sweet soul and deserved to be protected.

After they returned home, Hugo started preparing dinner. He knew that the rest of the family would be working late to catch up from taking him to get soulmarked. He figured it would be nice. He actually only knew how to cook one nox meal from his history classes, but it was still something.

He had some cooking experience from when he used to cook for him and his mother, so he felt like he could make the attempt. Nobomi sat in the kitchen and chatted with him as he cooked. She helped him find things, but was only occasionally helpful. She obviously hadn’t cooked in the kitchen before.

It took some guesstimating, but eventually he had a bobotie in the oven and a big pot of pap on the stove. He was fairly sure it would be enough food for all eleven of them, but this was his first time cooking such a big meal. He kept checking the bobotie, but he didn’t really know what he was checking it for. The dish of mincemeat, machoke eggs, raisins, and curry smelled nice enough, but he was still worried.

It needed to bake for another hour, so he made a few milk tarts to distract himself. He wasn’t sure if nox usually ate that, but it was a dessert he knew how to make. Hopefully they would appreciate the effort and not get mad at him for wasting food.

Shortly before dinnertime, his father rushed inside the house, yelling, “Xhosa!? Are you around? I know you hate it, but I am going to need your help getting dinner on the table.” He poked his head up the stairs and yelled, “Xhosa!” again.

Hugo came from the kitchen and said, “Dad, don’t worry. I made dinner. It’s all warm and ready. The milk tarts will be out of the oven soon.” He swept his hand back to show his work. Two pans of bobotie were sitting on hotpads with the large pot of pap near it.

His father stopped and stared. He walked into the kitchen and sniffed everything, “Really? You made this?”

With a laugh, Hugo said, “Yes, really. I made it.”

“I helped!” Nobomi said.

“Yes, she helped me. Without her, it would have been impossible,” said Hugo.

“Yeah,” Nobomi shouted. Then she continued in a normal voice, “Well, actually, Xhosa did most of the work, but I really helped. For reals.”

“Thank you, dear,” his father said, “And thank you Xhosa. That really means a lot to me.”

The three of them sat at the kitchen table and chatted a bit while they waited for the rest of the family to arrive. He took out the milk tarts while they talked. Hugo gathered that the family business made something, and they sold it from a shop in the same building. He wasn’t expected to join them, he was supposed to apprentice to a master for eight years. Once he was done with his apprenticeship, then he could create a masterwork and they could have a second home. Hugo felt bad for them. Their most optimistic timeline for freedom from poverty was eight years away.

“So, what is this bid process about? How do I bid for my apprenticeship?” said Hugo.

“Still having memory problems, huh?” His father said with a grimace. Just then, they heard the sounds of family entering the front door. “We can talk about it tonight,” he promised.

“Madoda, this smells great. How did you cook everything in just twenty minutes? You said you were just going to throw together some leftovers,” Themba said.

“I didn’t do anything, it was all Xhosa,” Madoda replied.

“And I helped,” Nobomi chimed in again.

The family laughed and sat down to dinner. To Hugo’s delight, everyone loved the bobotie, and they took turns complimenting him on it. They also thanked him for the pap, but that sparked a long discussion about the best way to cook the cornmeal and chicken stock dish. Some liked it stiff, others runny. All of them still ate it though.

Hugo was quite happy when he presented dessert, the milk tarts. Everyone took a bite, but then no one said anything after that. Nobomi pushed her plate away.

“Xhosa...” his father said with a strange expression on his face, “Did you put ... cinnamon in the milk tart?”

“Yes?” Hugo said.

“Ah. I was wondering. It has an interesting flavor,” he replied.

Themba took a big bite and said, “Well, I for one like it. It’s fun trying out new things.”

Hugo could see her wince with every bite, but she ate the whole thing. It gave him warm fuzzies. He knew that she hated it like the rest of the family, but she ate it anyway to spare his feelings. This family really loved him. It was a novel and addicting feeling.

After their family conversations were over, and dinner was cleaned up, Madoda sent Nobomi to bed and asked Themba and one of his aunts to stay and talk with Hugo.

“Xhosa, we have been trying to get you ready for the apprenticeship bid for months. But you are saying now you don’t remember any of that?”

“That’s right. Like we talked about, the unusual way that I got soulmarked left some holes in my memory. It’s not that I have a hard time remembering, it’s that I don’t remember some things at all,” Hugo said. He wanted to continue to pretend to be Xhosa, but for things like this, he knew he couldn’t fake it. He wanted to be clear so they could help him out.

His mother sighed a deep sigh, “I was hoping that your memories would come back. They say soulmarked can heal from almost anything, given time.”

“I am sorry. I just don’t remember,” Hugo said.

“Well, don’t give up yet. Maybe it will come back later. And if your memory never fully recovers, we can deal with that too,” his father said. He turned to Hugo’s aunt and said, “Cebisa, do you think you can summarize things for him?

His aunt was named Cebisa, Hugo tried to remember that. She said, “Alright. All of that means that we have some catching up to do. The first thing you need to know is that you will have to undergo eight competitions. You will be going up against the other soulmarked in a series of battles and contests of wills. It’s important to remember that your goal isn’t to win. Your goal is to impress the masters looking for apprentices. You want to still win, but do so in a way that shows off your skills.”

Cebisa took a deep breath and continued, “Now, you are at a disadvantage since most of your classmates were soulmarked on the hunt four months ago. They have been training and ranking up since then. They will be formidable opponents. But like I said, the point isn’t to win, it’s to show off. Since we only have a few days, you don’t have enough time to practice for all eight competitions. You need to focus on one or two of your highest stats. Do you know how to pull up your Acomarian tablet yet?”

He assumed that she meant his stats screen, so Hugo said, “Yes, I figured that out.”

“Good, good. For some people it is very difficult to get in the right mindset. Go ahead and pull it up and read us everything on there.”