Lost in the same visions of shining silver-grey walls, an endless stretch of surrounding forest, and hundreds of people garbed in the same variants of black-and-bronze, blue-and-silver, and white-and-gold, mirroring several delicately painted sections of the island's exquisite architecture, for the past few weeks, the twinkling multicoloured lights and dull-hued buildings were almost dazzling in their unfamiliarity. The periodical back and forth gushing of the ocean was replaced by the blaring of music, the rumble of speeding cars, the raucous shouts of late-night stragglers. He was home, and yet the sight did not reassure him as he would have expected.

"Do you mind telling me what we're doing out here now?" he said irritably to Damon, who was gazing out at the city, grinning contentedly.

"Oh come on, your first glimpse of home in weeks and you can't even enjoy it for five seconds?" Damon said. "Fine, it's down this way," he said, huffing, when Alec made no response but to glare at him. "You up for a bit of a walk?"

"No."

But Damon strode off anyway. Alec walked off after him, his mood souring with every passing minute as they ambled along the dark, streetlamp-lit street. Cars whizzed by, the sudden glare of their headlights blinding, and occasionally they caught snatches of song blaring out to the night, fading as the car disappeared from sight. They walked for about twenty minutes in silence, but then Damon turned off down a side street which led to a deserted bus station, painted deep blue.

"You have cab fare?" Alec asked, a little disbelievingly, as they climbed inside. "Because I don't think your boyish charm is gonna convince anyone to give us a free lift."

"You'd be surprised at what this smile has accomplished," Damon said, gesturing at his own wide, irritatingly smug grin. "But yes, I actually do."

"So this was a planned excursion? As in, you wanted to do — whatever it is we're here to do — for what, days? Weeks, even?"

"A short while, yeah," said Damon, whose eyes were on the road ahead. "But that's not why I have the money."

"Then —"

"Ah, here we are," Damon said, as two pinpricks of light blossomed from the darkness ahead and grew progressively larger until a bright yellow taxi had halted in front of them, waved down by Damon. He opened the door and filed inside, sidling over to the other door. Alec followed, making his reluctance as obvious as possible, and keeping to the opposite side.

"Where you boys headed?" the taxi driver asked. He was a middle-aged bald, black man with a deep, slow, immensely bored-sounding voice. He was looking straight ahead, one hand on the wheel, the other fiddling with a bottle of plain water.

"Walden Street," Damon said.

"That's on the other side of town."

"I'm aware."

"Fifty bucks for that journey. If you can't pay upfront —" The driver hushed as Damon thrust a sheaf of money through the partition, which he took after a slight pause, eyes widened.

"Any other questions, or do you plan to do your job now?"

The driver pocketed the cash without counting it, glanced at Damon in the rear view mirror, and drove off. They spent another considerable stretch of time in silence. The driver seemed less keen to speak now, not that he had appeared very talkative in the first place; Alec was still maintaining his disgruntled silence, and Damon was staring out the window.

The driver's coldly indifferent comment of, "Here we are," minutes later could not have been more welcome. Alec flung open the door and climbed out, but before he could close it, the driver seized the handle of his own accord, slammed it, and sped off.

Alec wasn't in the mood to talk, but the silence was somehow more irritating. He hated not knowing what was happening.

"Just up there," Damon said, gesturing at a tall building further along the street, which Alec had just realized was a hospital.

"No."

Damon turned around, an eyebrow arched. "Sorry?"

"I'm not going a step further until you tell me why we're out here!" Alec said angrily. "I could be asleep right now, in a warm, comfortable bed, and instead I'm standing in a cold, urine-soaked street, after breaking out of school in the middle of the night, wearing a jacket so big for me it makes me look like an idiot and covered in remnants of your last few meals! I mean — what is this, guacamole?"

"You were going to see in a minute," Damon said. "It's just up here." He motioned at the hospital again, then walked off. Dangerously close to simply telling Messus to screw off and storming off to find his own way back to Helix, Alec followed him up the stairs and through the metallic front doors.

The interior was a pale and dull grey, and had a trickle of people in watery blue garments drifting about the corridors. Alec waited a few paces behind Damon while he went to speak to the receptionist, a young, perky woman with her dirty-blonde hair pulled back in a tight ponytail. After a few seconds she pushed a small notebook and a pen towards him and he bent down and scribbled his name. Then he straightened up and beckoned Alec over.

"Don't use your real name," he whispered as he handed the pen to Alec, so quietly that the scarlet-lipped receptionist could not hear, though she seemed far too busy to notice anyway: she was batting her eyes at Damon, who was responding in kind.

Alec scoffed, but he did as he was told, scribbling down the random name Matthew Jones as he went, along with the time, right underneath Damon's preferred pseudonym of Elliot Walcott. The receptionist pulled the book towards her and cheerfully informed them of the room number. Damon nodded his thanks, winked, and the two set off.

"Why, exactly, was I not supposed to use my real name?"

Damon rolled his eyes for the umpteenth time, and said, pointing at Alec's head, "You sure there's a functioning brain in there, Hades? We can't use our real names, in case the records somehow get back to Helix and we get in trouble for being out-of-bounds after hours."

"You think the school board routinely checks hospital visitation records?"

"Of course not. But you can never be too careful. Even though I do think they might be a tad preoccupied with a few more important issues, like, for example, students who have big choices to make about their future at —"

"Drop it, Messus," Alec growled.

Damon held up his arms in surrender, though he smirked all the same. "Or maybe they're working overtime trying to find a suitable replacement for a highly anticipated Tournament that somebody ended up getting canceled."

"I knew it. I knew you were still hung up on that —"

"Guilty as charged," Damon said. "To be fair, I was pretty excited." He came to an abrupt halt, all airiness gone, replaced by a sudden and rather unnerving seriousness. He turned to face Alec and said, "We're here."

"You still haven't told me where 'here' is, remember? What are we doing here?"

For the first time that night Damon looked uncomfortable, almost sheepish. "Okay. Look."

Looking at him suspiciously, Alec moved slowly past him and squinted through the blinds of the window outside the room beside which they had stopped, where Damon was now pointing. He turned back to Damon, observed him for a second, then looked back inside the room, puzzled. The sole occupant was about ten years old, lying under the light blue bedcovers, eating a tray of fruit salad and watching cartoons. He had a head of unruly sandy-coloured hair, a sharply defined jaw, and vivid green eyes, quite handsome for his age. He was Damon in miniature. Alec withdrew his gaze and turned back to Damon, nonplussed.

"Explain."

"It's pretty self-explanatory."

"You said you had something to show me. Your younger brother?"

"Actually, it's more the other way around," Damon said uncomfortably.

This did not quite have the effect that Damon had hoped it would. Alec closed his eyes, took a breath, and repeated in a more forceful voice, "Explain."

Damon sighed. "That kid in there is, obviously, my younger brother. Tyler Messus. He's in the hospital because, ever since he was younger, he's been pretty sickly. Medical emergency every other week. Last time he fell ill was a little over a week ago, and they brought him here."

"Not to sound insensitive, I really do empathize, but that still doesn't explain why I'm here."

"Then came the event that grabbed the entire town's attention," Damon continued, as though Alec hadn't spoken. "You, Wildfire, and Shadow Shifter. Nobody who knows about that night, except for the people at Helix and those others who have family in the League, knows that you were the one who was there.

"Tyler's been obsessed with you — not you, you, the guy that defeated Shadow Shifter, who he doesn't really know is you — ever since then, and has been dying to meet you. And, well, I told him I knew you. The rest is . . ." He made a you-know kind of gesture.

"So you lied to me, told me you had something to show me while really I was the display?"

"Well, when you put it like that —"

"Did you ever consider — and this may be a crazy idea — just asking me?"

Damon shrugged, looking like a child caught in wrongdoing. "I, uh, sort of have some difficulties asking for help," he said earnestly, grinning in an apologetic sort of way.

"I don't believe this. You are the absolute —"

"Okay, okay, I deserve whatever you're going to say next, I know that," Damon interrupted, holding up his arms in a placatory gesture, "but before you do, can you just please talk to Tyler first? I know you're upset, you have every right to be, I'm not denying that . . . but I made my baby brother a promise and I really want to keep it. I have to. He'll be crushed if I don't."

Alec glared at him. "Fine," he growled. "But I'm not doing this because you asked me — which, technically, you still haven't — I'm doing it because I feel sorry for that poor boy in there who had to grow up with you as a brother."

"That's fair," Damon agreed.

"But," Alec interjected, "I have a condition. I want to talk to him alone."

Damon's face fell. "Al — alone?"

"Yeah. Alone. As in, no you. If you have a problem with that . . . well, I don't really care, actually. It's that or nothing."

Damon shot a nervous glance through the blinds, then back at Alec. "Fine," he said. "But I want to talk to him first."

"Had to have happened either way," Alec said indifferently. "Hurry up, will you."

Damon entered the room. Alec glanced through the window after him. The two brothers exchanged a very cheery greeting, which entailed much smiling, laughing, and fist-bumping. Damon perched himself on the edge of Tyler's bed as they talked, their voices low and indistinct, but Alec could tell, by the look on his face, that Damon was speaking quite seriously. Tyler's expression, on the other hand, became more illuminated the more they talked, excitement brimming in the meadow-green eyes. Alec had a mere second's warning, in which he seemed to sense that it was about to happen: Tyler's head jerked up, clearly aiming to catch sight of him through the window, but Alec turned away quickly.

Soon after, the door opened, and Damon slid out of the room. "Okay, he's ready for you."

Alec sidled past him. Just as he crossed the threshold, however, Damon spoke up hastily, "Oh, and if he starts talking about my —"

Alec shut the door behind him with a snap, cutting the other off mid-sentence. Tyler looked around, his expression one of the utmost awe. This close, Alec saw that he had spilled some of his salad across the bedcovers.

My God, it must be genetic.

"Is it true? Are you really him?" Tyler said avidly.

"Yep. That's me," Alec said. He moved closer and extended his hand. "Alexander Michaels, but you can call me Alec."

Tyler lunged for his hand with such eagerness that he nearly sent his tray flying. "Tyler, Tyler Messus! I can't believe I actually get to meet you! I didn't think Damon would actually do it."

"You and me both," Alec muttered under his breath, moving around the side of the bed to lean against the wall. "But it's nice to meet you."

"You too! Hey, I've always wanted to know — what was it like facing Shadow Shifter?"

"Well, to tell you the truth, I didn't actually face him. See what happened was, me and my best friend Dusty were walking home from the comic book store that night, and he just appeared in front of us out of the sewers. Wildfire came up after him, and Shadow Shifter managed to overpower him using venom from the villain Ryu, then he tried to kill Dusty and I — I guess I just reacted. The whole place just started coming apart."

He had tried to seem modest, to deliberately make the story sound dull, a mere act of good fortune rather than any form of adeptness, to show Tyler that he was not the awe-inspiring hero he was gazing at him as though he were, but a random boy who had merely managed to catch his assailant off-guard. But it did not have the effect he'd hoped for. Tyler looked even more enthralled.

"Wooooow! So you didn't have any training at all when you took him out?"

"Nope. Didn't even know I had powers. My parents explained everything to me that night after I got home, then the Headmistress of Helix came over to offer me a place there. Said I was 'too dangerous to be in a public space.'"

"That's bull!" Tyler said in outrage. "If you weren't in a public space that night, someone might've died!"

"See, you get it!" Alec said, feeling both surprised and grateful at Tyler's reaction. "But I didn't have a choice. Had to go to Helix the very next day."

"That sucks."

"Yeah."

"And then you met D?"

"Ah, well . . . That's a little complicated." But Alec, seeing the eager and expectant look on Tyler's face, so very like his brother's, knew that he would have no choice but to explain. He told him the story of how they had met, how Alec had made to pick up the only remaining slice of Black Forest cake that had been left in the dessert section that night at dinner, but how Damon had beat him to it. How, under the influence of Ethan's powers, though neither had known it at the time, they had taunted one another and almost thrown hands.

"Prefect came just in time."

"Well that's good, 'cause I'm sure you would've decked him," Tyler said, with a dismissive wave of the hand. "D's not bad, but you'd probably have just dropped half the ceiling on him or something."

Though he severely doubted the truth to this claim, Alec was liking him more by the second.

"So you almost fought, but now you're friends?"

"Not . . . really? I mean, we sort of cleared the air around the fight, but I wouldn't call us friends."

"He loaned you his jacket, though?"

Alec glanced down; he had completely forgotten that he was still wearing the oversized, food-stained piece of clothing.

"His favourite jacket, too," Tyler said, peering more closely at it.

"Oh . . . well . . . I guess he was just feeling guilty for tricking me into coming here tonight."

"Makes sense, he's kind of a tool," Tyler said, and they both laughed.

"So are you a superhuman too? Like your brother?"

"Nah. No powers yet. I hope I will be though. Maybe I'll have a cool Trigger Moment, like yours."

"It looks cool in hindsight, maybe. But in that moment, it was terrifying. Somebody was going to kill my best friend, right in front of me, and I knew that there was absolutely nothing I could. The reality of that isn't exactly fun to digest."

"Maybe not." Tyler shrugged. "But still . . ."

In that moment, something about his expression triggered the question in Alec's mind, and he found the words spilling out of his mouth before he could stop them: "By the way, did your brother have a Trigger Moment? Or did his powers just — awaken, or whatever?"

"Yeah, he actually did."

"What happened?"

"Well —"

The door opened. "Okay, that's long enough. I have places to be, Ty," Damon said. "I'll be back to check on you soon, all right?" He ruffled his brother's hair, then beckoned Alec out of the room.

Tyler gave a sudden and very pronounced stage cough.

"Oh. Right." Damon shot a quick glance down both ends of the corridor outside, then returned to his brother's side and seized a pack of chips on the table beside him. He turned to Alec, smirking. "Number two."

The packet in his hands began to glow. When the flare died down, he was holding a number of brightly coloured sweets in its stead, which he scattered in his sibling's lap. "Remember, don't eat them all before bed, and don't let them find any more of them on you, you know what happened last time. Sleep tight, baby bro."

"Later," Tyler said to Alec, digging eagerly into the small mound of sweets before him.

"Night."

Damon and Alec left the room. "How did you do that?" Alec asked, mystified, as they strode back down the corridors towards the receptionist's desk.

"Transmutation," said Damon, plucking a crumpled sheet of blue paper from the ground. He crushed it in his palm, a sliver of light shone from between his fingers, and he dropped a gleaming silver coin in Alec's hand. "Art of changing states of matter."

"That's incredible," Alec said, observing the coin closely; it looked a hundred percent real. "Wait . . . Is that how you got the money to pay the cabbie?"

A brief pause.

"No," Damon said, his tone making it quite clear that he had no desire to elaborate. Alec took the hint and did not press. They passed the receptionist, who was still posturing flirtatiously in Damon's direction. Alec rolled his eyes, disgusted, and sped up slightly, leaving the pair behind. He heard the door close as he reached the bottom of the steps.

"Fancy a bite to eat before we head back?"

"No, I'd like to go home, where I should have been all this time," Alec snapped. He felt quite irritated all of a sudden. Even Damon looked surprised at his reaction.

"Oh . . . right. . . . Sure."

The entire trip back through the city was spent in silence, but when they got back on the other side of town, Alec saw something that made him forget his anger.

"Dusty?"

"Almost, but no. It's actually Damon."

"What? Oh — no, you idiot. My best friend — Dusty." He pointed down the street ahead, where they saw a number of boys, all, with the exception of Dusty, who was right in the middle of the gang, a few years older than they were, smoking.

"Well he seems peachy," Damon said, watching as Dusty expelled thick clouds of smoke. "Did you two usually meet up for smoke breaks? I never really took you for the weed-y type."

"No, I . . . he — we — never used to do anything like that!" Alec said, still staring at Dusty, shocked. What was he doing all the way out here? The comic book store where they had been on the night of Shadow Shifter's attack was not too far from here, but why was he not at home at this time? Why was he with people like them? And since when did he smoke?

"So you're saying this is a recent development?" Damon asked, now looking at Dusty curiously. "As in, since you left for Helix?"

"Yes!" Alec watched him with a feeling of not knowing who he was looking at, despite that face being etched into his memory for nearly a decade, laughing, smiling that cheeky smile. . . . His mother's words suddenly came back to him, ringing around his head with resounding force. Dusty had been hanging with a strange crowd. . . . Troublemakers, reportedly. . . . But this. . . ?

"I'm going to talk to him," Alec said suddenly.

"What? No way," Damon said, grabbing Alec's hand as he made to move off.

Alec wrenched his arm out of Damon's grasp. "What the hell are you doing?"

"You can't just waltz over there, Hades. Look at them! Those people are clearly thugs."

"Oh but, you can just transmute them into decent beings, can't you?" Alec said nastily.

"That's not funny. And I'm serious. You want to talk to your friend, I get that, but this is not the right time or the right place."

And though he would never admit it, it dawned on Alec that Damon was right. Looking at the gang of crowing, smoking, delinquent-looking boys, Alec was forced to the unwanted conclusion that accosting them might steer things in an unpleasant, possibly even violent, direction. This was a conversation for him and Dusty, alone. "Fine," he said, through tightly clenched teeth. "Let's go."

He moved away with great reluctance, leaving Dusty and his new friends behind, and lapsed into silence again until they had reached the island, when yet another ominous realization struck him.

"Wait, won't that, whatever you call it —" he began, indicating the immense structure below as the sand moved to cover the entrance again.

"Hydra-loop?"

"— hydra-loop, show that we took a drive in it, or something? I mean, I find it hard to believe that this type of advanced tech wouldn't archive the times it's used."

"Yeah, it does, but it's no big deal. I can clear the records."

"You better. Because I'm not getting expelled for you."

They had reached the barrier. Damon performed the same trick as earlier, absorbing energy from the barrier again to create a small passage, and then motioned Alec forward: he dove at once through the partition, but when he looked back, Damon was still on the other side.

"What are you doing?"

"You go on without me. There's something I need to do," Damon said.

"Such as?"

"It's not that big a deal, Hades. You said you wanted to get to bed — well, there you are. I just have something to take care of before I turn in too."

Alec looked at him with a mixture of suspicion and shrewdness. "This has something to do with the money you had earlier, doesn't it?"

Damon did not respond for a few moments. When he spoke, his voice was as chilly as the wind. "You want to get back to your Dorm, Hades. Wouldn't want Professor Wyatt to find you out of bed again. I'll see you tomorrow." He wheeled around, hands in his pockets, and strode off into the night.