Harry sat curled on the sofa, occasionally sipping from the large mug of hot chocolate resting on his knee. He was still feeling a little squirmy about losing his control around Snape so soon after their fight. He should have been able to keep it together, to ignore the emotional pain he was in these days and ignored the need to be listened to. After all, how many years had he been forced to look after himself now? Too many, and yet, he had told Snape what was wrong the moment the man had asked.

He had only come down to the dungeons to ask for Salem back and had somehow managed to involve himself with trying to apologise properly to the man.

Snape’s words still echoed in his head; “It is all right to feel grief. It is all right to feel pain when someone close to you is seemingly lost forever. The only way any one of us can get through situations like this is by remembering the idea that one day, though we will forever miss them, the pain will start to lessen and we will recall the good parts with contentment...”

Harry had had the distinct impression that the man had been talking about someone other than Shadow when he had said these words, for though he had been eloquent as ever, there had been an underlying strain to his voice that made Harry stay still and listen to what he was saying. In fact, he had been very surprised that Snape had said the words at all, even though the man hadn’t looked at him once all through. There was definitely more to Snape than could be expected.

Following much thought on the matter, he had come to the conclusion that he trusted Snape’s judgement far more than seemed healthy to him. After all, adults couldn’t be trusted, full stop. They had proved this over and over again in the past. And yet, he still couldn’t shake the feeling that Snape was on his side, no matter what kind of nasty things the man said or did.

It was very unsettling. 

Harry sighed and slouched back further into the couch. Every now and then he glanced up at his father, who was sitting across from him in the large, blue chair to the right of the fire. The man was staring fixedly into the flickering flames, clearly lost in thought.

Harry cleared his throat. “I still don’t like what you did, you know.”

Snape glanced up, pinning Harry’s gaze with his own. “I know, Harry.”

“I mean, I know you said you’d change the punishment and everything, but I still don’t like you for what you did.”

A slight curl of amusement settled around the man’s lips. “I know, Harry.”

Harry scowled a little. “This isn’t funny! You were so unfair!”

These words produced an outright snort from Snape. “Really? I never would have noticed if you hadn’t pointed it out.” Snape’s eyes seemed to darken a little. “And as I said before, I am sorry, but you should realise that what you did was very dangerous and foolhardy. If you had relaxed your guard for even one minute, one of your friends could either be missing a limb or be horribly scarred. In the Wizarding World, it is the innocuous things that are often what cause the most damage.”

Harry hung his head a little and stared intently at the mug in his hands. “Yeah, I realise that now... at the time I just thought it would be a cool way to show them who my real family was. And... I suppose I was trying to show off just a little... you know, taking the book from right under your nose.”

He thought he heard Snape sigh a little. “We have all done foolish things in our lives for the hope of personal gain.” He looked up in time to see Snape stare in his direction. “However, I expect you to learn from this situation and put this new knowledge to good use in the future. Which brings us to the question...” Snape leaned back even further into his chair and pressed his forefingers to his upper lip, “What am I to do with you?”

Harry felt like squirming, but he forced himself to sit up straight and keep looking Snape in the eye. “You’re asking me to decide?”

“I would be... interested to hear your opinion of an appropriate punishment.”

Oh hell... “You’re enjoying this!” Harry accused.

Snape laced his fingers together and seemed to contemplate them. “Not in the slightest.”

“Whatever that’s supposed to mean...” Harry grumbled. “All right. I suppose making me look for mistakes and possible accidents in Quidditch matches was a good idea, but I could do that just as well from my broom, so you didn’t have to take it.”

“On the contrary, you needed something to give you a nasty shock, which I think I succeeded in giving, though that was probably not in the correct manner. However, we are not here to negotiate your original punishment, we are here to listen to what you might have to say on the matter.” Snape gave him a concerned look. “If you do not think you are up to the task...”

“No, I’m fine!” Harry cut across Snape, his ears heating up. Deciding my own punishment. God, this is embarrassing... “Maybe you could make me read up on what’s happened to people in the past who’ve tried to read the books.”

“No!” Snape’s sharp tone made Harry jump, and, noticing this, he gentled his tone. “That would be a particularly nasty trauma that I wouldn’t want to subject you too.”

Harry bristled. “I’ve fought and killed a Basilisk! I’m not about to faint at the sight of blood.”

“Nevertheless, it is still a rather different matter when you read about people being torn apart by these curses. People who you could identify with. Books like those are locked away in the most secure section of the Restricted Section for a reason, Potter!”

“OK, OK!” Harry relented, noticing that Snape was getting agitated. “Um, so, something else, then. I... well...”

Snape inclined his head towards Harry. “It’s harder than it appears, is it not. The facts, as I see them, are this: I am loath to give you any school punishment, as those always seem have such little effect on you during the year, physical chastisement is out, as well as is sending to your room like a small child without any supper.”

Harry gave his father a wary look. “You’ve already decided, haven’t you?”

“I have... an idea at the very least. Come.” Snape stood abruptly and Harry jumped to his feet in reaction, almost sloshing hot chocolate everywhere.

“Warn me before you do something like that!” Harry muttered. He swore he could have heard Snape chuckle as he led him into a study-like room stuffed with books, parchment, quills and many peculiar-looking potions in fantastical-shaped bottles.

Snape held out a quill, inkpot and a few rolls of parchment, which Harry immediately took. He looked at them with a sinking feeling in his stomach.

“I thought you said that you didn’t want to use school punishments.”

“Certainly you make it rather difficult for any authority figure to impress rules on you, but I have decided to break the habit of a life-time and be optimistic.” Snape gestured towards a small table tucked away in the corner and, after a bit of fidgeting with arranging his supplies, Harry sat down.

“What am I going to write? And how many?” Harry quickly finished off the last of his hot chocolate before his father could take it away.

“Two hundred lines, each one including the sentence, ‘My habit of recklessly rushing into situations, with only the slightest prompting, is dangerous and ill-advised. From now on I must make the effort to think before I act whenever such an opportunity arises.’ This sentence will appear at the top of the parchment when you are ready to start so there is no need for mistakes. Do not try to cheat because, rest assured, I will know.”

Harry felt his eyebrows rise. That’s nowhere near the amount of what I thought he would make me write... There must be a catch.

“However...”

Thought so.

“I have noticed that your handwriting is still as appalling as it was when you started at Hogwarts. I want you to use these lines as practice and write them all in your best handwriting. No exceptions. This should give you sufficient time to consider the underlying message.”

“All two hundred?” Harry groaned. “That’s going to take weeks!”

Snape’s mouth twitched. “I doubt it would be that bad. Besides, I do want this to make something of an impression on you. When you have finished the first one hundred to my satisfaction, you may play Quidditch again, and when you have finished all two hundred, you can have your Firebolt back.”

Harry blinked up at Snape, stunned. “That... that can’t be all. I mean, you were so... so angry.”

“Trying to extend your punishment?”

Snape’s mouth had stretched into a full smirk when Harry yelped, “No!” almost before he’d finished speaking.

“Nevertheless, after you have finished your lines, I do wish for you to continue coming down here every evening you have free. It is about time that I started training you in how to use your mature magic.”

“Really?” Harry gasped, unable to find the words to express his sudden delight. “Because that’s... I think... Oh, awesome!”

“Start your lines, Potter,” Snape said, rolling his eyes. “I will let you know when it is half an hour to curfew.”

Harry bit his lip. “Actually, sir, I was wondering... Could I just... instead?”

Snape gave him an odd look. “As strange as it sounds, I do actually have an inkling of what you’re trying to ask.” He sighed. “I shall just tell McGonagall that the reason you have not returned to Gryffindor Tower was because you wished to try out your new room, shall I?”

Harry smirked. “She’s going to be so annoyed.”

Snape’s lips twitched. “Quite. However, we may not wish to test her temper any further this term. She can be very good at making one’s life a living hell.”

“How?”

Snape leant forward as though imparting a great secret. “Hair-balls.”

oooOOOooo

Severus slipped in to Harry’s room to see if the boy was asleep, and stood in the darkness for a couple of minutes, watching his son breathe. It was such a relief to know that the boy was safe and, if not happy, then coping better than he had been. He couldn’t quite bring himself to regret handing out the harsh punishment in the first place, seeing as any other course of action might not have led to this point.

Harry might have suffered in silence for weeks over Shadow, struggling to hide it but becoming more and more depressed, and Severus would not have noticed because the school environment did not allow him to give his full attention to his son as he had over the summer. Having exacerbated Harry’s emotions to the point of meltdown could possibly have saved the boy a lot of pain in the long run.

Severus certainly hoped so.

And what was certain, was that from now on he was going to do his damndest to make sure he did this right.

However, no matter how dangerous what Harry did had been, he was certainly never going to tell the child that if anyone had been damaged by the book, it would have meant a five year stay in Azkaban for Severus. When he had said he was directly responsible for the family heirlooms, he had meant it literally.

The boy didn’t need that kind of guilt on his conscience.

Reaching inside the top pocket of his robes, Severus pulled out the small, sleepy snake and slowly slipped it into Harry’s uncurled fingers, which unconsciously tightened a little around the tiny creature.

“Watch over him for me, Salem,” he whispered into the dark and could have sworn he heard a drowsy hiss in reply. Touching Harry’s hair once gently, he turned and left the room to go to his own bed, relieved that tonight’s drama was finally over.

oooOOOooo

Well, Shadow thought as he looked down at the small cat playfully batting at his shoes, at least it wasn’t an elephant.

Actually, now that he’d had a chance to look more closely at it, it seemed to resemble something more like an extremely small lion cub or some other spawn of big cat. All Shadow could know for sure was that it was about mid-calf height, playful and almost irritatingly cute.

Oh, and it was pink. Very pink.

Of course, he reflected ruefully, this could mean that I’ve finally gone ‘round the twist. 

The lion-tiger creature mewed up at him and promptly bit down on his shoe again, this time managing to puncture the rather shabby leather with its needle-sharp teeth.

“Ow! Don’t do that!”

The pink thing sat back on its haunches and looked up at him as if to say, Who? Me? It was, Shadow hated to admit, nearly impossible to stay angry at. Plus, it did have the endearing factor that it was the first living thing he’d seen for weeks. Sighing, he crouched down and regarded it more closely. The creature stared back.

Yep, Shadow thought, it is just as pink this close. But who am I to complain about the colours of creatures from other worlds?

“Hey, there.” He put out his hand for the creature to sniff, which it promptly ducked under for a scratch behind the ears. “I’m Shadow. I wonder who you are...”

The creature’s fur seemed almost to crackle and shift under his fingers, as though imbued with some strange energy. This close, Shadow could now see that its ears were pointed instead of rounded, and that they both had long, red tufts sprouting out of the ends. The tail had a similar tuft, and the lion-tiger’s eyes were completely black.

To his surprise, Shadow felt a small, metal tag catch against his fingers as he gently ran his hand over the right ear. Nothing was visible to the eye, but there was undoubtedly something there.

“Huh. What’s this?”

Carefully, he caught the object between finger and thumb and scrutinised the invisible space for a minute, the cat creature remaining obligingly still while he did so and slowly but surely, the air shimmered between his fingers, revealing a shiny, silver oblong disc upon which writing was engraved elegantly.

Shadow squinted to read it and felt his eyebrows shoot up. “’Accident?’ What kind of person would name their pet ‘Accident’?”

The cat gave him a look as if to say, ‘For God’s sake, I’m PINK.’

“Fair point,” Shadow conceded, trying not to think about the fact that he was having a conversation with an animal, and flipped the disc over to read the other side. “‘If found, do NOT feed. You’ll never get the little bugger to leave you alone otherwise.’ O-K.” Shadow gave Accident a look. “Your master is strange.”

Accident rolled his eyes and nodded, and Shadow flinched back in surprise. “Holy shit! The cat can understand me!”

‘The cat’ made a sound like Mmrrroww before turning and bounding away into the whiteness.

“Wait!” Shadow yelped, in a panic, suddenly realising that if he lost Accident, he would be all alone again. “Wait for me! Don’t get offended!” He sprinted after the disappearing shape and sighed in relief as he saw it stop and turn back towards him.

Accident seemed to stand still and watch him approach, but there was something funny about the way that the cat was looking at him which made him slow to a stop while he was several metres away. What the...? 

Shadow froze and stared at the animal’s paws. Icy terror gripped his gut as he realised that they were no longer made of flesh, but of flame.

What’s going on? What’s happening? What...? His thoughts were cut off as he looked back at the creature’s eyes. They were red.

Even as every instinct screamed at him to run, Shadow found himself frozen in place, the slithering fear of the unknown creeping up his spine and frightening him much more than the animal in front of him ever had. Shadow always knew things. To him, it was as instinctual as breathing, and suddenly he was trapped on his own with an unknown creature and he didn’t know what to do.

Still unmoving, he watched as the flames spread slowly over every inch of the creature’s body and the best that Shadow’s mind could come up with was; where the heck am I going to get a bucket of water in a place like this?

Suddenly, the fire creature seemed to expand outward. Between one blink and the next it grew from its previous size to that of a fully grown tiger. Shadow swallowed hard, limbs trembling slightly. I waited too long. There’s no way in hell I’ll be able to outrun that.

The flames died and Shadow was left staring nearly eye to eye with the huge predator. Its eyes were completely black once again and Shadow really had to wrench his gaze away from them to study the rest of the body, trying to see whether or not it was going to pounce.

Long, sharp fangs curved down from its upper jaw to about an inch below its chin and Shadow found himself wincing just to look at them. Those have got to hurt....

The powerful muscle and sinew of the creature’s body was covered by a coat of a dark gold. Shadow’s fear-sharpened eyes could even see light grey stripes arranged out at regular intervals throughout the fur. Its claws were a gun-metal grey and looked sharp enough to rend meat from bone without the slightest bit of effort.

Shadow’s mouth went dry as he saw that the creature had drawn back its lips in a snarl. He tried to stumble backwards as the powerful predator’s muscles bunched, but found himself mute and frozen as it sprung towards him.

A powerful force slammed into him and knocked him off his feet, and a heavy weight settled on his chest. Shadow’s eyes squeezed shut. This is it; this is where it ends...

“Ahhh!” Shadow cried out, the shock of having a rasping, wet tongue licking his cheek jolting him out of his silence.

He opened his eyes and stared up in amazement at the huge creature which was purring quite happily and nuzzling its face to his. The unused adrenaline slowly seeped out of his limbs, making him feel rubbery and not quite connected to reality. In fact, he could almost have sworn that he could have heard footsteps nearby.

A deep voice sounded out through the haze, “Honestly, Aki. What the blazes have you done now?” A figure appeared slowly appeared from between the swirling mists and Shadow found that he could only stare, dumbfounded, at the seventeen year old form of Severus Snape.

Well, if it’s a hallucinogenic in the mist causing all of this, then I must be completely and utterly stoned.

The Snape gestured towards Accident apologetically. “I’m sorry about him, he can’t to resist showing off. He’s harmless really, unless...” Snape raised an eyebrow, “you don’t want to kill me do you?”

It only took two attempts for Shadow to find his voice. “Um, n-no. No, I don’t.”

“Excellent! Then we have nothing to worry about then.” Snape gave a sudden grin as Shadow gaped. Accident had stepped off his chest, but he found himself still unable to move.

“Umm, forgive me for asking, but...”

“Who am I?” The Snape had stepped forward and stroked along the darkened ridge in the middle of Accident’s back. Shadow couldn’t help but notice that there was still a faint line of fire running down the ridge. Strangely, Snape didn’t seem to be hurt by it.

“Yeah, well, yeah...” Shadow certainly hoped that he would be able to regain his vocabulary skills before long. As well as his motor skills.

“My name,” Snape gave a dramatic flourish, but spoiled it by grinning, “is Kai Evander Snape. Most people mix me up with my father.” He strode over to where Shadow was lying and helped hoist him to his feet, seemingly unperturbed by the younger boy’s constantly stunned expression.

“Your father?” Shadow gaped, barely able to stop himself from sinking to the ground again. For my first conversation with another human being besides Harry, Snape and Dumbledore, I’m getting the feeling I’m not doing too well....

“Well,” Kai shrugged, “in an alternate reality far... far away, I’m his son. I’m a Mage, so I wander between the Universes a lot, making a lot of the locals confused. Born Mages have a different kind of power from everyone else,” Kai explained, seeing Shadow’s still-confounded expression. “Come, share my fire and I’ll tell you all about it.”

Shadow hesitated. “I would tell you that my mother said not to go with strangers, but... she never did and you’re not really a stranger, are you? Besides, I don’t think I’d be able to get far if I tried to run.” He gestured at Accident.

Kai smiled and beckoned Shadow to follow him, which Shadow did, but only because there might be a slim chance that the other boy knew the way out of this place. To tell the truth, both Kai and his strange pet scared Shadow quite a lot.

“You’d be right about that,” Kai said ruefully as they walked. “Aki can be pretty darn fast when he wants to be. You needn’t worry about that anyway, I’m generally considered to be a ‘good’ Mage.” Kai smirked. “Well, unless you count the fact that I think it’s funny to push my friends into lakes every now and again. Blame Maddeline. It’s all her fault.”

Intrigued despite himself, Shadow hurried to keep up with the older boy’s longer legs. “Who’s Maddeline?”

“Ah, never mind – my godmother – but that isn’t important. And anyway,” Kai gestured around them, “no lakes, so you’re safe.”

Shadow grinned and squinted up at the taller boy. If I stay friendly, he won’t have a reason to hurt me... not that I think he would, he hasn’t so far, but there’s just something that feels... wrong... about him. “So, alternate realities, huh?”

Kai nodded fervently, seeming to get into his stride of story-telling. “Yup. You wouldn’t believe the number of alternative Snapes out there. Or of any other person you might know.”

“Really? Ever meet anyone like me?”

“No, not yet, but I’ll be able to tell the next person who looks like you that I have! It’s bound to happen sometime. Hey...” Kai abruptly stopped walking and brushed aside some of the hair covering Shadow’s forehead. Shadow tried not to flinch back. “You aren’t called Harry by any chance, are you?”

Shadow reached his hand up to feel the lightning bolt scar before shaking his head. “No... But I’m kind of, well...” he trailed off, not sure what to say. “I’m just Shadow.”

Kai patted him on the shoulder and gave him a gentle push to keep walking, Shadow stiffened at the peculiar twinge he felt – like his arm had suddenly cramped violently to get away from Kai’s touch without Shadow’s conscious permission. “Well, I’m pleased to meet you, Shadow. Sounds like you’ve got an even better story than I have. Let’s hear it, then!”

Shadow shook his head stubbornly, still trying to convince himself that if Kai wanted to do him harm, he would have done it already. Power seemed to fairly radiate out from the other boy. “No. You said you’d tell me about Mages first.” Shadow suddenly gasped as he looked around himself, completely distracted from his wariness.

The mist of the area he’d just walked into had receded and the floor had completely flattened out; it made Shadow feel like he was in the middle of a great cathedral. Right in the very centre was a brightly burning fire.

“Awesome,” Shadow breathed as he hurried forward and crouched down beside it. He’d never seen a real fire before up close – and he didn’t count the magical fire that Aki had used to transform. “Wow, that’s amazing...” Not thinking clearly, he stretched one hand out to the flames, only to have it caught in a larger, fine-boned one and pulled away. The same cramping sensation as before happened, sending a spasm through his forearm, but Kai let go soon enough.

“Careful,” the older boy said as he settled down beside him. “You’re a strange one, aren’t you? Magic born, but never seen fire before....”

Shadow squirmed a little at his foolishness, but was determined to brush it aside. “So, Mages?”  I’m sure there’ll be something Kai knows that could help me get back home....

The light seemed to darken around them as Kai sat up straighter. It only took Shadow a moment to realise that the other boy was somehow making that happen on purpose. “Hey!” Shadow felt pleased with himself that he was beginning to get the hang of acting in the same relaxed manner he did as if he were around Harry when inside he so clearly felt the opposite. “Stop that!”

“Sorry.” Kai grinned unrepentantly, but the light went back to normal. “Sometimes I can’t resist winding people up. It’s all...”

“...Maddeline’s fault. Yeah, I get it. Story? Please?” Shadow demanded cheerfully, biting his tongue and trying not to shiver. Just stay confident, just stay confident....

“Of course.” Kai cleared his throat and laced his fingers together, peering at Shadow over the top of them. “Born Mages are quite unlike any other creature in existence. We’re like a whole different, mutant species to ourselves, but a Mage can be born from any type of sentient being at all. What makes us so different? Our magic.”

Kai held his left hand, palm up, about a foot away from Shadow’s face, and suddenly it felt very like déjà vu of the day Harry gave Shadow speech. A small ball of light, no bigger than a golf ball formed in Kai’s hand, its colour very similar to the pale, orange light that can sometimes be seen at dawn.

Shadow shivered and leaned away. Unlike Harry’s magic, there felt like there was something inherently very wrong with the ball of power in front of him, like it wasn’t really there at all and, at the same time, was more real than Kai or Aki or any other person Shadow had laid eyes on in his admittedly short life.

The orb vanished, and Shadow was left staring at a suddenly sombre Kai.

“Spooky, isn’t it? And just think; I have to live with this stuff inside me every day. Makes going to classes a bit maddening at times.”

Shadow wasn’t really listening. “What is that stuff? I, I mean... God... what the hell is it?”

Kai’s already black eyes seemed to darken. “My soul.”

Shadow felt like he’d swallowed his tongue. His skin crawled as he tried to lean even further away without being obvious. “You... you, what?” he choked. “Your soul?”

“Mmhmm.” Kai seemed to want to brush off the uncomfortable atmosphere that had descended around them with flippancy. “Somehow, through some weird genetic mutation, or something, a person’s magic becomes his soul... or his soul becomes his magic, making them a Born Mage. Nobody really knows which.

“What it does mean, though, is that a Mage is the only being you can destroy utterly. Everyone else goes on to whatever afterlife or reincarnation there is, but if there is Mage powerful enough to shatter the magic of another, or even draw the other’s power into their own body, then the defeated Mage ceases to exist completely.”

The fire suddenly seemed very cold, and all Shadow could think about was how much he wanted to go back to the place he had come from and completely forget about the strange new world he had become lost in. Aki, smaller again, mewed softly and climbed up into his lap, his strange, static-y fur feeling oddly comforting beneath Shadow’s fingers.

“But, hey, there’s a good side as well!” Kai was smiling again, and Shadow felt himself relax marginally. He was no Mage – the fear of possible oblivion was Kai’s to deal with – and Shadow was slowly coming to convince himself of the fact that there might be an afterlife for him after all. Like he had told Kai, he was just Shadow, not a piece of Harry, not an imagining in a mirror, just Shadow.

“So, are you going to tell me? Or are you just going to leave me hanging in the doom and gloom?” he asked, attempting to sound cheeky.

It must have worked because Kai laughed. “God forbid, hey? Mages, because of what we are, are ‘officially’ allowed to do whatever we want. No laws, no customs, just us. The Universes just seem to want to ignore us as much as possible – something to do with our weird magic. They give every other ‘normal’ person an interactive experience, but we Mages can actually sometimes feel ourselves being shunted to the side, like... like we’re a live wire or something that they don’t want to touch. They don’t want anything to do with us because they know we can end their existence like that!” Kai snapped his fingers, making Shadow jump a little.

“Bad Mages, good Mages, there’s no one out there able to stop us except our own kind, so we do as we please and go where we please and only bother caring about what our family or coven might think – a coven is a group of Born Mages banded together. I think someone chose the name originally because they thought likening our kind to vampires was amusing...”

Kai seemed completely caught up in his own story and, despite himself, Shadow felt himself being drawn more and more into the world of Mages as he listened. It’s amazing. Better than any dungeons and dragons story that Harry’s ever read, but I’m certainly glad I’m not one of them. Especially considering....

“You keep talking about the ‘Universes’ as if they’re real people.”

Kai smiled and Shadow felt his jaw drop. “Oh, they are. Each one of them has their own different personality, different idiosyncrasies and different ways of dealing with their inhabitants. If you’re very lucky one day you might even get to see the spiritual manifestation of one... umm... that’s how they imagine they might look if they were humanoid or otherwise, and they project that image into the ‘real world’ when they want to talk to someone specifically. So far I’ve seen two, but once again, normal rules don’t seem to apply to me.”

Kai didn’t look very happy about this for some reason, but he brightened a second later. “Take this place for example. No one knows its true name and no one in living memory has seen it manifest, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t alive.”

Shadow’s hands stilled from stroking Aki’s ears. “What? This place? The Mirrorverse?”

Kai nodded. “I call it No Man’s Land, but as no one knows its name, it’s open to interpretation... The ‘Mirrorverse,’ you say? I heard a rumour that only those not truly alive could see mirrors that show other worlds. You’re not dead, are you?”

Shadow edged closer to the fire, eyeing the swirling mists with horror. “No... I used to be not quite alive though...” He bit his lip. “It’s alive, you say?”

Kai sighed and pulled Shadow’s arm away from where it was almost in the fire again. “Yes, alive. But if you want it to help you to wherever you’re going, you’re going to have to change your attitude.”

Shadow turned his wide eyes on Kai, the jittery feeling in his stomach getting even worse. “My attitude?”

Kai smiled and pulled a long staff of ebony wood out from where it had been resting on the fire other side of the fire. An orange orb the same colour as Kai’s magic with a silver dragon wrapped around it adorned one end. Shadow watched both Kai and the staff warily, his fingers unconsciously tightening in Aki’s coat.

“Yes, attitude,” Kai said nonchalantly, starting to carefully clean the dark wood. “Now, let me explain...”