Summer passed by; days of joy and warmth that was more than just the sun's doing. They stretched long and golden, the air filled with the droning of bees and the sounds of a family building a life together.

  Two months passed since the incident at the sea.

  During this time, the orphanage changed.

  In the backyard, the clash of wood against wood rang out. Adimia stood panting, sweat slicking his shaved head, facing a wooden dummy Teerom had reinforced with iron bands. In his left hand, he held a round shield; in his right, a blunt training sword.

  "Again," Paley called out from the porch steps.

  Adimia didn't complain and lunged. As he struck the dummy, he yelled "Scorch!". Fire erupted along the blade, scorching the wood. He pivoted, raising his shield to block an imaginary counter-attack. "Ice Shield!". Frost bloomed instantly across the shield's surface, hardening into a second skin on it.

  Fire to attack. Ice to defend. The transition was seamless, fluid and now engraved in his muscle memory. The Quimnknight was no longer just a joke, though it still sounded terrible as a title.

  Behind the sparring ground, the earth had surrendered to Reben. The farm was now thick with greenery. Tub-roots, usually the size of a fist, had swollen to the size of heads, bursting from the soil as if they wanted to be eaten.

  "It's my Growy-Juice," Bacha explained, her nose smudged with purple soil. She was holding a beaker of bubbling green liquid that smelled faintly of rotten eggs and cinnamon. "And Paley using his Earth Magic. It's like the plants are breathing really hard."

  Reben measured a stalk of corn that was taller than Teerom. "This is crazy," he muttered, scribbling in his notebook. "The yield is crazy."

  Inside the cottage, the evenings belonged to Jurie. The dining table became a classroom. Under the warm glow of the oil lamp, she broke down complex theories into pieces her siblings could digest. She taught by using Adimia's obsession with knights and strength and Bacha's obsession with alchemy to her advantage.

  "Ratios..." Jurie thought, "Bacha. How much of each ingredient do you put in the Growy-Juice?"

  "Hmmm, I put about this much magical ant paste, and this much Chib-Hamster poop, and this much egg." Bacha gestured everything.

  "Those are ratios. If you put too much of one, you'd get a different thing, right? You just showed me a 3:2:1 ratio. Meaning, for 1 part egg, there's 2 parts poop, and 3 parts ant paste."

  Then there was Teerom. He sat by the hearth most nights, writing letters of application to every building position in Gouon. Most went unanswered. Some returned with polite rejections citing a "lack of formal lineage."

  "Another?" Paley asked one evening, sitting beside him.

  Teerom crushed the parchment in his hand, tossing it into the fire. "Yeah... What can a name possibly bring in building? I know I'm good and I want to be better. Why does my name mean anything?"

  "You're better than them," Paley said, bumping his shoulder. "They're missing out. You built up this house. You built us. Maybe you should just start your own company. I'll help you."

  Teerom smiled, a tired and grateful expression. "You're real direct, Paley..."

  Paley looked at the jar on the mantlepiece. It was a quarter full. Silver and Gold from his hunts, copper from Bacha's unlicensed alchemical sales to those who could not afford official products (all of it was tested by Paley and the others before it was sold), and soon there was going to be income from Reben's vegetables. They were safe and they were stable. They could afford to think about things like opening small businesses.

  Late at night, as the others tucked into bed, Paley worked on his own project. By the light of a single candle and with Madella in her bed below the stairs watching him, he cataloged the creatures he had faced and defeated.

  Weynsoo, Fulguron, Chitterax, Ferroctus, Umbralon, Cinderva, Scoriath, Psithyra, Cragax, Purtrisnip, Vitriellesina, Bramlion, Limos, Glacivixteen, Ignivul, Noctulor, Moragga, Lithovore, Zephyrosi, Nebuloshi, Sonar-Stral, Tenebrute, Sanguilechta, Ferrox, Voruun, Mini-Tempestos, Karthax, Lasheron, Cryptix, Anmicus, Cinderi, Abyssei, Nimbrili, Muscarth, Vorastra, Fulgurix, Aculei, Strigor, Pulvaryn, Corallix, Ignabyss, Wevrift, Umbrapard, Ossifex, Miraj, Siltalon, Venom-spine, Crepusculon, Phasesbin.

  He closed the book. Each time he saw the growing list it only filled him with pride. He was a full fledged hunter now.

  He came on Narah the 35th of Mian. 5 days before the orphans would embark on their first day of school.

  Paley was outside by the water pump, collecting water that he would boil later when cooking lunch. He hadn't time to put on his disguise; his hair was void black, his eyes blood-crimson.

  The birds stopped singing.

  This wasn't an usual silence. The sparrows in the oak tree simply sat down on the branches. The crickets ceased their rubbing. The wind held its breath, leaves freezing in place.

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  The silence pressed against Paley's eardrums, suffocating.

  Then, on the path, it appeared.

  A carriage. It was pristine white, the lacquer gleaming so brightly it hurt to look at, trimmed with gold that caught the sun's rays. It moved over the rutted dirt road with smoothness, almost gliding, with the wheels making no sound and the black horses' hooves striking the earth with muffled thuds.

  Paley froze. The crest on the door was that of Lusitra itself: the country that Gouon belonged to. High Nobility.

  He couldn't be seen.

  He couldn't make it to the back door without being spotted by the driver. He couldn't fly; the sky was too open. He didn't want to use Illusion Magic - he had a long hunt soon and needed to conserve his mana. Panic spiked in his chest. He dropped to the ground and scrambled into the crawlspace beneath the wooden porch.

  He dragged himself into the shadows, pressing his body into the cool dirt just as the carriage glided to a halt in front of the cottage.

  Paley held his breath. He heard the heavy thud of the carriage door opening. Then, footsteps.

  Madella opened the front door. "Oh. My Lord?" Her voice was surprised, laced with a tremor of anxiety. "To what do we owe the honour?"

  "Please, Madella," a voice replied. It was smooth, rich, and terrifyingly pleasant. It sounded like warm honey on ice would feel. "I am merely a shepherd checking on his flock."

  The floorboards creaked directly above Paley's head. Dirt trickled down onto his cheek. He squeezed his eyes shut to listen close.

  "We are honored," Madella said. "Boys, girls! Come out. Bow to the Lord."

  Paley heard the shuffling of feet — Adimia's heavy boots, Bacha's light skipping, Teerom's steady pace.

  "My," the Lord said. "What a vibrant collection."

  Paley could see through a crack in the wood. He saw the fine, spotless tailoring that only a Lord of a city could afford, a perfect black suit. He saw the Lord's hand extend to shake Madella's.

  The hand was pale, the skin smooth and pore-less, like marble that had been polished.

  Only Teerom seemed to notice something else. Through the crack, Paley saw Teerom's legs lock. The older boy took a half-step back, his left hand trembling for a moment before stopping once he bought his attention to it.

  "You have done well with this farm," the Lord noted, walking toward the vegetable baskets Reben had set out. "Such vitality."

  He picked up an apple. Paley watched as the white hand lifted the red fruit.

  Crunch.

  The Lord ate. He ate the fruit, the seeds, the stem. He swallowed it all. In reply to their apprehensive reactions he said: "Cannot waste food. That is a sin." Then, he turned his gaze to Adimia. "Adimia, is it?"

  "Y-Yes, My Lord!" Adimia stammered, standing at attention.

  "I see a fire in you," the Lord purred. He stepped closer. "It burns bright. A rare and delightful quality. Keep burning, boy. The world needs people like you to provide light."

  Adimia beamed, hearing only the praise. Paley shivered internally.

  The Lord moved down the line. He stopped in front of Jurie. He reached out a finger and tapped her forehead. "And you. The scholar. A sharp mind is the most delicate. So many layers to unpeel. I look forward to seeing the lady you become."

  Jurie curtsied, but she looked pale, her eyes fixed on the ground.

  Suddenly, the Lord stopped.

  He stood perfectly still on the porch, directly above Paley's chest. The air grew frigid. The Lord inhaled — a long, deep, rattling intake of breath through his nose.

  "Something..." The Lord whispered. "Something familiar."

  Paley's heart hammered against his ribs. He clamped a hand over his mouth to prevent his breathing from giving him away. 'Does he know? Does he know I'm here? I can't let him see me. Everything will be over.'

  "My Lord?" Madella asked with a tight voice. "Is something wrong?"

  The Lord held the breath for an eternity before adjusting his slicked black hair and finally exhaling like a vent releasing steam.

  "No," he said, his voice returning to that smooth, perfect cadence. "Just the smell of potential. It is overwhelming here."

  He turned back to the carriage.

  "A small donation," the Lord said. "For your fees moving forward. I expect great things from this household."

  He dropped a handful of coins onto Madella's hands.

  "Good day, Madella. Mother of orphans."

  The carriage door closed. The wheels turned. The white vehicle glided away, disappearing as silently as it had come down the path.

  For a lagging moment, no one moved. The birds remained silent.

  Then, slowly, everything restarted. Adimia let out a whoop of excitement. "Did you hear him? He said I had fire!"

  "He was... intense... creepy," Jurie whispered, Rubbing her forehead where he had touched her.

  Paley clawed his way out from under the porch, gasping for air as he rolled onto the grass. He scrambled up, ignoring the dirt on his clothes, and ran to look down the road.

  The carriage was a white speck in the distance.

  He focused his eyes, looking for the tell-tale black aura of evil he had seen on the slavers, on thieves, on the cruel men of the city.

  There was nothing.

  The carriage shone with a pure, white light. It almost looked holy.

  "Paley?" Teerom's voice caught his attention away from the Lord's carriage, "You good, man?"

  Teerom was standing on the porch, looking at the gold coins the Lord had left.

  "Y-Yeah." Paley answered. A lie. For the first time since the aftermath of the Fulguron's nest, underneath the Lord of Gouon, he felt truly disconcerted.

  "What a creepy guy." Bacha commented.

  "But he did give us money." Rauba said.

  "He's a cursed man. He does not have family or friends. Maybe he's just creepy from being lonely." Madella suggested.

  "Cursed?"

  "Rumours aside, it's pretty well-known that the Lord of Gouon ages slower than others. He is right now 90 years old I think."

  "Whaaaat!?" The orphans gasped.

  "Yeah, hahah. Though, I suppose I shouldn't be laughing. Rumour has it he was cursed by a Black Spirit."

  "What's a Black Spirit?" Paley asked.

  "You don't know what spirits are?"

  "No, sorry..."

  Madella explained to him. A Spirit was a creature from the Spirit Realm; there was a whole spectrum of Spirits. A Black Spirit was a Spirit of pure evil. The magic that Spirits wielded was magnitudes more powerful than human magic and it was the only type of magic that could easily kill a demon.

  Paley urged her to continue, to tell him more. "Is there a way for a human to use Spirit Magic?"

  Madella curled her lips awkwardly. "I don't know Paley. Maybe you should find out at school." She grinned.

  Spirit Magic. If Paley could somehow use it despite being human. The Demon Invasion would be a piece of cake. But that brought up another important venue; perhaps it was time to start studying the Quimnias before him.

  How did they save the world?