Nora stared at Ryan in complete and utter silence. After a few moments, they looked around the room, seeing that everyone in here was completely and utterly serious. The only one that was as confused as they were, was their friend standing behind them.

  "You're... kidding. This is what you think will convince me?" Nora laughed out awkwardly. "You're the heir to a secret organisation led by the Aglecard Foundation, and you bought up a house that was connected to another secret organisation, just that those guys are evil?"

  Ryan shrugged slightly. "Close. I'm not the heir, and I don't know if that other group is actually 'evil'. Misguided, maybe? But I don't know enough about them for that."

  "But, according to you, they set up a big, mind-altering magic circle."

  "I'd rather call it mind-enhancing. It just sort of elevated everything everyone was already feeling."

  Nora leaned back in the chair, continuing to stare at Ryan. "What the fuck are you even talking about? That's ridiculous! Are you like spies trying to save the world in a movie, or something?"

  Kim scoffed, shaking his head. "Saving the world? As if. Those guys would rather just–"

  Ryan grabbed a book and threw it over at Kim. "Shut up." He quickly looked back at Nora. "We're not trying to save the world, just... people. You know, the Aglecards are the ones that developed the artificial blood that vampires are now living on. Our family even helped Arachnids get integrated into society a few decades ago. Things aren't perfect, and a lot of people in the family are... similarly misguided as the ones that placed the magic circle into random shed, but they're trying. And we are trying to help improve things."

  "Okay..?" Nora slowly nodded, thinking about the things that they were being told. There was clearly a lot going through their head right now. "And how exactly did you say that magic circle was activated?"

  Everyone in the room beside Nora and their friend looked at Ryan, already knowing the answer to that question. At this point, they were probably just curious about what Ryan would hide, and what he would actually talk about. He sneakily hid the fact that there were many more species out there in the world, and he also hid the actual extent of the family's powers.

  He really just made the Aglecards seem like a charitable organisation with far too much money and people with slight god complexes in power.

  Ryan scratched his cheek, looking over at Morgana. She was keeping up the silence spell around this room right now, so she was still out. "Did you see how we were using magic to keep the drinks cool? It looks like the spell's mana was drawn into the magic circle, and we basically infused all the drinks with the spell... Everything. The alcohol, the soda you had, all of it. And that's our fault, but it was an accident."

  Nova didn't know what to say. They were just sitting there, listening, trying to process it all.

  "... Okay?" they finally said. With how genuine and calm Ryan was being, and with all these eyes on them, they felt too awkward to yell about it or get mad in any other way. "So because of this spell, people kept hitting each other? I heard of some people whose friendship was ruined over things that happened that night."

  Ryan slowly nodded. "I know. I know that we messed up, and that none of this should have ever happened, and we're going to make up for it. The people that were injured have been healed completely, I've spoken to as many people from the party as I could to mend any broken relationships. There are some people that are mad or confused, but for the most part, everyone else is starting to move on."

  With a scoff, Nora shook his head. "Are you saying that you want me to just 'move on' from all this?"

  "No," Ryan said immediately, sighing. "I'm saying that I want you to just chill for a bit. You can be mad, you can hate me, we'll pay you however much you want. Hell, I'll even let you throw a few punches if you think that's going to help. But for just the next few months, at the very least, keep quiet about this. Please. This needs to stay a secret."

  "But why? Why do you guys need to keep this a secret? I mean, vampires are out in the open now, so what's the big deal?"

  Kim let out a loud groan, shaking his head. "Fucking idiot..." he whispered.

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  "Excuse me?" Nora let out, clearly insulted. "What's that for?"

  "There are others. There are obviously others. I can't give you any details, and I won't, no matter how much you ask. But there are others."

  Nora laughed confused. "What do you mean, 'others'? More vampires living in hiding?"

  "More species living in hiding," Ryan said. He specifically stopped himself from glancing at Nora's friend when he said that, but he knew that she was staring at him. The exact way that everyone stared at him when Ryan saw through them, although they thought they were completely hidden.

  With a groan, Nora shook their head. "And you want me to believe that? What kind of others are there, uhm, uh... Fucking... I don't know, I can't even imagine it! What other mon-"

  Ryan hit the table, and everyone in the room jumped. Even Morgana seemed startled. "I told you never to say that fucking word again. Have some tact."

  Nora was silent for a few moments. They seemed embarrassed. But someone else decided to speak up.

  "... Jackalopes," Nora's friend said. "They're another magical species."

  Nora turned around confused. "What? Holly, how would you know?"

  Meanwhile, Ryan let out an understanding hum.

  "Because I am one," Holly replied, taking a deep breath. "We don't have issues the same way that vampires do. We can survive just as well even if we were known, but... we're a species that might cause a lot of friction, so we're still kept hidden until we find a solution."

  With an awkward laugh, Nora looked away from Holly and at the others in the room. They were still as serious as before. "Wait, are you... are you serious?"

  "Of course I'm serious," Holly squatted next to Nora's chair, and parted the fur on her head, revealing cut antler-stumps.

  "We don't look that different for the most part, we just have antlers. But it's more about our ability, the magic that is innate to us. We sometimes randomly begin to mimic other people. It's always made people scared of us. But we can't even really control it... so we cut our antlers, because that somehow stops it from happening, and lets us appear just like a slightly tall Leporidas. It still sometimes happens randomly though, when we're really emotional."

  Throughout Holly's explanation, Nora just kept on staring at the stumps on her head.

  "Why are you only telling me about this now..? We've been friends since primary school..."

  Holly nodded. "Yeah, we have been. But this isn't just about me. We've been hiding for hundreds and hundreds of years. It wasn't up to me to decide to just tell someone."

  This just confused Nora even more. "Then why now? What changed?"

  With a slow glance, Holly guided Nora's gaze back at Ryan. "It's because of him. When you asked me to talk to Ryan, I didn't know that he was an Aglecard. But after hearing what he said, I realised that he's not just an Aglecard, he's the one everyone's been talking about."

  "... Hm?" Ryan raised a brow. "What do you mean? Who's been talking about me?"

  "Well... everyone. They said you cured someone's corruption just by placing your hand on theirs. You actually asked around the Rapids to ask how to improve things, and if people wanted to finally walk free. And they say that you're... the Spirit Keeper? Whatever that means? My nana said that the Spirit Keeper is supposed to be something special, but she couldn't tell me why, either." Holly smiled brightly. "But what I do know is that, for the first time, the people around me are hopeful. My nana started talking about these traditional jackalope antler decorations that she then began to work on. People are talking about what they will do, and where they will travel when they can finally live their lives without worrying about... hiding."

  Ryan stared at Holly for just a moment, and then looked at the others. All of them were just as surprised as he was, and particularly Kim was just looking blankly back at him. "It's... it's going to work?" He asked, and Ryan nodded.

  "It's going to work. With this, we'll have plenty of people to support us." Ryan stood up from his seat. "Listen, just... a few more months. After that, I don't care what happens. Expose us, talk shit about me, I don't care. By then, we'll have torn it all down anyway."

  He nodded at Morgana and the spirit deactivated her spell and popped back into her domain.

  "Wait, Ryan, where are you going?" Kim asked.

  "Speeding things up a bit. There's some heroics examinations happening every Thursday afternoon. So I'll head over there now."

  "Weren't you planning to take your time with that?"

  "Yup. But come on." Ryan grinned broadly and looked at Holly. "After hearing that, there's no way I can wait. Let's speed the steps of the plan up a bit, yeah? One of you get Holly's number, and do your thing, I'll be off."

  Ryan pulled out his phone. There were two people that he had to call. First, Jade, to tell her that he might be late, but that she can still come over and just chill at his place until he got there. And then, Runar, to have him pull some strings to get Ryan a last-minute spots in the exams.

  Of course, Runar was confused why he wanted to do this all of a sudden, but he just passed it off as some random whims. That now, that he was dealing with the trials, he wanted to get his license as early as possible to be able to practice his abilities more openly in the meantime.

  Runar was annoyed, but he agreed and already got ready to call people. By the time Ryan got to his bike, Runar had gotten him a spot in an examination centre in the Falls.

  "Guys, calm down," Ryan said, looking inward at the spirits. They could obviously tell his excitement, and they themselves were also happy to see that things were proceeding well, but they were still worried that Ryan was acting rashly. "We can do this, it's okay. We're strong enough, and I know I'm going to ace the written portion. But I need to be a hero, some kind of public figure, to get the attention I need to put pressure on the family's elders."

  Ryan started driving off. "And then, when that pressure exists, I've consulted enough people outside of and within the family, I'm going to support the hidden folk as they freely step out into the world."