The door I go through leads into the backyard, but along the side of the house, on the opposite side from my house. I’ll have to go through the gate in the fenced yard, across the front of the house, and back into my house, without anyone knowing.

  Hopefully Nancy didn’t come looking for me when she left here.

  My head spins from the overheard conversation. I had thought Savannah and Beaker were on our side, were with us. To know that they’re not fully on board—and that it’s because of me—hurts more than I expected. Everything I’ve done has been to protect Ryder and Nancy, to create a home for them. And sure, to get us some extra Rank Tokens. But we need those Rank Tokens to get stronger, which is imperative if we want to be able to fight against the monsters, who keep evolving regardless of what we do.

  But I guess to a stranger, all it looks like is that I’m forcing a kid into fights against monsters.

  At least they’ve been convinced to stay for a little while, and hopefully that will be enough time for them to realize I’m not some evil mastermind.

  I find the yard’s gate, unhook the latch, and slip through. It still surprises me just how dark it gets at night, without the streetlights and the other artificial lights that bleed through the sky from downtown Toronto. I’ve grown up watching the Toronto lights in the distance, seeing glimpses of the skyline between buildings and while looking down streets. To look in that direction and see nothing but blackness is disconcerting, to say the least.

  But the moon is nearly full and very bright tonight, casting a bit of a silver tint to the street around me. It’s just enough to navigate the walkway along the side of the house and toward the driveway ahead.

  I get here without any issue. Savannah and Beaker are distracted with each other and I’m sure I have a clear shot to get home without anyone seeing me.

  Except I find that I don’t want to go home.

  I have a restless energy in my bones, probably from the adrenaline of eavesdropping and the content that I heard. Having someone say bad things about you really gets your blood pumping. There’s a part of me that recognizes it as panic, as anxiety, but I don’t really care about the cause of the feeling. All I know is that I can’t sit still.

  So instead of crossing in front of the house to head back to my house, I head to the right and away from both the Safehouses, further along the street.

  I’m walking for a few minutes when I hear a voice. My first thought is the opossum from the other night. But no, it’s not the garbled indiscernible almost-English that the opossum was speaking.

  It’s singing.

  I follow the voice—a gentle, deep bass voice. It feels like being rocked on a hammock on a warm beach. And I round the next bend in the road to find a man lying on his back on a patch of grass, singing up into the night. He’s not alone.

  He’s serenading the body of a dead raccoon.

  Though he’s not looking at or paying any sort of attention to the dead animal beside him, the words of his little melody are about beating the raccoon’s head in with a tire iron. It’s definitely not any song I’ve ever heard before.

  He hears me, despite my quiet steps, and he sits upright and grabs something on his far side in one movement. I realize it’s the tire iron he was singing about. It’s a great melee weapon choice. The metal glints in the light.

  The light? I spot it a second later, a small bobbing ball of light about ten feet in the air over the man’s head. It’s like a mini sun, the size of my fist, letting out a dull glow that’s enough to clearly see the scene.

  If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

  I remember the weapon and I throw my hands up, palms forward, to show I’m unarmed. “Sorry,” I say. “Didn’t mean to interrupt your concert.”

  He slowly lowers the iron back to the grass, but he stays staring at me. He’s Black, I realize, and wearing all black. He practically disappears in the shadows around us. The light doesn’t do much to help. I gesture to it anyway. “Is that your little bit of magic?”

  Slowly, the man dips his chin.

  This is… awkward. He clearly doesn’t want to talk, though I have a million questions. And I guess my feelings on new people are still a little sore. I take a step backwards. “Sorry, I’ll just… I’ll go.” I turn around. I hate the idea of turning my back on a man with a weapon, but I can’t look at him anymore. Not that I could see much of him, despite the little light.

  “Hang on,” he says, breaking his silence. His speaking voice is just as low and smooth as his singing voice, though that rocking-hammock feeling doesn’t quite carry over. “Please, don’t go.”

  I turn back to face him.

  He’s gotten up to his feet. “I haven’t had an actual conversation with another human in… in days. I apologize for my rudeness.”

  “It’s the end of the world,” I point out. “Being wary of strangers is probably a good thing.” I think, again, to Savannah and Beaker’s conversation. Not helpful. I force myself back into the present moment, and find that I’m staring at the dead raccoon.

  “Maybe,” he concedes, “but we’re still human. Wariness and rudeness are two different things.” He nudges the body of the raccoon with his toe. “We’re not quite as animalistic as these guys yet.”

  “Why were you singing to it?” I blurt out, my curiosity winning against my own opinions about rudeness.

  “Needed some way to pass the time before it releases its magic.”

  Wait, what? There’s no other way to say that, so: “What?”

  He chuckles, and drops back down onto the grass. “You haven’t been fighting these things?” he asks. I don’t answer, and after a moment of silence, he goes on. “After they’re killed, they release their magic. If you can grab it, you can increase your magic.”

  “But they don’t have magic cores. The monsters. That’s a human thing.”

  The man looks up at me sharply and I realize I’m saying too much, admitting that I know too much. He doesn’t call me out on it, but he does slowly nod. “You’re right, they don’t have magic cores. But they still have a stockpiling of magic.”

  I suppose that makes sense. But we’ve been around enough of the dead monsters and haven’t seen anything that implies that they give their magic back out into the world. Wouldn’t the other monsters stick around for that extra little rush after a surge? Or are they too drunk off the surge itself that they don’t know?

  The man takes my silence for uncertainty. “You don’t believe me,” he says. “Stick around, I’m sure it’ll happen soon. It’s already been like an hour.” He falls back onto the grass.

  “It takes an hour?” That would explain why we hadn’t ever experienced it. We’re usually long gone by then.

  He shrugs, the motion stiff against the grass. I slowly come closer, but I don’t quite sit. “The longest I’ve had to wait was three hours.”

  “Yeesh.”

  “Yeah, seriously. But usually it’s 45 minutes, give or take.” There’s a moment of silence, and then the area turns markedly brighter.

  My eyes shoot up to the bobbing ball of light above us. It’s definitely brighter. I squint against it.

  “And now I can play with brightness,” he says—and I can hear the smile in his voice. “And the range. I’d love to be able to do more than just light up a space, but it appears that that’s all I got out of this deal.” He chuckles.

  He doesn’t have Rank Tokens, but he’s still levelling up his magical skills.

  “What’s yours?” he asks, ripping me from my thoughts. “Or is that considered rudeness, too, in another way?”

  “Excuse me?” I ask, not understanding.

  “Your magic. What did the hands of fate offer you?”

  Despite his melodious voice, he has a strange way of talking. He’s watching me, though, his hands tucked under his head and held up in my direction.

  I let out a sigh, and come up and sit beside him, the raccoon on the man’s other side. I yank a piece of grass from the yard and hold it in my hand, and use my telekinesis to levitate the grass an inch off my hand.

  That Ability really needs to be levelled up.

  “Nice,” the man says, and his head drops back down.

  I don’t say anything else, and this time, he lets the companionable silence stretch. I’m quiet because my list of questions is about a million items long and I don’t know where to start—but also because I want to see this magic-release.

  Soon he starts humming again, something I don’t recognize. And a few seconds after that, he abruptly stops. “Here we go,” he says instead, sitting back up.

  I turn my attention to the raccoon.

  And I don’t see anything different.

  “What are you—”

  “Shh.” He climbs up to his knees and holds his hands over the raccoon, like someone warming cold hands over a fire. “Get over here,” he urges.

  So I get onto my knees, too, and shuffle beside him. I put my hands out, too.

  And then I feel it.