Eccentricities aside, Alex found an unanticipated kind of comfort in Athora’s presence. She was a curious person by nature, so having to stifle the urge to ask questions was frustrating but also oddly liberating. If he wanted her to know something, he would tell her. Full stop. He was the teacher and she was the student. All she had to do was follow instructions and forget, at least for a time, the outside world and all its demands.
Her hours in the Library were like a sanctuary, a break from the pressures that smothered her as soon as she stepped back outside. And so, along with her friends and Niyx, her time there with Athora somehow made its way onto the list of reasons why Alex was able to get through her week without losing her mind.
She could only hope it would last.
But when Friday night rolled around, something happened at the end of her session with Athora.
… Something that smashed her carefully maintained sanity to pieces.
“Before you leave, there’s someone you need to meet.”
Alex looked up at Athora in question. She was sitting cross-legged on the rug in front of the blazing fireplace, back in the same darkened room where she’d been transported after her experience with the lake. He was once again seated in an armchair that had materialised from nothing, and he’d remained unmoving the whole time she’d been sprawled out across the floor attempting to assemble the frustratingly blank jigsaw puzzle.
Now that it was done, she knew they should be finished for the night. Normally, Athora wasted no time in dismissing her, so she was intrigued by the delay to her departure.
“Someone I need to… meet?” she repeated, her voice full of curiosity.
“Another student of mine,” he said, and her brows rose with surprise. “My only other student. And someone who I have been working with for much longer than you.”
Sitting up taller, Alex couldn’t help asking, “You have another student?”
“Regardless of what some might allow you to believe, Alexandra, the universe does not revolve around you.”
Alex chose not to feel stung by his words or his uncharacteristic acerbic tone. She was actually somewhat proud of herself for prompting him to break out of his near-constant monotone.
“Who is it?” she asked. “And why do you want me to meet them?”
“I have business to attend to this weekend, so I’ll be unable to continue our sessions until next week,” Athora said, not answering her questions, though she was relieved by this news given the busy weekend she had planned.
“You need to meet him now,” he continued, “because from Monday’s session onwards, you will be training together.”
That, Alex thought, was unacceptable. And she couldn’t keep from immediately saying as much. “That’s not going to happen.”
She actually felt the air in the room change, right along with Athora’s mood.
“I beg your pardon?”
Resisting the urge to backtrack and immediately beg forgiveness, Alex stood her ground—or at least, she did so from her seated position. “There’s too much at stake here for you to divide your focus between me and some other random student of yours. If you need to change the time we meet, then change it, but you can’t expect me to only receive half of your attention when what I need from you is so important.”
Alex thought her reasoning was logical and eloquent. The silence that met her ears led her to believe Athora must have thought so, too. But when he finally spoke, it was in a tone Alex had never heard from him before. A tone that made even the fire dim in the hearth until it almost went out entirely, casting the room into near darkness.
“You were offered one chance to break my rule, Alexandra,” he told her, his voice sending shards of ice down her spine. “Now that you have done so, consider yourself warned. If you question my judgement again, it will be the last you ever see of me.”
Alex sucked in a stuttered breath.
“Do you understand?”
The intensity emanating from him was like a tangible force, freezing Alex in place. She couldn’t speak. She couldn’t even nod. All she could do was sit there in the shadows and stare up at the outline of his cloaked figure, her body numbed to the core.
“Do you understand?”
She jumped at his hissed question and, as if waking from a trance, was able to choke out a whispered, “I understand.”
Just like that, the heavy atmosphere lifted. The fire roared back to life in a surge of flames, and with Alex’s heart pounding, warmth began returning to her veins while she rubbed feeling back into her limbs.
“Now,” Athora said, standing to his feet and gesturing for Alex to do so, albeit shakily on her part, “had you given me the chance to explain, this would have been one of the rare cases where I told you why you will be training with a partner.”
Alex was still so intimidated that she couldn’t utter a word in response, not even to offer an apology.
“My other student has a unique gift,” Athora continued, “one that has required much training on his part in order to learn control. He has studied with me for years and is now well adept at managing his ability. And, indeed, using it in extraordinary ways.”
Alex finally summed up the courage to re-enter the conversation. “I don’t understand what that has to do with me.”
“This student, his gift acts as a conduit.”
Shaking her head in bafflement, Alex said, “I don’t—”
“That means,” Athora spoke over her, an edge of warning in his again monotonous voice, “that he is able to take on the gifts of others whom he comes in contact with.”
Alex’s eyes widened as she comprehended what he was saying. “That’s insane,” she gasped out. “The things he might be able to do—” She broke off, and then whispered an awestruck but somewhat fearful, “No one should have that much power.”
“Which is why it was integral for him to learn control—how to control his own gift so he doesn’t take on the abilities of others without choosing to do so, and how to control the gifts that he decides to adopt as his own.”
Alex couldn’t believe what she was hearing. This student of Athora’s… he could, hypothetically, do anything—assuming he encountered the right person with the right gift. He could be telekinetic, like Calista Maine. He could nullify the gifts of others, like Lena Morrow. He could read minds, like Signa Zu. He could turn invisible and walk through solid objects, like Jordan. He could shape-shift, like Skyla. He could charm others with his words, like Bear. He could manipulate people’s emotions, like Pipsqueak. The options were limitless.
“I’m presuming by your expression that your thoughts have wandered from what this has to do with your training,” Athora said. “You appear… alarmed.”
“Alarmed?” Alex squeaked out. “I’m not alarmed—I’m full-on panicking!”
Athora’s head cocked to the side. “Why?”
“Because… Because…” She couldn’t even form a complete sentence. “Because who is this guy? How do you know he won’t go all Anakin Skywalker on you?”