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In Another Life...

Cal's life was good.

Hunter slept in a very particular way. Always laying on his right side, his legs bent ever so slightly and his feet —for some reason— clenched, his palms flat against the mattress. Along the night, he would steadily slide down his pillow so that his head rested directly below it; each morning, Hunter had an adorable case of bed hair.

Cal hadn’t meant to memorise how Hunter slept, not really. Hunter was just engraved in her mind.

Most pictures of her earlier years, earlier days, even, had involved him. As infants, they’d frequently shared a crib so that whichever of their parents was in charge of them could babysit more easily. And when they’d grown up, they always dozed off leaning against the other’s shoulders after they’d tired out from playing. Simply put: Cal and Hunter had lived their whole lives together, they knew every one of their quirks.

Cal slid her bedroom’s door close, and silently walked to the bed, sitting by Hunter’s side and thwacking her body’s hand off his torso. Hunter made an odd sound in protest, and moved off his unmovable position to snuggle closer to Cal’s body.

“It’s 9am,” Cal said, her lips curving up as she threaded her fingers through Hunter’s hair.

Hunter seemed torn between leaning against her anima’s touch and going to her increasingly retreating body. “Reunite with your body and cuddle with me,” he muttered.

Cal snorted. “We did that yesterday until you fell asleep,” she recalled. Then, she tugged at his hair “Come on, they’re calling for us.”

That got Hunter’s attention. “My parents and yours?” he sat up “The four of them?”

Cal nodded. “I mean, they’re in the kitchen having breakfast, but they still called for us,” Cal stood up at the same time as her body unified with her anima, making her fully visible in all her oversized pyjama glory. This one specifically was a favourite of hers, since she’d stolen the red shirt from Hunter. Cal thought she looked like a bloody tampon, and that was fucking funny.

Slowly, Hunter stood up; there wasn’t much space between them, and that small distance warmed Cal’s chest. Hunter’s bicoloured eyes dropped to her lips for an infinitesimal moment. He cleared his throat.

“Can I kiss you?”

Cal smiled. “You know you don’t need to ask,” she tipped her face up.

Hunter placed a hand on her nape, the tip of his fingers brushing some sensitive skin and making her shiver. “I think,” he began, his face lowering to Cal’s “I have to still get used to this, and I feel better asking for, you know, permission.”

Cal didn’t have a chance to reply before Hunter closed the remaining distance. And they were kissing.

All of this was very new; this growing affinity and ability to finally breach that line they’d been dancing around for a long time. They kissed clumsily, but Hunter’s lips were on Cal. And her hands were on his hips. And Hunter was hoisting her up ever so slightly and drawing her to himself.

“Next time you wake me up, do it with a kiss,” Hunter whispered once they’d drawn back. As if to proof his point, he pressed his lips against Cal’s forehead.

Cal grinned. “‘Next time?’”

Hunter tensed against her. She couldn’t see his face, but she had a perfect image of it: eyes very wide, tanned skin crimsoned by a deep blush.

“By Roxia, Cal,” he sputtered in Mandarin.

Cal laughed and dove to kiss his neck. “We have to go,” she reminded him, nudging him on his (hard) stomach and taking a step back to actually admire his blush “If you want to change out of your pyjamas, hurry up.”

Hunter looked at her, and sighed good-naturedly. “Pass me my clothes,” then, when Cal cast her anima to open her closet, he added “The cobalt shirt, and black jeans with the— yeah, those,” he caught the bundle of clothes Cal threw at him “Thanks.”

“Now go,”

Hunter nodded, but then drew her in for a quick kiss in what seemed to have been a split second decision. It was only after the kiss ended —and the subsequent blush had receded— that he made for the bathroom.

Cal plopped down on her bed. She did nothing but stare at her Peter Pan lamp (hung when she was six; it had remained there because her Peter Pan obsession transcended age). From within her bathroom, she could hear Hunter changing out of his pyjamas: she had to take a deep breath and focus on Tinkerbell.

Being Hunter’s girlfriend was completely new. Fucking amazing, but new nonetheless. Things were still pretty PG between them; almost like they were too stuck up in their lifelong friendship to act like a normal couple. They kissed, sure, and that was crazy good, but when things got heated, they drew a metaphorical line and retreated to being Coraline Everitt and Hunter Hao, best friends since the former had been squeezed out of her mother’s insides; who’d been sleeping together for fifteen years, but were too caught up in their crushes to actually dare think to sleep together.

“Friends-to-lovers never show this,” Cal sighed.

“Show what?” Hunter asked; he’d only just come out of the bathroom. His black, ripped pants clung to his muscled legs in a simply sinful way, and he hadn’t finished buttoning up his shirt.

Cal gulped down, and sat up on her bed. Her anima automatically dislodged from her body to go over to her closet. “That going from friends to being a couple is a bit hard,” Cal said “At least, that’s what I think. Blackstairs lied to me.”

Blackstairs had also been the reason Cal had realised she had a massive crush on Hunter, in the first place. She practically was a less sexy, non-tattooed, redheaded version of Emma Carstairs (but Hunter was much better than Julian).

Bookworm stuff Cal didn’t need to mention.

Hunter snorted. “A fantasy couple doesn’t reflect real couples, who would believe that?” he joked.

“Asshole,”

Hunter grinned. “I get what you mean, though,” his eyes slipped to her bedside table, where a box of condoms had been placed last night (by Mum, naturally). Hunter turned a worrying red “I really do.”

In spite of trying very hard, Cal couldn’t fight off her blush, either. They hadn’t had sex, yet, but Mum wanted to make sure they were safe. Which was as embarrassing as it was good.

To feel less awkward, she focused her attention on her anima, who picked the box she’d been looking for and came out of the closet. “Your rings,” Cal announced.

Hunter caught the box she threw at him seamlessly. “Yeah, right,” he cleared his throat “They’re waiting for us, right?”

“Yep,” Cal stood up and unified her anima with her body “Besides, I’m hungry.”

As if on cue, her stomach grumbled. Hunter picked a couple silver rings —among which, Cal was happy to see her favourite— and took her hand; immediately after that, Cal interlaced their fingers. It was second nature by now, something they’d been doing even before they began dating.

Cal tugged Hunter out of her room.

The Everitts lived in a house that vaguely resembled a traditional-style Japanese home, similar to the one Cal’s grandparents’s best friends, the Mochizukis lived in —Dad had lived in Mirror Japan most of his life, and had fond memories of the Mochizukis’s house he’d wanted his home to evoke.

Anatomy-wise, Cal’s house did look Japanese, but Mum had been in charge of the aesthetic, and, well, Dahlia Everitt would’ve fit perfectly in Louis XVI’s court.

The walk to Hunter’s house was a short one; it took them less than fifteen minutes to get there, and walk into the kitchen, where their respective family’s voices were coming from.

Chāshāo bāo, Hunter said in her mind at the smell wafting through the air Sis must be overjoyed.

And indeed she was. Morgan was sitting on a table; in front of her, a large plate filled with chāshāo bāo to the brim. Completely normal, given the situation, but something else made Hunter and Cal stop dead in their tracks at the threshold.

A girl was sitting on Morgan’s lap. Her skin was very dark, and her hair was worn in a short, orange Mohawk. Catching Ines Asumu with Morgan —on her lap, even— was nothing surprising: Ines and Morgan had a we’re-friends-but-we-might-just-as-well-make-out relationship going on. However Morgan did not look like Morgan.

She’d always struck Cal as Hunter’s cool, punk, tomboyish sister; Morgan always dressed in black pants, and made sure to leave at least one of her tattoos visible (one of them was on her hand, she ought to). Why the fuck was Morgan dressed as a schoolgirl; white shirt, tie, knee-length socks, skirt and all?

“Sis?” Hunter asked, his voice tinged with the same confusion as Cal’s.

“She looks very pretty, doesn’t she?” Mum asked.

Cal turned to her. “Morgan shouldn’t look pretty,” she protested.

Ines snorted.

“You’re as lovely as always, Cal,” Morgan said with her mouth full of food.

“It is true that you don’t usually go for the girlier styles,” Morgan’s mother commented.

Lei was sitting on another table with Xuegang, her husband, and Dad. The three of them were in their nightwear —she with a simple nightgown and the men track-pants and worn-down T-shirts— and they were having a simple breakfast.

In the kitchen proper, Mum was finishing up Hunter and Cal’s breakfast. She, of course, naturally, could not lower herself to mundane standards of sleeping attire. Mum had to look dazzling even when she was snoring. Her ‘simple’ gown-turned-nightgown dated back to the late 1790s; its ridiculously expensive embroidery was arranged in a fashion that called to mind a prairie of flowers (knowing her mother, Cal was sure they were nasturtiums). And her brown hair was wrapped up in a green-gold turban; the whole thing ended in a dramatic feather. Who was Dahlia Everitt if not bloody extra?

Schoolgirl Morgan aside, the scene before Cal was fairly frequent. Her and Hunter’s parents were hardcore best friends. Besides, their ‘work’ all but forced them to live together.

“Is this what you called us for?” Hunter asked, side-eying his sister “To—?”

“Go on a mission!” Mum announced.

An invisible hand nudged Cal to Morgan’s table —it didn’t belong to an animex, rather it was Mum’s mirage way of telling Cal to sit down. So Cal did so, followed by Hunter, and Mum placed their breakfast in front of them.

“A mission where?” Cal asked.

Hunter and her shared a knowing, excited glance.

“A school in the Aboveground UK,” Xuegang said “In…” he glanced at Mum for support.

“The outskirts of York,” Mum offered, sitting down between him and Dad with her own breakfast.

“Exactly,” he turned back to Cal and Hunter “There’s this school in the UK you four have to infiltrate in.”

“Why?” Cal asked. She had her mouth full of red beans, so the question came out as ‘uai’. She swallowed “I mean, missions aren’t usually in schools.”

And the school term ended two weeks ago, Hunter added in her mind.

Cal squeezed his hand to convey her agreement.

Ines spoke for the first time. “You’re still too young for that,” she grinned “A minor and all that.”

“And you aren’t?!” Hunter protested “And so was Sis a few months ago.”

“But you’re fifteen,” Morgan said “Ines will be eighteen in October, and I nineteen in July. Hunter, just be grateful you’ll be allowed on a mission with us.”

Hunter murmured some pointed commentary in Bai that had Cal nearly choking on her breakfast, and Xuegang raising a brow.

“Shuren, your sister is right. Coraline and you have to be older,” he told his son “Now, however, we need your help.”

“What is it that you need us for?” Cal asked, looking at Lei.

Lei took out her journal —her Scrolls, as Hunter and Cal jokingly called it— and said, “You need to find the Zandstra siblings.”

w

“My name is Ines Asumu, and I come from Equatorial Guinea; that’s a country in Africa, if anyone was wondering,” Ines introduced herself “English is not spoken there as an official language, so—”

Morgan looked around her new classroom, paying special attention to the bored-looking students present. Some of them were looking at Morgan —both ‘inconspicuously’ or unashamedly— but Morgan was used to the stares. From humans, they were good. Neither her name nor her family meant anything to them. She didn’t care to be looked at. Besides, she had a task here and couldn’t bother to pay attention to their curiosity.

No one knew much about the Zandtras: just that they existed, that the oldest was a year younger than Morgan, and the youngest Cal and Hunter’s age. Given how they were imlia, attaching a physical appearance, even gender, to them could be more confusing than useful.

But imlia were usually distinguishable from humans, and not necessarily because there was a fair share of them who looked like fantastical creatures (even inanimate objects). No, imlia and humans were different in a transcendental level; you couldn’t really explain it, nor feel it, just know it was there. Like an invisible barrier that labelled them as other.

Now, Morgan tried to search for that barrier in every one of the students. She came up empty handed. Although one of the students caught her attention for a completely different reason: he was pretty hot. Very dark skin and eyes, semi-short hair in locks, really nice, sharp facial features. Morgan could feel her lips quirking up; from her vantage point, she could tell that—

“Is your native tongue African?” a boy asked Ines once she’d finished explaining that English wasn’t her first language. The question was so stupid it diverted Morgan off her thirsting.

Ines was staring at the boy as she rightfully should: like he were an idiot. Because there was no other way to describe him, really. Aboveground’s geography education being shit was no news, but damn, the guy’s question had sounded worryingly genuine.

Ines opened her mouth to speak, but someone cut her off before she could start.

“Craig, African people speak as much African as we European,” Hot Boy explained. He sounded exasperated, like he hadn’t expected much from Craig, and still felt let down.

Craig turned around to face the boy. “So African is not a language?”

“No, Craig, it isn’t.”

“Wow, you’re so cultured, John,” he turned back to Ines and Morgan “John and his girlfriend are our walking wikipedias, they know everything.”

“That African isn’t a language is common knowledge,” John protested.

“Nah, bro. I’m dumb, I thought Japan was the capital of China until you told me otherwise.”

Morgan snorted. “It isn’t.”

“I know, because John told me.”

John didn’t add anything to that aside from a sigh. The teacher —a woman Morgan would think of as old as your average cryogenised doppelgänger— seemed to realise the conversation had strayed from an introduction of the new students, and so she urged Morgan and Ines to pick a seat because the lesson was about to start.

“Not here, sorry,” John told Morgan when she made for the empty desk next to him, at the back of the classroom “This is my girl’s.”

Morgan tsked. “Pity,” and she followed Ines to two desks closer to the teacher (yay).

You know, we’re here for something, Ines reminded her silently.

Morgan wanted to tell her that she had made out with a random girl in Aboveground Kuala Lumpur the last time they’d been sent away for ‘something’. Alas, she was not a mirage, and had to content herself with making the V-sign to her friend.

Ines snorted, but plopped down on her desk along with Morgan.

The teacher had a strange expression on, her eyes trained on the empty seat by John’s desk. “Mr. Zubairu, where is Miss Zandstra?”

Morgan had to bite the inside of her cheek to bar any emotions from showing. From the corner of her eye, she could see Ines doing the same.

“Yeves is in the bathroom, as she informed you she would be,” for some reason, John sounded a tad bitter “She got dress coded for the length of her skirt by you, Mrs. Wilkinson, and is now in the bathroom cutting the hem to make it longer.”

Wilkinson hummed. “Ah, yes. What’s taking her so long?”

John took a deep breath. “Our uniforms are very expensive, she can’t just cut it recklessly.”

Especially, Morgan added to herself Because there are no parents that could pay for it.

Morgan inspected John. He was dating an imlium —did he know what his relationship entailed? Maybe Yeves and him were just friends everyone mistook for a couple; between humans, opposite-sex friendships were taken for something else far too frequently.

In the case that Yeves and John were actually dating… Perhaps he didn’t know anything about The Kinship, Saz, and Mirror.

Wilkinson dismissed John’s comment with a wave of a hand, and a ‘well, she must hurry because I’m going to start the lesson now’. Then, she began explaining everything about the bourgeoisie during the Industrial Revolution.

Morgan rested her head on her hands, and slid her elbows down the desk (a strategic position she could easily sleep in). Strangely enough, she found herself longing for Emtikax. Aboveground education was more boring than the Mirror-based torture she’d been subjected to at her former school.

Saz history, in itself, was way less depressing than a lady a breath away from collapsing parroting some sterile depiction of past life. In Mirror, history teachers didn’t only teach the Industrial Revolution; they also talked about the heart of its conflict, the workings of its society, how different Saz —like an Asian bisexual woman like Morgan— had survived Aboveground, the clashes between all-accepting Mirror and segregated Aboveground, and what it had all entailed for their people. And, yeah, perhaps analysing so much information —plus preparing presentations on your own territory’s history— was kinda exhausting, but at least you could always count on Headmistress Carranza to barge into the classroom to give a long, hate-fuelled speech on everything that went wrong with X time period, and how humanity is disgusting.

Headmistress Carranza always focused on Aboveground Spain, and so Morgan used to dream about having been born in Mirror Andalusia or something. The Spanish students were some privileged motherfuckers: when it came the time to prepare presentations, they’d had most of their research done by Headmistress Carranza and her spontaneous lessons on Spanish history. And her lessons were fun. Morgan could remember a king she’d literally called—

Take a look at John, Ines instructed before she could start dwelling on royalty I think he knows about The Kinship.

Morgan readjusted on her seat so that she could inconspicuously look at John while seemingly sleeping.

John had a dissatisfied expression to him as he listened to Wilkinson. Either he really hated this subject, or he was thinking about how shitty the UK had been during the 19th century. Taking into account that he had some connection to a Zandstra, he could be thinking about how Mirror had been everything England should’ve been. He had a notebook open before him; seemingly scribbling down some notes.

I’m going to mask everyone so that they think you’re still in your seat, Ines said Go to his desk and see what he’s writing.

Morgan nodded slightly.

Go.

She dematerialised and, staying immaterial, moved to John’s desk. Turned out, John both knew of The Kinship and was very bitter over not being Saz. He was writing on a page titled If I Hadn’t Been Born Human full of bullet points like:

I could be sunbathing in a nice Caribbean beach

Yeves and me could live together without people thinking we’re dating

Yeves and I, in fact, would actually be acknowledged for ‘what’ we are

Idk Saz are probably more cultured than Craig

Morgan’s eyes widened.

‘‘What’ Yeves and him were’? Suddenly she couldn’t not look at John; her mind running with thoughts.

With everything that would have to change if John was Yeves Zandstra’s host.

Morgan ought to inform her mother. She would tell Wilkinson she had to go to the bathroom and materialise at Gangkou. It wouldn’t take long, barely five minutes during which Mum could tell her how to next proceed.

I’m getting tired, Ines informed Come back— oh, fuck she’s so pretty.

John looked up from his notebook just after Ines finished speaking. The way he readjusted himself on his seat would’ve gone unnoticed by most, but Morgan saw that naturally-expectant position every day in Mirror. She turned to the door.

Yeves Zandstra looked pretty fucking angry in her knee-length, checkered skirt. She appeared no different than a human biracial teenager: her skin a light brown, and her black hair curly and let loose down her shoulders. Her shirtsleeves were rolled up to her elbows, and so two tiny tattoos on the inside of her wrist and forearm were left visible.

Morgan supposed she was pretty. “You’re staring,” she whispered to Ines, having materialised back to her desk.

Ines rolled her eyes. “You can try to undress this girl’s boyfriend with your eyes, and I can’t stare at her a little bit? That’s pretty hypocritical.”

“They’re not dating, you know,” Morgan leaned closer, though she was looking at Yeves, now on the desk by John’s “They’re a symbiosis.”

Ines didn’t say anything to that, and their conversation ended as fast as it had started.

Morgan let Wilkinson drone on and on about Queen Victoria until the class ended, then she hastened to get out the classroom —‘to catch some fresh air’— to the bathroom, where she dematerialised.

Her first thought was to return to Mirror Shanghai as Ines spied on John and Yeves, but then she caught sight of Cal’s mane of red hair and changed her plan. Given how Cal was in an empty corridor, Morgan could safely materialise without fear of humans seeing her.

“Where’s my brother?” Morgan asked.

Cal didn’t look at Morgan. She was playing Candy Crush on her phone; she was acting aloof, which she only ever did when she was uncomfortable. Usually it was because of the bullies, but Morgan was willing to take a wild guess and say that no such thing had happened today. Otherwise, Morgan would have to break some noses. The skirt then? ‘Feminine’ clothes was so far from Cal’s normal clothes, she must feel incredibly awkward in the girls uniform.

“Hunter’s flirting with Selvar Zandstra’s best friend,” Cal explained, tugging her skirt down.

Morgan quirked an eyebrow. “Why?”

“Because maybe that way we can talk to Selvar Zandstra?” Cal sighed “He’s aroace. And an imlium. And pretty antisocial; I mean, I can’t blame him, these humans are pretty shitty to him for his accent. So Hunter and I thought it would be better to,” Cal gestured vaguely with her hands “Try to see if Hunter convincing this girl to go on a date with him could somehow get him —therefore us— to also meet and talk to Selvar.”

“And he’s asking this girl on a date? Not you?” Morgan said. It was a lighthearted remark, since it was obvious that Cal’s uncomfortableness was actually jealousy. Poor CC didn’t like to have her boyfriend fake-flirting with other girls.

“Yeah, Hunter is fucking gorgeous, so if anyone can get someone, it is him. Besides, it’s statistically more likely that this girl is straight than—” Cal’s phone buzzed with a new message from Hunter. She snorted “Okay, she’s a lesbian. We fucked up.”

w

Hunter wished the earth would swallow him. First he had had to halt his holidays to go to a human school, then he’d had to pretend to be single and interested in a girl he’d just met. He’d had to muster the courage to go to said girl —while Selvar Zandstra stared at him— and pretend to flirt with her. Hunter had never flirted; Cal and him just clicked together in a raw way, their love existed without the need for embellished confessions of feelings.

And now Diana Zubairu, the girl Hunter was supposed to ask on a date, was telling him she was a lesbian. In front of Selvar Zandstra.

“I mean, I’m sure you’re a very good-looking guy— you are pretty attractive, I’m not blind. But I can’t change the fact that I am not into boys?” Diana was explaining.

“No, that’s completely fine,” Hunter told her. He tried not to glance at her right, where Selvar was staring with a blank face that came off as really amused “I can’t change me not liking boys, you can’t change you not liking boys. It’s okay. But we can still be friends?”

Diana seemed confused; she was visibly trying not to look at Selvar. It was like the two communicated through some silent way, because then Selvar spoke for the first time, in his Dutch-Norwegian accent. “You aren’t going to make her like boys by playing the nice guy card.”

Now it was Hunter who was confused. “If she likes boys she isn’t a lesbian, which she— Cal?”

The door of the classroom they’d been in had opened very suddenly, and Cal came inside followed by Sis. Hunter had sent Cal a message the first time Diana had explained she wasn’t interested in him, but he hadn’t expected her to come here so fast.

Cal smiled at him; to all eyes, she stayed at the threshold, but a few seconds later Hunter felt her anima’s lips brushing his cheek. He tried not to blush, and failed utterly.

Selvar looked at him like he were crazy.

I don’t think you should do that, Hunter warned his girlfriend.

But Cal only got on her tiptoes and whispered, “I got jealous, sorry. Having your boyfriend flirt with a girl’s not nice.”

Diana’s a lesbian.

“I know but I also wanted to kiss you, and no one can see us, so…” Cal finished her sentence by playfully knocking her head against his nape.

At that moment, there was nothing Hunter wanted to do more than drive her anima in by the waist and kiss her; sweetly, senseless, softly, he didn’t care. He just wanted everyone to go so he could kiss Cal —however that wasn’t possible.

Selvar’s confusion was turning into apprehension. The imlium took a step towards Diana, as if he wanted to grab his friend and get out of the classroom. He probably would’ve succeeded, had it not been for Sis speaking at the perfect moment.

“Diana Zubairu?” she asked Diana; a big smile plastered on her face. To Hunter, it was obvious his sister’s cheerfulness was an act, but Diana and Selvar apparently bought into it.

“Yes,” Diana replied, slowly.

“What do want?” Selvar asked at the same time. His accent and bluntness made him sound like an angry Viking.

“I’m Nuan Hao, but you’ll call me Morgan,” Sis said “You’re John’s little sister, aren’t you? I’m his girlfriend, I wanted to introduce myself to you.”

Several things happened at once. Sis came to a wide-eyed Diana and shook her hand, Selvar scrunched his face like dating was the last thing he would’ve expected from Diana’s brother. Cal’s body looked unsurprised, but Hunter knew she’d been taken aback: her anima whispered ‘what the fuck’ low enough for anyone aside from Hunter to hear.

For his part, Hunter rushed to mask Sis’s hearing so that she could be advised against saying you were dating someone whose sexuality you didn’t know. If this John turned out to be as straight as his lesbian sister, they’d be in big trouble.

Diana finished shaking Sis’s hand, then took a step back. “John didn’t tell me he had a girlfriend.”

Sis quirked an eyebrow at her. “Does your brother tell you everything that goes on in his life?”

That was clearly a sensitive topic. Diana’s face darkened; she didn’t say anything, but the hand she had in a fist —partially hidden among the folds of her skirt— was answer enough.

“We met through Instagram and only just began dating when I told him I was moving here,” Sis said, toning down the assertiveness to her voice in favour of a more teasing tone “‘Where there is great love, there are always miracles’; You may not believe it, but one can develop very strong feelings simply through reading someone’s words.”

Diana looked at her in disbelief. Hunter could sympathise.

Sis did belief in love, but she’d always told Hunter she knew love for her would develop, slowly, over time; in order to fall in love with someone, she had to know them fully, and realise she could protect them, as well as find a safe space for her weaknesses in their love.

Hunter had a different view of love, he thought as he felt Cal’s anima pressing lightly against his side.

Tired of having to pretend his girlfriend wasn’t there, he masked Selvar, Diana, and Sis into seeing him in his current position, and hooked an arm around Cal’s shoulders. Then, he kissed her forehead.

“So John can’t even tell me he’s dating someone now?” Diana asked. It was stupid, but Hunter had been so enthralled by Cal that he’d forgotten they weren’t actually alone.

Diana looked bitter. “I need to talk to him.”

Before she could say anything else, the school ring announced the end of the break: it was time for classes to resume.

“Ah, Morgan,” Cal’s body spoke for the first time; natural, as if another part of her weren’t cuddling with Hunter “I think you should go now. Isn’t your classroom quite far from here?”

Sis’s face fell like she genuinely detested the idea of having classes. She sighed. “Very well,” she walked to the threshold and nudged Cal away. Then, she turned to Diana “We’ll talk after classes are over, with your brother, ideally. It’s been a pleasure meeting you. Who knows? Perhaps we’ll be sisters-in-law one day.”

And with that, Sis left the classroom. Leaving behind a flabbergasted Diana, Selvar, and Hunter. Cal was the only one who looked perfectly put together, all things considered.

“I’m sorry,” she told Diana with a grimace “I found Morgan in the bathroom, and I told her who Hunter was speaking to, and suddenly she really wanted to meet you.”

Diana looked at Hunter, allegedly taking in his physical similarities with Sis. “Is she your sister?”

Cal’s anima stepped back from him, and Hunter stopped his masking. “Yeah,” he nodded.

He couldn’t say anything else before students began filing into the classroom, some groaning about the break being too short while a teacher told them to quit complaining because that’s how the school worked.

Cal’s body took him by the wrist and pulled him to the back of the classroom, where they had decided to seat last period.

A few desks ahead, Selvar was doing the same with a Diana. Hunter could tell that the girl wanted to keep looking at Hunter, and that her best friend was telling her that the conversation was over. For now, at least.

Hunter looked away, too. Though he couldn’t stop thinking about the way Diana’s expression had darkened at the mention of her brother’s secrets. Selvar had also acted somewhat strange, like he knew something his friend didn’t. Diana and her brother were human, the Zandstras were imlia; if something had happened between them, Hunter’s mission would become way more complicated.

“Morgan told me to follow her with my anima,” Cal said casually, in Mandarin. No one aside from them spoke the language: that way their conversation could be kept private “I think John has something to do with the older Zandstra.”

“I think so, too,” Hunter replied in the same language “If he has become Yeves’s host…”

“That would explain his secrecy, and why Diana acted so strangely about it.”

Hunter nodded. “Take care,”

Cal nodded. “I’ll be surrounded by humans, they’re far from dangerous,” a warm hand cupped Hunter’s face as Cal’s anima said her goodbyes “Can I kiss you?”

“How?”

“Really kiss, you’d have to mask the fuck out of the classroom,”

It wasn’t a very hard decision to make. Hunter was a great mirage. “Done,”

Cal’s lips were on him in an instant, and Hunter eagerly returned the kiss. A few months into their relationship, he still couldn’t believe he could do this with Cal, that she returned the feelings he’d had for her for years.

He remembered the first time they’d kissed, the day they’d confessed their feelings. It had been during a winter, Christmas-themed party her aunts had thrown. There had been mistletoes everywhere, and even though Hunter —and Cal, he later learned— had tried to avoid them like the pest, Fumiko and Dario had lured him into standing below one with Cal.

w

“Cal!?” Dario exclaimed in surprise, making Hunter tense “What are you doing here? We didn’t see you.”

“Not at all,” Fumiko added; she wasn’t trying to mask her surprise like her boyfriend, rather was just— standing there, a sly smile contorting her features into wickedness.

Hunter turned around in hopes of seeing Cal —preying that she actually wasn’t here— and even though he couldn’t see her, the curse that came from Hunter’s left alerted him that his worst nightmare had come true: Cal’s anima was here. He knew he shouldn’t have trusted Fumiko and Dario; why had he agreed to accompany them outside for something which, quite frankly, he couldn’t even remember now? Either Dario and Fumiko had gotten him drunk, or Hunter had lost his memory. Because Cal was here.

Under a mistletoe. With Hunter. Next to Hunter. Under a mistletoe.

“Have you two turned into wraiths or something in the last hour since we saw each other?” Cal asked them, she sounded as angry as Hunter felt panicked.

Fumiko shrugged and said something in Japanese; the one language Cal spoke but Hunter didn’t. She was dressed in an evening gown a wealthy lady could’ve worn for a ball in the Titanic, Dario wore a suit that matched his girlfriend’s 1910s ensemble.

As Cal argued with Fumiko and Dario in lightning-fast Japanese, Hunter contemplated masking the couple into living the events of the Titanic. Perhaps seeing themselves drowning to their deaths —Hunter wouldn’t bother with that dumb rafter— would make them understand a fraction of his panic. Fumiko and Dario had been together since who knew how long, they didn’t understand how mere mortals didn’t just have their luck when it came to the love department.

Dario clapped his hands together, jerking Hunter out of his pleasant mid-crisis musings. “When in Rome, do as the Romans do, Cal,” he said in Sazla, shrugging “Refusing to follow British traditions is offensive, it’s just a kiss, come on.”

“I’m British and I’m not doing any bloody kissing.”

Dario sighed, dislodging his animus from his body —leaving his animus visible for Hunter to track his movements— and going to Cal while Fumiko stared after him with an ever-growing grin.

Hunter couldn’t see Cal, but he’d grown up with her. He knew she was looking at Dario like he were crazy, because by getting to her side, he was also positioning himself directly under the mistletoe. Now British tradition dictated that he had to kiss Cal and Hunter.

“What are you—” Cal’s complaint got cut off by Dario grabbing her by the elbow to whisper something. In Japanese, of course.

When Dario drew back, Cal’s anima had turned visible and was wearing a defeated expression. “Fine,” she told Dario “Now get out.”

Dario smiled a smile that made it difficult to get angry at him. Then he kissed Cal’s cheeks, went to Hunter, did the same —he smelled really nicely— and returned to his girlfriend. Fumiko kissed him square on the mouth in a way that made Hunter look away, and then said, “See you, Cal! Bye, Hunter.”

The two disappeared from Hunter’s vision as they took a corner. Their voices faded to nonexistence shortly afterwards.

Hunter and Cal were alone.

“I swear I’m going to kick their asses doubly as hard next Challenge for this,” Cal said.

For some reason, her pale face had acquired a reddish hue.

Hunter took a deep breath and turned to her. “We don’t need to kiss. Mistletoes mean nothing to Saz,” he said; quietly. His voice wouldn’t come out any louder than a few decibels past a whisper.

Cal sighed as she leaned against the threshold. Hunter couldn’t help admiring how well her suit clung to her lithe figure, how well the dove blue waistcoat complemented her skin and shoulder-length red hair. Cal didn’t care one bit about fashion, so she relied on Hunter to pick up her outfits. Hunter should’ve known what seeing Cal in that suit would do to him, especially since they were under a mistletoe together. And that didn’t mean anything to Saz, but Cal might as well kiss him.

Hunter knew he wanted to kiss Cal. Keeping his eyes on her amber ones was a struggle.

Cal gulped down. “What,” she began, voice slightly shaky “Would you do if I told you I actually wanted to kiss you?”

Hunter blinked at her. His heart seemed to be unable to decide on whether to start beating fast enough to give him a heart attack, or stop altogether and still give him a heart attack. There was a sort of lightness in his belly that spread over to his chest, and suddenly Everitt-Melton Mansion faded from view. There was nothing he could do but look at Coraline Everitt. His best friend, Cal, who was telling him she wanted to kiss him.

“I know getting a crush on your best friend is highly unadvisable,” Cal continued when Hunter didn’t say anything “But I swear to fucking Roxia I did not intend to get this bloody crush. It’s just that, honestly Hunter you’re such a lovable motherfucker how the fuck was I supposed not to get a crush on you?” she groaned and rubbed at her face with a hand “I’m sorry if I’m making things awkward.”

Cal turned invisible. Hunter knew she would walk out in embarrassment —because he had been too caught up in his awe— and he knew he had to do something about it.

Hunter’s hand shot to blindly stop Cal; he ended up taking her hand and Cal, like second nature, interlaced their fingers together. Her anima didn’t return to visibility, but Hunter was so used to being with Cal, he could practically feel her whipping her face to him.

“I want to kiss you, too,” Hunter said, knowing —somehow knowing— that he was meeting Cal’s eyes.

Cal’s shock was palpable, Hunter noticed the way her fingers slackened around his, and how her usual silence broke apart by her breath hitching. “I want to kiss—?” she repeated “Hunter, if you’re not serious, please don’t say that.”

“I am serious,” Hunter insisted, tugging Cal to himself “Can I kiss you?”

Like I’ve been dying to do for a long time, he added to himself.

Slowly, hesitantly yet firmly, Cal took a step forward. Her breasts brushed against Hunter ever so slightly, and Hunter couldn’t remember any time past childhood when they’d stood so close. He couldn’t see Cal, but she was there —on her tiptoes, a hand on Hunter’s cheek, leaning forward but stopping just that close to let Hunter know it was his decision whether to bridge that distance.

“Can I kiss you?” Hunter asked again. He needed the confirmation. Needed it like he needed to kiss Cal.

The space before him began colouring up with Cal’s figure. The sight of her —so close, so close, so close, and yet too far— nearly undid Hunter. Cal was smiling a toothy grin, like she couldn’t believe what was happening but would nevertheless revel in it.

“Of course,” she simply said.

Hunter kissed her.

Cal’s hand slid down his cheek until she could hook an arm around his neck, pull him closer. Hunter’s hand went to her waist, and the world seemed to spin around them. Somehow, he ended up pining Cal against the threshold. And when they drew apart, her lips were slightly swollen —as were Hunter’s, he knew— and curved up into the happiest of smiles. Her eyes shone, and in that moment, Hunter didn’t want to kiss her but hug her. So he did, and Cal embraced him back.

Later on, as they hid in the treehouse Atalanta and her boyfriend tended to meet in, Hunter would learn that apparently the only ones that hadn’t known of the other’s feelings was them. Dario had told Cal to ‘trust him in how everything would go down fine’ and, well, Dario was a trustworthy guy. So Cal had confessed —and made Hunter the happiest person in Mirror London. In Mirror.

They had remained best friends, sure, but they were something more now.

w

Cal smiled as she drew back from their kiss. Hunter, poor thing, was clearly trying to fight off a smile of his own.

Sis must be waiting for you, Hunter reminded her.

“Aye, sir,” Cal pecked him on the cheek one last time and slipped out of the classroom. Her body stayed on her desk; to unknowing eyes paying attention to this Mr. Gómez bloke and his pretérito pluscuamperfecto thingy.

Saz didn’t only go to school in Mirror, rather they tended to flock certain schools Aboveground, where they studied alongside humans: this school wasn’t one of those. Lei had informed them that they would be the only Saz aside from the P.E. teacher, who was an imlium. Therefore Cal could freely stroll around in her anima without fear of being seen.

She felt tempted to rip her skirt off and walk only in the pyjama shorts she wore underneath. But she got to Morgan’s classroom before making up her mind, so the skirt stayed on.

Cal waited until a student opened the door to go to the bathroom, and slipped inside.

The first thing she noticed was Ines —it was hard not to when the top of her head was bright orange— and then she followed her lovesick gaze to an imlium girl: Yeves Zandstra. She sat next to who Cal supposed was Morgan’s ‘boyfriend’.

Cal walked to Ines and tapped her shoulder lightly.

Go spy on the two, Ines said. She masked Cal into seeing every student become Yeves and Diana’s brother They’re a symbiosis.

“Anything else?”

Stay here until class is over; Morgan says she has a plan, apprehension seeped through Ines’s voice.

However Morgan was Morgan. Right after her parents and Cal’s own, she was the one whose orders they had to follow. Cal nodded even though Ines couldn’t see her, and went to Yeves and John, whose desk he plopped on.

He and Yeves reminded Cal of high school sweethearts, since they communicated through little notes as opposed to the usual mental connection Cal was so used to seeing between her classmates Arash and Sohrab —which likely meant the two had established their symbiosis pretty recently, and John was still getting used to his newfound otherness.

All the better for Cal, she supposed. Because they had realised Morgan and Ines weren’t the exchange students they appeared to be.

YEVES: They give me the creeps.

JOHN: Morgan and the black girl?

YEVES: The black girl’s name is Ines —really, John? Pay attention to people when they introduced themselves.

JOHN: Sorry for not paying attention to the girl that’s got you head over heels, your Highness.

YEVES: Can’t I like girls, or not?

JOHN: Of course you can. Girls, boys, enbies. I don’t care; actually, my best friend is queer and I rather like her.

As Yeves directed a fond look at John, Cal felt her focus zeroing in on the letters. Yeves thought Ines was hot? Damn. Though Cal had to admit she was curious about the whole arrangement. And whatever was going on between Morgan and John, too.

John and Yeves continued exchanging letters for the remainder of the school day —they were good students, able to switch between writing and answering teachers’s questions with ease, and so no one called them out.

“Class dismissed!” the last teacher of the day announced.

Instantly afterwards, the students rose up from their desks and hastened to file out of the classroom; including Yeves and John. From the corner of her eye, Cal caught Morgan and Ines getting up, too, but they were going directly to John and Yeves.

Guard the door, Ines masked Cal into seeing.

She didn’t wait for a signal that Cal had obeyed, and turned to Yeves and John. Or rather, just at the imlium. “Hi, I’m Ines,” she smiled “Fancy staying here with me for a while?”

Yeves’s eyes widened dramatically; her lips parted in surprise. She was lucky her skin complexion leaned more towards a darker shade, Cal thought: otherwise she would be as red as her hair.

Morgan snorted, and John was the only one who could saying anything to Ines’s proposal. “Aren’t you a bit too bold? Take her on a date first.”

“John,” Yeves hissed “Can you not?”

Fortunately, there was no one aside from John, Morgan, Ines, and Cal to hear her. The rest of the students had already left the classroom, and from a quick glance outside, Cal knew they were well away from the corridor. They likely were racing for their dorms or the school cafeteria.

Morgan allegedly noticed they were alone, too. Her shoulders rolled back ever so slightly, dropping her facade of exchange student and becoming Nuan Hao. Wraith second only to her father.

“We could go on a double date sometime,” she proposed, looking straight at John.

But John —and Yeves— jumped back in surprise. Morgan had spoken in Sazla; a language that had no place in the mundanity of Aboveground. John and Yeves had had suspicions of Morgan and Ines, but Cal was ready to bet them being fellow Saz was the last thing the symbiosis had expected.

Suddenly, Cal realised why Morgan had ordered her to be here. Cal’s anima had to keep watch while they talked to Yeves and John; she had to make sure no human interrupted them, and, if necessity arose, intervene. Cal patted the knife hidden in her skirt, hoping that Yeves and John didn’t make any reckless decisions and fuse.

Meanwhile, her body remained with Hunter. That way, Cal was a connection between both places, she could alert Morgan of anything that went wrong with Selvar, and Hunter of any problems that may arise with Yeves and John.

“Who are you?” John asked, reaching out to grab Yeves’s hand.

Their symbiotic relationship manifested for the first time when their dark skin blackened to a depthless onyx, and violet veins slithered up their arms; pulsating with a hint of their true form.

Cal squared her shoulders.

“We mean no harm,” Morgan said in a soothing fashion, raising her hands to proof her claim. She turned to Yeves “We know who you are. We’re here to help you and your brother.”

“Selvar,” Yeves and John spoke at the same time “Where is he? And Diana?”

“They’re with my brother and his girlfriend,” Morgan took a tentative step forward “They’re safe.”

A grimace. “We can’t—”

“We are not the ones you should worry about,” Ines cut them off “And you know it.”

They took in a sharp breath. Their faces were twin masks of pain, of a mourning sort Cal hoped never to experience.

Cal had been playing video games in Gangkou’s main drawing room with Hunter’s head on her lap, and Lei and Dad discussing business quietly in a corner. All seemed to be normal, but then Mum and Xuegang had burst into the drawing room, to their friends, looking torn between bereavement and sickness. Diede and Fecro Zandstra had been murdered. Their children nowhere to be found.

From what little Cal and Hunter had been able to pry from Morgan, finding Yeves and Selvar had been a herculean effort that had required, well, everyone. Even that one boy with the royal features Cal had only seen once in passing.

Cal didn’t know why he hadn’t come to aid them in bringing the Zandstra siblings to Mirror, but it’s not like she would dare ask.

“How do I know I can trust you?” they said, though it was clear Yeves was the one really talking.

“Well—” Morgan began, then went into a full explanation. She told them why they needed them, the heritage the Zandstras carried since the very creation of their family line.

They were the descendants of the General of the Archaic Mizax, he who had bestowed upon the First Historian his insignia. And what was most important: they had a connection to Klaus Haukland.

The more Morgan talked, the more relaxed John and Yeves became. Slowly, the violet veins receded, and their skins returned to their normal dark tones. They looked conflicted. Perhaps, Cal thought, for different reasons.

“It is for the best, isn’t it?” Yeves murmured.

“But Dee-Dee and my parents—” John blinked rapidly “Where will they think I’ll be?”

Morgan opened her mouth to speak, but suddenly Cal couldn’t pay attention to the scene before her anima.

Cal? a voice whispered into her mind.

Hunter.

Just like that, Cal’s conscience was jerked back to the classroom her body was in.

Hunter had moved their desks together, and Cal’s body had moved out of its own volition until she was practically sitting on his lap (which actually happened a lot); leaning her head against Hunter’s chest and using her boyfriend as her personal pillow. One of Hunter’s hands was on her thigh, the other, around her frame to softly pull her further into his chest.

Cal could imagine that they’d got in that position shortly after her anima had gone to Morgan and Ines, and that Hunter had promptly masked their classmates into seeing Cal’s body as your average, non-napping student.

But Hunter wasn’t all powerful. His masking wasn’t infinite, and if he kept on like this he’d grow overexerted. That much was obvious in the frantic way he called for her.

Cal put her anima on autopilot and opened her body’s eyes.

They haven’t moved from their desks, Hunter informed her, silently pointing at two desks on the far right, by a window And they’ve been staring.

Selvar and Diana were indeed staring. The two of them were conversing in hushed whispers unintelligible to Cal, and would occasionally shoot glances at them.

Selvar in particular had a strange look on his face. He was all tensed-up, like he expected Cal and Hunter to be the same monster that had left him an orphan. He knew —or at least had a very strong suspicion— of what they were.

Diana seemed a tad confused; hesitant where Selvar looked so furious. Cal was sure she was a shy girl, but her best friend’s behaviour confused her so much that she mustered up enough courage to stand up and go to Cal and Hunter.

“Wait!” Selvar hissed, taking ahold of her wrist “They could be dangerous.”

“Dange— Selvar, they’re teenagers,”

“They could be armed,”

They were, not that they were in the business of employing their daggers on a human girl and the imlium they had to bring, unharmed, to Mirror.

“Students don’t bring weapons here,” Diana told Selvar, her voice soft. Carefully, she released her wrist from his grip “I’m going to talk to them.”

Diana began walking to Hunter and Cal without waiting for Selvar to say anything. Cal was the only one who stood up to meet her, since Hunter was overexerted —Cal was ready to bet he could see absolutely nothing. She kept a hand on her boyfriend’s shoulder while he waited for his sight to return.

“Don’t do anything to her!” Selvar cried.

In Sazla.

Diana whipped her face to him. “Selvar, what—?”

“You’ve taken my parents, you can’t take her!” Selvar continued, heedless of his best friend’s confusion. Or of the fact that speaking Sazla where a human could hear you was extremely illegal.

Cal gulped down. “We’re not going to do anything to her,” she replied in the same language. Her language “Dude, please calm down. We’re only trying to help—”

Cal wasn’t quite sure what she was saying. Her mouth seemed to work on autopilot as her vision divided in two, making her gain access to her anima’s vision as well as her body’s.

Things on Morgan’s end seemed to have improved. Yeves and John were decidedly calmer. Ines was talking quietly to the former, and Morgan had an arm around the latter —John did look like he needed a lot of comforting.

Cal almost felt bad for breaking the whole arrangement. Almost.

“Morgan,” she tapped the girl on the shoulder “Are you done?”

John whipped his head around, Yeves looked up. “Who’s here?” John asked.

“My brother’s girlfriend,” Morgan said.

“Wasn’t she with Selvar and Diana?” Yeves said.

“She’s a doppelgänger,” Ines said “Yeves, Cal is a doppelgänger. I don’t know if you know what that is, but she can split herself in two.”

Yeves was about to speak, but Cal cut her off. “We don’t have time for that. Diana knows of The Kinship,” her head hurt with the strain of forming half-coherent sentences. She grimaced: Hunter may be overexerted, but Cal was well on her way to be, too “Can you go there?”

For a moment, nothing happened.

Then everyone broke out running.

w

It all was too overwhelming.

Diana felt so utterly lost.

The room she’d been given —in Gangkou, in a Shanghai that wasn’t Shanghai— was unlike any she’d ever seen before. It was a hybrid of Ancient Chinese and modern luxurious aesthetics, in a lovely way, but that juxtaposition was yet another thing she was somehow expected to process in too short a time.

Morgan had teletransported, ‘materialised’, them here barely two hours ago, Cal had swiftly shoved a bundle of her clothes for Diana to change into ‘appropriate nightwear’, and then Diana had practically been kicked into a new room while everyone but her discussed something. Something which had to do with the fact that Diana’s best friend and his sister weren’t human —and by association with the later, neither was John.

Diana finished unbuttoning her shirt, and looked herself in the floor-to-ceiling mirror. These weren’t her clothes (Diana was sure the shirt wasn’t even Cal’s in the first place, but her boyfriend’s), this wasn’t her world. Diana was in foreign land.

Sighing, she plopped down on the bed, which wasn’t hers either, and closed her eyes.

After John, Yeves, Morgan and Ines had burst into her classroom, too many things had happened consecutively. Yeves had began scolding Selvar in their language; not Norwegian nor Dutch, but Sazla, which was everyone’s languages with the exception of Diana’s. Then an argument had broken out, and the only thing Diana had been able to get out of it was that she was in danger, because Selvar and Yeves and her brother were in danger. And apparently, forgetting their whole lives —something that had been theirs— was the only thing they could do.

Diana put her feet up on the mattress and hugged her knees. Learning that the world was populated by people with super powers and strange otherworldly creatures her best friend was among, right after being told that she had to abandon everything she’d ever known, had been too much. Just too much.

And yet, a part of her she couldn’t name had stirred at the possibilities of this new reality.

There was a knock on the door, then a shuffling of feet. “Do you want dinner?” Selvar asked from the other side, his voice apologetic and hesitant.

Diana should’ve felt some sense of hesitation; Selvar had hidden who he was from her. Yet Diana opened the door.

And found Selvar holding a decapitated lamb’s head.

“It’s smalahove, Dahlia Everitt prepared it. In Norway, it’s usually eaten on big celebrations, which I guess this one is,” Selvar explained at her shock “I never had a chance to try it given how I’ve never been to Norway and there weren’t many big celebrations in my family growing up, but— Can I come in?”

Diana opened the door wider and gestured him inside. A knot formed in her throat, and she could do nothing but look at Selvar.

He hadn’t changed, physically —unlike Yeves, who’d sprouted fairy wings— but he now carried himself differently. Selvar didn’t have to fake his whole identity, and that lifted a lot of weight off his shoulders.

“I’m sorry I didn’t come visit you sooner,” Selvar said, putting dinner on a desk and turning to Diana “Everything’s been kinda hectic. Lei Hao and Matthias Everitt asked a lot of questions, and their spouses are pretty intimidating.”

Diana swallowed down her knot. She wanted to say something along the lines of ‘it’s okay’; instead, what came out was, “I shouldn’t be here.”

Selvar grimaced. And Diana kept on.

“This isn’t my place. My place is at Coxwold, with my parents and our normal school,”

Diana thought she wanted a normal life. She thought she wanted to graduate from her school, go on to study architecture at university —perhaps in London, like her mother had— and then meet a cute, normal, girl there who she could maybe marry and form a family with in the future. Diana wanted normalcy, because that’s where she belonged.

Do you really? a voice at the back of her mind said in accusation.

Diana took a deep breath. “Selvar, what am I supposed to do here? I’m not like John.”

“Would you mind being like him?” Selvar asked; so quietly she had to strain her ear to discern his words.

Her eyes widened. “What do you mean?”

“John and Yeves are a symbiosis. Your brother chose to be my sister’s host,” Selvar stood in the middle of the room awkwardly, but his eyes were looking at her with sheer intensity. Selvar gulped down “Being human in The Kinship isn’t easy, but if we were… You know.”

Diana inhaled her breath. The brief explications she’d been given had stressed on what symbiosis were: a lifelong relationship that would give you otherworldly power, yes, but which you couldn’t get out of.

Having that with Selvar— Diana knew she loved him as if he were her brother, but she wasn’t sure if she was ready for that type of commitment. It was similar to a marriage or a queer-platonic relationship, wasn’t it? Only that if she accepted Selvar’s proposal, she couldn’t step back.

“How can you be so sure?” she asked, sitting down on her bed and patting the space by her right for him to sit down.

Selvar obliged. “What do you mean?”

“I mean—” Diana cut herself off; she wanted to convey her feelings correctly, this couldn’t be like that one time she’d confessed her feelings to a girl and made a fool of herself. Diana wanted to think about what she was going to say “You do realise that everything will change, right? Don’t you think that, in a way, your autonomy will be taken from you?”

“Do you think I’ll take possession of you?” Selvar asked, bewildered and offended “Diana, I would never do that. I want to complement you, and respect you for who you are and what you want. That’s what symbiosis are about: respect. Otherwise you’re just like—”

He stopped talking abruptly; his face clouded over with a shadow of what Diana knew was his parents’s death. The older Zandstras had been murdered, by someone.

“I’m not quite sure if I want this,” Diana said, softly. Then she hastened to add “But I’m not discarding it; this is my new life, after all. Can you, um, wait?”

Selvar smiled: that was acceptance of her situation, and he knew it. He stood up. “You should eat your dinner, Dahlia Everitt cooks really well,” he pulled Diana to the desk and moved the chair for her “Or maybe we could ask her to prepare something else?”

“It’s okay, I’ll—” Diana took a knife and fork, looking at the decapitated lamb with what she hoped was hidden dismay. She didn’t want to act as if she disliked the cuisine of Selvar’s country “Sorry, but how am I supposed to eat this?”

“Ah, you see, Dee-Dee, give me the knife and I’ll…” Selvar took the cutlery himself and readied the smalahove for her “My father taught me; he lived a big part of his life in South Africa, but he was Norwegian. And technically also Icelandic, but that’s a bit more complicated.”

“It has something to do with a general, right?” Diana had heard Ines tell Yeves about her family’s military history.

Selvar nodded. “Mizax. Most Saz think he’s a legend along with the other five Generals of the Archaic. But in the first half of the 19th century, my ancestor Klaus Haukland made the realisation that Mizax actually existed. Or at least, the man he bestowed upon the historian insignia did,” his face twisted into a complicated expression “Diana, you should know why my parents were murdered.”

w

John’s dark skin acquired a copper hue when Mirror’s silver light shone on him. Morgan was staring, and she’d been standing progressively closer to him. It was her strategy to conquer his heart. John was hot, and Morgan may have wanted to find her one true love, but damn.

“And you live here?” John asked. They were in one of the many terraces, and he was staring at the foggy gardens and the ponds; his expression awed.

Morgan moved infinitesimally closer. “Yeah,” she quirked an eyebrow at him “You like it?”

“I—” John swallowed once “Yeves had told me Mirror was all for bringing back the past’s aesthetic —I definitely want to see Mirror Nigeria now— but I never expected this grandeur.”

“Not every house is like this, my family is just hella rich. My father and Dahlia are the leaders of their respective Emblems.”

Morgan moved a step closer and her arm brushed John’s, who realised for the first time what was going on. Slowly, John turned his face to her, the awe in his expression replaced by a sort of wonder and flustering. Morgan was a few centimetres taller than him, and so he had to tip his face up to meet her eyes. “Mirror seems cool, once we’ve figured things out and the four of us can adjust ourselves to this.”

“It can be a home, can’t it?”

John’s eyes widened as if he were a scandalised lady. “Aren’t you going too fast? I’m a virgin and haven’t even been on a date, yet.”

Morgan laughed, taking a step back and leaning her back against the railing she’d been resting her elbows on. “I’m genuinely talking about The Kinship being a home for you, Yeves, your sister and Selvar. Not about you being my future husband,” she winked at him, barely suppressing a ‘though our children would be gorgeous’. Instead, she said “But if you want to, my bedroom is pretty far from the rest of my family’s, and my parents and the Everitts are away most of the time.”

“Oh my—” John facepalmed himself as Morgan laughed again “I’m not going to have sex with a girl that doesn’t even take me on a date.”

“Deal,”

Now it was John who was quirking an eyebrow at her. “Really?”

“Yeah,” Morgan hopped on the railing and slid along it until she was directly facing him “It’ll be fun. Where do you want to go?”

John seemed to really think hard on the matter. Meanwhile, Morgan just swung her legs and stared at his face; it was perfect, his sharp cheekbones, kind dark bottomless eyes, the most beautiful shade of dark skin. Morgan smiled slightly: John was also intelligent, and she had a thing for brainy people.

At first, she’d thought bringing the Zandstras here was simply a mission, once out of the many she’d been involved in for two years now. But everything pointed out to her being wrong. For once, they hadn’t expected to bring four people as opposed to two to Gangkou. But also, Ines had been very clear in how Morgan and her were not going to sleep together anymore, because they both had their eyes on someone else. Morgan agreed, and would proceed to get Ines’s things out of her bedroom swift fast, as soon as she bid John goodnight. Ines wouldn’t mind: right now, as Morgan conversed with John, she was with Yeves. Knowing Ines’s mastery of flirtation, they were already making out.

After a long moment, John finally spoke. “Mirror has legendary cities, right? Take me to one and then to dinner at the Eiffel Tower.”

Morgan grinned. “Done,” and then a sudden urge prompted her to cup John’s face and kiss his cheek “Have that be my promise that you’ll have the best first date ever. It’ll also be my first time going on one.”

“I don’t believe you,”

“Then don’t if you don’t want to,” Morgan snorted “Not many people would like to have Lei Hao and Xuegang Yang’s daughter as their girlfriend,” she shrugged “If you ask me, that’s better for you. You won’t have to compete for my affections.”

John rolled his eyes. “I’m not competing for anything. You’ve asked me out, therefore you compete for my affections.”

Morgan’s grin widened.

Cal laid on the main drawing room’s sofa. She was playing a video game on her Vita while Hunter laid on her, resting after his overexertion. A few paces away, Dad was playing on the PlayStation4 while Lei, Xuegang and Min observed him. Mum was away in Mirror London with her twin sister, who would visit them the next day with her wife and daughter.

Life, if you asked Cal, was good.

“How cool is it that this girl can control gravity?” Cal asked; she dislodged her arm ever so slightly to thread her fingers through Hunter’s head.

Hunter hummed. “The one from your video game?”

“Yeah, you’re lucky I don’t like girls.”

“I survived your crushes on Peter Pan, Nathan Drake, and many other book characters. I’d have survived this girl, too,”

Cal knew she was smiling like a fool, though she just continued playing instead of replying. The silence (and Min’s angry ‘kill that zombie’, ‘kill that zombie’ in the background) was comfortable, and a big part of her revelled in having Hunter like this so casually. Similar arrangements had happened a few times before they’d kissed for the first time, but they’d all ended in Cal turning tomato red and fleeing to her bedroom in embarrassment.

“Cal,” Hunter said after a while.

“Hm?”

“Your phone’s going off,” he dug his hand into his back pocket —where Cal had slipped her phone when he’d laid on top of her— and inspected the screen “It’s Atalanta.”

“What does she want?”

“She says we should hang out tomorrow.”

Cal paused her game, and looked up. She hadn’t noticed Dad pausing his game and herding his friends and Min away, but they were alone now. Which probably meant they thought Cal and Hunter wanted to do something (they didn’t, but the privacy was nevertheless much appreciated).

“Would her boyfriend be coming, too?” she asked.

“We’d be going to Qiu Mansion, so he would.”

Out of her two cousins, Cal was the closest to Atalanta. Fumiko had always been surrounded by glamour and the buzz of Spanish dancing competitions. Atalanta and Cal ‘clicked’ despite their diametrically-opposed differences: Atalanta was more down to earth; not to say that she had really good taste in men, though Cal could never imagine herself with the boys her cousin liked —or dated.

“Then I don’t know why Atalanta would even ask us. We hang out there virtually every day.”

Much to Cal’s disappointment, Hunter sat up. “Maybe it’s because they think we’re busy with our mission.”

Cal snorted. “I doubt we’ll be sent on another one in a long time.”

Hunter smiled. “Well, we did good,” he glanced to the right “We’re alone.”

“I’m pretty sure they think we want to make out.”

When he turned back to Cal, his eyes were twinkling mischievously, and his smile widened. Still his cheeks were lightly flushed. “Ah,”

Cal quirked an eyebrow at him, leaning down to put her Vita on the floor. Then she sat up in time for Hunter to reach out to pull her onto his lap.

Hunter tugged a red strand of hair behind her ear, and kissed Cal’s forehead.

“Oh, yeah, we’re making out so much,” Cal murmured.

Hunter sputtered something unintelligible out of which she only understood ‘by Roxia’ and ‘sofa’. Cal laughed and tipped her head up to kiss him. Really kiss him.

Okay, now they were making out.

Hunter put his arms around her, and laid on his back; taking her down with him. Cal didn’t know whether to smile or give into these new sensations building up in her belly —Hunter made her brain go all mushy. When they were together, reason deserted her.

However, the moment they drew back to catch their breath, what was happening came crashing down on her. And, apparently, on Hunter, too. Cal’s face heat up as her heart refused to acknowledge that the ‘make out session’ had ended.

She found it hard to look at Hunter, but at the same time, she couldn’t not look at him. So when she forced herself to calm down —just a little bit because Cal knew she wouldn’t be back to normal in a long time— her conscience finally allowed her to look at Hunter. Only that Hunter was not looking back.

He was staring at the door with a face of sheer horror.

“Fuck,” Cal muttered, rolling off Hunter so fast she landed right on her ass “Bloody—! Dude, why the fuck won’t you knock?”

Atalanta seemed unimpressed. Her face and way she carried herself denoted un-impressiveness most of the time; but now more than ever. Like she were laughing on her poor cousin she’d walked in on.

“The door was opened, Coraline,” Atalanta replied; the right corner of her mouth curving upwards ever so slightly.

Cal huffed in what she hoped was in intimidating fashion as she rubbed her ass. “Whatever. Why are you two here? I thought we were meeting tomorrow.”

Atalanta had come with her boyfriend, whose presence Cal would’ve enjoyed had he not been grinning at her. His arm was over his girlfriend, and together, the two made a ridiculously pleasing couple aesthetic-wise. Pity no one but Cal and Hunter knew they were an item.

“Atalanta texted you to inform we would be here in ten minutes,” Atalanta’s boyfriend said.

“No, she didn’t,” Hunter protested, face completely red and having a strategic cushion on his lap Cal tried not to stare at. Hunter picked Cal’s phone from within the insides of the sofa “She wrote that you— ‘had changed my mind and we think it will be better for us to come there now, given how my mothers have just informed me we are to go on a family trip to Mirror Monaco tomorrow’” Hunter whipped his face to Cal “I swear that was an unread message.”

“It’s okay, I believe you,” Cal glared at her cousin “Couldn’t you think of knocking even if the door wasn’t closed?”

“No,” Atalanta picked the train of her 1880s mauve gown and went to join Cal on the floor “You didn’t hurt yourself, did you?”

Cal’s annoyance receded at the concern. “Charlie cut my anima’s head off last Challenge, I’ll survive my ass being a tad too red. Will we go to Monaco with you?”

“Yes, Aunt Dahlia was the one who proposed it, in fact.”

Cal hummed as she stood up, helping her cousin up, as well. “That does sound like my mother. She’s obsessed with that city.”

“While these two are there, we could go to Alcatraz,” Atalanta’s boyfriend proposed to Hunter.

“Sure,” Hunter shrugged.

Conversation veered towards the usual topics then: the video game and books Cal had been playing and reading, Hunter’s unending journey to becoming an immersionist, gossip about their classmates —Cal could swear there was something more than friendship between Charlie and Sohrab— and clothes talk. Cal wasn’t much interested in the later, so she resigned herself to leaning against Hunter’s chest and returning to her gravity-bender girl.

However her mind kept wandering to a bedroom several rooms from them. Cal was more curious about Diana than she cared to admit; a part of her ached for the girl. She was a human in the inhuman Kinship, what would she be feeling, so stranded from the reality she’d known all her life? Cal wasn’t a fool, she’d seen Selvar looking at Diana in the same platonic lovey dove way Sohrab looked at Arash when he was deep in his symbiotic feels, so Cal doubted Diana would stay as simply a human for long. But still.

What if it had been Cal learning of The Kinship for the first time?

The notion made her slightly uncomfortable. Preposterous, she thought to herself. There was no other place for her but in Mirror. She was Saz, a doppelgänger, Gangkou was her home, and her family wasn’t whole without her parents’s best friends and their children —one of which Cal was on her way to building a future with.

Cal buried deeper against Hunter’s chest, raising his hand to her lips so that she could kiss each one of his knuckles. She knew the mix of surprise and happiness the gesture was eliciting on Hunter; both because she knew him, and because of the kiss he pressed to her temple.

Cal’s mouth quirked upwards.

This was her life. And this life was good.Hunter slept in a very particular way. Always laying on his right side, his legs bent ever so slightly and his feet —for some reason— clenched, his palms flat against the mattress. Along the night, he would steadily slide down his pillow so that his head rested directly below it; each morning, Hunter had an adorable case of bed hair.