Hi everyone, sorry, I promised this chapter ages ago but I had writers block, then school and revision and friend problems and family problems and music exams and then I joined Blogland and have never been happier! However, I am back, with an actual plot, yay! I would also just like to thank everyone for all of the reviews, follows or favourites. Just want to point out that yes, Tanith does seem mean in the first chapter, but that's only because I wanted to challenge myself and develop the friendship between them. Sorry if you are not happy with this but that's how I am choosing to write the story.

Skulduggery's Hat

It was the next day, and, thankfully, I had Skulduggery to train me, not Tanith to kick my butt. I sat on the floor, waiting for Skulduggery to join me. Absent mindedly I clicked my fingers, feeling a proper flame this time. I opened my eyes and stood up, grinning. It was the first time I had managed to generate a flame. I let it go out, then generated another, grinning doubly this time.

"Looks like you're getting along quite well there," came a voice from the door.

I cursed and spun, flinging my arm out to throw the fireball at the intruder. Instead of Serpine, the man that had been plaguing my dreams for nights, a very annoyed skeleton in a suit stood against the doorframe, flames engulfing the hat on his skull.

"Oops, sorry Skul!" I giggled nervously.

I waved my hand to blow out the flames, but instead a gust of wind knocked it onto the floor, where it proceeded to burn. Next, I summoned water from the air and sent it down to where the hat lay. I tried about five times, and by the end of it, a damp hat lay in the middle of the floor, flames still dancing along it. I huffed and sat down. Skulduggery walked forwards and plucked the hat off the floor. He gave it a little blow, and it was back to normal. As normal as a hat with burns on it could be. I grinned nervously up at him and he shook his head, chuckling at the same time. He pulled me up.

"Whoops?"

He sighed, "Never mind, I have plenty... Anyway! It looks like you might need a bit of help with air and water, although you seem to have grasped the aspect of fire..."

I laughed nervously, "Yup! I suppose so..."

"Right, anyway, so the trick with air is that you need to find the fault lines, the spaces where everything connects..."

For the next couple of hours, Skulduggery showed me ways of manipulating air and water, I doing my best to copy him. After lunch, he decided to see how much I had learnt. He started by sending a wave of water my way. I did my best to evaporate said water but somehow I was still quite wet. Skulduggery then waited as I attempted to dry myself, and I was left with extremely dry hair, damp top, wet trousers and soaking shoes, a puddle lying by my feet. I grinned up at Skulduggery and he gave in, getting rid of the rest of the water. He then threw a column of air which I was too late to stop or move away from and I crashed into the wall. When I opened my eyes, groaning, Skulduggery was looking down at me.

"Ah... Are you okay?"

I smiled, "Nope!"

Skulduggery thought for a moment before saying, "Take the rest of the day off and do something relaxing, we'll practise again tomorrow."

OOOOOoooooOOOOOoooooOOOOOoooooOOOOOo

My parents were home when I got back, so I snuck around behind the house, to find the ladder I had hidden to enable me to get to my room without using the front door. I parted the leaves in the hedge (my own hiding place) to find it had gone. I shrugged, guessing my dad had found it and moved it and I stared at the window above me, knowing what I had to do. It took three tries, but finally I managed to propel myself up, a bit too far onto the roof, but I easily climbed back down to my window sill and knocked on the glass. The reflection opened it to let me in, and I climbed in. "Thanks, do you know what happened to the ladder?"

"No." my reflection replied dully.

I nodded, then motioned towards the mirror, where the reflection then stepped in. I tapped the glass, seeing it's memories of the day, then walked downstairs to see my parents after changing.

"Hey Steph!" My mum greeted me, "Dinner's almost ready!"

I grinned, it wasn't often I could sit down and eat a meal with my family, "What's cooking?"

"Chilli Beef."

My grin spread even wider, chilli was my favourite. Dad took that moment to bounce through the door.

"HONEY, I'M HOME!" He shouted.

Mum and I laughed, and I wished I could do this more, laughing and talking with my parents. I also wondered if they noticed a difference between me and the reflection, Skulduggery had told me it wouldn't have emotions as such. My grin dropped as I thought about whether it was a better daughter than I was and I ended up crying myself to sleep that night.