I'm so sorry! My internet wasn't working for most of the day yesterday and by the time it was, I totally forgotten. But it's here now.


Alvar sighed. He didn't know why anything surprised him anymore. Honestly, he had a hand in all of this starting and a lot of it was directly or indirectly his fault. But at the same time, he was tired. Just so bone-tired of all of this. No matter how much emphasis he put on how tired of this battle he was, it couldn't touch how he felt.

Jolie's book lay open in his lap. When she'd come running to him and shoved the page in his face, with no heed for who might be watching, he'd known she'd found something big, but not this big. Not something that could change the face of the earth. A new power she might have, and a discovery he didn't know what to do with.

The writing on the two facing pages went back and forth between Sophie's messy-but-neat cursive, Biana's loops and swirls, Dex's small, neat lettering, and Keefe's barely-readable-to-anyone-but-him chicken scratch as the book had been passed between them. Alvar assumed the careful, smooth cursive belonged to his brother, but it'd been so long and his handwriting looked so similar to their father's, he didn't know for sure.

None of us are sure if you have this power or if it passed you by. But you are our best chance. We don't know much, other than that was what the Black Swan got every time they combined the two genetic codes. We're betting everything on this.

Yeah, no pressure there. But we believe in you, Miss Mini-Moonlark. You can do this. I can't promise I'll stay serious, as you can probably tell with the numerous notes I jotted down for Sophie to find. If she ever gets the chance.

There isn't much research on this . I've done my best, looking back into some of my old things. But there is something you should know. I've already told the adults, but you should know too, in case someone tries something like this again. You probably know about the ability restricting circlet I made in Level Three. For some reason, I kept the pieces after I dismantled it in the hopes I could figure out where I went wrong. When I went back and compared it to my original blueprint, I discovered it had been modified after I gave it to the Council. My original design created a telepathic force field around someone's mind, meaning no one and nothing gets in or out. Harmless, painless, and wouldn't have blocked any other abilities. The circlet that Sophie was forced to wear had components added that would attack and destroy the part of the brain responsible for abilities and skills and if I hadn't removed it, it probably would have killed her within the year.

We had no idea. But it appears that someone on the Council or works closely with them added a type of rare magical ice known to be able to block and destroy magical powers. If I'm correct, Dex also found traces of shadowflux in a few of the added pieces.

I did. Needless to say, I was shocked. It was likely done by one of the Banished Seven, as the probability of Titan dragons being able to access this kind of power is extremely high. However, we don't know if they were aware of the full extent of the situation so early. But the fact that it was modified in between me giving it to the Council and Sophie being forced to wear it still stands. While I had no inkling of my draconic heritage at the time, I somehow knew that Sophie may be at risk, so I made sure to add several failsafes to keep it from being harmful. I am thankful they did work to some extent, except for the ones that were removed or destroyed, of course.

I hope this hasn't been too much of a shock for you, Jolie. We are doing more research and there may be more information in later pages of this book.

Alvar knew with absolute certainly that if Dex had been able to bring this information before the Council, or at least to someone with enough authority to get something done, it would have caused a massive scandal and possibly Councillors being removed. That was probably why he had been the first to go. Once the Banished Seven knew he knew, they would have had to make sure the information died, because it could throw the world into chaos.

Jolie taped the copied form diagram and translation to her wall and assumed the starting stance. Some of the forms in her mother's book were difficult, but she was determined to learn all of them. Some of them had instructions in languages she didn't recognize, so she had to make do with her mother's translations.

Most of the forms were small enough to be done in her bedroom. Occasionally, she had to take an obscurer into the backyard so she didn't kick the window, but she made it work.

This form had instructions in an ancient Chinese dialect, but he mother had translated for her and told her what the form was.

This is not a form you are likely to ever use. It is a waterbending form and as you are not a Hydrokinetic or a waterbender as far as I know, you have no need to learn how to control water. But this will help you learn to balance yourself and flow through other forms you do need to know. Waterbending focuses more on the flow of water and less on the control. It meshes well with most other disciplines, especially abilities. I know you doing very well.

The form was simple, but required a certain amount of flexibility and she fell over several times.

After the fifth thud on the hardwood floor, Amy came upstairs to make sure she was okay.

"You seem determined to give yourself bruises, kiddo."

"I'm working on a waterbending form and it's harder than it looks."

Aunt Amy walked over and looked at the page. "If this is the kind of stuff you're learning, why don't I just enroll you in a martial arts class. This looks really similar to a lot of the stuff I remember doing when a, I think it was kung fu, teacher came to my high school and taught PE for a day."

"Actually, that sounds like a great idea." Jolie stood up and pulled her skirt back down. "And they have padded floors."

"Yeah. You didn't tear this out of the book, did you?"

"No, I copied it with the printer." She pulled them off the wall and folded the tape over. "I would never do that to any book. But I'm pretty sure it's made to be indestructible, just like anything else Mom and Dad wanted to keep. Grandpa Kesler said all of us together could be worse than the triplets and we weren't ever purposefully destructive. Just overwhelming."

Aunt Amy smiled. "You guys were angelic children, you just got excited sometimes and forgot your combined strength was a lot. Just one of you mauling me is a lot different than all seven of you jumping on me at once."

Jolie slid the papers into a file folder in her desk where she kept all the copies. The book was in the hollow space under one of her floorboards, but she and her aunt felt it would be safe enough to have bits and pieces of information out without anything to tie it together.

"Can you go look one up? It's winter, so they won't have a ton of new students."

"Only if you stop trying to break something." Aunt Amy left, closing the door behind her.

Jolie walked over to her window and opened it. There was a butterfly lying still on the windowsill.

"Oh you poor thing. Did you get caught in a spiderweb?" She reached out and picked it up. She felt something stir inside her mind and the butterfly crawled onto her thumb and flew away. "Huh. Just needed a little help I guess."


Again, I'm so sorry I forgot to publish yesterday! As with all my chapters, reviewers get teasers for the next chapter, let me know if you don't want one.

Shine brightly!

Ruby