Bruno took a deep breath as he reached the top of the stairs and continued to remind himself that this was his world they were in. He led. Others followed. Which was an odd thing to think of, him leading anyone, but this was different. It just was. Felix had promised he wouldn't tell anyone and Bruno just had to trust him on that but, trust wasn't something he was good at. This was pure blackmail. He had no choice but to trust the man and he hoped it wouldn't blow up in his face.

"To the left. All the way down." Bruno said as Felix emerged from the staircase.

Bruno could see it shining in the sunlight from here but it was more magnificent at night, when the starlight danced and flickered around it like incandescent bands that could only be described as pure. He saw Felix squint at the sight and Bruno just gave him an "after you" gesture before following behind.

"Exactly how high up are we?" Felix asked.

Bruno gave a sound that could vaguely be interpreted as "I don't know" which was very comforting for Felix…..not.

Bruno suddenly found himself feeling very nervous about this. Well, it's not like he hadn't been nervous about this whole situation from the start. He had been avoiding his room entirely in order to try and put this off, for however long he wasn't sure. This felt different somehow. It was another display of how his powers have expanded over the years. Sandstone was soft. Sandstone felt different. It was a stone that easily gave way and held an, almost haunting, aesthetic. Crystal felt different. Crystal felt a little more powerful in the way that people coveted it. It was strong and slow and so not like sandstone. Molding crystal made something that was powerful and dominated the room. Sandstone was humble and content to remain so but crystal begged to be seen. Crystal drank and grew how it pleased and that is what made it harder to control. Crystal was more alive than sandstone.

His place. His power. He was in charge here.

But...would Felix have a limit on this? What would that limit be? There wasn't really anything he could do because anything he could do he didn't know how it might turn out. A lot of what had been on his mind in regards to his gift was exactly what he might be capable of but right now it was only theories. He hadn't actually tried. Did he have to tell Felix about all of that too? He was looking at the wording that Felix had put in and had yet to find a loophole in their deal. It might have gotten through to Felix a while back that a person had to be careful in their wording when making requests or demands of Bruno. When Felix had said everything he meant everything and there really wasn't any other interpretation. Granted, he could have been annoying about things and just started on the day he was born and literally tell Felix everything just to see if he'd quit but even Bruno wasn't that petty.

When Felix stopped just inside the small cavern that anxiety blossomed in Bruno's gut again. He knew Felix had spotted it and was staring. Bruno managed to wiggle passed him to look up at the confused expression on Felix's face before he walked out onto the ledge Bruno had made. He reached out a hand and traced the smooth sides of the bowl bringing out a low ring from the structure.

"Bruno this is…."

Okay here we go. Life or death. Make or break.

"This is so cool!"

What?

"Are you telling me you made this?"

Bruno nodded. He was in a small state of shock that he'd actually gotten the reaction he'd been hoping for.

"Don't jinx it." He said to himself.

"How did you do that?"

"I gave it time." Bruno answered in a hushed voice. "Crystal….it grows by itself under the right circumstances. I just have to give it those circumstances and give it the time it needs to grow."

"You grew this?"

"W-well...yeah. But I didn't handle it well. Maybe shouldn't have done it in one shot."

"Didn't handle it well?"

"I passed out."

"Bruno!"

"It's like lifting weights I just….hadn't really been ready to take it that far."

"Hadn't?"

"What?"

"You said hadn't. As in past tense."

"D-did I?" Bruno gave a nervous chuckle as Felix glared at him. "Do you wanna know how it works?" He asked quickly, knowing it was an obvious distraction.

Okay that was at least a little bit better. Bruno was almost certain that Felix's curiosity would be his undoing in this situation and, going by the look on his face, he knew it too.

"We're coming back to that." Felix narrowed his eyes before looking back down at the quartz table. "Okay….what is it?"

"It's a mirror."

"This is a really bad mirror."

"Well it's not supposed to reflect you."

"Well, what does it reflect?" Felix said with a chuckle.

"Starlight."

"Starlight?" Felix looked back up at Bruno.

"Starlight." He nodded. "Like I said, there's more than one way to see the future and different methods show different things. Almost nothing I see is a permanent future. Aside from the scars anything can be changed. The sands answer questions asked. The stars don't answer questions and I can't purposefully stand here and have a vision this way either. You can't ask questions of the stars. They show what they want to show and I'm just here to listen when they call. It's an odd thing to hear. Like a ringing of sorts that pulses like a heartbeat and a kind of pulling feeling. Like being tied to the end of a rope you can't see."

He stared off for a minute and Felix snapped his fingers to pull Bruno's attention back to the here and now. He jumped and continued.

"This method shows the most likely outcome of a scenario. I'm not sure the extent of how this works and what can be seen with it. The rules are different for each method. I need different tools and different environments depending on what I'm doing."

That was something that Felix had noticed was becoming a trend. The more time he spent with Bruno the more he noticed Bruno's tendency for his mind to wander off while he was explaining. It's like the focus of whatever he was talking about pulled him into it and away from what was happening around him. Like the explanation itself left his mind to drift over into a part of the world that only he occupied. Felix wondered what it was like. He wondered what Bruno might be seeing in those moments, how he might be feeling. Felix wondered if even Bruno knew because he always seemed a little dazed after Felix caught his attention again. It was like he was wandering away into a place that no one else could follow. It was worrisome to say the least.

"The sands show time in the simplest of ways by working along a single set path. It follows the events of the Primary Universe where no choices have been made to one side or the other. If nothing is done then the prophecy comes true but there's no saying you can't change it. It's those moments where Alternates are created. Some kind of important decision, no matter how minuscule, that alters from the Primary Universe's path. There's no saying that an Alternate can't fuse back in with the Primary. It happens more often than you might think. But what makes a real Alternate is when it breaks from the Primary and essentially creates another Primary ergo Alternate Universe as opposed to Primary Universe. Timelines and universes are different. A Universe centers around a Primary but a timeline both deviates from a Primary and follows it."

When Bruno talked like that it made Felix's head hurt.

"This, on the other hand," He pointed down to the crystal mirror. "does not follow the set stream of the Primary. This shows the Alternates as well. It shows the strongest Alternate. When combined with the sands this can, sometimes, create a clearer picture of things but that's only if I even have a vision about it here. Like I said, I can't control this so much. It's another reason I haven't told anyone. I can't do this for others it either happens or it doesn't but a lot of people have a lot of misconceptions about what I actually can or can't do."

"How do you remember?"

"Oh, I don't have to." He said with a small smile before walking over to another shelf carved into the cavern's walls. He reached out and delicately removed a glass vial from a slot in the shelf. "Would you like to know what you're going to do for your anniversary this year?"

He waved the vial in the air and Felix couldn't help the glare.

"No? Okay let's find a different one." He turned back to the shelf and Felix wasn't so sure how to feel about this. "Uuuhhhmmmm…..let's see."

Felix could hear glass clinking as Bruno rooted though the shelf.

"Oh!" He grabbed one and turned around. "You know how Sara's hija is pregnant right?"

Felix shook his head.

"Well she's pregnant. ¿Le haces caso a algo que no sea Pepa?" Bruno rolled his eyes as he poured water into the bowl. "But here's the thing…." He took out the vial with a grin. "She's not just pregnant."

Whatever it was in the vial it was beautiful in a hypnotic way. Liquid opal that poured thick like syrup and suddenly Felix could see. There was no sound. Just images like he was watching it all through a window as opposed to the tablets he usually got.

"She's pregnant with triplets." Bruno added. "Identical too. That's gonna be a nightmare."

Once the images faded away Bruno filled the vial back up and placed it back on the shelf.

"I see what you mean about mirror now." Felix nodded.

"These are….more detailed but not something I can just ask for and they're only pieces, nice pieces but pieces none the less. I don't know what scenarios they're outcomes of or even if these follow along the Primary Universe or Alternates or even both. It's more solid but still leaves a lot of unanswered questions and leads to more complexities because a person might overthink things while trying to get what they want and wind up avoiding the ending the stars showed."

"You're making the stars sound alive."

"Well I mean they kinda are I guess. With the way this feels."

"You sound like a nut."

"I don't know how else to put it!"

Felix felt a little bad for laughing at Bruno's frustration.

"So," He took a breath. "Didn't?"

"Didn't?"

"Earlier, you said didn't."

"I hate your memory."

"Yeah, Pepa does too. Come to think of it I think everyone does." He rubbed his chin.

Bruno couldn't help but laugh at that.

"Alright." He said after he'd stopped. "I promise that this next room does have sense outside of….well you'll see."

He walked back toward the staircase and Felix was about to start cursing Bruno's name but didn't when he noticed the door straight down the hall to the right of the stairs. It was dark and cold but felt different. There was a sense of power to the room and Felix could feel it. The room was filled with magic and so palpable that even Felix, who by far had no sense of magic, could feel it thrumming in his chest. He swore he could smell it in the air and it didn't seem like Bruno had any clue. Then again the family tended to be a little oblivious toward other people's gifts and sometimes forgot that, despite having the same source, all of their magic was different from the other.

"Just….don't make fun of me okay?" Bruno said after taking a breath.

Just like the candles in the staircase the room flared with light as intermittently placed torches lit up one at a time starting with the ones closest to Bruno. Felix would have commented on it but, once the room was lit, he couldn't think of a thing. It was a good sized cavern and covered with crystals from floor to ceiling. There was clear quartz, rose quartz, amethyst, obsidian, citrine, malachite, and others that Felix couldn't place that littered the walls and hung from the ceiling in gorgeous spires as wide around as his own arm. There was a single winding trail that led through the shining spectacle and Bruno would have to give him a proper tour later.

"Are you telling me…"

"I made this, yes."

Felix looked at him.

"Grew them, yes." He said flatly. "It took a while and I did not just do this out of pure boredom but that was a factor." He took another breath. "I can do more in here."

"Do more?"

"More…..extreme things we'll say. Crystals take a long time to grow so they basically store time energy that I can pull in and use if I need to. It's, quite literally, a storage space."

Storage. Bruno had learned how to store away his own magic. Felix idly wondered if any of the others could do something like that or if it was just him.

"But there is more to it than that. I actually use crystal dust when I'm using the mirror. The crystals actually have different types of focus believe it or not. An emotional kind of focus. I can use crystal dust to help create a clearer image or even drift into a new one. A single ripple in the mirror can reveal….a...destiny. You can see the shape of it in the water, drifting through like a phantom and sometimes they show the phantom of a human soul. One that's already dead but still so full of life."

Felix could hear it in his voice as his mind began to wander away again. He snapped his fingers a few times and Bruno jumped at it again.

"Y-yeah so...uh t-this-this took a long time."

"You're right." Felix said, voice hushed but loud enough to echo through the cavern.

"What?"

"You're definitely not just a prophet." He shook his head before turning to look at Bruno again. "You're going to have to explain more about how all….this" He gestured around. "works."

"So, you want me to continue to try and explain time from a non-linear non-subjective, or maybe sometimes subjective, viewpoint?"

"Try being a key word?"

"I've never done this." Bruno shrugged.

"Maybe another time on that one though. It sounds...confusing. More confusing than I can deal with right now. This is your life?"

"Well….yes. It's my gift so it's my life. It is very confusing though, you're right about that."

"So, your traditional prophecies are the simplest but most easily misinterpreted."

"Yes. By me included." Bruno nodded.

"These are more accurate but hard to pinpoint."

"Yes."

"And you already explained the scarred ones."

"Yes."

"Bruno…" Felix sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. "That's three different types of visions and you just decided to keep all this to yourself?"

Bruno froze.

"F-five." He mumbled.

"What?"

"Five! Five types, five ways. I just hadn't gotten into the other ones."

Felix turned and leaned against the wall crossing his arms and giving Bruno a look that said that he was willing to stand here as long as possible until he got his answers. His kid was Camilo and Camilo could outlast Bruno on this any day of the week.

His place. His power. He was in charge here.

"I have dreams." He started. "Those are the most accurate and detailed by far but I never remember anything or...at least anything helpful. Although apparently I sleepwalk and that bleeds in."

He chewed on his lip.

"And the last?"

"I-" Bruno took a deep breath. "It's only happened once and I don't remember how it happened. Or...it's happened once that I have record of anyway. So….I-I have no idea….I don't know anything about it."

He walked a little farther into the crystal cavern. Felix watched Bruno reach into a bunch of turquoise quartz and pull out something that he couldn't quite see. He turned and walked back holding a mint green glass orb about the size of a baseball in a trembling hand.

"So…I-I'm just as confused as you are about to be." He gulped.

His place. His power. He was in charge here.

"I had this vision the night of Delores's gifting ceremony. I know-" He nodded. "it was a long time ago."

Felix just nodded.

"It was...very chaotic and I needed a moment to myself. With everything going on in town the river was quiet. I was just kind walking in the shallows and I found this small pearl. It had reflected the light in a funny way and I thought that Delores would probably love it, because she just kinda has a thing for pearls, even if it was just one. I had enough time to turn it a few times in my hand before…..I don't know. One minute I'm holding a pearl and the next my throat hurts and I'm holding this." He held it out and nodded in a way that encouraged Felix to take it. "I-I really…..well...you'll see."

Felix picked it up out of Bruno's grasp. It was smooth like glass but not cold. It was warm and not from Bruno's hand. It was a steady warmth that neither grew nor faded.

"Turn it three times in your hand." Bruno's instructions were almost too quiet to hear.

Felix did as he was told and suddenly it was like the room had been plunged underwater the way the light reflected on the walls and ceiling. Shortly after came a voice that pushed ripples through the light with every word. It was Bruno's voice but it sounded like someone was playing his vocal cords like an out of tune guitar. It was far more than unsettling. It was near ghastly the way it sounded. More important was what was being spoken, however hard to understand it may be.

"Strength shall fail

Nature shall fall

For the road to travail

Shall give its' call

A baleful cry shall ring forth

Shattering the bright of day

By vengeful tempest of north

Forever marked by disarray"

Felix didn't know what to say.

"I told you you'd be confused. I just have some random orb that repeats the most ominous poem you have ever heard. Makes sense that my throat hurt though." He said, rubbing his neck as he did so.

Felix turned it over in his hand again to listen. There was a sense of urgency to this one that none of Bruno's other prophecies held.

"What if it's instructions? Or….a...summary of events?" He squinted as he turned it again. "Both?"

"You seem more intrigued by this than I do."

"Ever try and have another?"

"Wh-wha-….no. Can't say I have. I just tried to forget that thing existed. It creeps me out."

"Yeah me too." He turned it again.

"Then why do you keep listening to it?"

"It feels…..important."

"They all feel important. Prophecies always feel important."

"We...we could recreate that moment by the river and see if it happens again."

"You sound like Mirabel." Bruno muttered under his breath.

"What?"

"Nothing."

Bruno was slowly beginning to realize that he was doomed.