Last chance to turn back before you read spoilers for Wizards, which I do not own.

"So, how did you manage the whole living for 900 years thing?" Claire asked. The two of them were in Douxie's old bedchambers; they spoke quietly to avoid waking Steve up.

"By taking it one day at a time," Douxie said. Some of those days had been better than others. Some of those days the only thing that had kept Douxie alive was that one day, Merlin would come back and need Douxie.

"Er, I actually meant the fact that you haven't aged from now to when we left Arcadia... I hate time travel."

"Oh. That's actually simpler. Wizards whose powers awaken at a young age stop aging in their late teens until they meet their soulmate. Then, if they want to gain their immortality back they have to kill their soulmate. I mean, it's still really hard to kill a wizard if they've met their soulmate, but I just haven't aged in about nine centuries."

"How do you know, that someone's your soulmate?"

Douxie blinked. That wasn't a question he expected Claire to ask. "Why, I thought you had more faith in me. I would never kill my soulmate."

Claire raised her hands apologetically. "Sorry, I didn't mean it like that! I just... I guess you've never met yours, so it doesn't matter, I'm sorry I asked."

Douxie glanced toward the dungeon. She was probably asking about Jim. "There was this guy, back in the early nineteenth century, and at the time I thought he might've been my soulmate. Obviously, he wasn't, but I loved him nonetheless. And like I said, if you have to struggle with immortality, then you have to take it one day at a time. Live in the moment. And yeah, outliving your loved ones is hard. But there's upsides to immortality as well."

Douxie walked into Hex Tech, thankful to see a short girl with pink hair pinned neatly into place. He didn't trust any other hedge mage like he did Zoe. Douxie walked up to her. Her, and a boy at the front desk shoving something into a backpack.

And as he bore the wrath of the boy Douxie had technically cut in front of, Douxie felt something unlock deep within him.

Surely, it was just a feeling of familiarity, and safety, from being in a place where the Arcane Order wouldn't find them.

Douxie came home to the shared studio apartment to find Archie and Nari talking in low voices. That... wasn't exactly a good sign. It wasn't automatically a bad sign, but it wasn't exactly good.

"Douxie," Archie said gravely as Douxie put away his keys. "Have you noticed anything different, in the past two months?"

"Uh, we're in New York?" After a week of making their way around the continent and setting up false magical signatures for Nari, the three of them had buried themselves in a small, crowded part of New York City. The Arcane Order wouldn't be able to find them here. Also, Merlin was dead as opposed to just asleep, but Douxie was trying not to think about that.

"Other than that," Archie said. Douxie shook his head in response.

"You're aging," Nari said.

"What? No." Douxie couldn't be aging, he still had so much to do. He protected the Earth for about 900 years and he planned to keep doing so. He planned on protecting Nari for eternity if he needed to. If he was now mortal, then he wouldn't be able to do so. "I don't have time to be aging."

"We all knew it would happen eventually," Archie said. "Who do you think your soulmate is?"

"I..." The problem was, Douxie had only met one person whom Douxie had thought was his soulmate. That man died a little less than two centuries ago. It had been for the best, really. If Douxie's lover had been his soulmate, he wouldn't have been able to meet Merlin again in Arcadia Oaks. Who knew what he could accomplish if he lived long enough that he would still be around two centuries from now? "I don't know."

"Give me your hand," Nari said, "and I can try to find them."

Douxie obediantly stuck out his left hand, and Nari took it in her own. She closed her eyes. Her hands glowed with green light, and illusory vines wrapped around Douxie's hand and floated in the air. The vines then disappeared, and her hands stopped glowing. Nari opened her eyes.

"That is strange," Nari said. "I can sense the living soul of every being of this planet. But your soulmate is not one of them."

"So... my soulmate is dead?" Despite Douxie's frustration with aging, he still felt a shallow pang of grief. It wasn't fair. If he had to once more age, then he'd want to meet and get to know the destined person that Douxie was intended to die for. And instead, he wouldn't even get that.

"I do not know," Nari said. "Your soulmate's soul could be in the Shadow Realm, like Jim's was."

"We need to find a way to better hide you and the seals, or even find a way to defeat Bellroc and Skrael for good," Douxie said. "The Arcane Order has forever. I've got, what? Eighty years?"

"Or longer, if we use the right spells, or..." Archie trailed off, looking away. Douxie frowned. It must be hard on Archie, to know that he would definitely outlive Douxie. Dragons could live for three or four millennia, after all.

"We can't be sure, but we think that you might be aging slightly slower than the average human," Nari said.

"Could it be because I died?" Nari and Archie flinched as the words left Douxie's mouth.

"I don't know," Nari said. "You'll have to give me time."

That was something Douxie was running out of.

"So, I was thinking," Claire said as she rummaged through Douxie's pantry, looking for a snack. She was quite the prodigy, having progressed quite far in the year and seven months that Douxie had been training her. The two of them had come back to his apartment after setting up decoys for the Arcane Order in various locations across Central and South America. "Jim's mentioned that he wants to find a way to return to his troll form, but not permanently. And my first thought was maybe making him a changeling, but then we'd have to kidnap someone."

"Not a good idea," Archie said. "Hand me that can of tuna?"

"Exactly," Claire said as she passed along the can. "But, we might be able to adapt Akiridion transduction so Jim can choose if he wants to be a human or a troll. So, what do you say to bringing Krel into this project?"

"Sure," Douxie said. A couple days after Douxie had left Arcadia Oaks, Steve had added Douxie to a group text with the other Guardians of Arcadia. Douxie and Krel had started talking on their own a couple months after that. It would be nice to see Krel in person again. "Do you or Jim want to ask him, or should I?"

Claire brought Krel with her through a shadow portal soon after noon the next Sunday. Krel looked around, fidgeting his fingers along the edge of his jaw. Douxie expected to be annoyed that in the time since Douxie and Krel had first met, Krel had grown taller in his Akiridion form. They were no longer the same height, which had been... oddly nice, for reasons Douxie couldn't name. Krel was now tall enough that his hair brushed against the ceiling of the apartment. Douxie wondered if it naturally grew that way, or if Krel had to spend time using products to make it stand up. From all the time the two of them had texted each other, Krel didn't seem like the type of guy to spend a lot of time and gel spiking his hair every day, and Douxie had once been the type of guy to spend a lot of time and gel each day, making sure his hair was nice and spiky.

A small pang of grief for his lost immortality came with the memory of the old, somewhat cringe-worthy hairstyle. Douxie had mostly adjusted to his newfound mortality, but it still hurt sometimes. He, Nari, and Archie still hadn't made any progress on the topic of Douxie's soulmate, either.

Douxie forced himself to stop staring at Krel. Yes, Krel was attractive in a way that caught him off guard. There was something about the way his face now looked that made him look regal, moreso than Arthur and Morgana had ever looked. Maybe it was the fact that his faceplate had finished detaching a week ago? Krel had complained over text a month or two ago that it was an uncomfortable process that signified the start of adulthood for a royal Akiridion.

"You're..." Douxie trailed off. He wanted to say beautiful. "A little later than expected."

"Yeah, sorry, Mass ran late," Claire said. "So, how'd you want to get started, Teach?"

Six hours of three frustrated prodigies ignoring each other's personal space as they debated schematics passed. While Akiridion technology and magic were surprisingly compatible, transduction wasn't quite as compatible with human-and-troll biology as they had hoped. Still, they weren't quite ready to give up. Well, not forever, anyways. Words were starting to stop making sense for Douxie, and he wouldn't be surprised if the same was starting to more-or-less happen to the others as well. Douxie stifled a sigh. He didn't want to be the one who bailed first, but he also got the feeling that if he didn't say anything the three of them would continue attempting to work for another hour or two of increasingly angry conversation.

"Do you want to break for dinner any time soon?" Douxie asked.

"Please," Claire said in a desperate, thankful tone, "I'm starved."

"Wouldn't it just be a late lunch?" Krel asked.

"Time zone difference," Douxie said.

"Right, forgot, sorry," Krel said. A year ago Krel had explained how time zones weren't really a thing on Akiridion-V. Instead, all clocks were set to the same time as it was in the capitol, but depending on where on the planet you lived you might start your delson at a different time. That being said, the amount of artificial lighting on the planet meant that location didn't quite matter for when people were supposed to be awake or asleep.

"Can we get pizza from that one place a block away?" Claire asked as she stretched. "You'll love it, Krel."

"Archie, Nari, we're going out, you want to come?" Douxie called across the apartment.

"Bring me back something with anchovies!" Archie said. Claire wrinkled her nose.

"Give me a moment to put on my disguise!" Nari called. Krel activated his transduction. While Arcadians had gotten used to trolls and extraterrestrials, and New Yorkers were mostly unphased by Nari's antlers, Krel's four arms and glowing body might draw unwanted attention. Douxie swallowed in order to stifle a gasp.

If Krel had grown into a regal young man in his true form, as a human he had become a roguishly adorable sort of scruffy. Krel had grown his hair out into messy a chest length ponytail. He was an inch or two taller, too.

Nari walked over to them, disguised as an incredibly short human with a beanie that had antlers attached to it. There was probably something to be said about how a nature goddess was more focused on a game on her phone than her surroundings, but she was used to the layout of the apartment. Plus, she could sense the soul of every living being of the planet Earth. She wouldn't bump into anything until they left the apartment. Then she'd have to be careful.

She bumped into Krel, and looked up, startled.

"Sorry, I didn't..." Her eyes narrowed. "I didn't sense you. You're not from Earth, are you?"

"No, is it still that obvious?" Krel fidgeted with the ends of his ponytail.

"Not if you can't sense souls," Nari said. She gave Douxie a pointed look. He had no idea why.

Nari and Archie spoke in hushed enough to be somewhat worrying tones as Douxie got ready for work the next day.

"Should we tell him?" Nari asked.

"He'll figure it out," Archie said. "Or well, he should. If he doesn't figure it out within a year, I guess we should tell him, but until then if he's that oblivious it won't hurt him."

Douxie decided to ignore them and whatever they were talking about. His phone buzzed with a text from Krel, and Douxie smiled.

Author's Note: I chose to leave it up to the reader as to whether or not Claire and Jim are soulmates.