Summary: The storm continues long enough that Mateo ends up spending the night at the Turner house, and he relaxes enough to get personal. Naomi comes to an important realization.

Despite Mateo's initial reservations, dinner went smoothly. Naomi found that everything felt a lot less uncertain once she had something warm in her stomach, and suspected Mateo felt the same, judging by how he gradually warmed up to conversation over the course of the meal. Her dad, for his part, put an effort into making chit chat with their guest (though Mateo meticulously, but politely, deflected any questions about his hobbies), and even seemed to enjoy Mateo's brand of humor, or at the very least, did a convincing job of feigning amusement. When the meal was done, Mateo insisted on helping with the dishes, either just a naturally tidy person or desperate to be as little of an intrusion as possible. Either way, he left a trail of cleanliness in his wake just by existing in the Turners' space.

The storm was still raging by the time the three of them settled in for a few rounds of the game Mateo and Naomi hadn't gotten to finish earlier, though with company and after a hot meal, it felt more distant. The sound of the rain had become part of the background, and the only reminders were the soft patter of water against the sailcloth that had been tacked up over the broken window and the way Mateo's shoulders would jump whenever there was a particularly loud clap of thunder.

A low rumble was accompanied by the sound of the clock chiming, and Naomi's dad set his cards down with a frown, scooted his chair back, and headed to the window, peering out with one hand cupped around his eyes to block the light from the house.

"Still looks pretty bad out there," he remarked, and turned back to the table. "Looks like you might be spending the night, Mateo."

Mateo startled, looking at Naomi like he expected her to confirm it. "It's not that late, though, is it?"

"It's after ten o'clock," her dad replied.

Naomi felt a jolt of surprise run through her, and she leaned forward to see outside around him. Pitch black. She hadn't realized the hour herself, but now that her dad had mentioned it, she felt a weariness sinking into her bones and tugging at her eyelids. It had been a long day.

Across from her, Mateo had his face scrunched up in intense concentration, eyes locked on the abandoned card deck in the center of the table like it could offer him a way out.

"I don't want to intrude," he said, his voice faltering.

Naomi huffed out a laugh. "A little late for that," she muttered, earning a chiding glance from her dad. Mateo didn't notice, as wrapped up as he was in whatever frantic, internal dialogue he was having this time.

"My mom is going to freak out," he went on, standing up, his chair squeaking against the ground. "I should really try and get back—"

He stopped as Naomi's dad came to rest his hands on his shoulders, looking him in the eye.

"I know you're worried about your family," he said, "and I'm sure they're worried about you, but as the only parent in the room, I can assure you that as worried as she is now, your mother will feel much better afterward knowing you spent the night safe, at a friend's house, instead of wandering around in a thunderstorm, in the dark."

Mateo's voice failed him and he looked away, hanging his head.

Nodding, Naomi's dad continued, "I'm afraid we don't have a spare guest room—at least, not one that's usable—"

Naomi stifled an embarrassed chuckle. Yeah, their spare room was a mess at the moment, too, being the room where everything got stuffed that they still hadn't unpacked, even after most of a year.

"—but we can get you set up on the sofa. Are you alright with that?"

It didn't sound like Mateo had said anything, but he must have done something to indicate his assent, because her dad nodded again and took a step back.

"Right then," he said, "I'll go get you some blankets."

It didn't take long to get a makeshift bed ready, and though Mateo had stopped apologizing, he still wore a troubled expression.

"I'm so grounded," he said, staring down at the quilt draped across the couch.

"I think you passed that threshold a while ago," Naomi pointed out. Mateo only looked more stressed.

Her dad offered a sympathetic smile. "Even so, that will have to wait until tomorrow to sort out." He suddenly yawned, stretching his shoulders with a satisfying-sounding pop. "I may turn in, myself," he said. "Will you two be alright?"

"Sure," Naomi replied, "assuming there are no more broken windows and that someone," she raised an eyebrow, looking pointedly at Mateo, "doesn't die from fright."

Mateo narrowed his eyes at her. "Hey!"

"Well, alright then," her dad continued before Mateo could protest further. "Mateo, if you need anything, my room's just at the top of the stairs."

With that, he bid them both goodnight and headed upstairs, entering his room down the hall and closing the door with a click.

"...You screamed too," Mateo said after a pause, something bitter laced through his tone.

Naomi stifled a laugh, not wanting to disturb her dad. "You screamed louder," she shot back, and Mateo looked away, shaking his head in irritation. "Anyway, you gonna be up for a while? I can hang out if you still wanna talk."

The annoyance faded from Mateo's face as he considered her. "I guess? I probably won't be able to fall asleep for a while anyway."

Wincing, Naomi glanced over at the blanket-laden couch. "Yeah, I guess that's not the most comfortable bed, is it?"

"What?" He followed her gaze, looking back and forth for a moment before realization dawned on him. "Oh, no, I'm sure it's fine. I just," he crossed his arms like he was hugging himself, "have a lot to think about."

"Well, maybe a card game will help keep your mind off things," Naomi offered, heading into the kitchen to grab the abandoned deck. "Just 'Go Fish' or something this time—I could barely follow your explanation of conquian when I wasn't half asleep."

Time passed, and they'd gotten settled in the living room. Naomi had taken up residence in an armchair, curling her legs up into the seat and wrapping a blanket around herself. Mateo was sprawled out on his stomach on the sofa, his elbows propped up on the armrest so he could lean over the end table crate between them. A candle burned merrily beside the deck as an extra light source to the slowly dying hearth, but it didn't actually help much with seeing the cards.

Naomi almost had a better idea of what was in Mateo's hand than her own. As it turned out, he was impressively bad at Go Fish, something she hadn't thought possible. He sorted his hand as he drew cards, and he couldn't keep a straight face to save his life, which gave her an advantage at guessing what he might have. She wasn't sure he even realized he was doing it. He'd lost all but one of the rounds so far, and he was starting to get frustrated, his nose wrinkling every time Naomi took one of his cards, but at least it was keeping him distracted.

Mateo let out an annoyed huff as he handed her his fours. He glowered at his cards for a moment, but then visibly relaxed his face, like he was trying to remind himself that it was just a game. "Do you have any fives?"

"Go fish."

He gave a melodramatic sigh, but drew a new card anyway, slotting it in on the right end of his hand. A high number, then. Naomi checked her own cards, planning her next move, but Mateo spoke up again before she could make it.

"So you've been here almost a year now." He didn't say it like a question, but he waited for her to nod and confirm it anyway. "What do you think?"

"It's nice," she answered. "I can't really make comparisons since I don't normally stay in one country for this long. I've been enjoying it, though. The food is great, the city is really interesting, the people are nice," a sneering image of José, Beatríz, and Dante flashed through her mind, and she added, "you know, for the most part." She frowned. "The whole 'no music' thing is weird, though. Any queens?"

Mateo stared at her, blinking slowly, his face scrunched up in confusion. Then, "Oh, you mean in my hand."

Naomi almost choked trying to muffle her laugh as he shook his head, pinching between his eyes. "How tired are you right now?"

"Very, apparently. Also, go fish." Not that high a card, then. Naomi hadn't even properly added the new one to her hand when he asked, "Now do you have any fives?"

She glanced at the card—the five of clubs—and handed it over, two-fingered. Lucky guess.

"Finally," he muttered, laying out the matched set on the table. "Anyway, I can promise you that pretty much everyone thinks the music ban is awful. Before Shuriki, it used to be you could barely make it down the street without hearing someone whistling or playing an instrument, and there were mariachis that hung out around the main plaza of the Villa Mercado, and Día de los Muertos wasn't so quiet and sullen…"

"You say that like you were there," Naomi remarked, looking over her cards again.

"No. But my mom was. And I grew up with her telling me stories about what Avalor used to be like when she was little, back when King Raúl was still on the throne."

Naomi tried to picture it: the streets filled with sound instead of wary silence, people talking freely instead of watching over their shoulders, energy and enthusiasm palpable in the air. "I wish I could've seen it," she said. "Too bad I wasn't born a couple decades earlier."

"Although then we never would have—" Mateo cleared his throat, half ducking his face behind his cards. "Anyway, if you wanted, I could maybe show you some old Avaloran stuff sometime. My mom taught me a few songs, and," he lowered his voice suddenly, checking the door like he just remembered he was talking about something illegal, "she taught me the sambarosa. I'm not very good at it, but I could try to teach you."

Mateo teaching her a dance would mean they would have to hang out again, but somehow, Naomi didn't find herself dreading that idea as much as she would have that afternoon. "Hey, my only experience dancing is standing on my dad's feet while he twirls around, so I can't imagine your 'not very good' is much worse than that. It sounds… fun, though."

"It can't leave this room, though," he quickly added, his warm, delighted smile suddenly vanishing behind that familiar-looking paranoia.

Naomi waved her free hand. "Oh, sure, of course."

They fell into a brief lull. Naomi tilted her head into the armchair with a yawn, and Mateo adjusted the blanket draped across his back, pulling it toward his shoulders. She wondered what time it was—it hardly felt like they'd been playing for very long at all. The rain had softened to a soothing hiss, and the thunder sounded distant. Her eyes had grown heavy, and she could feel them drooping as she watched the flickering candle flame. When Mateo spoke again, she had to drag them back open, not quite sure when they'd actually closed.

"Hey, um," he was chewing his lip, and he peeked at her over the top of his cards. "Can I ask you something that might be kind of personal?"

What was the harm, at this point? "Sure, go for it."

He nodded almost imperceptibly, and then, "Is it just you and your dad?" When she didn't answer right away, just staring at him, surprised, he went on, "It's just that I saw some of the pictures around the house of a woman with red hair. Is she… not around, or…?"

Naomi swallowed against the sudden lump in her throat. She knew she didn't have to answer if she didn't want to, and Mateo would probably apologize and drop the subject if she implied it was upsetting. The late hour had rendered her sentimental, though, and she found herself willing to share. "Yeah," she finally said. "Most of the time. My mom escorts merchant convoys to help ward off pirates, and some of those journeys can get pretty long, so she's away from home a lot."

Mateo nodded again, understanding flickering across his face in the candlelight. "I'm sorry. That must be hard."

"Mm. Part of the reason we moved to Avalor in the first place was because it was so central to this side of the EverRealm. We thought that would mean her trips would be shorter and she could spend more time at home." She huffed out a weak laugh. "It didn't really work out that way, though. I'd still much rather have her get a job here somewhere. Of the last ten months, she's been away for almost seven total."

"Seven? That's. Wow."

"She should be coming home soon, though," she explained, trying to stave off the inevitable pity. She wasn't sure why she was saying all this, but she was too tired to come up with a good reason to not keep going. "And it's not all bad. She always brings back stories and souvenirs, and Dad and I always have a lot to tell her, too, so we never run out of things to talk about when she is home. We write each other letters, and whenever we're traveling, the three of us are together constantly. But, you know," she sank further into the seat, staring at her cards but not really seeing them. "It would be nice if she was around more."

"I hope she's able to stay for a while this time." He glanced up at her again with a tentative smile.

"Thanks." Something occurred to her then, nudging through the fog that was sleepily consuming her reasoning. "Hey, um. Is it okay if I ask—I've never heard you mention anyone other than your mom. Is it just the two of you?"

His smile grew more subdued. "Yeah. All the time."

Naomi lowered her cards, letting them dangle loosely in her fingers as she gave him her full attention. Dimly, she realized the game might have been over, anyway. Neither of them had actually made a guess in a while, and she couldn't remember whose turn it was supposed to be. "Can I ask what happened?"

He shrugged, the motion stiff from how he was lying there. "Your guess is as good as mine. It's just been my mom and I for as long as I can remember, and she doesn't like to talk about it. For what it's worth, we only put her side of the family on our ofrenda every year." He broke off with a yawn and folded one of his arms to cushion his chin as he settled down against the armrest. "I eventually stopped asking. I figure whoever it was was probably a real jerk."

Naomi stifled a laugh at his casual tone, not expecting such an open jab, and a wave of mortification briefly dragged her back to alertness. "Sorry," she tried, not sure if she was apologizing for his situation or for laughing.

Mateo waved it off, fluttering the fingers on his pinned arm. "It's okay. It's one of those things you get used to. I didn't even realize there was anything unusual about it until I started going to school." He yawned again, and Naomi couldn't help but return it this time, the tiredness returning full-force after her spike of embarrassment. "It's hard not to wonder sometimes, though," he went on, more softly. "How things would be different if they were around, you know? Mom was always more than enough for me, but for my classmates or teachers…"

"Other people always make a big deal about it," Naomi finished. "I get it. There's the people that get way too pitying about it, and the people that judge your parents for it—"

"And the people that act like it makes you an issue." He let out a dry laugh. "I mean, yeah. You get it." He closed his eyes for a moment, breathing deeply, but spoke up again right as Naomi was starting to wonder if he'd fallen asleep. "What's it like when she is around, then?"

She thought about it, toying with her cards. "It feels like coming home. Avalor already feels more like home than anywhere else I've lived, but it's not really complete until she's back. And then we're in a rush, like we have to get as much family time as possible before she leaves again, and we can never just take our time with it." She slid the cards together, looking back at him. "What about you? What do you imagine when you think of your mystery parent?" Mateo snorted, like he didn't really take the question seriously, and Naomi tried to straighten up. "No, no, really. A stranger shows up claiming to be your long-lost father: what do you do?"

"I ask why he left my mom," he answered without missing a beat. "Honestly that's the bigger issue for me. I've been fine with just her, and it's hard to imagine how my life would've been with someone else, but…" His face fell, and he seemed to sink more heavily into the upholstery. "It had to be hard for her. I'm the only family she has, and I know she worries a lot. I think it would've helped her to have someone else to turn to, and help look after me."

"Would've been a lot harder for you to sneak out, I bet," Naomi said before she could stop herself. Rather than take offense, though, Mateo let out an embarrassed squeak, burying his face in his arm.

The topic stirred something in the back of Naomi's mind, turning into a quiet nagging that pestered her into a semblance of consciousness. "Hey, Mateo?" He peeked back up at her. "What was it you were gonna say earlier?"

"Hm…? What do you mean?"

"Before my dad got home. You were gonna tell me something. You said it was a secret."

He stilled, barely even breathing. "It's not actually that important," he finally said, forced humor in his voice. "I don't know why I even brought it up."

"It's okay. You can tell me," Naomi mumbled. She blinked slowly, the effort of keeping her eyes open feeling onerous. "I wanna know." She closed them again.

And she opened them to darkness. Confused and blinking, she rubbed a hand across them, looking around to take stock. She was still in her living room, propped up in the armchair with a blanket pulled around her, but the fire in the hearth had burned down to dimly glowing embers. The drying clothes hung like ghosts in her periphery, fluttering in the draft from the covered window. Outside, the rain had died down to a soft drizzle, the sound filling the room like a comforting haze, and the occasional drips from the ceiling were few and far between, the sound standing out much more sharply in the quiet than when the storm was still raging. She worked her mouth to get the taste of sleep out. She must have dozed off.

On the sofa, Mateo was out cold, breathing slowly and still lying on his stomach. One arm and his head were still propped up on the armrest, his cheek squished against his sleeve and his neck craned at an uncomfortable angle. The other arm dangled off the side of the sofa, his forgotten cards pooling on the floor beneath his fingertips. Naomi's own cards were scattered on the end table. She didn't remember putting them down. She didn't really remember what they'd been talking about, either, but exhaustion must have taken its toll mid-conversation.

Carefully untangling herself from the blanket, she uncurled from the chair and stretched her legs out. No sense in not going upstairs. Slowly, so as to not disturb Mateo, she retrieved the candle from the crate, burnt halfway down by now, and stood, pulling the blanket around her shoulders like a cape. The wooden floor felt like a sheet of ice beneath her feet, and she shivered as she tiptoed around the sofa. Mateo didn't so much as stir as she went past. Despite how uncomfortable his position looked, he seemed more relaxed than he'd been all evening, his shoulders loose and his brow smooth. Naomi could barely see movement beneath his eyelids.

Dreaming, then. She wondered what about.

Suddenly, something snagged on her foot as she stepped forward, hooking across her ankle. She gasped and pitched, flailing an arm to keep balanced. The blanket dropped to the floor in a heap, and she rocked on one foot to keep from following it, watching the wobbling candle with her heart in her throat. There was a dull thump and a clink of glass at her feet as whatever she'd tripped on fell over, but the sound registered distantly through the roaring in her ears.

Well, that woke her up.

Alert and precariously balanced, Naomi finally looked down. Her foot was caught on the strap of Mateo's backpack. Letting out a held breath, she carefully stepped back, freeing her foot and settling her weight back down evenly. She checked on Mateo. Still sound asleep, somehow. She let out another relieved breath. All good, then. She hadn't fallen, she hadn't dropped the candle, and she hadn't woken anyone up.

Stooping down, she set the candle aside and righted the bag, leaning it back against the sofa. And then she stopped, her hands hovering just over the flap and her heart hammering in her chest. All at once, Mateo's off behavior came rushing back to the forefront of her mind, the conversation they'd been having flaring urgently in her memory. He was hiding something, something big, and whatever it was had to do with the contents of his backpack. Her fingers clenched and unclenched, and she bit her lip as she glanced at him again. He didn't seem especially threatening while he was passed out and snoring gently, and he'd seemed fine after dinner. But she'd felt uneasy to be alone with him that afternoon, the way he was ranting and pacing, and then there was the matter of his aborted confession…

Palms sweating, she let out a slow breath. She could totally justify going through his things in the name of personal safety. Besides, it sounded like he had something fragile in there. The decent thing to do would be to make sure nothing had broken. But just to double check—

"Hey, Mateo," she breathed. "Are you awake?"

No response, save for the slight curl of his fingers.

She reached out and undid the buckle.

The first thing she noticed when she lifted the flap was the glint of glass in the dim light. Peering inside, she could make out an assortment of small vials and bottles, intermixed with thin cloth pouches and bundles of herbs. The bottles were all full of different liquids and powders, though she couldn't gauge any of their colors in the dark. Cooking ingredients, maybe? But why would he need to be so secretive about that? Her breath caught at the thought that it might be medicine; it would explain the urgency of his errand, as well as his unwillingness to discuss it, and she suddenly felt like a cad for snooping. Shame burning in her ears wasn't enough to dissuade her from delicately lifting out one of the bottles, though, and she held it close to the candle to read the label.

Spidervine sap.

She blinked. Huh?

To her knowledge, spidervine sap was basically just a fancy, expensive glue. Her parents had used it as a sealant ingredient on the ship a few times when they couldn't get ahold of the regular stuff. It wasn't medicine, and it definitely wasn't food, and she couldn't think of any reason Mateo would need to buy it. She could only even guess why Doña Paloma would carry it, other than staying true to her store's slogan of 'all you need and more.'

Either way, it wasn't anything alarming. Confused and more than a little guilty, she tucked the vial of sap back in the bag and closed it up, letting it rest against the sofa. Retrieving her blanket and her candle, she pulled herself to her feet and headed for the stairs. She paused at the base, looking at Mateo's sleeping form, perplexed.

"What is your deal, anyway?" she whispered, and with a shake of her head, she went upstairs.

The next morning, she awoke to birdsong and sunshine, the storm already a distant memory as far as nature was concerned. She spilled gracelessly from her hammock as she tried to stretch and landed hard in a tangle of limbs. Grumbling and still not fully awake, despite the rough landing, she began to slowly maneuver her body into a more reasonable position, sitting up and blinking sleepily into her bedroom, breathing in the refreshing scent of rain and sea salt. She wasn't normally so uncoordinated in the mornings, but she'd had trouble falling back asleep after her investigation the night before, her mind spinning emptily as she tried to come up with an explanation for Mateo's behavior. Her dreams, then, had been plagued with bizarre and upsetting images of dripping sap, broken glass, and Mateo himself, looming in the distance like another storm on the horizon.

A part of her dreaded that he had somehow discovered her snooping in the night, and she dragged her feet as she washed up and got dressed. She was not looking forward to another confrontation with her surprise guest. Before heading downstairs, she hesitated, checking her dad's door. She couldn't hear his distinctive footfalls downstairs yet, which meant he was still asleep, and if the work the day before had worn him down as much as it seemed, he'd be out for a while. She could wake him up, to make sure she didn't have to be alone with Mateo again.

But then, Mateo had seemed fine as the night wore on.

Her dad probably needed the rest. With a steadying breath, she went downstairs. Mateo was awake already, it seemed; the blankets from the sofa had all been neatly folded and stacked at the end of it, with the spare clothes she'd lent him sitting on top. He'd stacked all the cards together on the end table, and wiped up the few stray globs of candle wax that had dripped off as well.

Rustling in the dining room alerted Naomi to the presence of Mateo himself, right as she was starting to wonder if he'd already gone home. He was standing with his back to her, puttering around with something by the broken window. His backpack was propped up and open by his feet with the tea kettle sitting next to it, and he was pulling the edge of the tarp away from the window. Whatever he was actually doing was obscured by his body, and he seemed pretty energetic despite how rumpled he looked in his unironed clothes. He bounced slightly as he worked and was half-humming a tune to himself, just softly enough that he could convincingly argue that he wasn't really singing if he got caught.

Naomi stared, uncomprehending. "Mateo?"

He shrieked, his entire body spasming as he leaped from the window like it had burned him. Wheeling around, he slammed his back against the wall beside it, almost kicking over the kettle as he did, and fixed Naomi with a rictus grimace that was probably supposed to be a smile. "Nothing!" he blurted. "I'm doing! Nothing!"

Naomi blinked slowly. She rubbed her ears, stinging from the volume. Apparently, he was back to being weird and suspicious. Good to know.

The corner of the tarp started to peel down again and Mateo slapped a hand against it so hard it sounded painful, pinning it to the wall. "The, uh, the tarp—" he tried. "I saw the tarp falling, so I thought I'd, uh—" His mouth was stretched uncomfortably tight, and he was sweating. "I was just fixing—I mean, the tarp. Just the tarp. I was fixing the tarp."

It was way too early for this. "Good morning to you, too," Naomi said. "Try to keep it down, okay? My dad's still asleep." Assuming Mateo's scream hadn't woken him up, anyway.

The rigid line of his shoulders loosened incrementally as she walked into the kitchen, and he let out a shaky breath as he realized she wasn't actually going to question him. "Right. Sorry." Out of the corner of her eye, Naomi could see him pin the tarp up more carefully and flip his backpack closed. If he'd noticed she'd messed with it the night before, he didn't say anything, just fastening the buckle with still-shaking hands.

"Can you bring the kettle in here?" she asked, rifling through the cabinets. "I'll fill it up again for breakfast."

"Oh, uh, sure. I'll get it cleaned out first."

She didn't look at him as he made his way to the sink. No sense setting him off again. Instead, she pulled a pan out and set it on the stove, casting about for where her dad had left the matches. "It just had water in it. You can just leave it on the counter."

"No, no, I really think I should wash it first."

Thankfully, her dramatic eye roll as he opened the tap was hidden by a cabinet door. Just let him feel useful. If he needed to clean something to feel like he wasn't in the way, then so be it. The two worked in silence for a moment: Naomi digging around for cooking utensils and Mateo scrubbing at the kettle with the same vigor one would use to scour a dirty tub.

By the time Mateo had moved on to drying the kettle, Naomi had gotten the stove lit and had butter melting in the bottom of the pan. "You good with eggs?" she asked, flipping the carton open.

Mateo's shoulders jumped again at the interruption, and he snapped his attention to her from where he'd been staring blankly into space. "Oh, um, thank you, but I was going to head out once I was done with this." He briefly raised the dish towel, and his brow furrowed. "I don't want to keep my mom waiting any longer than she already has."

Naomi hummed. "Fair. You want something for the road, then?" If he didn't want to stay for breakfast, she couldn't make him, but basic hospitality demanded that she at least offer. Weird or not, he didn't deserve to be thrown out hungry.

He set the kettle on the counter and pointed toward the basket of fruit she'd moved to the table. "Could I… grab an apple, maybe?" He sounded unsure, like he was half expecting her to scold him for the request.

She shrugged, cracking an egg into the pan. "Sure. Help yourself."

She busied herself with the pan, cracking a few more eggs into it as Mateo loitered by the fruit basket. The gentle sizzling and the smell of food was invigorating, and she could already feel her mood picking up after her rough night. Wood creaked upstairs—her dad was finally awake, then. She wouldn't have to worry about the food getting too cold.

Shuffling by the window caught her attention as she pulled the eggs off the heat. Mateo was picking up his bag, and he slung it over one shoulder, an apple held loosely in his grip. "I guess I'll get going then," he said. "Thank you for letting me stay."

"Sure, no problem." She wiped her hands off and walked him to the door. Trying not to look too aloof, she held it open, ready for this exceptionally strange event to be over.

But Mateo hesitated. For all the rush to get home, he sure was taking his sweet time. Maybe the smell of fried eggs had gotten him after all. Instead of a request for food, though, Mateo went for a far more awkward remark. "This was actually kind of fun? Not the getting trapped here part, but just getting to hang out."

Naomi chuckled. "Yeah, sure. Next time we'll do it without the downpour." The words were out of her mouth before she could think about what she was actually saying.

Mateo straightened up, his eyes wide. "...Next time?" he asked, and Naomi didn't miss the quiet hope in his voice.

She wished she'd shoveled down one of the eggs before seeing him off—her hunger suddenly felt surprisingly like guilt. She hadn't meant to extend another invitation, implied or otherwise, but it seemed cruel to slam the door in his face both literally and metaphorically by saying so.

Although, it wouldn't be the worst thing in the world to spend more time with him.

"You know. Maybe," she quickly answered, pressing ahead before anything more concrete could be planned. That was a problem for Future Naomi. "See you in school."

A nervous chuckle slipped out of his mouth, turning his hope to apprehension. "Yeah, assuming my mom lets me out of her sight any time within the next century."

Naomi snorted. "Good luck with that."

"Thanks. Well… see you." He gave her a little wave and then headed down the pier, watching his feet and fastidiously avoiding the puddles as he went.

Naomi closed the door and pressed her back against it, sliding toward the floor with a groan. She dragged a palm down her face and stared into the open space of her home. What a weird night.

Her dad finally came down the stairs, yawning. "Naomi, good morning. Did Mateo already leave?"

"You just missed him."

"Hm, alright. He seems like a nice boy."

Frowning, Naomi followed him back toward the kitchen. He hadn't seen Mateo at his least predictable. Unease churned through her, mingling with hunger like nausea. She wanted to talk to her dad about what had happened, but as oddly as Mateo had been behaving, he still hadn't done anything that was explicitly wrong. All she really had was the mystery secret he never told her and a gut feeling, and that felt like a poor excuse to potentially get someone in trouble.

But he was definitely hiding something, and she didn't want to think of how much worse she might feel if that 'something' turned out to be bad. If anyone would be safe to talk to, it would be her dad.

He'd taken over breakfast prep, getting started on some coffee and toast and taking a long whiff off the eggs. "Smells good! Thanks for getting this started," he said with an encouraging smile, but Naomi wasn't in the mood for smalltalk.

"Sure. Hey, Dad?" His eyebrows went up in curiosity. "Did Mateo seem kinda… strange to you?"

"A bit nervous, maybe." He got some plates, chipped and battered from years of rough sea travel, and started setting them out on the table. "He was very polite. I got the impression that I intimidated him a bit, but I hope I didn't scare him too much. It's your mother that's the swashbuckler, not me!" He chuckled at his own joke, casting a fond look at the family photo on the nearby shelf.

Naomi leaned back against the counter, looking at the recently-cleaned kettle. Suspicious. "He's always like that. But before you got home last night, he was saying some stuff that was," she sighed, "I dunno. Weird. Even by his standards." She crossed her arms, feeling childish and small. "It kinda freaked me out a little."

The joviality suddenly vanished from her dad's face, and he set down the silverware he'd been arranging, giving her his full attention. "Did he threaten you?" he asked carefully.

"Nothing like that! He was just—" She made a frustrated sound in the back of her throat, trying to figure out what she could say without outright condemning him. "He was just acting like he was hiding something. He was really agitated all night, especially after the window broke, and he had a bunch of weird stuff in his backpack that he didn't want to talk about—" and her dad didn't have to know how, exactly, she'd seen said weird stuff, "—and the reason he was even here in the first place is because he snuck out of his own house!"

That surprised him, and he hesitated before he spoke again, with the gravity of someone choosing their words. "Naomi, did he say anything about his home life? Does he talk about his parents at all?"

Well, yes, but not in the way her dad's tone suggested. "Nothing bad," she finally said. "Just that his mom is a little overprotective, I guess? But I don't think that's why he was being so…" She waved a hand around. She was running out of synonyms for "weird."

"Okay." Her dad looked less tense, but he still wore a serious expression. "Was there something specific he did that upset you?"

Can you keep a secret?

The guilt curdled further, and the smell of cooling eggs was suddenly far from appetizing. Technically, he'd never told her what that secret was, so she wasn't saying anything that he hadn't explicitly asked her not to. Carrying on about this seemed against the spirit of secret-keeping, but it wasn't like they were friends or anything. She wasn't really betraying his trust. Despite that rationalization, she found herself unable to speak further, just working her jaw silently and frowning at the edge of the table.

A flutter of movement behind her dad pulled her out of her thoughts. The tarp was peeling down again from where Mateo had haphazardly pinned it up, exposing the broken window behind it.

Except the window wasn't broken anymore.

Pristine, unmarred glass gleamed in the daylight. Water drops speckled the outside, glittering in the morning sun. There was no sign of the damage from the night before, as if it had simply never happened, with the tarp itself as the only indicator that anything should have been amiss.

"What?" Naomi croaked.

Her dad furrowed his brow and turned around, following her gaze. He stiffened at the sight of the window. "Naomi, that was the cracked window last night, right?"

So he saw it too. She wasn't losing her mind. "Of course it was! You saw it, we all saw it!" Breakfast preparations completely forgotten, she rounded the table and approached the glass, tentatively reaching out like it might burn her. She pressed a finger to it, leaving a print, and then carefully dragged her fingertip across where it had been splintered just a few hours prior. It felt cool and smooth to the touch, like a window was supposed to be, without a single hard edge to suggest damage, without a single blemish or wrinkle along the surface to suggest a patch job. She let her hand rest on the sill, then, only to jerk it up as she touched something wet. Expecting water, she looked at her hand to instead see drops of a thin, greenish goop on her palm that tingled as she curled her fingers against it. Ew.

Her dad came up behind her, scratching at his head. "I guess it must have been fixed somehow."

She snapped her head up from her hand. "Fixed—by what?"

He shrugged. "I'm not sure I want to question it."

Naomi stared up at him, incredulous. "What, so we're not gonna wonder about who replaced part of our house without us knowing? Or do we think that it just repaired itself, like—like—"

Like magic.

Can you keep a secret, Mateo had asked, and he'd been so upset about Queen Shuriki's negligence with her power, and he had special errands he had to run for weird materials that he couldn't even tell his mother about, and he devoured books about mythology that he wasn't even supposed to have, and he constantly acted like he had to look over his shoulder, like he was a hair's breadth away from arrest for his mere existence.

I'm actually, he'd tried, and Naomi suddenly had a pretty good idea of how that sentence was supposed to end.

Mateo was a wizard.

She clamped her mouth shut and curled her hand, crossing her arms to hide whatever potion or spell residue the goop no doubt was. Mateo being a wizard explained everything, from his persistent anxiety to his apparent lack of hobbies. It was also beyond illegal. Naomi could usually catch people singing quietly or twirling around when the guards weren't looking, and Avalorans had found ways to preserve some of their festivals, despite the arrests and fines and confiscations, but whatever laws Queen Shuriki had cracking down on magic were so stringent she barely even heard mention of the subject, let alone saw its performance. No wonder Mateo was so worried about getting caught.

So where did that leave her? Wizards were dangerous, according to her school textbooks, and she didn't doubt that dark wizards existed, but she'd lived in enough places to know that there were plenty of them that chose to be good and kind, instead. She knew Avalor's history with magic was more fraught than average, but a kid her age that fixed windows for free and seemed scared to take up space was hardly the picture of evil.

It could be an act, a cruel part of her mind suggested. But he'd looked at her like she'd offered the world when she'd so much as suggested they could hang out again sometime. That sort of desperate loneliness just wasn't something people faked.

"We can worry about it later," her dad finally said. "What was it you were saying about Mateo?"

Naomi swallowed, and then pulled her eyes away from the glass, forcing a smile onto her face. "You know what?" she said, a slight shake in her voice, "It's not actually that important."

Alternate chapter title: "The Storm 2: This Time, It's Personal".

Okay, but hear me out. Naomi doesn't seem especially surprised to find out that Mateo is a wizard in First Day of Rule. If magic was an ordinary hobby, like knitting or something, I'd get the response of "mild curiosity, ooh now let's turn stuff to gold". But like. Magic was outright illegal. Imagine finding out that one of your acquaintances was involved in literally any other criminal activity. I just feel like it would warrant a bit more shock. Considering that Mateo Is Not Subtle and one of Naomi's defining strengths is how observant she is, it makes sense to me that she might've guessed by that point already, and her "finding out" was more a case of just "hm, yeah, I guess that confirms it."

Not pictured: Rafa back at Casa de Alva, having the absolute worst night of her life.