All I could see was frozen water. An endless flat plain of white. Behind me, a near empty campsite. There was no wind, making everything seem still. And quiet. Like being trapped in the pages of a book like a pressed flower.

Dad was sitting by one of the rings of stone. The pit for the fire was shallow. Not that fire would spread far in this cold. Snow wasn't exactly known for being flammable.

There was a whole bunch of rules for it. But Dad memorized the ones here years ago. The simple version was keep the fire small, and contained in the pit.

Dad had arranged the two-inch-wide logs into a near perfect tent shape. Ready to light the fire whenever I was.

I took one more look at the endless expanse of snow. An attempt to ward away the flashes of white filled nightmares. I hadn't let myself think too much about those dreams. As long as it didn't come with the green lightning I would be okay.

I rubbed at the curse, my thumb lingering over it. Even through the layers I could just feel it.

When I focused on it, I could feel where the mark ended and my scarred skin began. The sensation from the eye was dim compared to how the rest of my skin felt.

I sat across from him. The benches we were on were made to look like fallen logs. I wasn't entirely sure what they were made of, but I knew they were false.

Between me and him was the pit and the logs. Still unlit. It was kind of funny how similar this was starting to feel to my training with Vivian Hearth.

I put my hands in my jacket pockets. The cold wasn't as bad here, but still chillier than I was fully comfortable with. Which was why we didn't typically do these this time of year, but boarding school changed the schedule.

A lot of things have been changing recently, haven't they?

Dad was searching his bag, probably for the matches, when I spoke up. "Do you have any regrets?"

He stopped to look at me. "In general or about something more specific?"

"If…if you had the chance to redo a choice you made in life, would you?"

"Would you?"

Of course he'd ask me the same question back. We were both too observant for our own good. "I…don't know."

"When I was your age, I spent almost all of my time preparing for the high school science fairs," Dad explained. He'd told me these stories before, but maybe I'd learn something new from them this time. "My favorite experiment I ran was trying to grow my own quartz."

"Didn't that go terribly?"

"An unmitigated disaster. Pressure cookers are not to be trifled with."

"And that failed experiment was your favorite?"

"Things won't always go right, and they won't always go the way we plan. Doesn't mean we still can't have fun and learn something from it. Results aren't actually the point of an experiment, it's about understanding the 'why'."

Results don't matter, huh? I pulled my left hand out of my jacket. "Even if you know you probably won't ever get the results you wanted?"

"Not everything is about results, and replicating other's peoples experiments just to get their results is a waste of time."

"Isn't that how they get confirmed though?"

"If all you're thinking of is results, no. If you're doing it to understand the data better, sure."

"And when there's too many variables to know what went wrong?"

"The only thing for that is try to and isolate them. Break it down into however many parts it takes."

"Sounds time-consuming."

"Everything takes time. And there's nothing wrong with taking however much you need. Did you know that some species of caterpillars take only a week to transform, and others can take months?"

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

I blinked at him, not entirely sure where he was going with this.

"Neither of them are doing it wrong, and both end up butterflies all the same."

"Mom's apparently a bit more than a butterfly."

"You aren't her. And you don't have to be. I don't think she wants that any more than you do."

"I can't compare. Not even if I'd started learning magic when I was supposed to."

"Comparisons and hypotheticals aren't going to get you anywhere. Between you and me, I don't think the world could really handle a second Lucinda in it anyway."

I chuckled at that. Probably not.

"You're you. And that's all either of us want. Your problems, whatever they are, can only be solved by you. Lucinda and you are too different. The greatest minds of all of humanity haven't figured out how to copy someone."

"I'm not Mom. And I'm not you. Which means I have to figure out how to solve this mess my own way."

I realized as soon as the words left that I admitted to there being a mess in the first place. I couldn't hide the wince at my own mistake.

I risked a glance at Dad, just to see what kind of damage I'd done.

He didn't look surprised. I couldn't hide anything from him.

"I…I don't know how to talk about it," I admitted. "It's not…I'm not like in trouble. But there's…stuff. Outside of my control. And it might end up affecting me but there's also a chance it might not."

"Which do you think is more likely?"

I exhaled slowly. "I think my friends might be right. That whatever it is, we're gonna get caught in it. And I don't think there's anything I can do about that."

"Then don't. We can't stop tornadoes, can we? So we build basements and shelters instead."

Shelters, huh? Maybe.

"Does this have anything to do with what you asked Lucinda about?"

"Not really? Has Mom told you how the curse works?"

"She's tried. Not sure I understand it though."

I took a moment to consider how to phrase it. I shivered a bit.

Dad went back to rustling in his bag as I thought.

"I think…you know how when you get a cut your body rushes things to stem the bleeding and fight off infection? It just does that without you having control over it. An automated defense system."

He hummed in acknowledgement as he finally found the little packet of matches.

"My curse eats my mana at the same rate I produce it at rest. When I get hurt or upset my body produces more magical energy, which it can't consume all of. Which means I get a tiny bit of access to my magical energy to do…something with."

"And you decided healing?" He lit the match on the side of the packet and set it on the logs, waiting for the fire to slowly spread as I gathered my thoughts.

"I mean…if I'm going to be hurt whenever I try to cast it might come in handy. And it seems less likely to cause a disaster than the fire spells Mom's family is known for."

"You're trying to start small."

"I have to start somewhere, right? Might as well be something I should be able to make use of."

"But is it what you want?"

"Not fully. But I think it'll help me get a little closer. There's a near infinite combination of spells I can learn. Too many to pick from on my own. I'm not even sure if I want to learn all the Hearth spells."

"You'll figure it out. Just don't let Lucinda overwhelm you."

"I think I can manage Mom for a bit. I'm just…it's all a lot. But I'm getting through it, I think."

"One day at a time."

I nodded. "One day at a time."

"You can't expect to solve all the problems at once. I don't think anyone alive can."

"I can't leave this unsolved though. And I don't know what kind of timeline I have." That wasn't fully true. We had speculations, but no way to confirm them. We didn't even know for sure what our culprit wanted. I shook my head to clear it of those thoughts. Dad was right, and there wasn't anything I could do about it right now.

"This doesn't have anything to do with next week, does it? It's not on your shoulders to fix things between Lucinda and her coven."

That erased all thoughts of knives and plots from my mind for sure. "That's next week?" My curse flared up with a nasty itch.

"Lucinda forgot to tell you."

"I knew we were talking about it, no one told me plans had been made! Why am I always the last to know these things?"

"I'm sure she doesn't mean to leave you out of things. Most of the time."

"It's not helping my stress levels."

"I'll talk with Lucinda."

"Thanks Dad."

I watched the fire as we sat in silence for a moment. Regular orange-yellow flames flickered in the quiet stillness of the woods and lake.

There wasn't any magic here. Just things as they'd always been for us.

"Have you…have you ever not felt an emotion you think you should be feeling?" I spoke softly, not a whisper. But quieter than the previous conversation.

"Frequently. But that's not a new sensation for you."

"I know. I just…I think the others are…" A lot of things, really. "The…mess that's coming for us. I think it's worrying them a lot more than it's worrying me."

"What do you feel about it?"

"Uncertain? There's a lot we don't know. I guess it doesn't feel as real to me as it does them."

"Maybe that's a good thing."

"How?"

"You're…student council, right?"

"Close enough."

"Maybe not being afraid can help you focus on keeping them out of whatever trouble they're worried about."

"I try. But Dragons do whatever they want it seems."

"More angles looking at a problem can only help to solve it."

"I hope so. I can't help but feel my hands are kinda tied on this though. I can't do anything to help them. I literally can't." A teacher with a knife is not going to care for the thin mask of authority I could claim as Dragon Tower Representative.

"You're too stubborn to be powerless. And that might mean you find a solution no one's ever thought of before."

"I'm not that special."

"Not special," he conceded, "but different."

"Both good different and bad different."

"Gotta play the cards you're dealt."

"I feel like the dealer forgot to give me a full hand."

He nodded, probably knowing better than most exactly the feeling I was trying to describe.

"You're stronger than you're giving yourself credit for Serafina."

"I hope so. I don't know what I'm going to do if you're wrong."

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