Everything that happened after that moment became a blur, I couldn't even remember the moment the fire I held above my hands finally went out. Eamon eventually returned and soon enough I was sitting in Elwin's office, surrounded by concerned faces. 

"I'm not in trouble, am I?" I finally asked once I was back to my senses. 

A woman with blonde hair let out a laugh. She looked familiar but I couldn't exactly place where she was from. "No, there's nothing wrong with what happened. It's completely natural, and it was barely a flame. No one got hurt, which is the best part." 

Elwin finished looking over my hands. "No signs of accidentally burning herself and no clothes looked scorched." He winked at me. "We're looking at a pro, right here." 

I looked at my feet, studying them as if they were interesting. The same blonde woman from before asked me, "Do you want to walk with us to Master Leto's office so we can talk about what just happened?"

I nodded my head like a child and got off the table, happy to walk away from Elwin's office. I was still slightly agitated at the taste of my locker from before, but it seemed dumb to be mad about. Suddenly I grew nervous, anger triggered the flame in the first place. I also wondered who the blonde woman is. At first I thought it could've been Eamon's mother, but it was common knowledge Sophie Foster had brown eyes and this woman's eyes were the normal blue. 

"Before you go," Elwin interrupted, "I think she needs to eat something. This is cutting into lunch time. Also for you, Mr. Foster." 

"I'm fine," Eamon immediately stated, and I figured he was probably sticking around to avoid any classes afterwards. 

"You should head to lunch," I told him, happy to possibly get rid of him. 

"Actually," the blonde woman interrupted. "He's going to have to be there with us when we speak with Master Leto." Then she turned to him. "But don't think I'm giving you a free pass out of school, your mother would have my head. You're only allowed to come because we need you." 

He held his arms up in surrender. "I get it, no need to rat on me."

"Weren't you supposed to be in detention anyhow? What were you even doing with her? You know one day you're going to give your mother an aneurysm with the things you do." I grew uncomfortable with the sudden lecture and Elwin pulled me aside, where he handed me a bottle with a sticky yellow substance in it. 

A lecture continued in the background, making me wonder if that really was his mom, as I took the bottle from Elwin. "What's this?" I asked, looking at it in curiosity. 

"It's a meal substitute, since you skipped lunch. It will hold you over until you at least go home. I'm aware your parents own a restaurant, so I hope you have no trouble eating once you get there." 

I frowned as he mentioned my parents. They were going to be upset once they heard of this. "Thank you," I told him, keeping the thought inside my head as I opened the bottle and took a quick swig, expecting something sour and becoming pleasantly surprised at the sweet taste instead. 

"We need to go," Eamon called, and I followed after the two figures. I had never been to Master Leto's office before, and was slightly dreading this moment. I quietly waited outside as the blonde woman knocked and we were eventually let in. 

"Take a seat," Master Leto instructed me with a warm smile, and I was thankful that at least so far no one had been giving me looks as if I was a monster. Of course, besides Master Leto, so far I had been surrounded by the people who associated with Sophie Foster, who at her time was not accepted into society as the hero she's known to be now. A pyrokinetic was probably the least of their worries. "What seems to be the trouble?" he asked me, specifically. 

I wasn't sure what to say and found myself looking to Eamon as if asking for help. As if reading my mind, he quickly jumped in saying, "Novena manifested as a pyrokinetic and scared herself half to death."

"A pyrokinetic?" He looked at my for confirmation and I nodded slightly. "Fascinating, that must be why you're here." He looked to the blonde woman I had yet to be introduced to. 

I looked at her quizzically, "I'm sorry, I have no idea who you are." 

She let out a laugh and held out her hand. "I'm Marella Redek, I'm practically Eamon's aunt." 

My eyes widened and I shook her hand. "Wait-- You're a pyrokinetic!" 

She nodded. "Eamon called me and asked me to come here and help you out, but you seemed to put your fire out all on your own just fine. Now I'm here to make sure that you are properly taken care of." She looked to Master Leto. "And I'm also offering service as a possible mentor in the subject."

"I thought you weren't taking in a job?" He looked at her in confusion. 

"I know what it's like not to have a proper teacher, and the only person I trust to teach her that isn't me is my teacher." 

He gave her a knowing look before turning to me. "You'll definitely have to be properly trained, of course this is before you were born so you won't remember but we went through decades of suppressing all those with the pyrokinetic ability in the Elvin world and what resulted was plenty of the stuff that has now been covered in your Elvin History class. If those kids had been properly trained and allowed to exercise their ability, we wouldn't have gone through those problems."

"The fire gets too addicting if you don't know how to properly control it," Marella further explained. "I can help you out with that if you'll let me." 

"Oh." I cringed at the first sound to escape my mouth. "Okay, I think it'd make me feel more comfortable with you as my teacher. Does it sound mean if I ask what my other options would be? They don't really say how many pyrokinetics there are and I just wonder." 

"Of course it's not mean," Master Leto told me. "But I will tell you there's really no better training you'll get than Marella Redek, I can attest having trained her myself."

"Wait, you're a pyrokinetic?" I looked at him in surprise, I could've sworn my father telling me he was telepathic. 

"No, but when I first manifested things were different," Marella spoke up. "Pyrokinetics weren't allowed to manifest, and if you manifested you kept quiet about your ability. I was trained in secret so I could help Sophie Foster, I was like a secret weapon I guess you could say. No one expected a pyrokinetic on our side." 

I looked at Master Leto in surprise. "You worked with Sophie Foster?" 

"Whoa, Poopy, aren't you behind on times?" Eamon scoffed. "He was literally the-"

"Uh, enough of that," Master Leto cut Eamon off with a glare. "First of all, only certain people know in confidence. If I hear you've told anyone about what you were about to tell her, I'm telling your mother directly. Your father too." 

"I haven't," he stated immediately.

Master Leto narrowed his eyes. "Second of all, we don't go around calling students feces." 

"Oh, it's just her nickname," Eamon stated and I almost snorted. 

"What do you think made me so mad I literally became a pyrokinetic?" 

"Me calling you poopy?" He looked confused. "Wait, what?" 

"It's more than that," I said, but decided not to say anything more about it. He didn't understand that he coined a nickname for me that not only he called me, but everyone. That name haunted my entire career at Foxfire because of him. 

He waited for me to explain but instead I turned to Master Leto. "Can we not tell my parents about this?" 

His eyes widened. "What's wrong with your parents knowing?" 

"I don't want anyone to know," I confessed. "I hear the way everyone speaks about the ability. I just want to be trained to control it and then move on with my life." 

"It's such a rare ability, though. It has to be reported to the council," he disagreed immediately. 

"Wait, what if you do what they did for mom?" 

We all looked to Eamon in confusion and he shrugged. "Dad says that when mom first came here no one knew she was telepathic until after she was kidnapped. Can't you do that for her?" 

I almost thanked him. "What did they do for her exactly?" I asked for clarification. 

Marella spoke up. "Only the council and the Vackers as well as her telepathy mentor knew officially. Of course Black Swan members knew as well, but they were still hidden at the time. On her schedule they were able to pass off her ability training sessions as written down as a remediation class where supposedly she was catching up the Elvin world since she came from the humans." 

"Can't we do something like that?" I asked. "I really just want to stay on the down low."

Master Leto thought about it before nodding to himself. "I'll have to tell the council members, that goes over my head. I can write it off that you're taking a one on one special ability push class with Miss. Redek. If anyone asks it was requested by your parents because they got paranoid with them being talentless." 

"And I can keep it from them?" I asked with hope. 

He sighed. "We'll have to see with the council about that. We'll have to call in a meeting with them." 

"Do you want me to hail my sister?" Eamon asked and I was confused for a moment until I remembered Leulla is a councilor.

"That would actually be great," Master Leto replied with a smile. 

We all waited a few moments for Councilor Leulla's face to pop up. I was slightly starstruck, it wasn't normal to speak to a councilor so personally like through an imparter. "What do you want, rat?" 

Eamon grinned at the pet name, and if I was ever unsure about them being siblings before, I definitely knew now. Yet it was unsettling to see someone so professional call someone a rat. "Master Leto needs to call a meeting with the councilors." 

"Not all," Master Leto interrupted. "Just as many as you believe would be needed to discuss a new ability manifested by a prodigy." 

"I don't understand."

"She's manifested a special ability," he emphasized special, which made me uncomfortable. "I also believe this calls for your mother, because I have a feeling there's a certain someone she can tell." He winked and I grew confused. 

Was he talking about the Black Swan? I could have sworn the Black Swan dispersed after the rebels were defeated. 

"Okay, I can get people there. You might have me, Emery, Terik, and Oralie at most though. Everyone is out on different projects at the moment." She looked in thought for a moment. "Also my mom is out with my dad I'm pretty sure, so he'll take the initiative and invite himself."

"I'd be more surprised if he didn't," Master Leto replied. "Thank you, Leu." 

"No problem," she replied and soon enough her face disappeared. 

"How much are we betting my dad comes?" Eamon asked looking at Marella who scoffed. 

"Would you come in this situation?" Eamon nodded. "Then your dad will come. You're like Keefe on steroids." 

"I'm taking that as a compliment," Eamon told her. 

"I'd be more surprised if you didn't," she replied with a large smile on her face. "I haven't talked to your mom in a minute, though. Is she good?" 

"Stressed," Eamon replied. 

"Does she get sick a lot?" Master Leto asked and I perked up. Were the pregnancy rumors true? 

Eamon shrugged. "I'm not sure. She doesn't talk about it that much. She's been trying to keep it as down low as possible." 

They continued to talk about his mother, who I had never met before and was kind of nervous about meeting, and I sat there in silence. It was as if they forgot I was in the room and I was kind of okay with it. It did make me feel slightly left out, as I was in a room of people who seemed to know each other a lot. I didn't realize Master Leto knew Sophie Foster so personally, but I couldn't be too shocked. She seemed to know everybody high in the Elvin world. 

A knock sounded at the door and Master Leto let everyone walk in. I gulped at the faces of the most important people in the Elvin community. And they were all here to discuss me. 

---

i was gonna try and update this everyday but there's a huge hurricane coming my way and my family has to evacuate our house by tomorrow so maybe no updates for a tiny bit but i promise regular updates for this sequel. i'm really into it haha. also i've decided to give up on chapter questions bc i think i like it more when y'all comment on the chapter rather than my questions if that makes sense. 

tho one quick question: thoughts on me writing this in first pov instead of third?