Of all the places that Quinn Eleazar could turn up after being missing for six goddamn weeks… her doorstep was not a place Athena had been thinking of.

She should hex him, really, not show him that she had been worried sick for the last month and a half. But she helped him inside anyway, thanking her lucky stars that her parents weren’t home yet.

If they found the future High Mage in her room, she was absolutely fucked.

The boy didn’t seem to register anything she said or did, just letting her pull him along without question.

Until she let go of him to find her phone — thinking a bit of research was a good idea, since she didn’t want to make the strange situation a thousand times worse.

“Athena?”

“Quinn.” She let the word hang there for a long moment, the unasked question going unanswered, because Quinn Eleazar was no mind reader. He wasn’t Diabolite. He couldn’t be.

He was the future High Mage.

“Sorry, I… I…” He couldn’t seem to breathe right, too slow and then too fast and too shallow and… Athena felt even more worried than ever. “Gods, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to. I just didn’t… I don’t… I wasn’t sure where I could go.”

“So you came to my house?” she asked. “Me? Quinn, you do remember who I am. I know you do. Why are you here?”

“Because I know who you are, really.”

Athena didn’t bother asking what the hell that was meant to mean. He could explain it if he wanted to, and she didn’t care that much.

“Okay. So you’re here. And you think your own home isn’t safe?” She paused, wondering if it was a bit much to bring up the whole ‘being missing for six weeks’ part of the whole… whatever this was, and then decided against it. “Are you hurt?”

“Maybe. I don’t think so… but it might be adrenaline, y’know?”

“Alright. What happened to make you think that your home isn’t safe?”

Quinn pulled his glasses off in response, almost flinching at the sight of… the wall? Okay, so maybe the kid was just crazy. Was it too much to consider that he was suffering a schizophrenic delusion in regards to the home-safety thing, or was it possible that the boy was being abused?

She didn’t want to think about it.

“Good,” he muttered to himself, putting them back on again with a barely audible sigh of relief. “I’m glad you’re nothing like Damon.”

“Don’t bring him up!”

“Sorry!”

Athena watched his face carefully, waiting for any hint that the apology was formed by something darker, and caught nothing.

“What makes you think you’re not safe at home?”

“Who am I, Athena?”

She couldn’t even begin to work out an answer to that question. But she said what he was probably angling for anyway.

“Quinn Eleazar, one of my most annoying classmates, probable future partner in an arranged marriage — seriously, someone’s miles behind the times — and future High Mage of Arense.”

“Wrong.”

“What?”

“I don’t want to ask about the arranged marriage,” he said slowly, looking away from me. “But I’m not the future High Mage.”

“Hold on, you have an older brother…?”

“No, Athena.”

“Then how come you aren’t the ‘future High Mage’ anymore?”

“Because I am the High Mage.“

“Your grandfather’s dead?!”

“I… yes. Merrick Eleazar is dead.”

“What is wrong with you?”

“I’m not telling you everything, Athena,” he sighed. “I just don’t think I’ll be safe at home… because it’s my fault that he’s dead.”

Athena was almost too stunned to speak.

But she wasn’t quite there yet.

“You killed the High Mage — your own grandfather — and your concern is your safety? Where have you been?”

“Saving the city. Like the job description. And as I said, killing the High Mage.”

She wasn’t sure how to respond to the coldness in his voice now. As soon as she mentioned the word ‘grandfather’, it was like a switch had been flipped. Come to think of it… how had he acted after his father’s death? Wasn’t it eerily similar to this?

Arense’s primary protector was a fourteen-year-old (and possibly psychopathic) boy, who Athena already knew was scared to die.

The city was doomed.