It had been nearly a week since I had survived the assassination attempt, and yet my mind was still torn between Harvey and Victor Laniatus.

  Obviously, I had agreed to go to see this woman with Harvey. That’s where we were heading at that moment. I had to know why he was so desperate for me to see her.

  ‘Why did you want me to see this woman in the first place?’ I asked quietly, gazing at the barren fields through the train window.

  ‘Because of the Paris fight,’ Harvey murmured in return.

  ‘Oh, right,’ I said as the memory slowly came back to me. ‘We wanna find out if she knows what happened to you, right?’

  ‘Yeah…and I just wanna see her again.’

  I nodded. ‘Ruabon Station, right? That’s where we have to get off?’

  He nodded in return. ‘Then we can walk or fly there or something.’

  ‘Will she even know who I am? Will she know we’re related?’

  ‘Oh, yeah,’ Harvey replied as though I had asked something stupid. ‘And don’t ever ask if someone’s gonna know who you are again. You’re Albert Santrrer.’

  I scoffed. ‘I somehow always forget. What’s her name, anyway? I haven’t asked.’

  ‘I call her Aunt Emma,’ Harvey’s words seemed to punch me in the gut. ‘I reckon that’s what you should call her, too. But she can tell you her actual name.’

  ‘Emma…isn’t her real name?’

  ‘Well, kinda. You’ll see.’

  ‘Intriguied’ may have been the wrong word to describe my feeling at that moment, but no other word came to mind.

  For a brief moment, I wondered whether this woman would know anything about my past. Perhaps something about the night my parents were killed. If Harvey thought that there was a chance that she knew what had happened to him, there was a chance she knew about my parents, right?

  That was selfish. At the very least, I had to get what Harvey wanted to speak to her about out of the way. Then, if I was lucky, I could ask about my parents.

  The whole Mutant world probably knew my story. This woman would probably be able to tell me no more than anybody else. For Titan’s sake, I had met my own grandfather; there was no way that she could give me more information than he did.

  I wondered if Grandad had known this woman.

  I realised in that moment that I had barely known my Grandad as a person. He was more of a figure that I looked up to and admired than an actual sentient being.

  What was he like? What even was his favourite colour? His favourite food? What was his life like?

  I still barely knew anything about my own past. The most I could do was list it off in simple bullet points. Born. Parents killed. Kidnapped. Escaped. Normal. RoCity. The six key stages of my life. Nothing more, nothing less. I knew none of the details. None of the intricacies of my life had even been slightly revealed to me.

  I balled my fist around the bit of crumpled food wrapping in my hand. That was exactly why I had to find Alfonso. I would wrench answers out of him if I had to kill him for it. Once I was done with Maltor, I would very swiftly move to Alfonso. And I would get what I wanted.

  Wincing, I clutched my head as pain shot through it.

  ‘Albert will cheat Fate more times than you can count,’ Alfonso’s words rang through my head. Pain ebbed and flowed throughout my skull in waves. It felt like my head was being split in two.

  Why now? What did that have to do with anything?

  ‘Albert? You okay?’ Harvey asked as he hesitantly picked up the crumpled food wrapper that I had dropped.

  ‘I…It’s nothing…’ I murmured with effort. ‘Just…a memory…’

  ‘Ruabon Station, right, boys?’ came a deep voice from my right.

  Glancing in that direction, I saw an elderly man with a thick grey moustache staring down at the two of us. Evidently, he was a worker, as made clear by his clothing.

  ‘Huh? Oh…yeah…’ I grumbled, trying to ignore my nausea.

  What the fuck was that about? Why was Alfonso’s voice showing up now? What did he have to do with anything?

  ‘Your station’s next. You can get off in five minutes,’ he said with a warm smile, his blue eyes gleaming.

  ‘Thank you, sir,’ Harvey responded for me.

  As the man walked away, Harvey turned his worried attention back to me.

  ‘A memory? Of what?’

  ‘I don’t know…it’s not…it’s not mine…’

  Harvey frowned. ‘What do you mean it’s ‘not yours’?

  ‘It’s…I don’t know…It’s hard to explain…’ I tried. What was wrong with me? ‘I don’t think it’s my memory, anyway…’

  I didn’t think we had time for me to explain the intricacies of Alfonso to my cousin.

  ‘I just know somebody else said those words…’ I growled. ‘Someone I need to get to…’

  ‘W-’

  ‘Alfonso Wilson.’

  Harvey frowned again, and when he spoke, his voice was filled with what sounded like genuine concern.

  ‘I don’t think I’ve heard that name before.’

  ‘You haven’t,’ I said quietly, rising to my feet. ‘But maybe your Aunt Emma has. Come on, let’s go and find her.’

  ‘You’ll be okay flying me?’ Harvey asked as he got to his feet. ‘I’m like at least sixty k-’

  Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  He stopped because I scoffed.

  ‘Just come on, man. I can carry that weight.’

  ‘I can try shadow-travelling,’ Harvey suggested, suddenly sounding much brighter. ‘Once we’re off the train I can give it a shot.’

  ‘I’m not opposed to that,’ I replied, shrugging. If only the shrugs could get rid of my pounding headache. ‘Just be careful.’

  Once the train had come to a grinding halt, Harvey and I found our way through the station and out onto Station Road with relative ease. It was only a small building; once we got off of the train, we were out on the street within the minute.

  The sun made everything around the pair of us seem to glow. It was the perfect weather for flying and the worst for shadow-travelling. The wind, if you could call it that rather than a breeze, was flowing gently, the sky was practically cloudless, and it was ridiculously warm.

  ‘I know this area fairly well,’ Harvey said happily, as a few people made their way around us and into the station. ‘This is how I’d get the train to Apercaput. It should be fairly simple to shadow-travel from here to Aunt Emma’s house, right?’

  ‘We did practice,’ I pointed out. ‘Just make sure you’ve got a clear image of her house in your head. Or the front door or something. We don’t exactly want to appear in her living room.’

  Harvey scoffed, grabbing my arm. ‘Don’t worry. I’ve got this.’

  I yanked my arm out of his grasp, staring at him.

  ‘Are you insane? We can’t shadow-travel here! We’re in the middle of the sunlight!’

  Harvey smirked, half-embarrassed, half-amused. ‘How could I forget?’

  The two of us crossed the road until we found ourselves shaded by a large hedge. Glancing around, I found that the street was empty.

  ‘Okay, Harvey, I hate to rush you, but don’t exactly take your time,’ I said quickly. ‘Someone can come round that corner at any second.’

  Harvey hesitantly grabbed my arm.

  ‘Just remember what we practised. Don’t put pressure on-’

  Before I had even finished my sentence, the world around me morphed into a roadside. But it was immediately clear that this was not the roadside we were supposed to be at.

  We were not in a town. Instead, the two of us stood at the side of what appeared to be a country lane. Large trees loomed overhead behind us, sending a very unwelcome shiver down my spine. In front of us lay sprawling green fields adorned with numerous sheep lazily eating at the grass. We were definitely not in a town.

  ‘I know this place,’ Harvey tried awkwardly. ‘I’m so sorry. I thought I could get us all the way to Llangollen. I don’t know-’

  ‘Where are we?’

  ‘The A539. This is the road we’d have to take to get from Aunt Emma’s to Ruabon Station.’

  ‘So you’ve kinda brought us halfway,’ I murmured.

  ‘I can try and shadow-travel the rest of the way. I’m so sorry.’

  ‘Don’t apologise. And, no, we’re not shadow-travelling. It’s risky. I don’t want to endanger your well-being. I’ll fly us the rest of the way.’

  After a brief pause, Harvey asked, ‘How long should that take from here?’

  I thought for a moment, using my natural abilities to deduce where we were.

  ‘Two minutes at a push?’ I said finally. ‘We’ll be there in no time.’

  Harvey raised his arms above his head. ‘Well, I’m ready when you are.’

  I glanced around. There was nothing to cover us. We would very easily be seen.

  Tightening my gut, I enlarged some of the shadows made by the trees. They elongated, stretching out and around myself and Harvey, cloaking us in a black blanket.

  ‘What’s this about?’ Harvey shrieked.

  ‘They don’t know about us Harvey,’ I explained. ‘The existence of Mutants is hidden from the rest of the UK. I don’t want to get into any legal trouble because somebody drove by and saw me fly into the air.’

  ‘And you don’t think this is more obvious?’ he yelled. Anybody that drives past will just see a huge black blob!’

  ‘This can simply be explained as a phenomenon. Or perhaps someone seeing things. But if someone sees a kid with wings, that’ll be a lot harder to play off.’

  Before he had time to argue against my admittedly nonsensical thinking, I snapped my wings out and shot up into the air. I dived back down to grab him, wrapping my arms under his. And then we were off.

  As we ascended, I shrunk the shadows back to their original state.

  Remembering what had happened to Ethan when I had carried him, I made sure not to fly too high. I also took into consideration that Harvey’s vision had not been enhanced like mine had. I had to fly at an altitude that he could still see the ground at, but also at an altitude that anybody on the ground could not see us at.

  Feeling the summer air waft through my dark feathers was a feeling like no other. Warmth spread throughout my entire body. I supposed the feeling it gave me could be called happiness, or, at the very least, be compared to it.

  No. I had a better word to describe it. It made me feel free. Like nothing could get me. All of my worries disappeared the second my feet were off the ground. Unless I was on a plane, of course. There were plenty of worries when I was inside a plane.

  ‘How’s flying?’ I shouted down to Harvey in my arms.

  He didn’t look like he was enjoying it. Beads of sweat coated his face, making him appear shiny. His jaw was clenched tightly, and it looked like he was doing his best to not look at the ground.

  ‘You’ve parachuted out of a plane!’ I cried, grinning. ‘This is nothing compared to that!’

  He didn’t say a word.

  ‘Trust me, man!’

  All of a sudden, he pointed toward the ground. I hadn’t even noticed, but the two of us were above a town. Llangollen.

  ‘There. 10 John Street. That’s her house.’

  His voice was weak, but I could see the house he meant.

  A river parted the small town in two, and only a single bridge seemed to cross it. The house Harvey had pointed at, Number 10 John Street, was situated slightly to the west of the centre of the town, and we were, luckily, on the correct side of the river.

  ‘How do you hope to land without being spotted?’ Harvey shouted up to me, apparently feeling a lot better now.

  Scanning the ground, I found my answer.

  ‘There’s nobody down there, but we have to be quick!’

  Without waiting for him to give a response, I dived. The town of Llangollen zoomed closer and closer. And we got closer and closer to Aunt Emma.

  When we were about six feet above the ground, I promptly placed Harvey down and then landed in front of him.

  Frantically folding my wings back in, I stared at the house in front of me.

  Beige in colour, it was different to all of those around it, which were all just plain brick. It seemed pretty small in size, but if it only housed two people, that wasn’t a surprise. Only two windows adorned the front of the house, along with the white door and small plate decorated with the number ‘10’.

  ‘This one, right?’ I asked as Harvey made an effort to tidy his hair.

  He merely nodded in response.

  ‘Nervous?’

  He nodded again.

  ‘All we have to do is talk to her. Ask a few questions. You know her well. I’m sure the two of you can catch up on what’s happened since you last saw each other.’

  Another nod.

  ‘I hope you’re ready, then. I’m knocking.’

  I strode up to the white door and knocked three times. Harvey stepped up next to me.

  Nobody answered.

  ‘Is there a chance she’s not home?’

  Harvey shook his head, his eyes full of a strange emotion that I could not describe if I knew every word in existence.

  I glanced at him. Something was up. Maybe it was just nerves. Gods, if I saw Rob after all this time I would probably be acting the same way.

  ‘Harvey?’ came the voice of an elderly lady from the doorway.

  My head snapped back in that direction.

  In front of me stood who could only be Aunt Emma. She was only about five feet tall, maybe five-one at a push, and was extremely old. Curly grey hair tied into a bun sat atop her wrinkly face. Her blue eyes sparkled as they stared up at Harvey, who was nearly an entire foot taller than her.

  She wore a pastel pink dress decorated with flowers and on top of that she wore a red cardigan. She looked like the word ‘grandma’.

  ‘Aunt Emma,’ Harvey breathed.

  Harvey’s voice sounded like he was trying his absolute hardest to look tough, but on the inside, he wanted nothing more than to hug the woman standing before him.

  I nudged his side with my elbow. He looked down at me. I nodded.

  Wordlessly, he opened his arms and wrapped them around Aunt Emma.

  ‘Oh, how you’ve grown!’ came her muffled elderly woman's voice from inside of Harvey’s chest. ‘It feels like it’s been forever!’

  ‘It does, Aunt Emma, it really does,’ Harvey breathed as he stepped out of the hug.

  Slowly, Aunt Emma’s head turned to look at me. She gazed at me strangely, as though she knew exactly who I was but was trying to recall my name.

  ‘Pardon my abruptness,’ she said slowly, looking me in the eye, ‘but who might you be?’

  ‘I don’t find your question abrupt at all, ma’am,’ I replied, bowing my head slightly. ‘The name’s Albert Santrrer.’

  Her eyes widened ever so slightly. ‘Oh, you poor, poor boy. How much you’ve been through.’

  I wondered if that was everybody’s first thought upon hearing my name. After all, I was only really known for the trouble I’d been through.

  ‘Well, Albert, you can call me Aunt Emma,’ she continued, smiling. ‘Or, if you’d rather, the name given to me at birth.’

  ‘And, pardon the abruptness, what may that name be, ma’am?’

  Her smile grew. ‘That name would be Anna Santrrer.’