Eleanor Fuentes wrenches the door open so suddenly, I almost hit her right in the face as my fist comes down mid-knock. I see Adam standing behind her in the middle of the room, looking ready to take a tackle. I raise an eyebrow and let my hand fall to my side, stuffing it, and my other one, into my pockets, so that I look as unimpressed as possible.

In truth, I'm more than a little worried about how I'll be received.

“Are you going to invite me in, or just keep standing there staring at me as if I've sprouted feathers?”

Eleanor and Adam exchange a look. It's not promising.

“I'm alone,” I assure them, “and my wand's in my pocket. I won't draw it while I'm here, if that makes you feel better.”

Adam gives an almost imperceptible nod, and Eleanor stands to the side to let me into the house. She slams the door behind me, and it feels a little like the closing of tomb doors.

“Into the kitchen,” she says, glancing at a door at the far end of the room. I wonder if we're alone, or if her family is here. That could make things trickier, if I have panicked, mistrustful parents butting in.

I follow Eleanor and Adam into a bright and comfortable kitchen. They don't take seats at the dining table so neither do I. The result is that they stand shoulder to shoulder, glaring at me in unison.

I look around the kitchen to break the tension. “Nice place,” I say, but I immediately get the sense that Eleanor takes that as some kind of sarcastic insult.

“What do you want, Felix?” she demands, hackles raised.

“I just want to talk."

“About what?” asks Adam, and he looks even more hostile than Eleanor.

“About what happened on Monday. About you. About what's going to happen.”

“What's going to happen?” Adam asks quickly.

Eleanor narrows her eyes. “Do you know something?”

“I know a lot of things, actually.” This time, the condescending tone is intentional. I wasn't exactly expecting a warm welcome, but they were acting as if I were an enemy soldier come to search the house for hidden rebels. “And if you want to hear any of them, I suggest you stop treating me like the villain of your own personal little drama.”

Eleanor opens her mouth, probably to say something nasty judging by the expression on her face, but Adam places a restraining hand on her shoulder.

“Let's just hear what he has to say. The sooner he does, the sooner he's gone.”

“You're beginning to make me wish I hadn't even bothered to come by,” I snap. “I'm trying to do you a favor, Adam. At least be fucking grateful.”

“What's this so-called favor of yours then? What did you come here to tell me?”

“What happened on Monday? When you burned the school down, what happened, exactly?”

“That's not telling me anything! That's me telling you something, and I have zero interest in talking to you about what happened. If you just came here to rub what happened in my face, you can get the hell-”

“I carried you out of the school,” I say loudly, speaking over him. “Everyone else was leaving and you were laying on the ground, too drained to even stand up. And I carried your magical ass out of the building, I probably saved your life. And I tried to keep it from happening in the first place, remember? I warned you you weren't in any condition to try that spell. So just tell me, for Circe's sake, what happened?”

I can see Adam's jaw tighten as he grits his teeth, but then he seems to give up waging some internal battle and his shoulders slump. He runs a distracted hand through his dark hair and looks anywhere but at me.

“Fine. You probably can guess anyway. I was too... full of magic. I was overflowing, I thought about how there was no way I'd blow up the school,” he flinches at the memory, “and then I did exactly that. You were right and I was wrong. I told you to fuck off and mind your own business, and then I blew up the school. Happy?”

“And why were you overflowing with magic?” I press.

Adam throws up his hands. “What does this have to do with anything?”

“Why?”

“Because I hadn't used magic in weeks!” he practically shouts, and Eleanor places a hand on his arm as if in warning. He shakes her off, but struggles to regain control of his temper.

I nod, pleased that he'd confirmed what we all knew was true. “And you didn't try using your wand either, did you?”

Adam shakes his head, clearly suspicious as to where I'm going with this.

“Why not?”

“Because I already broke a wand earlier that day, and I didn't want to break another one! Why the hell do you care?”

“You break wands fairly often, don't you?”

“Jesus Christ! Yes! You've seen it happen!”

“Why?”

Adam rakes both hands through his hair, so exasperated that he doesn't seem to know what else to do with himself. His nostrils are flaring and he looks like he's not far from losing his cool completely. I can feel the electric singe in the air of his magic beginning to bubble up to the surface as his emotions rage, and I begin to worry I may have pushed him too far. But I needed all of this to come from him. He might not accept it if I'm the one who says it, even if he knows it's all true.

“Why, Adam? Why do the wands break?” I push harder.

Eleanor looks as though she wants to stop me from speaking, or stop Adam from answering, but I can tell that she's curious, more curious than Adam is about where this is leading and she keeps quiet.

“Because,” he growls through clenched teeth. “I can't control how much magic I put out, and if I'm too full of it I overload the wand. They can't handle how much power I pump into them at once and they blow. It's always been that way, you know this. Everyone knows this.”

“Exactly!” I say triumphantly. “The wands magicians use in this day and age are too weak. They aren't made to withstand the amount of magic that you're capable of putting out. What you need is something with a bigger power capacity.”

“A firehose!” Eleanor gasps.

“A what?” I say.

“I've already thought of that though,” she continues without offering an answer. “But nobody makes artifacts to channel magic more powerful than the average wand anymore. I don't think anybody would even know how to make a wand that could contain all of Adam's power at once. You would need as much power as Adam has just to create a wand that could control as much power as Adam has!”

“You're right,” I agree, “Nobody makes artifacts that powerful anymore.” I lay particular stress on the last word, and wait for them to react.

Adam is just staring at me blankly, apparently lost. Eleanor's eyes widen, and then narrow again, and her eyebrows knit together as her mind races with the implications.

“I mean... there have been historical artifacts... Solomon's ring, Djed-djedi's amulet, Merlin's staff; but they've all been lost to time.・

"But what if," I say, raising a finger into the air, "One hasn't been completely lost? What if one of those objects could be found?"

Eleanor glances up at Adam. "Then... if that were even possible, Adam would have no trouble at all controlling his magic."

"Would you two stop talking about me as if I'm not standing right here?" he says, his cheeks growing red in frustration. "If, if, if! I don't see that it would make any difference in any case. Do you really think the Council would be any less afraid of me if I learn to control my magic properly?"

"They wouldn't have a choice," I cut in. "You're in danger of having your magic stripped from you because you're a live bomb that might go off at any minute. You're a danger to the magical world's safety and secrecy. But the Council can't punish someone for having strong magic, not as long as they have total control over their power. Just like the mundanes can't arrest someone for being incredibly intelligent, even though they could theoretically use their intelligence to rob a bank or something. The Council can't touch you unless you've broken a law, or are an imminent danger to others. Do you understand?"

I can't tell if Adam does or not. It's seeming to take him a while to process all this information, but Eleanor doesn't give him a chance to catch up.

"But how in Magic's Might are we supposed to get our hands on an ancient powerful magical artifact?" she points out. "There aren't any still in existence, or if there are, they've been lost for centuries."

"But some of them are surrounded by stories. Myths, legends and ancient histories can be reconstructed. And the wizard, and his artifact, that has the most historical accounts regarding his life is...?"

"Merlin," Eleanor breathes. "You don't really think-"

"I do," I say, unable to keep the grin off my face. "It would be worth a try, at least."

"Wait," Adam interrupts. "I still don't understand."

I blow out an exasperated breath. "Are you really this slow? Merlin's staff-"

"Not that!" he snaps. "I mean why you're here, right now, telling us all this. Since when do you give a crap about what happens to me? You hate me."

I flinch at his words. "I don't hate you."

Adam scoffs. "You could have fooled me."

"I agree with the Council, and a lot of other people, that you're a serious danger to the magical world and everyone in it," I retort, and I can feel my face starting to grow hot as my temper flares. "Hell, you proved that just a couple of days ago when you burned down the damn school."

Adam takes a step towards me, and his left hand is clenched into a fist as if he's thinking about punching me.

"Get out of here, Roth," he snarls.

"Adam, wait," Eleanor says, and she stands so she's between us. It's a little ridiculous since both Adam and I tower over her, but it stops him from advancing any further, for which I'm grateful. I could probably take him in a physical fight, and definitely in a magical duel; unless he lost control and turned me into a frog. Or a smoking pile of ash. That isn't a game of roulette I'll be playing any time soon.

"Get on with it, Felix," Eleanor tells me, and despite her defense, her tone isn't patient. "Why do you care? Why come here to tell us this?"

"Because," I reply, gritting my teeth in frustration. "My parents are close to several Council members, and I've overheard a lot over these last couple of days. Ms. Cross is trying to calm the Council, but people are panicked. You could have seriously hurt, even killed, people on Monday. The Council is making plans to take you into custody and strip your magic from you. They're even talking about unanimously vetoing your right to stand trial, so that they can do it as soon as possible."

Eleanor claps a hand over her mouth. "They can't-" she begins, but then stops. They can, and she knows it. We literally just learned a few weeks ago in Contemporary Magical History that in cases that are deemed to be an extreme immediate threat to the security of the magical realm, the Council can put it to a vote to deny the accused the right to stand trial, as long as the vote in favor is unanimous. With thirteen members on the Council it's almost impossible to manage, but I knew from what I had heard from my dad that it isn't looking good for Adam.

Speaking of Adam, he's gone pale--well, paler than usual--and staggers backward, his hand reaching out to grab the edge of the kitchen counter for support.

"They can't do that. Ms. Cross won't let them. She'll put a stop to it. Won't she?" He looks uncertainly at Eleanor as if she has all the answers.

"We knew this might happen," she says, fighting to get over her shock. "You're already packed. You'll just have to go to-" She cuts herself off abruptly, her eyes flicking over to me.

I raise an eyebrow. "What?"

"...You-know-where," she finishes, remarkably unsubtly.

"What, you think I'm a spy for the Council or something?" I say, and though I can clearly see why they might suspect that, it still stings. "Why would I be here now, warning you, if that were true?"

"It could be a trick to scare Adam into leaving the house. He's supposed to stay here, but maybe this whole story about Merlin's staff is just a plot to get him to go outside so someone from the Council can grab him."

I roll my eyes. "Now that I know he's here--which everyone already suspects, by the way--why wouldn't I have just left, gone and told the Council, and let them kick the door down and take him by force? There's no reason to concoct some elaborate scheme to lure him out of the complete lack of safety this house provides."

"Why do you care?" Adam asks. "Why warn me at all? You say you don't hate me, but you've made it pretty damn obvious that you don't like me."

I look at him. He looks awful, almost as bad as he did the day he set fire to St. Bosco's, but in a different way. Then, it was because he was sick off his own magic. I could sense it pouring out of him, and I had no idea how nobody else noticed what a wreck he was. He stank of electricity and sweat, and you could practically feel the universe altering itself around his thoughts as his magic bent to his subconscious will.

But today he doesn't look like magic crammed into a human-shaped sock puppet. He just looks like exhausted and scared, too pale and too thin with big dark circles under his eyes, which dart around with a hunted look.

"It's not you I don't like," I say. "I think sticking you in St. Bosco's was a mistake, which turned out to be true. I think your magic puts everyone who comes near you in danger, which you repeatedly prove to be true. I think that if something can't be done to control all that magic you have sloshing around inside of you, the best thing for everyone would be if it was taken away from you." I take a deep breath and continue before he can interrupt me, which I know he's about to do as he opens his mouth angrily. "But I know that if it were me, I would rather die than let anyone take my magic. That kind of thing, it's permanent. It's like... taking a part of a person's soul from them. Magic isn't just something you have or you don't, it's something you are. And while you're a hazard to public safety, you've never done any harm on purpose. I just think that what the Council wants to do should be a last resort. If there are other options, I think you deserve to at least try them. I'd want that for myself, if I were in your shoes."

Adam just stares at me for a long while. It's clear he can't make up his mind whether to believe me or not. Well, it doesn't matter one way or the other. I did what I meant to do. I told him my idea, I've given him the choice. He can stay here and go through with whatever plan he's got cooked up, or he can try to find Merlin's staff. The choice is on him now. I've done my part.

"Well," I say, stuffing my hands back into my pockets. I don't really know what else to do with them now. "I'll be going then. And don't worry, I won't tell anyone that you're here. Even though everyone already knows."

I turn to show myself out, but Adam calls out to me.

"Wait," he says. I turn back and meet his eyes properly, for what feels like the first time since I got here. They're dark grey, the same color as the ocean in oil paintings of stormy seas. "Tell me more. About Merlin's staff."