The morning sunlight pours into my room, through my window and past the curtains. Clouds dominate the sky, the sun is veiled, and the light that spills onto my floor, onto my bare feet, is colourless and dim. I reach out and put my hand into the sunlight.

A warmth rises inside my chest, stirring like a beast, and creeps outward into my limbs. I can feel it, going around and around in my hand, a burst of warm energy, circling my palm. I push it outwards with my will. The silver mist sparkles around my forefinger and thumb, like a wintry star. It revolves slowly, rotating like a planet, exotic. It seems brighter than it was last night.

I put it out into the sunlight again. When the silver mist meets the sun, rays of light begin to reflect off it, bouncing off my fingers and dancing on the walls, on the curtains, my clothes. My mirror. It gives off a radiance of a dozen different colours, a rainbow twirling in my own bare bedroom.

There's a knock on my bedroom wall, I know who it is. Niro. He's knocking on the wall that separates our two bedrooms, asking if I'm ready yet.

I swallow. Here comes the flood. I'm not ready to let Niro know what happened last night. After seeing Phillip, I had just staggered back to my room, not thinking clearly, my mind a blur. Phillip looked amused as he saw me lumber my way back up into the bedroom. His mouth was smiling, but his eyes were unfathomable.

Niro never told me any of what he said.

I don't know what I should feel. Angry? Annoyed? Exasperated? I think of shouting at him, perhaps in the Red Room when we're out of earshot, but I quickly shut the idea down. Niro has kept watch over me all these years. He is my only friend, he is a brother and a father to me. He protected me. I don't know where I would have been if he hadn't tucked me under his wing. I can't be furious with him.

I owe him a debt of gratitude.

Another knock, more urgent this time. I seize my cloak from the chair in a daze, hurriedly hammer back on the wall to tell him I'm coming. I fasten the catch at my throat, attach the white wings to the collar and to my hair. The tips of the wings rise just above my hairline, the stems of the wings hovering over my cheeks, casting shadows across them. For once I am grateful for its concealment.

Putting my hand on the doorknob, I hesitate. I'm still not sure what to say to Niro when the door opens, I haven't thought it out yet. I stare at the door for a few more seconds, then give up with a sigh and swing it open.

Niro is standing right outside my door, dressed in his white cloak and his purple-lilac eyes piercing, seeming to look right through my white blinkers. His hair, as usual, looks like he's just rolled out of bed. Which he has, I'll give him that.

"Lenora," he says quietly.

"Don't call me that," I answer jerkily. My hands are in fists at my sides. I haven't realised until this moment how angry I am, despite my internal promise to keep myself calm. Because I owe him.

That doesn't mean I like it.

Surprise and hurt flash across Niro's face, and guilt twinges at my heart. I stare at him.

"Let's go," I say quietly, and walk off along the corridor without looking back at him. I can hear Niro hurrying along behind me, trying to keep up with a seventeen-year-old with his eight-year-old's legs.

"Lenora," he says, and his voice is calm. "What happened to you?"

"You know that better than I do myself," I fire back. The hurt, the anger, the frustration all wells up in me. For Niro's never telling me who I am or what I'm for, for Phillip's still not telling me everything. I deserve to know the truth.

Niro stares at me with expressionless eyes before saying in a colourless voice, "We'll discuss this in the Red Room."

I don't answer, but propel myself ahead of him, forcing him to jog to keep up. We clatter down the stairs, the light following the shadow.

When we reach the Red Room, I elbow the door open without knocking, without giving Niro a chance to catch up. Glancing around the room, I'm unsurprised to find that the painting has been half-covered again. The blue-eyed boy is hidden out of sight, and the woman is smiling gaily at me again. When I turn, I can see the same blue-eyed boy sitting in the red-draped armchair in front of the fire, his hand supporting his chin and gazing into the flames, apparently deep in thought.

"Phil!"

Niro's exclamation of surprise is hardly unexpected; I can't help feeling a little shocked myself. Despite how he managed to escape the basement and come to talk to me last night, I can't believe he'd dare defy Solum this way, bask in the daylight he's forbidden to see in plain sight.

"Hello, Niro," Phillip says smoothly.

"I thought Solum had you in the basement," I say carefully. I don't know if the room is bugged.

"They did," says Phillip, standing up. "They let me out this morning. Decided I'm of more value here training with you than rotting away in a cell."

"And they trust you? Already?" Niro says skeptically. He makes no move to welcome his friend. I puzzle over it.

"They don't," Phillip answers. His hands knit themselves together. "I'm being kept on watch."

I can't help but like the way he uses his hands as he talks. He gestures with them, motions at the surroundings - the fire, the window, the curtains, the red velvet that drapes the room. His face is perfectly smooth, and I sense a facade underneath the calm demeanour, just as I see the flush of emotion in Niro's cheeks, while his face remains in a mask of polite respect.

Phillip sits back down on the armchair and crosses his legs, looking at us. He's wearing a black cloak, like me - they evidently don't trust him as much as to give him Niro's white garment - black tights, but his robe is black instead of the coloured overalls we wear. His head is left bare, like Niro's, no white wings like me. I reach up to my face, almost self-consciously, and unclip my white wings from my hair and collar, folding up the heavy white cloth carefully and putting them into my own blue robe. The cool air stings my cheeks. Niro beckons towards me, and the two of us cautiously take a seat on the sofa opposite Phillip, whose mouth twitches.

"Very well, then," Niro says, and I can see the suspicion sparkling in his eyes. "Why exactly did Dr. Crowley let you out of that stinking place?"

"I told you," Phillip says, but he avoids Niro's eyes. "They figured I'd do more good here."

"And why is that?"

Phillip's eyes flicker around the room; his eyes fasten on the half-covered painting. I can feel an aura burning around him, directed at me.

"Today's Friday," he says quietly.

"So?" I ask him.

"So, in other words, you only have one day left before Crowley comes to inspect on you and Niro, and that means you only have one day left to master your powers completely," Phillip informs me.

My blood goes cold. I've forgotten. Suddenly the Red Room seems to be tinged with blue, and my breath is coming out in gasps.

Niro's hand closes over mine, and the blue recedes a bit, I clutch at the tiny warm hand, relishing the comfort it brings me, regretting my meanness to him minutes ago. How could I ever have been angry at this boy, who has been a brother, a father to me? His hand is steady, it anchors me to earth.

"You're going to need my help if you want to stay here," Phillip says, and his gaze is sympathetic, pitying. I feel some anger return to me, rise like a flame in my chest, burning away some of the fear. I won't be pitied, I won't give in.

Niro squeezes my hand gently, and I squeeze back. It's our secret code. Niro is asking me if I agree with what Phillip says. If I tap on his hand with one finger, that means I disagree. If I squeeze, I'm going along with whatever the person has proposed. I can almost feel him sigh.

"Go ahead," he says to Phillip, not taking his lilac eyes off him. "Teach her whatever I haven't done."

Phillip laughs, and to my surprise it's a good laugh, light and amused, I like it somehow. It's rich, vibrates through the air, like the running of cool clear water. "There's a lot you haven't told her, Niro."

I can feel Niro stiffen beside me. "No," he says. "No, Phil, she's not ready to accept that yet."

I look back and forth between them, like I'm watching a tennis match, my eyes narrowing. I can feel the tension in the air, it's like a solid wall in between the two boys. Boys? No, their stances are much more than boys, their demeanour has the faint tinge of experience beneath, and their bearings are that of leaders, of kings. I can almost see a line of fire between them as they try to stare each other down.

"It's already done, Niro Zechariah," Phillip says quietly.

Niro stares at him, his eyes bugging out, shock mingled with anger, and his face is so terrible that I can't help but cringe back. He glares at Phillip, who looks only slightly unnerved, for a few heartbeats. The silence in the room presses in, it's suffocating.

"When?" Niro breathes.

Phillip doesn't say anything, but merely looks back into Niro's eyes. The tension between them grows, steadies, then dies back down. Niro looks submissive, Phillip triumphant.

"You should have told her a long time ago," says Phillip quietly. "It's the only way we can unlock what she can do."

"My past, you mean?" I ask. Both of them cast wary looks around the room before shooting me a glance that makes their message clear: Shut up.

I bite my tongue, scowling a little.

Phillip raises his hand to push his hair back, and as he does I freeze - my eye latches on the glimmer of silver on his hand, the same as the one I saw last night. I can see it more clearly now, in the glow of the sunlight. I to reach out, grab his hand to stop him from putting it back in his pocket.

There's a ring there.

The look in Phillip's blue eyes tell me he's already noticed my preoccupation; the shake of his head that follows it warns me not to say anything.

Then, to my shock, Phillip's voice echoes in my mind.

Don't scream.

I almost jump a foot into the air, but surprise has glued my bottom to the chair. I stare at Phillip, whose face remains perfectly smooth. I shoot a glance at Niro, and he seems perfectly relaxed, though he's looking at Phillip too. Maybe he can hear Phillip, too.

Niro? Are you there? I think tentatively.

He can't hear you, Phillip's voice answers in my mind. I can talk to both of you, but I can't link both your minds together. He's asking what I'm telling you.

My God, is this a hallucination? I look at Niro for help. He smiles a little and shrugs his shoulders resignedly, then jerks his head at the room. I can tell what he's trying to convey even without the voice in my head. The room is bugged.

His eyes tell me to trust Phillip.

Then, out loud, he says, "What do you want to tell her?"

Phillip's eyes latch onto Niro's, and he replies to the question simultaneously, it seems in my and Niro's heads. Everything.

Out loud, he says, "Just a few things. To get her moving along."

In my head, he whispers, Do what I say. Carefully. They don't know I can do this, but if we aren't careful they will.

This is insane, I mutter.

Thank you, Phillip says drily. Shall we begin?

One thing first, I think. It's weird, talking like this. The ring on your finger - it looks like mine.

I can see Phillip stiffen in his seat. Niro obviously notices, but he keeps talking casually to fill the silence, giving hints on how I should try to use my powers, and Phillip responds with comments and little disagreements. Trying to feel like I know what I'm doing, I nod along, still listening to the voice in my head.

It does, Lenore Kelandi, Phillip says quietly in my mind. It is exactly the same.

Why is that?

Phillip's blue eyes are unreadable as he keeps talking. He says, because they were made by the same person.

The same person?

His eyes seem to be piercing a hole right through my eyeballs. That ring isn't yours.

What do you mean? Of course it's mine -

No, Lenore, Phillip says quietly. It wasn't. It was given to you. I see that now.

What -

Phillip cuts me off, certainty and understanding coursing through the waters and fire of his blue eyes. It was given to you by the person in the painting.

My blood goes cold, my head is foggy. That isn't possible. I've never met you before, you can't have given me this ring.

Laughter swells in Phillip's eyes. Lenore Kelandi, I never said that I am the boy who is in the painting.

Author's Note:

Here's the second interaction between Phillip and Niro, with Phillip giving more snide hints. What do you think will happen as the story progresses, and who exactly is Phillip? What is the role that he plays?