CHAPTER 20: CRACKS IN THE ARMOR
POV: Josie
The training room's morning light streamed through tall windows as Josie watched her brother demonstrate spell-crafting that shouldn't exist. Alen moved through magical exercises with fluid precision that made complex theory look effortless, absorbed power flowing into intricate constructs without conscious thought or visible strain.
"That's not learned behavior," she realized with growing unease. "That's instinctive mastery. Like he's remembering spells rather than creating them."
The binding charm he crafted defied classification—simultaneously restraint and protection, offensive capability and defensive measure. Traditional magical categories failed to contain what he was building, as if normal limitations simply didn't apply to his enhanced abilities.
Josie practiced beside him, siphoning from spelled practice targets while crafting the same basic spells she'd been working on for months. Her magic felt adequate, competent, normal. Everything his was not.
"We started at the same place," she thought, watching him reshape reality with casual efficiency. "Twins in the womb, merged to suppress our power until we were old enough to control it. We should be equals—two halves of the same magical whole. So why does he make everything look effortless while I struggle with exercises he masters without trying?"
The question cut deeper than sibling rivalry. Josie had spent her life being second-best to Lizzie's dramatic brilliance, accepting the supporting role that let her twin shine brighter. But Alen's transformation from anxious teenager to supernatural prodigy highlighted inadequacies she couldn't rationalize away.
"Unless he found something. A shortcut. Enhanced training. Magical amplification. Something he's not sharing."
The possibility burned like acid in her chest. After the plantation raid, after seeing his tactical coordination and impossible spell-crafting, the evidence pointed toward secrets that went beyond simple enhanced ability.
She waited until he'd finished his practice session, then followed him to the library with determination hardened by months of accumulated suspicion.
POV: Josie
"You're hiding something."
Alen looked up from his research materials—advanced magical theory mixed with historical texts that had no business being in student accessible sections. His expression shifted to careful neutrality, the exact kind of controlled response that confirmed her suspicions.
"Define something," he said, closing a grimoire that looked genuinely ancient.
"The way you craft spells. It's not learned, it's instinctive. Like you're accessing knowledge that should take decades to acquire." Josie settled across from him with arms crossed, twin intuition cataloging every micro-expression for signs of deception. "How?"
"Practice. Years of it." The deflection came too quickly, too smoothly. "I've been working on magical theory since I was thirteen."
"I practice too. Every day. I study the same books, work with the same instructors, train with the same intensity." Her voice carried hurt she couldn't entirely suppress. "I'm not you."
Something in her tone made Alen's defensive posture soften, calculation replaced by genuine concern. "Jo, you're incredible. We're just different types of siphoners. Different approaches to the same basic ability."
"Or you found something. A shortcut. And won't share."
The accusation hung between them like challenge, years of sibling trust balanced against growing evidence of deception. Josie watched him weigh responses, saw the moment he chose protective dishonesty over vulnerable truth.
"There's no shortcut to magical competence," he said finally. "Just focus and determination applied consistently over time."
"Liar." The certainty settled in her chest like cold stone. He was hiding something significant—enhanced training, magical amplification, access to knowledge she'd been denied. And he was choosing to keep those advantages secret rather than help his own sister achieve similar competence.
"Fine," she said, standing with dignity intact despite emotional turmoil. "Keep your secrets. But don't pretend we're equals when you're operating with advantages I can't access."
She left before he could respond, hurt and anger warring with determination in equal measure. If Alen had found ways to enhance siphoner abilities, she would discover them independently. The plantation raid had shown her exactly how inadequate her current power level was—time to explore alternatives that didn't depend on family generosity.
"Dark magic exists for a reason," she thought, remembering the grimoires Professor Saltzman kept locked in the restricted section. "Maybe it's time to stop playing by everyone else's rules."
POV: Alen
"We have a situation."
Alaric's voice carried the grim certainty of someone delivering news that would ruin everyone's day. Alen followed his father to the administrative office, dread building with each step as tactical possibilities crystallized around unspoken crisis.
The dragon knife lay on Alaric's desk like accusation made manifest—curved blade inscribed with runes that hurt to perceive directly, magical artifact radiating power that made protective wards hum with increased intensity. Security footage played on a nearby monitor, timestamp marking theft from the school's vault precisely six hours earlier.
Landon Kirby's face filled the screen in perfect digital clarity.
"No. Not yet. The timeline is wrong. This should happen weeks from now, after relationship development and trust building and careful canonical progression."
Alen tried to speak, to warn about Malivore connections and golem nature and dimensional threats that would emerge from this single theft. The Entity's curse twisted his words before they could reach his lips.
"Landon might be—" he began desperately.
"Landon might be a prophetic cheese incident!"
Alaric blinked. "What?"
Hope appeared in the doorway with expression mixing confusion and defensive anger. "There has to be an explanation. Landon wouldn't steal from the school."
"Yes, he would, because his golem nature compels him toward supernatural artifacts and he doesn't understand what he is or why these impulses exist."
"Maybe he was being controlled," Hope continued, loyalty overriding evidence. "Mind magic, coercion, someone using him as unwitting tool."
"He was created as unwitting tool. Malivore designed him to retrieve specific artifacts and return them to dimensional prison. But I can't say that because cosmic forces have locked the knowledge away."
The frustration was maddening—watching disaster unfold while being physically prevented from offering warnings that could prevent catastrophe. Alen tried typing explanations, but his fingers produced gibberish. Attempted text messages emerged as autocorrected nonsense that made no linguistic sense.
POV: Alen
"You clearly think Landon's guilty." Hope's confrontation came that evening, cornering him in the common room with tribrid intensity barely contained. "Why?"
"Because I watched the television show this reality is based on. Because I know exactly what Landon is and what his theft will trigger. Because Malivore is about to start sending monsters to retrieve its wayward golem, and the first attack will come within days."
"Instinct," he said instead, hating the inadequacy of the explanation.
"That's not good enough. He deserves the benefit of the doubt."
"I just—" Alen tried again to explain cosmic knowledge, felt familiar pain spike through his skull as the curse prevented revelation. "I have a bad feeling about him."
"You've had bad feelings about him since he arrived." Hope's voice carried suspicion that cut deeper than simple concern. "Is this jealousy? Are you upset that he's interested in me?"
The accusation stung like physical blow. "It's not about us. It's about safety."
"Then trust me to handle it."
"I do trust you. I don't trust the cosmic forces manipulating events around us, or the ancient entity that created Landon as weapon against supernatural civilization, or the timeline that keeps accelerating beyond my ability to influence."
"Hope—"
"No." She cut him off with finality that brooked no argument. "Either you trust my judgment or you don't. Either you believe I can take care of myself or you think I need protection from every person who shows interest in being my friend."
She left without waiting for response, disappointment radiating from her like heat from flame. Alen watched her go, feeling the proximity suppression weaken as distance grew between them. The Hollow stirred in response, ancient whispers growing louder as its primary constraint faded.
Alone in the common room, Alen siphoned residual magic from protective wards and channeled accumulated frustration into raw force that cratered the stone wall. Pain flared through his knuckles as enhanced strength met supernatural architecture, physical sensation grounding him in present moment rather than cosmic inevitability.
"The curse isn't just about secrecy," he realized with bitter clarity. "It's forcing me to live events rather than prevent them. The Entity wants me to experience every failure, every helpless moment, every relationship strained by knowledge I can't share."
"Knowledge without wisdom is torment. And I'm beginning to understand why cosmic beings find human suffering so educational."
Outside his window, Virginia night gathered like promise of future disasters. Somewhere in that darkness, Landon Kirby carried a stolen artifact that would trigger monster attacks within days. Hope defended him from suspicions she couldn't understand. Josie planned dangerous experiments with dark magic to match abilities she couldn't comprehend.
And Alen sat alone with foreknowledge that felt more like curse than gift, watching the people he loved make choices that would lead to precisely the disasters he'd hoped to prevent.
The Entity's lesson was becoming clear: power without the ability to share its burden was just elaborate isolation dressed in cosmic authority.
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