I was a little confused at first since there were no other rooms, but then Viktor began to walk up the steps and I realized what was upstairs. I followed behind and we cam to another hallway, but this one only had one door on each wall. This hallway also seemed to open up at the end in to a large space with windows lining the entire wall. We walked over to the door on the left wall. The plate on this one was a seven-pointed star. Viktor once again knocked on the door.

“Who’s there?” A voice called from inside the room.

“It’s Viktor, Misra…” Viktor answered nervously

It was quiet for a bit before she finally answered. “Come in.”

Viktor turned the handle and stepped in to the room. I decided to just wait outside the door for now. Viktor motioned for me to come in though, so I stepped in and closed the door, pressing myself against it, a little astonished by the room.

In terms of layout, it was fairly simple. On the right wall there was another loft bed with a large desk under it. On the far wall, there was a wardrobe and the one behind us had a few bookshelves like the others. However, unlike the others, this room was a mess. There were charts everywhere that I couldn’t even guess at the meaning of. They all seemed to consist of tons of different points with scribblings all over them. Some were pinned to the walls, some were scattered on the floor, and some were even on the ceiling.

To the left, in the middle of a massive cluster of papers was an older girl. She had flowing brown hair that reached down past her shoulders to her back. She had on a pair of red-framed glasses. I could only guess at the color of her eyes, but they seemed to be a deeper green. She was dressed very simply in a pair of green cargo shorts and a dark grey t-shirt.

As we entered, she didn’t even look up from the papers she was jotting notes on. “So, why are you back? I had figured we would never see you again,” she said flatly.

“It was an accident. We were just passing through to get some lunch. I had no idea that you guys had relocated here, so you can imagine my surprise…”

“I can. It’s pretty funny, actually.” She looked up briefly to smirk at him and I saw her eye me up. “He your boyfriend?”

“No.”

“Okay. Well, why are you here?” she asked.

Viktor shrugged. “I dunno. Maybe I wanted to see my sister?”

“You have three of us and I imagine I’m not the first you’ve seen,” Misra responded.

Viktor frowned. “Are you mad at me or something?”

“Not particularly.”

That only seemed to make Viktor angrier. “Then why won’t you at least look at me while we’re talking?”

She looked up and rolled her eyes. “I’m in the middle of working.”

“You’re always working,” Viktor growled.

She shrugged. “What else would I be doing?”

Viktor sighed. “I suppose that’s fair… I did have something I wanted to specifically ask you though.”

Still looking up at him, she motioned for him to go on.

“Why did Ezrael leave?”

That finally caused her expression to change to a frown. She returned to her notes. “He didn’t want to be here anymore.”

“Okay, but why? He’s never had a problem before.”

“A lot changes when you aren’t around for seven years!” she shouted, looking up from her notes, tears now streaming down from her face. “You know what he was dealing with. And you know damn well that one of the only things keeping him together was us! Cynthia and Gabriel couldn’t help him! They didn’t even understand what was wrong with him! He just kept getting worse until I couldn’t help him anymore and then he almost killed himself and decided he had to leave!”

I could see Viktor shaking. “I… I’m sorry… I know that-”

“Save it. You left. You made your choice. You shouldn’t be here.”

Viktor stomped his foot. “No.”

Misra shot up, staring at Viktor. “I beg your pardon?”

“I said no.”

She scowled and stomped over to Viktor, her face only a few inches from his. But Viktor didn’t flinch. Not even slightly. They stood there staring in to each other’s eye, practically frozen in time until Misra began to cry, falling in to Viktor’s arms. He patted her on the back, reassuring her.

“I know what you had to go through was very hard, but you also know I’m always here for all of you. Cynthia, Gabriel, Ezrael, Samantha, Mom and Momma, and, of course, you. I never meant to hurt you or him by leaving and I am so very sorry that I had a role to play in his problems intensifying.”

“It’s not your fault… I just wasn’t strong enough…” she choked out.

“That’s nonsense. I know for a fact you did the best you could,” Viktor reassured her.

She moved out of his arms, looking in to his eyes. She nodded, sniffing and wiping the tears away from her eyes. “O-Okay…”

“Now, I have to go do something. Are you going to be okay?”

She nodded and returned to her notes. Viktor walked out of the room, not sparing any time. I followed behind him and we walked down back to the first floor.

“Where are we going now?” I asked.

He turned back briefly. “The forest. I have a golem to build.”

He then walked out of the house. I followed closely behind as we made our way back in to the forest. He paused for a minute, placing his hand on the ground and closing his eyes. When he opened them back up, he was smiling widely. “There’s some nearby.”

I trailed behind him as he ventured further in to the forest. He explained that he wanted to build a golem out of a specific kind of wood that occurred in the South Forest, mystwood. Apparently, having a golem already made would make things a lot easier for the fight as opposed to trying to build one on the spot.

I helped him gather about two trees worth of the wood which we hauled back to the house. When we walked inside, Amelia was there making dinner. “Hey, boys. Welcome back. Would you like some dinner?”

Viktor had already made his way downstairs and didn’t hear, but I stepped in to the kitchen and got two plates of food. “Thank you, Mrs. Amelia.”

“Is Viktor doing alright? I heard him talking with Misra earlier and they seemed to be having an argument,” she inquired, concern apparent on her face.

I nodded. “Yeah. They’re both doing better now. They just needed to work some things out.”

She smiled. “I’m glad to hear that. Thank you for talking care of him. I appreciate it.”

I chuckled. “Trust me, he’s been the one taking care of me for the most part…”

With that, I headed down in to the basement. Thankfully, Viktor had been entirely correct about the workshop still being down here. Though, I hadn’t expected it to be so massive. It was much wider than the house in all directions and was filled to the brim. There were tons of tables filled with all kinds of creations and tools. Most things seemed incomplete or barely even out of the concept phase.

There were four large tables which somewhat divided the room in to four quarters. Viktor was stationed at the one in the back right. I brought the dinner and remaining wood over to him. “Your mom made some dinner. I’m not entirely sure what this is, but it looks pretty good.”

“Trust me, it’s really good,” Viktor said, taking the plate.

Once we finished eating dinner, Viktor got to work on the golem. He started by drawing and revising several different blueprints. Eventually, once he had designs that he was happy with, he got to work molding the wood in to the shapes that he needed. Even though he could mold the wood to any shape no matter the original shape, it required a lot of energy.

“Why couldn’t you just materialize the wood in the shape you needed it to be?” I asked as he constructed a shoulder guard.

“Well, despite the fact this takes a lot of effort, essence, and energy, this is only about a tenth of the trouble as it would be to try and make this kind of wood. Normal wood is easy to create properly, but any form of special wood is much harder. And mystwood is especially difficult for a number of reasons, so this is a lot easier.”

I nodded as he continued on with his work. The work continued all the way in to the late night. I heard several people going in and out of the door until the house finally fell quiet. Viktor had assured me that the workshop was soundproof, so no sound would be getting out of it and waking anyone up.

I don’t know when it happened, but I fell asleep. When I woke up, I thought it might have been morning, but it was clearly still night. Viktor had also fallen asleep, his face slumped over the table, plenty of armor pieces scattered around him.

I was about to go back to sleep until I heard footsteps trailing down the stairs to the basement. I turned my head slightly and found that is was Dameria who had come down. She had a blanket in each hand. I watched as she draped one of them over Viktor, smiling at the armor on the table and floor. I quickly closed my eyes as I saw her approach me. I then felt a soft pressure over my entire body followed by footsteps going back up the stairs.

When I opened my eyes, I found that she had placed the second blanket on me. I smiled and snuggled in to the soft blanket, once again allowing myself to fall asleep.