Anya scrambled to get up and run to her cousin. Whether she almost tripped over her own feet or not wasn’t important to her, just that she could hug Cora. Now that she finally remembered who her cousin even was. Cora seemed to understand, and hugged Anya back in silence. They held each other for a long while, completely content with letting the others in the room shuffle around awkwardly. Eventually, Cora let go to hold Anya at an arm’s length. She smiled. Anya smiled back.

“Okay so… Shall we continue?” Leo said from his seat, sipping his coffee as all the teens turned to look at him.

“Ah, yes. Why did you call us here again?” Cora asked, turning to Katt. Katt was staring at Cora with her mouth ajar.

“You- her- I- whatever. Yes.” Katt moved around Cora, grabbing Anya and turning her around to face the rest of the group. “This is Anya. The Anya that we have been watching for like a year and who some of us thought was dead.”

“Hi!” Anya said, smiling and waving. She could deal with the fact that she was close to a ghost story over here later.

“So… The heir to the throne?” Ava asked. Anya looked shocked for a moment until she remembered that yes, her mom had been the queen making Anya the heir and yes, Anya had absolutely known this. Almost 13 years ago. It wasn’t exactly easy to keep up with twelve years worth of information that had suddenly been dumped on her two days ago.

“Yes, the heir to the throne and yes, this changes the plans we had.” Katt said, escorting Anya back to the couch.

“Wait, how does it change your plans?” Lily asked.

“I don’t know, maybe because we had a set plan and suddenly the child of the most powerful magic user in the history of Commonia appears?” Ava said, rubbing her hands together anxiously. Anya wondered what exactly the plan was for.

“We could just leave, you know,” Lily shrugged.

“Can you? Can you really?” Ava got up from her seat to lean against the counter. Eliza hit her arm, signing something very quickly. Anya could pick out the word “no” and “mean” before turning around.

Anya grabbed her backpack from beside the couch where she had left it the day before, opening it and taking out one of the glowing bottles of portal juice that she had found from the shed.

“Actually yes, we can.” Anya lifted up the bottle for the group to see. Immediately Leonard nearly flew over, grabbing the bottle and turning it around in his hands, inspecting it.

“Is this actual magic? Did you make this? How does it work?” he asked, not actually looking up at Anya, just intensely staring at the bottle in his hands. Ava quickly moved over to look at the bottle as well, with much calmer fascination.

“I’m pretty sure it’s magic, no I didn’t make it, and I have no idea how it works,” Anya answered in quick succession, trying to grab the bottle back.

“Yeah, Anya just knows how to set things on fire,” Carla said with a chuckle.

The room fell silent. Katt quickly moved to close the blinds, running into the hallway and clicking the lights and electronics off.

She walked back into the room and said,“Turn off your phones.”

The Commonians nodded. Anya noticed the models seemed to be much older, even older than her Iphone 5. With a shrug, she shut down her phone, her friends following suit. Katt marched up to Anya, taking her shoulders.

“You know fire magic?”

“I… Yes?”

“Do you have any idea how uncommon that is?” Katt asked, staring into Anya’s eyes.

“Like magic in general or?” Anya tried to shake Katt’s hands off her shoulders. The touch was getting uncomfortable.

“No, you learning magic and naturally having an inclination to fire magic.” Over in the kitchen, Katt’s friends nodded. Eliza signed “weird”.

“That’s.. weird, why?”

“Because the royal family is protected by Omnia. You should naturally lean towards water not the goddamn opposite,” Leo explained.

“I have several questions! Who the hell is Omnia?” Lily moved closer to Anya, removing Katt’s hands from Anya’s shoulders. Lily immediately started massaging her shoulders, making Anya relax slowly.

“Water goddess,” Leo immediately answered.

“We need to talk. Alone.” Katt said, moving to grab Eliza, Leo and Ava and walking into her room. Cora followed them quietly. “No listening in.” Then Katt slammed the door.