Nicholas is screaming as they dive straight down, clinging to Luca's waist on the backseat of the racing broomstick.

Vinaya is out on the lawn sipping tea and reading the paper, absolutely unconcerned because Nicholas has been screaming for a while now and no one has yet to die so she's pretty sure Luca knows how to fly a broom.

It's a bit difficult with a screaming passenger but Luca manages to successfully demonstrate a Dendro Rush, which has yet to be invented so Nicholas thinks they're dying.

Luca pulls up at the last moment, their feet just barely skimming the grass because Luca corrected for the added weight but not for the old-style broom he's using.

"And that's it," Luca explains calmly, doing a lazy circle back around. "Not complicated but it needs a lot of practice to not crash."

Nicholas is panting, both from the massive adrenalin rush and from screaming so much. "Let's do that again, but from higher."

"How high?" Luca asks, starting an ascent.

"As high as you damn well can, Luca, I want to feel my soul leaving my body."

Nicholas and Luca are lying on the floorboards of the trick hallway they can only get to by taking four right turns to complete a circle, on their stomachs with their ears pressed to the ground.

"Can you hear it?" Nicholas whispers.

"The heartbeat?" Luca says, voice just as quiet, feeling the warmth through the floor.

"Yeah, it's the body of the Ayad Family Magic, just underneath here." Nicholas closes his eyes and focuses. "We power it, and it powers us. Protection when we're younger, an extra boost when we gain control of it."

"How strong is it?" Luca asks, a contemplative look on his face.

"It was fed for over a millennia on the Ayad line – and further back, from when we didn't have a last name. It's more than strong enough for whatever you need. I think mum and dad want to hook you up to it too, but I'm not sure if it will recognise you considering the time travel."

"Can it…" Luca pauses. "Can it block curses? Soul curses?"

"What?" Nicholas blurts out, eyes snapping open. He laughs. "Soul - no fucking way. I mean - well, it'd take a lot of power for that. Like sacrificial power, if it drained me or something it'd block anything for mum and dad. Blood curses, a goblin army, nothing would get through it. You could fall into a volcano and get right back out."

"So, theoretically," Luca begins. "If, say, your mum and dad offered themselves…"

"I'd be the strongest mage alive," Nicholas states. "For all of ten minutes, but I could take on the entire high mage council, no problem."

“Oh,” Luca says slowly and it seems like things are clicking into place for him. “Because there were a few times when things just kind of…got a little bit out of hand for me and I think I know what it is now.”

“It should protect you if that’s what you mean,” Nicholas explains. “You’re Ayad after all.”

Luca smiles. “Yeah, Ayad. Are all Family Magics like that?"

"No, the Ayad line feeds it magic and it builds for a rainy day scenario, but if you're Lambros you get a permanent magical boost after a ritual even if it isn't nearly as ridiculously strong." Nicholas furrows his brow, thinking. "Hm, there are families that receive lesser Seer gifts, one that doesn’t need a focus to use magic, and I think there was a bloodline with weather magic."

Nicholas shrugs. "All sorts of stuff, but unless you want to brag, it's kinda private – some families gain it through birth but others need rituals and it gets pretty gory."

"And yours?"

"Ours, Luca. Ours."

"Ours," Luca corrects and smiles a little bit.

Nicholas knocks on the wood. "You go down, under the floorboards, and you sleep down there in the heart, for days, weeks, years maybe. When you're in the heart, you walk with death – you don't age, you don't dream."

"You don't know how long it'll take?" Luca asks worriedly. "How many times do you have to do that?"

"You do it as many times and for however long as it wants you to," Nicholas admits. "That's the price for being able to cheat fate, for storing so much magic it takes on a mind of its own. It's a parasite, or a home-grown elder god."

“I actually started at the school when I was fifteen,” Luca admits, strolling across the grassy fields around the manor, arm in arm with Vinaya.

Nicholas runs around in the distance using an ancestor’s staff focus to cast cutting spells and mow down particularly overgrown areas because he still doesn’t have his wand and making a new one takes forever. Nicholas already sent off an angry letter (with an angry pigeon) to find older Stavros and demand his focus back.

“You mentioned your magic was suppressed. Is that when the block came off you?” Vinaya asks.

“It’s when the magical world caught up with me and I had to break it myself,” Luca says. “I transferred in halfway through the year, had no idea what I was doing. But there was a boy who transferred with me and helped a lot. Learned more from him than I did the teachers.”

“That’s nice.”

“Turns out he was a magic-filled grimoire that belonged to Haochen Xia.”

“Well in that case,” Vinaya muses. “Did you burn him?”

“Ripped the soul right out of his book,” Luca sighs. “He was an asshole. A great friend.”

Luca watches on nervously as his new grandfather does a basic check-up on Nicholas. Jordan tries to reassure him by explaining what’s happening and that nothing has gone wrong, it’s just maintenance.

Jordan has apparently been doing it since Nicholas finally confessed he was using Dark magic. This came two minutes after confessing Rafael was a werewolf and could Nicholas pretty please put him in the backyard for the winter holidays? Thoth won’t be much trouble as long as he has his toys.

Nicholas was thirteen then and while Jordan and Vinaya are fine with it now, they were understandably more than just concerned. Partly about the werewolf thing, mostly about Nicholas potentially just dropping dead because he was messing with magics that were not meant to be used.

Normal magic is an easy flow, constantly. It's not throwing the power, it's opening a hand and letting it flutter away on its own. Dark magic is so called because it's heavy; on the soul, on the emotions, on the magic. It's wading upstream, it actually takes effort to go against the natural flow of magic. A perversion of nature.

It's not difficult though, just takes some creative loopholes. For a normal NatCom to wildshape, they need to perform a ritual each time with the body part of an animal they want to turn into.

Rafael tweaked it so the form was based off an InCore human transfiguration spell which was restricted to one animal but much more stable. Stavros pieced together a ritual to call upon the magic form but not the true nature of NatCom wildshaping. Nicholas experimented with a potion to ease the way into the transition state. Adam was the one who found them the ingredients and ran interference when others got too close during tests.

They were hoping to invent a new InCore spell but the thing they ended up with was artificial. It was Dark magic. They were so close they couldn’t stop.

Jordan keeps track of the boys religiously though, did it once a week at first but now it’s dropped down to just holidays or any big bursts of Dark magic – because no, Nicholas wasn’t going to stop keeping Thoth company unless they could give him a reason to.

Ayad are an old family, and Vinaya’s heritage line as well, they were raised on respect and to be humble in front of the force of nature that is magic. To use Dark spells is to spit on what you were given, it is arrogance to not restrain yourself to one track.

But just from Jordan’s tests, it might leave a bit of residue so normal magic is also a bit harder, but that clears up on its own. If someone uses a lot of Dark magic though, it seems to get easier. It used to take half an hour of meditation for Nicholas to turn into Rito, now it's a split second of thought, instinctive even, faster than normal InCore spells.

Jordan is now mostly testing out of curiosity and he explains this all to Luca as the diagnostic spells keep coming back with printouts that he checks over and neatly organises in folders.

Luca hasn’t really interacted with Dark magic personally. He knows it’s wrong and hated and all the Dark mages he’s encountered are monsters…but Nicholas tells him he’s been using far more than wildshape. They made dozens of spells and rituals mainly for Rafael but some just to have a good time.

If Nicholas is a Dark mage then Luca needs to look into it more because he’s only heard stories of them going mad from the weight of it all.

Nicholas pauses in the doorway, half out of the living room, and turns back to Luca. "Um, I'm going to the bathroom."

"Okay," Luca says.

They go to the bathroom together and Nicholas stops at the door. "You can go first."

"I don't need to go."

"So you…just want to wait outside for me?" Nicholas asks hesitantly.

Luca looks away and then looks back. "Is that…okay?" Luca tilts his head and his hair flops with the motion.

Nicholas resolves to tilt his head more because it looks super cute on Luca and they basically have the same hair. "It's cool," Nicholas reassures. "But you just follow me a lot. Everywhere. And you sneak into my room at night to check in on me."

"You were awake?" Luca cries in shock.

"There's a spell that tallies who comes in – dad tries to secretly curate my wardrobe and I'm not into that," Nicholas explains. "And I get that you're in a new timeline and everything is confusing but also maybe you need to talk it out and calm down?"

"I can stop," Luca says quickly. "Sorry. I can…stop."

"Do you want to tell me why you're so…" Nicholas trails off. "Paranoid? Because when I leave the room you're in, you get a little bit distressed."

Luca purses his lips. "Just - new place. You know."

"You can start sleeping in my room again if you want," Nicholas says simply. "I mean, I don't know if that would make your...thing worse though?"

Luca does a weird three-step shuffle. "I think it would help."

"Sure, anything else?"

Luca looks away, looks back. "We should hold hands."

"Alright." Nicholas takes a step into the bathroom. "I'm gonna use the restroom and then we can hold hands for the rest of the day."

Luca smiles brightly even though he tries to suppress it.

"So you don't have to listen at the door like you usually do," Nicholas continues.

The smile drops off Luca's face. "I-! You – know about. It's not – weird – not in a weird way."

Nicholas slowly backs into the room and shuts the door.

"Nicholas!" Luca cries. "Nicholas - dad, I promise, not in a weird way."