A Wolf's Howl, A Fairy's Wing

When they reached the living room, Emily was already there waiting for them. Where she had spent the night was a secret known only to Elora.

Erik quickly pulled some food from his storage and prepared breakfast for the both of them until Seraphina eventually joined them.

The vampire woman still looked angry at Erik, but whenever she thought he wasn't looking, her gaze turned to one of hunger, clearly desiring some of his blood.

She would have to ask, though, as Erik certainly wasn't going to simply offer. He didn't want her to be some kind of slave to his blood. Still, she did need to learn respect and a desire to follow him, as an insider in the council was necessary for his and Elora's plans.

But her need wasn't that high yet, so she just suffered her desire in silence for now.

After breakfast, it was finally time to get started on awakening Emma.

They were currently in the living room: Emily was standing doll-eyed with her back against the wall, Erik was lounging on one of the sofas, Seraphina sat to the right of him and in the middle of the room was Emma and, floating in front of her, Elora.

Since she had, somewhat reluctantly, agreed to help the sisters, she would naturally see it through herself.

That being said, her disinterested look spoke volumes about her enthusiasm. However, she did explain a little about Emma's condition and the awakening process, "Right, let's get this over with.

Typically, awakening happens when aetherium first flows into a person's body, forcing the aetherium storage to appear, which is a metaphysical organ without a specific location in the body.

For people already living in an aetherium-rich environment, this gradual process starts at birth and finishes at the age of ten. At this point, they form their first glyph.

On the other hand, people not living from birth in such an environment will have an accelerated growth process of this organ, which can cause the body to combust, as many people here on Earth noticed.

You, however, have something akin to a genetic defect where the aetherium storage starts forming at a slower rate, no matter what age you are, which means that in three years, you would have finished creating your storage and been like everybody else."

She puffed up her chest in pride, "Luckily for you, I'm perfectly capable of accelerating the growth of this organ to be finished in a day!"

Then she shrugged, "Unluckily for you, there is a small chance that this accelerated growth will still cause you to combust. I'm only mentioning this because Master asked me to. I'm perfectly confident in preventing the combustion, but this is your last chance to back out."

Hearing her call him Master according to their bet made Erik grin, while Elora completely ignored the event as if it were normal, simply because she didn't really care what she called Erik.

No one else in the room reacted to it, though, as none of them were sure about the relationship between Elora and Erik in the first place.

In response to Elora's words, Emma looked at the one person in the room she now put most of her trust in, Erik.

Seeing Emma's doubts, Erik smiled, "Elora has never let me down when it comes to anything magical, so if she says she has complete confidence, then so do I. That said, it's your choice. But if you don't, we can do only so much for Emily.

We could wait three years, of course, but since the corruption has already gotten this far, it will only worsen, even without the sigil, and possibly become impossible to cure."

Emma nodded at his words, panned her gaze towards Elora, and nodded again with as much determination as she had in her body.

Elora grinned, "Seeing someone like you, ready to risk it all to save her sister, almost makes me convert to the Radiant Glades' touchy-feely crap."

Immediately, a smirk appeared on Erik's face, "Oh?"

Without turning her head, Elora pointed a finger at Erik, "Shut it, you! I said almost!"

Erik blinked in mock surprise, "I'm sorry, who's this you person?"

Sighing, Elora turned to Erik, "I meant shut your damn trap, Master."

While this short interaction confused the room even more about their relationship, Elora simply turned back to Emma. She raised a finger, with a dark green sphere at the end, "Ready?"

When Emma nodded, the green sphere suddenly began expanding and elongating until it was as tall and wide as she was before enveloping her.

Since the aetherium storage was a metaphysical organ without a fixed location, there was not a single point on Emma's body to interact with for this.

When the enveloping was done, Elora put her outstretched hand on the dark green bubble and appeared to be concentrating.

At some point, she started frowning and put her other hand on the bubble, as Erik could feel an increasing amount of energy being drained from their shared storage.

Suddenly, Emily sagged down as if her strings were cut, causing Seraphina to look at her with surprise before shooting Erik a look of concern.

Erik shook his head, "I'm not sure. Elora is concentrating. But she needed more energy than expected, so she drained Emily through their shared connection. Don't worry, she's fine. Just needs some rest."

Seraphina frowned. She wanted to help, but Arcanist and Runebound energy was incompatible, likely because the energy used by Runebound was all generated by the Runebound themselves, while Arcanists only stored aetherium they absorbed from the air.

Luckily, it appeared Elora had enough energy in the end as she sighed, and the green bubble disappeared, showing a seemingly unharmed Emma floating in the air.

Next, Emma slowly floated down to Earth and opened her mismatched green and white eyes.

Immediately, she felt the same rush everyone else had felt seven years ago and instinctively began moving her finger in the air as she drew her first glyph.

Meanwhile, Elora had already disappeared into a cloud of light specks. She returned to Erik's soul, where Erik asked her what had happened. "Are you alright, Elora? What just happened?"

He could feel Elora make a thoughtful expression, "It's strange. I suspect some Ancestor or Ancestors of Emma had their DNA messed with, creating the defect and making it much harder for me to accelerate the aetherium storage's growth.

But I couldn't possibly tell you for what purpose this was done, if the alterations did anything else or if the defect was intended. However, if so, it clearly failed in both Emily's and their parents' cases.

Either way, this only creates more questions. The ancestor whose DNA was messed with should be very far removed. It probably happened at least a thousand years ago. But who on Earth could possibly have the power to do something like that back then?

Even if we are correct in assuming Earth has had some kind of past history with magic and aetherium, it can't have been a mere thousand years ago.

Not to mention that I, a third-rank fairy with extensive knowledge about bloodlines and genetics, am unable to determine precisely what these changes are supposed to do, let alone recreate it, so whoever did this was more powerful and knowledgeable than me."

Erik and Elora both fell silent until Erik asked, "Do you think their affinities have anything to do with this?"

He could feel Elora shrug helplessly, "I really have no idea. It would certainly explain a lot but also raise more questions. And we can't assume their affinities weren't caused by something else, or even just random chance."

Erik sighed with exhaustion, "I guess whoever did that probably also brought us back to Earth, just in time to save those sisters. Why us, though?"

However, Elora shook her head, "It was probably more about you than me.

If I had to guess, someone has plans for both you and the Ashcroft sisters. But you were accidentally teleported away, so they had to bring you back. At the same time, I am likely just a coincidence, along for the ride."

Erik shook his head, "That's possible, yet we can't exclude other possibilities. Maybe the only reason I was useful enough to teleport back here was because of you." He sighed, "But if this is all about me, then I'm just sorry I dragged you into this mess."

Elora immediately and mentally smacked him on the head, "Don't be an idiot. Your problems are my problems, just as my problems are your problems. Don't forget that."

Erik chuckled at her reply, "You're the best, Elora."

Holding fast to their bet, Elora responded, "And you're pretty okay, too, Master."

Laughing out loud now, Erik refocused on the outside world and noticed that Emma was just about finished with her glyph. After all, mental conversations were much faster than regular ones.

However, Emma wasn't done yet as she suddenly began to draw a second glyph under Seraphina's surprised gaze.

Erik seemed unfazed, however, clearly having expected this.