"I know what you're thinking," Kira said, defending Jason. "You, too, Father! You're trying to hide it with your Mage skills but I can still see it! Nothing happened! Well, a little bit happened. I kissed Jason. Twice. But each time I kissed him. Jason is not the boy you met earlier. That was an illusion that Jason maintained to hide his real self. That Jason standing there is the real Jason, and he is smart, and he is nice to people, and…"

"And he saved your life in a storm at risk of his own," her mother added.

"Yes! He did that, too! And he didn't even mention it afterwards."

Mari studied Jason again. "So, you fixed him, Kira?"

"No!" Kira said. "He did it. I provided encouragement and, uh, recommendations, but Jason did all of the changing."

"I don't doubt it," her mother replied. "Remember me telling you that no one can bring out anything in another person that isn't already inside somewhere? Jason had to have that better person inside. But don't play down how important the motivation you provided was in making that happen." She looked Jason over once more. "The big question is, what do you want, Jason?"

"What?" Jason asked. "I mean, excuse me?"

"What do you want?" Mari repeated.

"You're really asking me?"

"Is that so unusual?"

"Yes," Jason said, his face working with emotion. "No one in charge ever asks me what I want. I just get told."

Kira's mother lowered her head and rubbed her forehead, then looked back up at him. "I'm sorry. But we will not do that. Alain and I want to know what you want."

Jason smiled at Kira. "I want, more than anything, to stay on this planet. Not to go back to Earth, but to stay here."

"Because of Kira?" Mari asked. "She doesn't know how she feels, Jason. Sometimes that means those feelings will deepen, but it might also mean she might decide you make a good friend and nothing more, or even less. That's how hearts are."

"I know," Jason said, dejected. "But even if that happens, this world is where I want to be. It's the first place I ever felt happy. It's the first place I ever got to be something, the first place I ever thought I could be something."

Mari sighed. "Are the laws on Urth the same as here? That until you are eighteen years old you are under the control of your parents?"

Jason sagged again. "Yes. Unless you get a court order of emancipation and the only source of that is a very, very long way from here. I tried getting one a couple of years ago, but Mom and Dad's lawyers killed it. They don't want me, but they don't want me free of them, either."

Tense with worry, Kira saw her mother and father exchange a glance. Her father nodded.