I debated waking him up, before I headed for the Clarion’s office. Radha’s six-year-old son had entirely too much energy, and was way too much work, but I adored him. He was smarter than most kids twice his age—and he was a prodigy with his abilities, able to control fire from the age of four, while most othersiders don’t come into their abilities until they hit puberty.

Or, in my case, later. Or possibly never.

There is magic in me. I feel it all through my arms and legs, shivering in my stomach, burning in my brain. But when I try to access it—I freak out. Sometimes it’s like a seizure, other times I black out. Sometimes I start smashing stuff up.

But it’s there. I’ve always known it’s there. I’ve also known I need to keep it a secret, in a city that hates my kind so much.

I opened the door to the room we shared and watched Connor sleep.

I loved him—but sometimes, in my darkest, most self-pitying moments, I couldn’t help but envy him. Sure, he was dirt-poor like me, but he had a mother and he’d grown up surrounded by people who loved him. They’d valued him, nurtured him, encouraged him. The light in his deep brown eyes had never dimmed. Spend thirty seconds with Connor and you could see that the fire he could summon was part of his very soul.

Someone ran past the window, sobbing. Someone else laughed.

And then the shouting started.

“Stay here,” I told Radha. I grabbed my camera and ran outside. Random jerks routinely came around the Underbridge, looking to beat up on some othersiders. They tended to regret it pretty quickly and run like hell. But hopefully I could get off a couple of good photos for my editor, Cass, first.

A crowd had gathered in the dusty alley, so thick I couldn’t get anywhere near the action. I could see what was happening, though. These were not random jerks. These people were together. They were organized.

They all wore ultramarine armbands. I don’t know why that worried me so much. Maybe it was the idea that someone, somewhere, had sewed them. That these people were part of something bigger.

My feet slid into horse stance, one of the few things I remembered from the self-defense classes that Ash’s trainer let me sit in on. My hands made fists. I may not have known yet what my ability was, but I would fight with all of my regular human strength before I let anything happen to Radha and Connor.

An armbanded man walked right up to me.