Louis answered me. “They’re old and have had a long time to develop their abilities. You and Mischa are young, and your powers have been blocked and bound for most of your lives.” He turned to my shell-shocked twin. “Mischa’s marked powers still are.”

I lowered my voice. “Do they have a large dragon mark too?”

There was a few confused looks around the table, but not from Louis. The damn sorcerer always knew everything. Well, clearly not everything, we still had a crap-ton of unanswered questions. But he was on point most of the time.

I explained for the confused. “From what I’ve seen the supes in here have small dragon marks. Mine is like half my side and back.”

Quale shrugged. “I’ve never seen the twin’s marks, and the other mystics haven’t either, but I can tell you that there have been none to enter in the last few hundred years which have a large mark.”

I was sure that the fruit twins had massive marks too. Why would I be the only one in this compass? Mischa lowered her head but didn’t say anything. Her expression troubled me.

Tyson pushed back strands of brown hair. “The spirits – magical essence inside – is urging us to unlock Mischa’s mark, let her and Jessa figure out what their twin-abilities are.”

“No!” Jonathon’s tone was short and hard. “I don’t think there could be anything worse right now than releasing more energy for the dragon king to manipulate.”

Mischa’s chair screeched as she lurched to her feet. “You think I’m weak and stupid. You don’t trust me with my powers. Shit, I was raised with humans, I freaking think like one, and you’re doing nothing to help me adjust.”

She was yelling and waving her hands. Plus she’d just sworn in front of her mother, who had very definite ideas about ladies and bad language.

Mischa turned tail and took off. I could see my parents were about to go after her, but I stopped them. “I’ll go. We need to have a bit of a talk, and I think it’s better if no one else is there.”

I had to get through to her, I couldn’t lose my sister, and I sensed a rift between us which hadn’t been there before I got lost in Faerie land.

Jonathon gave me another hard hug, a goodbye this time. “We also need to talk, my little wolf. I would like to hear what has been happening since you left us. Including your run-in with the jinn and side-trip to the Faerie dimension.”