Swinging his feet over to the side of the bed, he looked at his hands, turning them over. There was no sign of the dirt, grit. No damage from moving the objects on the five sided table, no cuts on his fingers or blood on the back of his hand.

As he often did, he reached out for his individual powers. His own power was at its ordinary strength. The scythes of shimmering, flickering light appeared in each of his hands. It felt right.

The emotion power—he reached for it and cast it out over the empty space in the middle of his room. He was aware of it like he’d be aware of a patch of shade. The effectiveness wasn’t much sharper than creating the shade would be.

When he reached for the tinker power, the ideas that came to mind were paltry, barely much better than how he might manage setting up a snare or the steps for forging a knife. He wasn’t even especially good at those things.

That left the mover power. He used it to get to his feet, pushing himself out of bed and using the power rather than his balance to steady himself.

He’d slept in a t-shirt and boxers, and felt exposed as he canceled out the arrested movement of the mover power, stepped over to the door and shut it. He pulled on a dirty pair of jeans and ran his fingers through his shoulder-length hair until it was reasonable.

His family tended to subscribe to the notion that the kitchen was the center of the home. The buildings that had been erected for the settlement were set up in a way that made for large kitchens. Wood was burning at a massive brick stove with room for six frying pans on it, and there were two girls Rain’s age handling food there. He couldn’t quite remember their names. Heather and Lauren, maybe. Or was one of them Jean? He’d seen them around, but they didn’t go to the school and they’d never talked to him.

Rain’s auntie was at the counter, grating potatoes. Her daughter, Rain’s cousin Allie, stood talking to one of the men that was sitting at the table, while she took her time drying a dish.

Rain knew only one of the men at the table—an uncle, who had said ten words at most in all the time Rain knew him. There was no introduction made for the other two men who sat there.

As good as the food was, as much as the stove was warm and the family close and busy, it wasn’t warm in atmosphere. There was no small talk. There were some glances from Allie, who was washing and drying, and from the girls at the stove. The glances were reserved for when they thought he wasn’t looking.

They weren’t kind looks.