"How are you?"

His gaze goes to the doorway, relaxing when he sees Aaron there - good, at least there's that -

"...Exhausted," he says in answer to Franklyn's question.

Jamie shifts, "Touch?" He asks, seeking permission. At Alex's nod, he moves, pressing up against his side, reaching up to brush at his forehead. He glances uncertainly at Topher, and then presses a kiss to Alex's hair - a little less obvious, even if the Graywards know, in theory...

Topher, Does Not React To The Kiss, though he is accessing the room's damage and freezing things around the scorched area just to be sure.

He tugs Jamie into his arms, pressing his nose into his hair and just breathing for a minute. It's not hard to remind himself of where he is like this. 

After a bit, he pulls away some, looking over at the door, "I... sorry. I didn't expect..." that. He looks between Aaron and Sawney, "You're not hurt, really?" 

"Well..." he steps into the room and shows the burns in his arms - there is some kind of purple cream applied to them - and there are some other stray burns including another nasty one around Aaron's left ribs. "The real pain is going to be when Morghan finds out that I went to grab Franklyn before treating them."

He flinches on seeing them, "Shit," he breathes. "Shit, I-" he shakes his head, leaning into Jamie for a moment.

"I'm sorry." He swallows, "I didn't know that would happen. How do I stop that from happening again?" 

"We could ward you so you can't produce fire?"

"I think... we can rush the vault tuning a bit so you can put that gift there. But a ward is a temporary measure, yeah. And Aaron is going to be okay, we have been through worse."

"Yeah, I just-" he shakes his head, eyes catching on the burn on his side. "I'm sorry," he says again. 

He'll take wards, definitely, and will push himself harder to get to the point where he can drop this Gift in the vault. 

"It's okay dude. I won't even have cool scars."

(Topher elbows him.)

They clean off the room. The blue mats pretty much got incinerated, but they have replacements. The floor and ceiling are intact - being fireproof warded - and only blackened by smoke and ash.

They inform the rest of the family and Stephen takes time off from work. He offers Alex a hug but it's not offended if the boy doesn't want to be touched. He just mutters something that sounds a lot like "tracked and killed that bastard".

Morgan checks people for wounds and injuries. Aaron gets Admonished for not treating his burns better.

They ward Alex, and renew some other fire-related wards around. They give the twins' room, the same ward that the library has, which is more costly to cast, but douses off all flames in the area. Just in case.

Alex and Topher can both throw themselves at the task of getting rid of that gift.

...Alex appreciates that Stephen isn't offended by it. And the wards.

(Jamie agrees with the sentiment.) 

With all of his attention on the one goal, it doesn't actually take them all that long to reach it, thankfully. 

That's great, then they can fly over to the Grayward's old home location, and let Alexei get access from there.

Can Jamie come along for this? Jamie would like to come along. Just in case. 

Oh, definitely. Aaron and his early warning system is coming too, though Topher is thorough enough to make sure that Alex can handle this.

Oh yeah, it doesn't hurt to be sure, though.

(Flying!!)

And he prepares to access the vault.

And as instructed he falls into a trance and... something opens to him, or leads him through into an out of body-experience. A vast expanse of some deep color, not black, but the color seems to shift whenever he tries to figure out what it is. But contrasted against that vastness there are lines, straight lines that suddenly branch out in hard angles following a pattern that is reminiscent of both trees and a circuit board, it stands on and on as far Alexei can perceive, never individually getting brighter than the dim light of a star. The network of the vault with the forest, allowing drawing and connecting lifeforce between it and the vault.

And at the center of this all, five bright stars in a pentagon, but at the same time a spiral, space is not an easy concept in this place. The five stars "open" themselves, allowing Alexei to connect each individual lifeforce aspect to them.

Wow.

He'd been told what to expect, but he still wasn't quite prepared. Still, he isn't isn't so distracted by the strange beauty of it to stop him from doing what he'd come to do. He reaches out with his lifeforce, directing it towards the stars.

And once every star has reached, they fold onto each other and then "bloom", he still in the ethereal space, but has gained access to the gift vault. They are organized around "above" the five stars, breath gifts to the breath star, with flowing tendrils of light interconnecting the entire thing.

Five tendrils reach toward him, and he is now attuned to the vault. Identified. Recognized. Authorized. To a limited degree. It's hard to notice but there are definitely layers to this thing beyond what he is already seeing. But he can do things with the vault.

Including, deposit his Health gift there.

He doesn't waste any time, practically throwing the fire gift into the vault. He can't be rid of it quick enough.

As Topher said, it's very literally a piece of him being torn apart. Surgically, whatever magic empowers this is entire structure is very good at carving out what needs to be carved out. It's almost fighting back at him pushing the gift away.

He is not sure how much time passes. But at some point of transition, he can feel himself drained and the fire gift in his place, almost bouncing in its column while the tendrils start root it in place properly.

With that done, the vault closes back into the pentagram amidst the vast field of lines and then back to his body.