They'd been late, that last night. The city had been busy with people, all rushing from one party to the next. New Years Eve in New York City. All bright lights and loud music and people laughing and drinking and Zed had been nine, but they'd had the run of the city since they were younger. There was safety in numbers. Safety in the suffocating and comforting normality of their mundane expectation that Zed's mom saw no problem in letting her children have their freedom.

But they did have a curfew, even on nights such as these. But they'd been so caught up with playing with the other unsupervised kids that they'd totally missed the clock strike twelve and their curfew had come and gone and by the time they'd run their way back home -

Nate's little baby body was the first thing that they saw. The mals hadn't even wasted their time on him. Just cut him down and moved on to the real meal. The woman who had been so powerful and near bursting with mana... their wards should have worked. But....

Zed had been too late. There'd been nothing left of her to recover. Just the tiny body of little Nate, with his little pink elephant clutched in his tiny tiny hands. So small.

They wanted to stay there. Maybe maybe maybe there could be something they could do to help. His little baby body was- it was still perfect. Like he was sleeping.

Their neighbours had found them, they assume. They don't remember. They don't remember much of what came after that. Just.

Time passes. As it tends to do. And when the fog lifts just a little bit they don't know where they were. Strange faces. Lots of people. All of similar features. A family. The Starrs. They'd taken him in, they said, they're so happy to have him (them, they do not correct, what does it matter?). They teach them. They train them. They introduce them to the rest of the small enclave. They're good people.

Zed gets older. They find a place from them in the Scholomance. Their mom had never wanted them to go before. She reasoned that she could protect both her her babies herself, she was powerful enough. Famous enough. She'd have so many invitations to join an enclave, but she'd been too proud, too confident in her own power. But she was wrong, wasn't she? So so completely wrong.

Zed refuses to be a liability. Because even if she was wrong, even if she had gotten little baby Nate killed, Zed knows that she wouldn't want that for her eldest. So. Zed trains. They make friends. Alex and Angie and Sara and all their cousins and siblings. They share all the spells that their mom had taught them to anyone that wants to have them. They don't care about getting anything in return, that's not the point of them. They continue practising all the languages. A cacophony of African and other languages (SwatiXhosaZulueSepediAfrikaans, Arabic) that their mother was constantly switching between their whole childhood that Zed can hardly separate. The Starrs teach them French and Latin.

They find things. People and places and lost things that nobody ever knew were lost but Zed can see clear as day. It's their affinity, apparently. Which is valuable to the enclave and elevates their position, making them so much more valuable, even if nobody really wants to admit how little they actually valued Zed before this.

A week before they are scheduled to be swept up in the tide of the Scholomance Zed wakes up with a book on their face. It's old and... familiar. Like an old relative that has returned from places unknowable and expects you to sit up and pay attention to them and listen - so Zed reads. And reads and the words on the page are so much and hurt their brain but it's like a whole other world has opened up in their mind and if they just dig deeper -

Zed shuts the book and wraps it up in duct tape and a plastic bag and more duct tape and another cloth bag and then wraps in more tape, then buries it in the bottom of their bag-

The next morning it smacks them in the face, fully uncovered and fallen open to a fresh new page and Zed just. Can't.

They leave it behind. They have more than enough to carry, weighed exactly to the milligram, they can't afford to bring along a whole new asshole book when they need space for Alex's extras and a few things for Angie and their own gear, for their Maintenance shifts and for honing their affinity and for keeping themself and their enclavemates alive. The book can just wait until they get out. If they do.

It's awkward, standing there as everyone says their goodbyes. They don't ignore them, not really, but they're just another face in the crowd and probably they won't ever see these people again, not with the odds, not with their lower position - even if Alex and Angie would pitch a fit about Zed even having such a thought. Even if it's true.

They don't feel sorry for themself. People die. Mals are everywhere. Zed is actually lucky. Lucky that the Montréal enclave even gave a fuck. They could have left them to die and nobody would have batted an eye or blamed them.

So they thank Ned Starr for everything, thank Catherine for feeding them, hug the little ones goodbye, press back against Alex for a moment of comfort, and take the anti-nausea pill Ned hands them and don't even have time to swallow before-