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week ago,” said Alber, rolling his eyes. “Which universe have you been in?”
    “Ha ha.” I pushed back from the table. If I had a few hours to kill, might as well do something productive. Like practicing throwing knives in the garden.
    Alber followed me out the back door, having swiped the remains of the stack of toast from the table. “Nell’s being a neglectful parent again,” he said, perching on the garden wall. Weeds grew between the cracked paving stones and from the back, the house looked run-down and abandoned. Nell had let the ivy grow out of hand to block the windows, not that anyone ever came back here anyway. A chain-link fence and an alley separated us from the neighbouring house.
    “She’s just busy.”
    Running both the shelter and a home business was no joke, even if the business was basically all online, selling disguises to offworlders who wanted to build new lives on Earth. Nell might have wanted a normal life for me, but she could never escape her own roots.
    The magic still zinged through my veins as I lifted a knife in my right hand, focusing on the target. Usually, I wouldn’t be able to do this, but today magic was on my side.
    I gripped the knife and sent a jolt of power into it, letting go as I did so. It struck the target dead centre, and then rebounded. I jumped into the air and caught it by the hilt, exhilaration mingling with the power still surging through me. Nell had lectured me half to death about throwing away my weapon during a fight, seeing as one time I’d done that, I’d ended up missing and almost getting speared through the eye with my own weapon. But with magic, I could get my dagger back to my hand without the enemy grabbing it.
    “Show-off,” said Alber, his violet eyes flashing. He wasn’t wearing his contacts. He jumped back as the knife whizzed past and stuck point first in the target. “And you wonder why Gary was scared of you.”
    “Did you have to bring that up?” I said, shuddering at the reference to my ex. “It’s not like I brought knives to our dates. Wait. Okay, there was that one time.”
    “I rest my case,” said Alber.
    “Oh, don’t you start,” I said. “Thank God Nell’s not the type to want me to settle down and get married. Ugh.”
    “No.” He smirked. “Can you imagine her dating anyone? I’m pretty sure she sleeps with three knives under her pillow.”
    “See? Makes me look almost normal.”
    I handed the knife over to Alber. He was right-handed, but landed a perfect hit with his left hand. Again, the knife soared back at him and he caught it in his right hand, grinning.
    “I know all your tricks, Ada,” he said. “You’re not the only mageblood here.”
    I smiled, but it felt suddenly like a sharp object caught in my chest. I had no idea why Nell hadn’t told Jeth and Alber what I really was, especially considering I knew everything about them. I knew Jeth’s world, Karthos, was the only world to have ever been kicked out of the Alliance for human rights breaches after a bloodbath. He’d been five when someone had smuggled him to the transition point, and Nell had taken to him immediately. Alber was from Enzar, like me, and Nell had adopted him at three from another shelter. But he was mageblood. He didn’t know I was related to the Royals, the ruling nonmages who’d wrested power from the magebloods on Enzar, forced them into servitude, or killed them outright. He didn’t know Nell had been the Royals’ servant, that she’d risked her own life smuggling me away as the magebloods and Royals alike were swept into a massacre.
    That was all she’d told me. I’d only been a year old when I’d left, after all, so I had no memories of Enzar. My blood family might still be alive for all I knew. From the little I’d heard from the survivors brave enough to share their stories, I didn’t want to know their fate.
    But I wouldn’t have minded knowing why I had the same magic level as a mageblood when I was supposed to