Spring was finally pushed out of the way and summer came in all of its splendour and heat. Over this time, Adam almost forgot his strange reaction to snow as the general busy life of running an army base occupied almost all of his time. The days quickly became hotter and almost all of the army recruits groaned with the thought of having to train in leather armour under the sweltering sun. On one particularly hot day, the training sessions were cut short by about half an hour and the recruits quickly dispersed to take a refreshing cool shower, leaving Jerome and Adam to pack up all of the training weapons.
"How can you wear that?" Jerome finally blurted to Adam, wiping the sweat off of his forehead.
Adam shrugged a little, picking up a few more practise dummies and moving them over to their designated rack. While most people were wearing short sleeves or even singlets with shorts, Adam felt fine with his shirt sleeves coming down to his elbow and his shorts coming down to his knees. He wasn't sweating as much as most people: Some days he didn't sweat at all. It was hot though, he could feel it, he just... didn't react as much as he normally would. He liked it though; it made it easier to work.
Something else that always came with summer was a desire to do something, to be active in the great outdoors. Of course, this was somewhat dampened by the excessive heat, but Adam always wanted to be outside and doing something ever since he had first come to the lower country. He struggled to sit still at his desk, his hands constantly tapping his pen, the desk, the chair. His constant energy started to irritate his friends, who would often crash in the common room at the end of a day while he was either outside or pacing the hallways.
"Adam, just sit down and relax," Ian coaxed.
Adam managed to sit for a grand total of six seconds before he was up again, walking the four corners of the room. Ty groaned and put his head in his hands, probably becoming dizzy from Adam's pacing.
"Adam, anyone would think that you were hyped up on sugar," Jerome told him.
"And you would know all about being hyped up on sugar, don't you Jerome?" Jason replied instantly, no doubt remembering the times late at night where Jerome would run up and down the corridors for hours after having too much sugar.
Jerome went red and mumbled something and a few chuckles came, one of which was from Adam. Eventually, they managed to keep Adam sitting down for more than a minute and some decent conversation occurred, but night had quickly arrived and everyone went to bed. Adam found himself becoming annoyed at this constant energy but it wasn't until he was in the armoury sharpening his dagger that he started to worry. The whetstone made a lulling zing zing as it rasped over the steel blade of the dagger. His thoughts were dully mulling over information when a sharp pain across the palm of his hand demanded his attention. He glanced down and saw that somehow in his inattentiveness, he had made a thin cut in his hand which was bleeding profusely, a testament to the sharpness of the knife.
With a sound of annoyance, he cleaned the traces of blood from the blade and sheathed it at his side, pressing the side of his thumb to the cut and leaving to find Quentin. The man had been a trained lifesaver before he had joined the Team but had quickly learnt to become a medic. Usually he hung out near the training grounds or in the infirmary. Today, it turned out to be the latter. He was tending to a patient so Adam waited outside the room. He could have gone to someone else but Quentin didn't ask questions and he didn't want to have to recount how he cut his hand open because he wasn't paying attention.
"Hey Adam, what's up?" Quentin asked when he closed the door behind him.
"Can you just bandage my hand for me real quick?"
"Yeah sure, show me."
Adam held his hand out and uncovered the cut. "It's not too deep I thin..."
His voice died off and his eyes widened, tracing the part of his palm that was cut with his finger. The small amounts of blood which were stuck to the palm testified that it had been there but the cut in question was gone, leaving the skin bare and white. Quentin gently touched his palm as if worried he would hurt him.
"Were you bleeding there?" he asked.
Adam shook his head, doing some fast thinking. "I must have wiped the blood off of somewhere and just assumed that I had cut myself. Sorry."
"You sure you're okay?"
No, Adam thought, but he nodded. "I'll just wash my hands," he said and walked away before Quentin could ask him more questions.
Washing the blood away didn't wash away the memory of the cut nor did it lessen his worry, but he kept it to himself. As the hours passed, he managed to almost explain it away as a freak occurrence, the cut really being much more shallow than he realised and his 'pain' just being his body overreacting. That was before he was crouching next to the fireplace in his study, piling on some kindling on the small fire to burn a few pieces of paper.
He stared into the flickering flames, watching as the paper curled and browned at the edges then blacken to nothing while the small flames burned cheerily. He put his hands on his knees and stood up but he slipped and he fell, his hand flashing out to catch himself. It landed on the hot coals of the fire and Adam jerked back with a yell, clutching his hand to his chest, waiting for the searing pain to say that he had done some damage to his hand.
But it didn't come.
He hesitantly looked at it. It was smooth and white with a small bit of soot on his palm, promising that he hadn't just gone insane but he doubted himself. His eyes were trained on the slightly shaking hand, then the flicked to the confident fire and finally, the closed wooden door.
"What's happening to me?" he whispered to the empty room, a horrible, horrible feeling coming over him.
Halfway through the next day, Adam disappeared into his room. He didn't come out the next day and he didn't respond when his friends repeatedly went to try and talk to him, his voice only occasionally telling them to leave him alone. It was the same on the second day but Ty refused to let it go for a third.
"Look, he's not going to willingly tell us anything so the only way that we can find out what we need to know is if we force him to tell us," he told Seto as he tried to convince him to help.
"Even so, unlocking the door using magic is a stretch," Seto argued. "I don't think we should do it, not yet at least."
"The sooner, the better," Ty reasoned. "Something's obviously on his mind and we're not his friends if we don't help him."
Eventually Seto grudgingly agreed to help and the two made their way to Adam's room while the rest were finishing off dinner. Adam hadn't even left his room for meals which was what concerned them more than anything else. The landing was quiet and the door was still closed and locked when Ty tried the handle.
He knocked on the door. "Adam, can you let me in?"
There was no reply and Ty sighed. "Come on, we just want to know what's happening so that we can help you."
"Go away," came the muffled voice and Ty gave a nod to Seto. The sorcerer gave a small huff and put his fingertips to the lock, focusing. Small wisps of purple magic drifted into the lock then it clicked open and Ty twisted the handle, slowly opening the door to Adam's room.
The curtains were open but only a tiny strand of light came in the window from the moon, the rest of the sky being a starry black. The bed in the corner wasn't made, the sheets crumbling back on themselves in a heap. Several dark objects were scattered across the floor, one of which Ty thought was Adam's sunglasses, but it didn't seem very messy at a first glance. There did seem to be a tiny bit of light however, from the wall on the far end of the room where a figure sat, hugging their knees and ducking their head down when the door opened.
"Just go away," came the voice. "Leave me alone."
What made Ty and Seto both move forward wasn't their own curiosity, but it was the way that the voice shook, fear soaking into every syllable. It wasn't like Adam to be scared. The door had closed behind them and Seto knelt in front of Adam while Ty sat beside him against the wall.
"Adam, what's wrong?" Ty asked quietly.
He didn't answer for several moments but then slowly raised his head. Ty drew a sharp breath and Seto's eyes widened. Adam's normally brown irises were still there, but the black pupil in the middle was a solid, glowing yellow that brought a small amount of light to the room. Shivers went down Ty's spine as Adam flicked his eyes between the two of them uncertainly.
"When did they turn yellow?" Seto asked, his voice low.
"I couldn't see them at first," Adam muttered, his fingers twisting together. "They were just a tiny spot. But they've grown over the past day."
"What is it?" Ty whispered but Seto wore the kind of expression one gets when one has a horrible, horrible idea and prays that it isn't true.
"Give me your hand," he told Adam quietly.
Adam gave it to him and he held it palm up, putting his other hand next to it. Nothing happened for a moment. Then wisps of purple magic drifted out of Seto's hand and turned into a sort of liquid, gathering together in his palm. Ty's breath caught in his throat as he saw the same thing happening in Adam's palm, yellow wisps the same colour as his eyes drifting together before dissipating.
"What does that mean?" Adam asked, dreading the answer.
Seto shook his head slightly. "You... have magic," he said. "But that shouldn't be possible. No one in your family has magic, do they?"
Adam mutely shook his head and Seto sat back on his heels.
"Magic can only be directly inherited," he said, more to himself than to anyone else. "If neither of Adam's parents are sorcerers, then he shouldn't have magic. End of story."
"So what are we going to do about it?" Ty asked.
Seto bit the inside of his lip, thinking. "If we know how he got the magic then we can figure out how to handle it," he said. "The magic could be dangerous but if it is, it'll be less so if we can figure out how to control it. But I have no idea where to even begin... I think our best option would be to go back to the Snow Strikers. Master Aramis is much older and wiser than I am-"
"No way," Ty said instantly. "Anne said that we can't go back because Adam could die if we do."
Seto held out his hands. "I don't think we have much of a choice here Ty. I'm only a young sorcerer in the great scheme of things and we need to know where Adam got this magic. It could be dangerous."
"It's a bad idea..."
"Ty," Adam said quietly, his eyes looking desperate. "I want to know what this is. And if I have to go up there, I will."
Ty huffed but he relented. "Then we'll leave now. I'll write a quite note telling the guys that we've gone on a quick trip and will be back in a few days."
"No specifics," Seto said. "No point in making them freak out."
"Don't forget your sunglasses Adam," Ty reminded as they left the room, Adam quickly ducking back to grab his sunglasses and a big, thick jacket.