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“How did you —”
“Where did you —”
The twins stopped as their mother pushed forward. “Let’s get you out of there before that happens again.”
“Don’t be silly,” the boy said. “I have everything perfectly under control.”
“Yeah, it looks like it,” Jaide said.
“I’ve heard of raining cats and dogs,” said Ari with poorly concealed amusement, “but this is ridiculous.”
Jaide took one arm while her mother took the other. Jack’s hands went under the boy’s armpits.
“One, two, three,” said Susan. Together they lifted.
“Ow, that hurts,” the boy complained. “Stop or you’ll leave my feet behind!”
“Hmm,” said Susan, letting go. “What’s your name?”
“I am Stefano Battaglia, master of lightning!”
“Well, Stefano Battaglia, you are firmly stuck in the dirt.” She scratched her head. “We might have to dig you out. Let me go find a shovel.”
Jack inspected the soil around Stefano’s knees. It was tightly compacted, and oddly crystalline after the lightning strike, but it looked as though it would shift if he pushed here … perhaps dug out that divot there…. Dimly, he heard Jaide talking.
“This is Jack and I’m Jaide,” she said. “I thought you were going to be our dad. He likes to travel this way, too.”
“Hector? Oh, no. I’m fully qualified to bolt on my own. It’s quite easy when you get the hang of it.”
“You know Dad?”
“Of course I do. He’s my mentor.” Stefano studied her with his head to one side. “You really don’t know who I am?”
“Sorry, no.”
“How odd. And I’ve studied with him for a year, too.” Stefano looked up at her. “He didn’t tell me there was another lightning wielder in the family.”
Jaide blinked. “Do you mean me?”
“Of course. How else did you know I was on my way to you?”
She could only gape at him. This was too many surprises at once. First, Hector had a protégé he had never mentioned, and now her second Gift might be the same as his, giving her power over lightning and the ability to travel by thunderstorm. Gifts did occasionally run in a family, but she had never dared dream of this.
“Or maybe,” Stefano added with a slight curl to his lip, “you just got lucky.”
The return of Susan, armed with a shovel, a trowel, and a gardening fork, was all that stopped Jaide from telling him what she thought of that idea.
“Here we are,” said Susan, glancing at the sky. “I don’t think it’s going to rain, but let’s get a move on, just in case.”
Jack sat back, wiped his dirty hands on his jeans, and looked up at everyone. He had been thoroughly involved in what he was doing. It occurred to him that he had missed something.
“What?” he said.
“We’re going to dig him out,” said Susan, handing him the trowel.
“Uh, I think I’ve done that already,” he said, pointing at the loosened earth. “Try moving your legs.”
Stefano tentatively raised his right knee, and it came cleanly out of the soil. Jaide and Susan helped him lift his left leg out and step up to ground level. Once released, he was surprisingly tall.
“Finally,” he said, instead of saying thanks. And instead of helping Jack to his feet, he reached for a small satchel lying nearby and slung it over his shoulder. “If you show me to my room, I’d like to freshen up.”
“Room?” said Jack and Jaide at the same time.
“Are you sure you’ve come to the right place?” said Susan, looking as perplexed as the twins felt.
“He has,” said Grandma X from the back porch. “I was going to tell you all earlier, but … recent events being as they are …”
She stepped out of the pool of light shining from the doorway, into the night. Both twins were struck by how old she looked, as though the Grand Gathering had drained her of her usual vitality. Above them, the clouds were dispersing and the stars coming out. Not even a full moon peeking around the Rock could bring out the usual sparkle to her eyes.
“Hector has asked me to take in Stefano here for special training,” she explained. “He’s a troubletwister, just a little more advanced in his experience.”
“What kind of special training?” asked Jack. He had never met another troubletwister before. No one had ever told him that they could be taught different things.
“Don’t worry about that. Let’s get our guest inside and make him feel welcome. Come on, Stefano, make sure you wipe your shoes thoroughly. They’re quite amazingly muddy.”
The twins and their mother followed Grandma X and Stefano into the house and up the stairs. Stefano simply nodded as the basic layout of the house was explained to him. He seemed more interested in the cabinets of oddities that filled the corridors and the unusual paintings hanging on the walls. Once, he stopped to examine the frame of a map depicting in some considerable detail a continent Jaide had never heard of. “Fake,” he said with a sniff, and continued on.
Only on seeing the twins’ room on the second floor did he exhibit any signs of appreciation.
“This looks very comfortable!” He shouldered his way into the room, taking in the four-poster beds, the generous chests, and the chandelier. “A bit messy, though.”
“Actually, you’re through here,” said Grandma X before the bristling twins could respond. She guided him to a door that neither of them had seen before, which opened into a much smaller room just next door. It contained a narrow cot, a single chest of drawers, and one lamp. There was just one miserly window, high up on the wall. It looked as though it had never been opened.
“Well,” Stefano said, looking down the length of his nose, “I suppose this will have to do.”
“Freshen yourself up and then come downstairs,” Grandma X told him. “Susan has prepared a meal for us all, I believe.”
“Oh, yes,” said the twins’ mother, remembering her politeness. “You’re very welcome to join us … to stay, I mean … please, just feel welcome. It’s not your fault Hector didn’t tell us. I’ll talk to him later.”
The four of them bustled out, leaving the stranger to settle in on his own.
“What the —”
“How can —”
Grandma X silenced the twins with a finger to each of their lips and ushered them all downstairs. Kleo sneezed as they entered the kitchen. The air was hazy with smoke.
“Oh, no, the piecrust!”
Susan whipped open the oven and removed a pot pie. It had turned black around the edges. One ornamental leaf seemed to actually be on fire.
“No problems,” she said, producing a large carving knife. “I reckon this can be salvaged.”
While she hacked away the portions of the piecrust that had turned most thoroughly to charcoal, Grandma X answered the twins’ many questions, most of them concerning how long she had known, and who was Stefano, anyway? She explained that the role of mentor was a perfectly ordinary one because troubletwisters always found it problematic to be around their Warden parent while learning their Gifts. That was exactly the role Jack and Jaide shared with her and Custer, although they had never had it described that way before. Hector had asked her to take on Stefano just that morning, and she would have told the twins that afternoon had she not been distracted.
“Where’s Stefano’s twin?” asked Jaide. “He does have one, doesn’t he?”
“Santino’s still with Hector,” Grandma X explained. “They’re working on something secret, Hector said … although I can probably guess what that is, now that I come to think of it….”
“Project Thunderclap?” asked Jack.
“Your guess, Jackaran, is as good as mine.”
The twins waited for her to say more, but her face had become stony, and they knew better than to push her when she used their full first names.
“Is it going to be a permanent arrangement?” asked Susan. “With Stefano
, I mean.”
“No,” Grandma X said. “A fortnight or two should do it. I don’t imagine it’ll take me any longer than that to teach him what he needs to know.”
“Right, well,” Susan said, “we’ll have to think about school. How old is he?”
“Fourteen,” said Grandma X.
“Only a year older than the twins, then. They could introduce him to Tara and Kyle and their other friends. I’ll call Mr. Carver in the morning.”
Jack rolled his eyes at Jaide, who made an anxious face back. They had nothing against new kids at school — they had recently been new kids themselves, as had Tara — but not when the new kid barged into their home and acted as if he owned the place. Besides, Tara and Kyle were their only real friends. They didn’t have any others to share.
“What is that smell?”
