Milo's face lit up at the question. "Oh! Well, it's kind of a long story."
"I've got nothing but time," I gestured around the apartment. "Prophecy prison, remember?"
He laughed, setting his crochet project aside that he'd picked up again. "I grew up in the foster system," he began, his usualboundless energy tempered by the seriousness of the topic. "Bounced around a lot. Never really had a place that felt like home."
"I'm sorry," I reached over to squeeze his hand.
He shrugged. "It wasn't all bad. Some of the families were nice. But I was always the weird kid, you know? The one who could see things others couldn't."
"Things like?"
"Ghosts, mostly. They were my first friends. The living kids thought I was crazy, talking to empty air. But the ghosts understood me."
There was something deeply sad about the image of a young Milo, friendless except for the dead. It made his perpetual cheerfulness seem both more remarkable and more fragile.
"When I was sixteen, I was placed with this older couple who lived next to a cemetery," he patted my hand that was still on his. "That's when I discovered I could do more than just see the dead. I could connect with them. Give them form."
"Your first skeleton?" I guessed.
He nodded, a fond smile spreading across his face. "Her name was Eleanor. She'd been a ballet dancer in life, died in the 1920s. She taught me how to waltz in that graveyard."
The image was both macabre and strangely sweet. Teenage Milo dancing with a skeleton under moonlight.
"The foster parents freaked out, of course," he sighed. "But by then, the Bureau had detected my magical signature. They sent someone to evaluate me, and next thing I knew, I was enrolled in the Academy for Supernatural Studies."
"And the rest is history?" I prompted when he paused.
"Pretty much," he nodded. "Turns out I have a natural affinity for necromancy. Most people find it creepy, but I see it as making friends who never leave." His smile turned a bit sad. "When you grow up with nothing permanent, that means a lot."
I felt a sudden wave of affection for this strange, kind-hearted young man who had turned his loneliness into something beautiful, if unconventional.
"I think it's amazing. You've created your own family." I hugged him for a second before pulling back.
His eyes widened, as if this perspective had never occurred to him and he wasn't used to another's touch. "I…yeah, I guess I have."
He reached into his pocket and pulled out a dried rose, its petals brown and brittle. "Here, let me show you something."
He held the dead flower in his palm and closed his eyes. A soft violet light emanated from his fingers, enveloping the rose. Before my eyes, color returned to the petals, deep crimson bleeding into the brown until the flower looked freshly cut, vibrant, and alive.
"It's not really alive," Milo explained, opening his eyes. "It's more like it's an echo of what it was. But beautiful still, don't you think?"
He held out the revived rose to me. I took it, speechless, cradling it carefully in my hands. The petals were soft, the stem green and supple, as if it had just been plucked from a garden.
"Milo, that's..." I struggled to find words. "That's incredible."
He blushed, his cheeks almost matching the rose's color. "It's just a small thing. Not as impressive as reality manipulation."
"No, it's better," I firmly told him, holding the rose to my chest. "You brought beauty back from nothing. That's not small at all."
The way he looked at me then, surprised, touched, a little shy, made something flutter in my chest. For a moment, we just sat there, me holding his magical rose, him watching me with those earnest eyes.
The moment was broken by a scratching at the door. Milo jumped up.
"That'll be Jeffrey," he shook his head. "I think he's served his time."
As Milo went to let his repentant skeleton back in, I looked down at the rose in my hands, marveling at its perfect petals. In all the chaos of prophecies and cultists and reality breaches, this small act of magic felt more meaningful somehow.
I tucked the rose carefully behind my ear, determined to keep this one beautiful thing close.
