Sometimes I think that, before I stopped myself falling into minds, that I steered myself into the right ones. The ones that could help me, if I was clever enough to use them to my advantage. If I figured out how they could be used, where they fit in to everything. It is bitter now, knowing what I could have done, what the memories and thoughts I glimpsed could have been used for.

The night after I told my mother everything, I tried my best not to fall into someone's mind. But I did anyone, and I opened my eyes in a forest. It was beautiful, wearing its autumn robes with pride, a thousand shades of red and gold. The trees reached high and proud, unflinching and strong. It was filled with a rich earthy smell and the floor was littered with leaves. It was the sort of place that children would run through and hide amongst, a welcoming maze of giant trees.

This was the mind of Odin Swallow, and I walked through it, loving every crevice. No matter what I promised my mother, I couldn't leave this place. It was beautiful and magnificent-staying would cause Odin no harm, would it?

I didn't care what was in his mind-she wouldn't look into his memories, his thoughts. All I wanted was to walk through his mind, to appreaciate the golden-red paradise.

So I wandered through the woods, and explored its every corner. Golden glades where his loved ones wandered, deep lakes where his memories rested, some too far for him to reach. His hopes swirled in streams of light, his regrets lay in the leaves at her feet.

All of it, open for me to reach. But I didn't. I remembered my mother's warnings, and my own doubts about the morality of my abilities.

Eventually I found the eye. It was carved in the tree, a perfect shape, iris and pupil carved in. It was so peculiar I pressed my hand to it, feeling the shape.

Then I was sucked in.

The eye was another piece of Odin's mind: rather than memories and regrets, this was the present. This was what was happening to him right now, and I was watching.

He was seated at a table with eleven seats, watching the others with caution in his eyes. A couple were familiar to me, but the others weren't. Later, of course, I would learn they were eleven of the Lords and Ladies of the city-states.

"Cadmus," Orion said with a false smile. "Why have you called us here?"

"I wish to discuss the matter of the Silverians," he said calmly. "I propose that we destroy them, once and for-"

"Wake up, Hazel." My mother's voice shook me from my sleep and Orion's mind. I smiled up at her.

I thought it was a nightmare. How wrong I was.

That day I went back to school after the holidays had come. My mother still hadn't restored my memories of the broken hand, so I went back somewhat oblivious. Like my father said, not knowing how much they hated me was a very dangerous thing indeed.

My classmates ignored me for the lessons before break, and I remember I felt slightly hurt. Even my best friend at the time wouldn't say a word to me. They shot me hateful glares, but nothing more.

This did not bother all too much, really. I supposed there had to be some reason for Sasha and all my other friends to turn their backs on me.

Besides, I had an apple tart with me, and I had no plans for my lunch to be anything but glorious.

I took a bite of the tart and smiled.

No one spoke to me for the rest of the day. By then, I was feeling troubled. Saskia had promised last term to meet me outside the school gates and go to the park with me and her mother. But instead she walked straight past me, meeting with another girl.

The rest of the school ignored me the next day. And the day after that. It became more and more clear that I was no longer welcome. Like my parents, like my grandfather, like all of my kind, I was being ignored. Avoided. Feared.

I think, if given time, the scales would have tipped further. For people soon hate what they fear.