The train slowed as it pulled into the station nestled on the edge of Andrew's hometown. Rain streaked the windows, distorting the soft lights of the platform into melted stars. Andrew blinked the sleep from his eyes, fingers tightening around the worn leather strap of his satchel. The gentle thrum in his chest was more than the excitement of returning it was a resonance, a pull. As though the very soil of this place remembered him and was singing quietly for his return.
He stepped off the train and into the rain.
It wasn't cold, not really. But the air had that crisp scent wet grass, old earth, distant woodsmoke. He looked around. Nothing had changed, not the crooked lampposts or the cobblestone path that curved up toward the hills. But something was different.
Him.
Each step felt heavier. Not in weight, but in meaning. Whitmore had gone silent again. No whispers. No smirks. Just… silence. And it was worse than the voices. There was an absence inside him now, a strange stillness where chaos once echoed. It left him more aware of the quiet world around him the soft squelch of his boots on wet stone, the hiss of tires on the distant road, the creak of tree branches leaning into one another like old friends.
The taxi ride from the station to the outskirts of the town was uneventful, but Andrew stared out the window the whole way, memorizing the faces of buildings that had remained unchanged since his childhood. The corner bookstore still had that blue awning with the missing stitch. The bakery on Holler Street still displayed its day-old pastries with stubborn optimism. It was strange, to see the world so still while he had been unraveling within.
At the Whitmore household, the atmosphere had shifted long before Andrew's train began its journey.
His mother sat curled on the living room couch, sipping from a porcelain mug, her eyes not on the old black-and-white movie playing, but on the door. She had felt it first a pressure in the air, a pulse in her chest like a second heartbeat. She set the mug down slowly. There was a quietness to her movements, the kind born not of nervousness but of anticipation. She reached for the fireplace remote and turned the flames up, as if the hearth might warm what was about to enter.
His father, instead, was reading a newspaper. Calm. Unbothered. But when he turned a page and set it aside, he glanced over at her.
"He's on his way."
She nodded, barely breathing.
He leaned forward, "He's going to be here soon."
And as if summoned, the front gate creaked.
Andrew stepped up the familiar pathway. The porchlight flicked on without anyone touching it. The door unlocked with a soft click just as his hand reached for it.
He opened it slowly.
His mother was standing at the hallway's end, her hair pulled into a loose bun, her expression unreadable. But her eyes were wet.
"Hi," Andrew said.
She rushed forward and pulled him into a tight hug. No hesitation. Just warmth. Her arms wrapped around him like they remembered every version of him the boy with scraped knees, the teenager with silent storms, the man carrying invisible burdens.
His father appeared behind her, arms crossed, still smiling.
"You grew up," he said, and then his face tightened with a frown. "And he's awake."
Andrew blinked. "You know?"
His father nodded. "Of course I do. You think you're the first?"
They guided him into the house, the same old couch waiting, the flickering fireplace, the carved family crest still on the wall a lion wrapped in chains, crowned with flame. The Whitmore emblem.
Andrew sat, staring at both of them, emotions welling up faster than he could sort through them.
"What is this power? Why is it… split?"
His mother placed a gentle hand on his knee. "Because your bloodline doesn't inherit magic. It births it. And sometimes, what we birth… is more than one mind can handle."
Andrew frowned. "Whitmore isn't a curse?"
"No," his father said. "He's a safeguard. A reservoir. A shadow of the strength you aren't ready to wield."
Andrew processed that slowly. "Oh... I figured that much. Is it possible to even be whole?"
His mother hesitated. "That depends on whether you can handle being whole."
"Why didn't you tell me?" he asked.
"Because we weren't sure," his father admitted. " I didn't awaken. We thought it passed you."
"Until Halberd," Andrew murmured.
His father gave a nod. "Halberd draws out what the world hides. That school was built on ley lines. Nothing ordinary survives long there."
Andrew leaned back, letting the fire warm his thoughts. The heat settled in his chest, not just physically, but emotionally. It was anchoring.
"So what now?" he asked.
His mother smiled gently. "Now? You rest. You reconnect. Then you decide what kind of man you want to become the kind who fears the other part of himself, or the kind who learns to lead him."
Later that night, Andrew found himself in his childhood bedroom. Everything was smaller than he remembered. The bed creaked the same way when he sat on it, and the window still let in the moonlight like an old friend. He opened a notebook, half-tempted to write a poem, but the words didn't come. Not yet.
Instead, he sat with the silence. With the new knowledge.
And somewhere deep inside, Whitmore stirred.
Not with anger.
But with curiosity.
For the first time, the two sides of him weren't at war.
They were listening.
And that, perhaps, was the first step toward something greater than magic.
It was the beginning of understanding.