Two weeks had slipped by in a haze of raw emotion and endless training, leaving only three weeks until the Advanced Showdown. I glared at the crumpled note lying on my bedside table, hating it and hating myself for ruining my one chance to read it. My mom had written it before she rushed off to help with the rogue attack. But in my blind rage that day, I knocked over countless half-empty coffee cups, drenching the note in my negligence. It lay there, overlooked and soaked, for nearly a month before I could summon the courage—or desperation—to finally return and find it.
A scream of frustration clawed at my throat, aimed at both my mom and myself. She’d always had this habit of leaving half-finished cups scattered around the house, starting a new one before she finished the last. Now, the
