CHAPTER#51

Zel sat in the front room next to Jenny's dollhouse. She was reading a book on herbs that she had borrowed from Sofia. Every couple of seconds, she would scribble furiously in her notebook. She still hadn't reverted and was taking advantage of being able to walk around the house without destroying the floor.

Out front, Abella was having a spirited game of tag with the fairies up above the sundial. She moved surprisingly fast, snatching Cerulea out of the air with her feet. Carmina and Olivia laughed, racing in circles around her. Out on the sidewalk, Sebastien watched with interest. Mike suspected that any Society members involved in the battle on his front lawn could now see everyone who had been involved, and this confirmed it. They were a potential thorn in his side that would never go away unless he did something.

Like usual, he had no idea what that something was.

Tink was busy fixing up the office, so he left her to it and walked up the stairs to his room. He took off his clothes and climbed into his bath, the water rapidly drawn at the perfect temperature for him.

"Rough morning, lover?" The water folded around him when he lay down in the tub, becoming her arms and legs.

"Maybe. I don't know. Feel like I have a lot on my mind, but I can't pinpoint it."

"I think it's your brain decompressing. You've done an impressive amount since moving in and, as of right now, you aren't fighting for survival."

"That's just it. I feel like I am, somehow. I'm in a dark alley and am about to get robbed, or something." He reached up and played with her hair. "And the strange vision I had keeps bothering me."

"The one with the game pieces?" He had told Naia about it the next day. She had no idea what the vision had been.

"Yeah. There's a challenger. But now what? Is someone going to show up on my front lawn and try to fight me? Or will it be like Lily and someone will try to kill me in my sleep? And I'm worried about Cecilia, and Lily, and even Dana." He took a deep breath and let it all out at once. "I'm also worried about what Emily was hiding."

"You're welcome to look with me." Naia's hands squeezed his shoulders. "Where should we start?"

He wanted to ask about the emerald, the magic items she had collected, why she erased the second floor of her house. But Emily was smart enough to make sure that anything connected to those things would have been part of the wipe.

It suddenly occurred to him.

"I've been focusing on the outcome far too much," he said. "Why she did certain things. But something must have given her those ideas, right? I mean, she didn't just randomly decide to go look up some magic rats that could help her steal the Holy Grail or something like that. Whatever her goal, she based her path on knowledge she came by." Or at least he hoped she did.

"So what do you want to see?" Naia asked.

"Memories about portals. Learning what they are, and how they work. I want to see that."

Naia leaned over him, her lips finding his,

Then let's begin.

-

Emily pulled her Chevy Impala onto the side of the road. The small hunting trail was nearly invisible from the road, and she wouldn't have seen it either. The tiny yellow fairy sitting on her shoulder had tugged on her ear, indicating that she had detected magic.

"Are you sure?" Emily asked. There was nobody else around, so Daisy hopped onto the dashboard, her hands on her hips. The small creature went through a series of hand signs.

"Yeah, you're right, I'm sorry." She set the brake and turned off the engine. Emily knew better than to doubt Daisy's tracking ability; she just didn't feel like hiking through the thick brush so soon. When she got out, the wind caught her headscarf, whipping the ends free over her shoulder. She tucked her hair back into place, and Daisy squeezed back into her hiding spot just beneath Emily's ear.

It had been a long flight, and the clock was ticking. The sundial was good for only thirty more hours, which was cutting it close. She gazed up into the woods and let out a heavy sigh. She hated being away from the house for very long. While Abella had assured her that nobody had tried to break in since the late 1800s, she always worried about what might happen if someone did and she wasn't home to activate the sundial.

On the other hand, she also needed to make the house bigger. It was key to solving the home's mystery, and the only way to do that was to offer up her home as a sanctuary. Unfortunately, magical creatures were becoming increasingly hard to come by. The Arachne she had discovered in Utah certainly wasn't coming anytime soon.

However, she had been tracking any details on this particular quarry for decades now. His territory was impossibly large, and she wouldn't have bothered if not for rumors that a couple guys had finally caught it on tape. She had seen it for herself and decided to take action. It didn't matter that she was now over a hundred miles north of where it had been spotted. Based on her estimates, the creature could somehow travel a thousand miles a day with little problem.

That was assuming it was the same creature, of course. She had already visited the spot where it had been filmed and planted an enchanted stone beneath the soil. This would ensure that anybody trying to visit the same location would get lost or turned away somehow, thus hiding the creature's last known trail. That was yesterday afternoon, and since then, Daisy had been tracking the creature using a locator spell, some hair she had found, and a map inside of the car. Once they were close enough, they no longer needed the map, and Emily had to drive incredibly fast just to keep up with the creature's strides. An hour ago, it had been fifty miles to the south.