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I think that was the first time that I put into perspective just how long she’d lived in that form. I felt sorry for her; how awful it must be to stand still in time. I heard breaking glass and jumped, then turned to see that Marc had covered a mirror.

“They will all break when you cover them; it means you blocked him,” Perodine said, not looking up from the scroll.

In the doorway, I felt the familiar emotion of Patrick, and I turned to look at him; I could sense he was eager to help. “Ma’am, Sir, we are going to start with the floors below ground while it’s daylight. I have close to a hundred people helping me,” he said to us.

“The paintings have to be covered, too,” Landen said to Patrick.

Patrick nodded and left the room. The young woman came into the room behind him with another girl, pushing a cart of food. They left it in the center of the room and nodded in our direction before they left.

“All of you need to eat. Each hour will grow more difficult; you need your strength,” Perodine warned.

Dane and Marc didn’t hesitate; they made their way to the cart and began to fix themselves a plate. Landen and I stood frozen; we weren’t sure where to start. It was hard to imagine how many mirrors and paintings were in the enormous palace.

“Eat, Willow,” Perodine said in a firm voice.

I shook my head in defiance, then felt Dane nudging my shoulder. He handed me an apple, and I looked at him as if he were insane. “You’ll be able to think more clearly if you have your strength,” he whispered. I sighed and took the food from him.

Landen released me and went to the cart to find himself some food. August went to the table to look over what Perodine had found while he rested. “Have you disproven it yet?” August asked.

“Disproven what?” Landen asked over his shoulder as he fixed himself a plate.

Perodine looked and August and nodded, telling him to explain their discovery to us. “Have I ever told you of the pentagonal synodic series?” August asked, looking from Landen to Marc. They both shook their head no. “Come,” August said, gesturing for us all to come closer. He turned his notebook to a blank page, and we all encircled the table and leaned in to watch what he was drawing.

“OK, here’s the sun,” August said, dotting the center of the page. “Here’s Venus,” he said, putting a dot parallel to the one in the center. “And here’s earth,” he said, putting the third dot parallel to the second. “This is what it looks like when the earth aligns with its sister planet, Venus. Now, Venus moves faster than earth; to align, it has to orbit the sun two point six times in the same time the earth will orbit one point six. In our solar system, this alignment will occur five times – seven signs between each.” August drew a large circle to represent the solar system, then he began to draw the dots for Venus and Earth thoughout their next alignments; as he connected the lines, I felt my stomach drop: he was drawing a perfect pentagon. I was beginning to hate stars; they’d brought me nothing but trouble through all of this.

“The pattern of a star in the sky – a few weeks ago, everyone was telling me a star in a looking glass,” Landen said, frustrated.

I reached for the charm on my neck; Landen had placed the star behind the sun and moon just a few days ago. We had thought that the supremacy of man was behind the power of the universe – God – which is where it belonged. In my memory, I saw the rings of the looking glass falling apart; that victory was starting to look insignificant now. Perodine’s eyes were on me, on my charm, and I felt a grief in her, a sorrow for a life I couldn’t remember.

“I cannot undo what was once said,” she said in low tone, looking from the charm to my eyes.

“What did you say?” I asked in a voice that reflected the terror I was feeling.

Perodine looked around the room to Landen, then to me. “I did not understand what was happening to Donalt. Without his knowledge, I witnessed rituals, the priest with candles, snakes, speaking in tongues – I saw the pentagons drawn in chalk as he stood in the center. I assumed he was calling on dark magic to grow his power, that he wanted to rule beyond our world, to bring a devastation that would blind us all. I had no choice but to counteract their words. I studied rituals from ancient times and spoke the words that limited his power; I wanted your innocent heart to restore our world. To anyone else, that is a simple charm, a sun, moon, and star - but to us, because Donalt and I believe it has power, because you believe it has power – it does.”

“Are you saying that it’s what I want it to be? I don’t understand,” I said, staring back at her.

“That would have been true in your first life. Now, after so many, you have given it a power that is more that all of us could imagine,” Perodine said.

“How?”

“When you lost your friend,” she looked at Marc, “when you lost your father,” she looked back to me, “you grieved, you felt emptiness. What you do not realize is that you were grieving the absence of their energy. When you love someone, have them in your life, their energy becomes a part of you; it builds you. When they leave you, they take their energy with them. We feel a void, a loss. You believed that charm had a power in your first life. When you were taken into the string and found your world, your belief grew stronger, and you left that life believing that it held an unimaginable power. In each life, you found it again, and as you studied its history, heard the stories of what it could do, your belief grew stronger. All of the thoughts you had of love and redemption grew more intense with each life. Your signature, your energy, the love you and Landen have for each other and the universe around you was left in that charm. You have protected yourself from what lies ahead; you just have to trust the decisions you made then and now.”

“This charm’s power is me? My energy from before?” I asked.

She nodded. “Every woman you were is there,” she said, looking to my charm. “It is a part of this because you wanted it to be; it has always made you feel safe. If you ever surrender, you will not do it alone; every woman that you have been will surrender as well,” Perodine said.

“An army of Scorpios,” Marc said under his breath.

“So there’s no connection between the star behind that charm and the pattern you’re drawing?” Landen asked

Perodine shook her head no and looked at August for help. He cleared his throat. “When Venus lies between the Earth and the sun, it is called an inferior conjunction. When an inferior conjunction is about to begin, Venus moves into what appears to be retrograde; a new pentagonal cycle will begin soon. Willow’s first birth happened at a moment like this; it symbolized that she would be a power. If Donalt wanted to take her power, he could do so at this juncture,” August said.

“So, you have a new time – what happened to the nineteenth?” I ask, flustered.

“Not a new time - a deeper connection, a clearer insight to the way this trail is orchestrated,” Perodine said, looking down at August’s sketch. “Many people throughout history have gained power at the synodic point; it was at that point that Jayda overtook the Darkness,” Perodine said confidently.

“You’re confident because I’m a descendant of Jayda,” Landen said.

“Not as confident as I would like to be,” Perodine said, pulling the scroll to her. “You see, these symbols are the same as the ones in the book of Samilya and Jayda. It seems that they are one of the ones who you sought council on with your original birth charts. On the last page of Jayda’s book, it said that Jayda and Oba disappeared into a white glow late in their years, taking the scrolls with them. Their people believed that the couple was so great that death took mercy on them – taking them as a whole, body and soul,” Perodine said.

“Now,” August picked up from where Perodine left off, “we can reason that when Jayda released Oba from the darkness, they realized that there was something bigger than them. We read that they found deep mediation; I would guess that they – well the two of you – discovered who you were and began to try and unravel these charts. Pelhan himself said that the two of you found your final resting place in his dimension. I know for a fact that you found your way to Chara in my lifetime.”

“So history repeats itself,” I said, almost to myself.

“Unfortunately, never in the exact same way,” Perodine said. “When you face an enemy, you learn their weakness first-hand. Whatever you learned then, you have forgotten. I assure you that he – it - has not forgotten yours.”

“Well, was it recorded in detail here?” Marc said, reaching for Jayda’s book.

“Nothing more than Jayda seeing Oba for the first time. It says here ‘The past will not mirror itself. It shall consume the blood of Jayda and subdue the power,’” Perodine said, running her finger across three words written in a script I’d never seen before.

“A warning,” Landen whispered.

August nodded. “We think it means that the darkness will consume either you or Drake, then subdue Willow’s heart,” Perodine said, looking at Landen.

“No, I’m right: the darkness is going to consume Drake, then fight for Willow’s heart. Drake, with the darkness inside of him – would that make him stronger?” Marc said, looking back and forth between Perodine and August.

“Do you understand what the darkness is? What the purpose of Allie, Preston, and Libby is?” Perdoine asked in an astonished tone.

“No, we don’t,” Landen said shortly.

Perodine looked up from the sketch at Landen; I could feel her sympathy. She nodded and sighed. “This world, overall, has forgotten what they were made of, forgotten their power; we live in ignorance – a hell. If we were to learn and practice unconditional love on all levels, then we as a planet would be connected to a higher plane, a celestial plane of knowing. Once we have reached that point, we will never return to the ignorance that bore us. You can imagine the glow the planet would reveal if each of us found that place,” Perodine said. She paused and looked to the shadows, then back to the scroll. “Light is the death of darkness. It is said that the darkness, the ignorance that we live in will fight for its existence; the children will bring the light, and the darkness will fight to stop them. Right now, at this crucial point, you are their only line of defense – the darkness must defeat you before it can reach the ones that will bring its death,” Perodine said.

“It’s evil, fighting for its right to live,” August added.

“This evil will dwindle itself inside a human body; it is a sacrifice it must make to keep the veil over all of our eyes,” Perodine said.

“What do you mean ‘dwindle?’” Dane asked.

“This evil is the opposite of the light; it opposes - but it is capable of - immense power, more than one body can possess. When it enters the body, it will be at its weakest point; over time, the body will build a tolerance - and then an immorality will set in,” Perodine answered.

“There is a symbol that represents a weapon that’s meant to bring harm to Donalt in the flesh – strong enough to defeat the spirit of the darkness as well,” August answered.

“I’m almost certain it is the knife that cut the cord on Willow’s first birth,” Perodine said.

“How do you know?” Landen asked.

“Everything from conception to birth was planned perfectly; I only ate certain foods, wore certain clothes, and at her birth we used the strongest, most beautiful stone, shaped into a blade - a blade made of diamonds. The handle was molded from a small meteor that crashed into the earth; it is the blade that separated us,” Perodine answered.