Love lines (35 page)

We returned to the courtroom. My parents and Frederic
were already there, in their original seats. We also took ours.

“When the hearing ends, we must discuss some new developments,”
I said quietly to Frederic.

He nodded in response.

“The Supreme Council of the League of Keepers has
reached its decision,” the judge said. “Normandia Stella Wizardy is sentenced
to life imprisonment in a closed prison of Cabria that is located in Hampshire.
The sentence can’t be appealed or revised. Thank you all for attending the
hearing.”

“Well, at least that’s good news,” Evan commented.

All the participants began to leave.

“So what did you want to talk about?” Frederic asked
when we walked to the parking lot.

I handed him a note from Alexis. For several minutes he
was carefully re-reading the writing.

“I can’t believe that they have come up with something
like this! What bastards!” in the end he said, referring to all of the accused
Wizardy. “And that damn Cup! I thought that Camilla was wrong talking about a
Cup, which supposedly traced the lines of the fate of all the descendants of
Wizardy. She didn’t know what kind of a cup it was, and I thought that it
definitely couldn’t be true. It turns out that it's all true! Man, how much I
miss Camilla! She was so right about so many things. And I was such a fool,
didn’t even take her words seriously. I thought in her old age, she was losing
her mind. She was constantly talking about some stranger that was so important
to find, and so on and so forth. Who knew the old woman was right?..”

“So you will tell Eileen the truth, right?” I asked.

“We'll have to do it sooner than I thought,” Frederic
nodded. “Today I’m coming back to Dever with you.”

On the way back we all were thinking about how to
prepare Eileen for the news that Frederic was her real father. We couldn’t tell
her everything at once. This news was shocking enough all by itself. So we
decided just to introduce them first and not mention their kinship. Mom
promised to arrange a dinner at my father’s apartment this weekend, where
Eileen and I would also attend. As well as Frederic, of course.

Despite the fact that the way back seemed shorter, we
arrived at Dever about midnight. I decided to go to Eileen. She should have
already been asleep, but I had to see her, just to make sure that she was okay.
I got to her door and as quietly as possible turned the key in the lock. To my
surprise, Eileen wasn’t asleep. She was sitting on her bed cross-legged and
looking at some photos under the dim light of a table lamp.

“Christian!” she said jumping out of bed and running up
to me.

“Hey,” I said quietly, embracing her. “I thought you
would be asleep, but still decided to come.”

“I couldn’t sleep,” she shook her head. “My grandma left
only a few hours ago. We spent the whole day together.”

“You don’t sound very happy. Do you want to talk about
it?” I asked sitting with her on the bed. She smiled sadly.

“I thought I couldn’t be surprised any more.  But I was wrong.”

“What happened?”

“You'll never guess,” again with a sad grin she said.
“My favorite granny, the dear Stephanie Mitchell knew everything from the very
beginning.”

Eileen’s words sounded absurd to me.

“She knew that I was a gifted child, that I had some
supernatural powers. She knew about Dever and well, she knew everything.”

“But how?” I asked in surprise.

“Once upon a time, many years ago, Camilla Steward
accidentally met my grandmother. Of course, she didn’t say anything about who
she really was, but still offered to look at her palms. What Camilla saw there,
was a complete surprise for her too. She saw a link to your world,
my
world, and then decided to tell Stephanie everything about it. At that time she
didn’t know whose relationship it would be related to my grandmother but it
will be revealed that a girl would be born. A girl who would be very talented
and would surprise many people. Grandma realized that she was talking about me
when I was born. She said she had never seen a child like me before. I wasn’t
capricious, always succeeded in everything, always grasped everything in a
single flash and never gave up, if something didn’t work. And since I always
believed in magic... I still do believe. Not because I’m a child, of course,
but because I can possess magic myself.”

Eileen cheeks were covered with tears. She wasn’t upset,
she was rather confused. I felt it. All her life she spent in one world, but as
it turned out she actually belonged to quite different one. I silently embraced
her. She was still crying.

“Hey, what is with the talks in the middle of the
night?” I heard a sleepy, and at the same time angry voice of my sister.
“Christian, couldn’t you wait until morning to see Eileen?” she groaned.

“Sorry, dear, I’m going to be leaving.”

“Go quickly, and turn the light off. I can’t fall back
asleep with it on,” Amanda said, turning to the other side.

“Shall I stay?” I whispered to Eileen.

“No. I'm all right. I'm going to bed too,” she said
forcing a smile.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes. Go and get some rest yourself.”

I leaned over and kissed her lips.

“Where did you go that you came back so late?” she
asked, following me to the door.

“It's Evan’s fault. He forced me to ride with him to
keep him company since he had some business to take care of,” I replied. My
friend didn’t mind being called the guilty one of the reason for our late
return. Besides, it was the answer I had prepared beforehand.

“See you tomorrow,” I said, once again kissing her
goodbye.

“Bye,” said Eileen.

The next morning we all met for breakfast.

“I got an awful night’s sleep. Again!” Amanda said,
looking angrily at me. She sat next to Lucas, who was carefully making her a
sandwich, completely forgetting about his own coffee. Evan was gloomy as a
cloud, which was absolutely not typical for him. Muttering something like
“I
have some things to get done”,
he left. Darcy told me that she had visited
Anna in the morning, and that she felt much better now. It was even possible
that by the end of the week Mrs. Weber would let her go. Eileen looked calm,
although in her heart she still felt worried. Most likely, because of yesterday
meeting with Stephanie. I didn’t want to ask her anything else, but she knew
that when she was ready, she could share with me everything that I couldn’t
feel. So I finally decided to mention the prearranged dinner meeting.

“Our parents are going to have a family dinner this
weekend, and we're invited,” I said to Eileen. “This includes you and Lucas,” I
turned to Amanda.

“Really? And what’s the occasion?” she asked excitedly.

“Just dinner. Nothing special. Only family and friends.”

“Someone else is invited?”

“As far as I know, yes. But just don’t know who
exactly.”

“Excellent! My mother always has wonderful dinners,”
Amanda said. “It means a lot of goodies, music, laughter and dancing! Just what
we all need!”

Yeah, just what we need.

“Do they know Lucas?” Eileen asked.

“Officially, no,” Lucas noted. “But I do know Mr.
Fairey, he's our teacher.”

I smiled encouragingly.

“He isn’t as strict at home,” I said reassuringly.

“I can’t even imagine how he will treat us in class
after we show up together for dinner,” Amanda sighed.

“Don’t frighten Lucas, otherwise he will refuse to go to
there,” Eileen laughed. “And what about Evan? He didn’t even tell where today’s
lesson would be held.”

“We should just call him,” I replied, picking Evan’s
mobile phone. “Hey, where did you go? Eileen doesn’t know where to meet you for
her lesson today.”

“I’ve found something, Christian. Could you come to your
father’s apartment? Now.”

“Of course,” I said frowning.

I didn’t like the sound of Evan’s voice. It was filled
with worry.

“Tell Eileen you have to leave to study and I will meet
her in half an hour in front of the training building,” Evan said.

“Do you have a practice session right now?” I asked.
Eileen looked at me questioningly, hearing my words.

“Yes. I'll explain everything when we meet. Come
quickly.”

I hung up the phone and told her where she should meet
with Evan and at what time.

I noticed Amanda’s suspicious glance. She realized that
I was hiding something. We didn’t tell anyone about the note from Alexis,
except from those who were at the hearing of the Council and my sister. But I
left them alone with their suspicions and went to my father's apartment.

“You're just in time,” said Evan, opening the door.
“Look at this.”

On the TV was a news release.

Evan and I sat on the sofa next to my father. 

“An incredible change of weather in north-west
Britain. In a single day temperature in the region has changed from - 5ºС
to + 25ºС. And it’s the middle of September!

 In the area of Scafell Pike the snow begun to melt,
which has led to numerous landslides and the flooding of local communities.

The weather just now restored it to its normal
temperature of + 15ºС. Let us hope that the recent events were only
temporary,”
said the speaker.

My father turned the volume down.

“Scafell Pike?  That is very close to Dever,” I said.

Evan and my father nodded.

“Do you think this is Eric’s handiwork?”

“No doubt. We walked along the western border this morning
and we were correct with our assumptions. Eric left Dever. We found some traces
of magic.”

“Judging by the events described, he can hardly control
his power. This means that he’s weaker than we expected. Which, of course, is
very good news,” Evan admitted.

“But there’s nowhere to hide in these mountains. You
don’t think that he is living in one of those caves, do you?” I wondered. I
didn’t want to think about the fact that Eric was staying so close to Dever.
And Eileen.

 Judging by the expression of both of them,
that
was exactly what they thought too.

“So what do we do now?”

“Later today, when it starts to get dark, Frederic,
Evan, Elena and I will go out and walk along the western border. We will see if
we can get an idea of where Eric is hiding. If he really is weak, he will need
to maintain the remnants of his forces somehow, and he will need food. He won’t
go out in daylight, but in the twilight - he may try,” my father said making
some notes on a piece of paper.

“What will you do if you really do find him?” I asked
them again.

“Smile sweetly and ask him if he wants to drink a cup of
tea with us, or maybe some coffee,” sarcastically replied Evan.

“If we still manage to find his trail, we won’t let him
go, Christian. Even if we have to drag him back to Dever, since this is the
safest place,” he added dead serious.

“You must be crazy! Eileen is here!” I protested.

“We already considered that. Which is why I want to have
a practice session today. I want to show her how to distinguish white magic from
dark magic. Since Eric is clearly using only dark magic. If she knows how to
recognize it, then she won’t fall for his tricks. Not that we would allow that
to happen,” Evan said.

“Besides, she is always accompanied by one of us,” my
father added. “Frederic is here too. She is in no danger, Christian.”

“But she will be if we don’t find this bastard,” pointed
Evan.

“Okay, then. How will you explain to her why she should
know the difference between black and white magic?” I asked.

“We'll have to tell her about the note. Not everything,
of course, only the part where it talks about Eric and the Cup. We won’t
mention anything about Frederic, or his powers. Let her believe that her own
power is valuable enough for Eric to want it, since that is partly true. And we
won’t tell her where the note was given to you.”

“Someday Eileen will hate us all for a number of
“partial
truths” we have told her,
” I noted worried.

No one had anything to say about that.

“Okay, it’s time for me to go to work. See you later,”
said Evan and left.

“Whatever happens, Christian, you should always remember
about your bond,” my father said.

 “This is a very strong relationship; it can’t be
destroyed in an instant. Even if someone tries to break it, remember that some
things are beyond any influence, son. And
this
is something that you
should never forget.”