By the look of the luggage belt, most of the passengers had already collected their bags, and Flinders’ trunk was one of the only pieces of luggage still rolling around. Shaking the cob-webs from her mind, Diana stood up and retrieved the trunk from the belt.
Now, the question is—who am I going to call to pick me up?
If she called her parents, Diana would have a fair amount explaining to do, and she wasn’t really in the state of mind to deal with that mess. She’d also have to wait in the airport for six hours for them to get there from Indiana, and she most certainly wasn’t prepared for that. She didn’t have any money, either, so getting a taxi was out of the question. Without her cell phone, she didn’t really have many options of numbers to call, as she’d never bothered to memorize any of her contacts. She didn’t even know Lani’s number by heart—although, her roommate might be in their dorm. She knew that number.
To Diana’s great relief, Lani hadn’t gone home for Christmas yet, and after collect-call and a half an hour wait, she and Eric were there to rescue Diana from her stranded position.
When Lani laid eyes on Diana, she laughed out loud “What on earth are you wearing?” she asked through a chuckle. “You look like my grandma.”
Diana had completely forgotten about her state of attire. Only then did she fully realize that the clothes she wore likely belonged to Charlotte. At the thought, Diana involuntarily brought her hand to her chest. She felt strangely comforted by the notion.
“It’s a long story,” she replied, shaking her head. “I’ll tell you about it later. But thanks for coming—you guys are life savers.”
“Don’t mention it,” Eric said as he chivalrously grabbed the trunk from Diana’s hand so she didn’t have to carry it. “This is all you took with you?”
“No,” Diana replied, struggling to find a suitable excuse. “There were…complications and I had to leave my luggage behind.” It wasn’t quite “Udana the Clanless Nomad”, but it would have to do.
“That sucks,” Eric said. “I hope you get your stuff back.”
“Me too,” Diana said with longing, thinking of her trunk of elven dresses.
Not quite satisfied with Diana’s explanation, Lani continued the interrogation. “Do those complications have anything to do with why you’re dressed like that, and why you flew home without Darien?” She latched onto the possible intrigue with a grin.
“We had some problems with the authorities,” Diana replied with a shrug. “I had to continue on alone; no big deal.” Her answer was actually pretty true to the situation and the irony made her smile.
Lani looked a bit perplexed by Diana’s apparent amusement. “And that’s a good thing? Why are you smiling?”
The smile quickly fled Diana’s face. “No reason. Let’s get going.”
Over the course of the ride back to campus, Diana tried to answer her friends’ enquires about her trip overseas, but found it terribly difficult to do so. From the beginning she’d settled on the cover story of a cruise to the British Isles—which was certainly true—but Diana desperately wished she could relay all of the exciting events. In the end, she had to just make up mundane stories about buffets, stage shows, and shuffleboard. Perhaps she could talk to Miri about her more thrilling adventures soon.
When Diana finally stepped into her dorm room, she sighed with a fair amount of relief and satisfaction. “I can’t believe I’m already back here—it feels like I just left Darien at the inn like three hours ago.”
“Oh yeah?” A curious Eric spoke up after plopping the suitcase onto Diana’s bed. “Nice inn?”
Lani quickly turned to her boyfriend with a smile and kissed him on the cheek. “You run on back to your room, now. We need some girl time.”
“Oh fine,” Eric said, defeated. He knew better than to go against Lani’s wishes. “See ya Diana,” he said with a wave goodbye. “I’m glad you made it back safe.”
“Thanks for picking me up—and for carrying my luggage,” she said with a smile. “You’re my hero.”
“No problem.” After another wave of his hand he shut the door behind him, leaving the two ladies alone. Lani’s mouth quickly twisted into that devilish grin that Diana had come to love.
“What?” Diana asked, as if she had no idea where this conversation was immediately about to go.
“Oh don’t give me what,” Lani said with a playful scowl, finding Diana’s dodge ridiculous. “I could tell by the look on your face when you mentioned that inn.” The grin returned in full force. “You finally got down to business.” It wasn’t a question—Lani knew it was true, which it was, but that was beside the point.
Diana just blushed.
“I’ll take your silence and rosy cheeks as a confirmation.” Her roommate crossed her arms with authority. “Spill it—I want details.”
“Well, that’s just too bad, now, isn’t it?” Diana replied, feeling somewhat embarrassed. She wasn’t quite ready to divulge the details of that wonderful experience to Lani. Diana wasn’t sure if she even could describe it.
“Oh come on,” Lani pleaded like a small child. “At least tell me how it was? Usually the first time is pretty painful.”
“It was…magical.” Truer words had never been spoken.
“I’m happy for you,” Lani said as she took Diana into her arms for a sisterly hug. “My first time hurt like hell, and I don’t even really remember much about it.”
“That’s sad,” Diana replied with genuine sympathy. “It was the most wonderful night of my life.”
“Cut it out,” Lani said with mock disgust. “You’re going to give me diabetes.”
After having a nice laugh with her friend, Diana settled into her room and asked Lani how things on campus had been going since Diana left for her trip. After such a rousing journey, it felt nice to just sit and talk with Lani. Diana hadn’t known how much she’d needed the sense of normality.
Lani eventually left to meet back up with Eric and get a bite to eat. Lani invited her to join them, but Diana declined. With her travel experience being such a whirlwind, she hadn’t had time to fully investigate Flinders’ trunk for whatever he’d left for someone to find. With her roommate gone for a few hours, it was the perfect time to look for clues.
Once Diana opened the trunk, she ejected the contents onto her bed, deciding the best thing to do would be to organize everything and then put it away. Looking at the sprawled pile of skirts and blouses, Diana felt a warmth in her heart at knowing she had some more keepsakes of Charlotte’s. It had pained her considerably to know that her aunt’s possessions had burned up in the flames of Terra’s attack. Now, at least, Diana had a few items to hold onto.
She began by separating the women’s clothes from the men’s, putting her aunt’s things into the closet and checking the pockets. Apart from some really old lint, they were all empty.
Flinders must have traveled light, Diana couldn’t help but think as she looked at the significantly smaller amount of men’s clothes. All that was left was a white shirt, a couple pairs of socks, and some blue slacks. Darien had the rest.
Diana folded Flinders’ clothes into a neat pile, thinking the school might like them for some sort of display in the library, and placed them on her desk chair.
Diana stared at the empty trunk, scratching her head, knowing she had to be missing something. It’s just empty luggage. Had whatever Flinders left inside somehow gone missing? It had been lying in a storage closet since the 1920’s. Someone was bound to rummage through it, eventually.
Without much else to go on, Diana started feeling around inside the empty trunk. As she ran her fingers along the soft silk lining, she didn’t feel anything terribly out of the ordinary. It wasn’t long until the tips of her fingers felt a course anomaly close to one of the corners of the trunk. Moving in for a closer examination, Diana found that part of the lining at been cut like a flap and stitched back together. Intrigued, she began to feel around the area, and was more than a little excited to find tha
t something was indeed lying below the lining. Diana swiftly fetched a small pair of scissors that she kept in a cup with pens and pencils and then made a careful incision. Pulling the fabric back revealed a sealed white envelope, laying against the mahogany-colored leather of the trunk. Filled with newfound excitement, Diana snatched the envelope from its hiding place and quickly used the scissors to open it and reveal its contents. She pulled out the single folded piece of aged white paper and read the scribbled writing—it appeared to be a handwritten poem, entitled Lily of the Valley.
Greatly intrigued, Diana immediately began to read.
Oh Lily of the Valley,
Beauty in the Midst of Sorrow,
Flower in Dark Labyrinth bloom,
Life among the Shadow of Death.
White Queen of the Veil.
Guided by Ariadne’s Thread,
Into the blessed Clair de Lune.
You bear the Light of Tomorrow,
Oh Lily of the Valley.
When she finished, Diana sat down on her bed in frustration. That’s it? That’s what Flinders clue led us to? Some poem? It sounded lovely, sure, but there was nothing of any foreseeable interest in the words of the poem—only flowery images of love. Looking it over again, Diana knew there had to be a coded message hidden within it somewhere.
Darien would know, she thought with a sigh.
Diana closed the suitcase and sat it at the foot of her bed. Even though she had just slept on a plane for seven hours, she still felt extremely exhausted. Perhaps after a nice rest she’d be able to tackle the mystery of the poem.
Laying her head on the pillow, Diana fully expected the darkness of the Veil to be reaching out to her, but she only felt its profound absence—which she found surprisingly disconcerting. Regardless, she could already feel herself drifting into a blissful sleep and embraced it fully.
Chapter 20
Queen of Dragons and Queen of Blessed Fae,
What unlikely battle allies we make.
Though we began as bitter enemies,
Your king’s fires of pride and vanity
Have forged the iron bonds of sisterhood.
Diana slammed the book shut in frustration and the sound echoed within the silence of her quiet nook of the library. Another failure—in a long line of them. She’d been scouring Flinders’ collection for anything that could illuminate whatever message he might have concealed within the words of the poem, but had yet to find anything substantial. With a sigh, Diana stood from the table and walked over to one of the tall viewing windows to gaze out at the snowy campus below.
Where are you Darien? I need you.
Whatever self-imposed frustrations Diana felt, she knew they were just covering her ever-growing anxiety over the fact that Darien still hadn’t come back to her. It had been three weeks now, since their morning together in Glastonbury, and he’d yet to send her any word that he was alright. Christmas and New Year’s had come and gone, and the next semester’s classes were about to begin. When she’d returned to campus from her holiday visit with her parents, in Indiana, Diana had expected Darien to be waiting for her with some semblance of good news. Instead, she found his Watcher compatriots profoundly ignorant of anything having to do with their absent friend. Since then, Diana had been fearing the worst, and each passing day only served to increase her worry.
Even so, Diana could feel that Darien was alive. Within the core of her heart, flickers of his soulflame still danced in unison alongside her own, and even though she was countless miles away from him, Diana would occasionally feel flickers of his own loneliness and frustrations. Wherever he was, Darien wanted to come home to her.
She needed to know what was going on.
Even though Diana knew it would be fruitless, she instinctively checked her cell phone for any new messages. It wasn’t too far-fetched to think Darien might have someone send her an e-mail so she knew he was alright, was it?
Looking at the clock, Diana realized it was about time for Miri to be done with her classes and considered the notion of asking the Alma if she’d heard anything, yet. After her initial enquiries, Diana had thought it best to avoid the Shepherd house, just in case Terra had gotten wind of the situation. Diana had no doubt in her mind that the retired Shadowstalker would be more than willing to oblige the Lady Raven’s request of termination.
Diana’s heart ached anew as she felt another twinge of longing. Enough of this. Her fretting over Darien’s wellbeing having reached its pinnacle, she was more than willing to brave the dangers if it meant some kind of answer. Diana gathered up her things, fully intent on going to talk to Miri.
Stepping onto the spiral staircase, Diana felt weak in the legs and her feet fell out from under her. On reflex, she grabbed ahold of the banister and managed to keep herself from tumbling down the steps. Only then did Diana realize how incredibly weak she felt.
I probably need to eat something. With her stomach being a knotted mess of anxiety, she hadn’t had much of an appetite as of late.
Latching onto the railing for support, just to be safe, Diana made her way to the ground floor and out of the library.
In her weakened state, the walk to the Shepherd house took much longer than usual, and Diana was more than relieved when she finally stepped onto the front porch and used the gilded doorknocker.
In moments, the large wooden door cracked opened and Marjorie stood in the doorway with a warm and apologetic smile.
“Miss Selene, I suspect you’ve come seeking Master Endymion. He still hasn’t returned.”
Diana frowned; part of her had hoped he’d be here. “Is Miri home?”
“Lady Miraena is indeed home this evening,” the housekeeper replied with caution. “But I don’t think now is the best time—.”
“Show the girl in, Marjorie,” commanded the voice of Terra from beyond the foyer and the housekeeper opened the door wider for Diana to step through. The fire mage stood behind the large marble table, arms crossed over the bodice of her black dress, with her long scarlet locks flowing like a river of fire behind her back. “I have some questions I’d like to ask her.”
As Marjorie closed the door, Diana couldn’t help but feel like a criminal trapped in an interrogation room with no way out. Throwing caution to the wind, she decided to take command of the questioning.
“Where is Darien?” Diana demanded to know, but not as forcefully as she would have liked. She still felt incredibly weak.
“Just the question I was about to ask you, Tanar,” Terra replied with unrestrained anger. “You’re the one he went gallivanting off with to Qir’Aflonas. What trouble have you gotten him into?”
“So you haven’t heard anything?” Diana asked, confused. Her legs felt like they were about to give out again. She must have overdone it with her walk over here. She should have eaten something first. The thought of food brought with it a sudden feeling of nausea and it wasn’t long before she felt the room begin to spin.
As Diana grabbed the side of the marble table for support, her body broke out in shivers just before her abdomen surged with intense pain that felt like thousands of tiny blades cutting at her insides. Grabbing at her middle, Diana fell to the floor, curling into a ball at the blinding pain as the swirling darkness reached out to claim her.
“Wh—what is happening to me?” Diana’s shaking voice pleaded. What was the Veil doing to her? Was Terra behind it?
“Terra!” cried the voice of Miri from down the hallway as she ran towards them. “What’d you do to her?”
“I did nothing to her,” Terra quickly replied. Though there was resentment in her tone, Terra sounded surprised by Diana’s current state. Whatever was happening to her, Terra wasn’t the cause of it.
Diana was in too much pain to care. She tried to get herself back to her feet, but a powerful need to retch kept her on the ground. She would have likely vomited all over the floor if her stomach hadn’t been empty to begin with. The acidic bile burning her esophagus only added to the torment.
The chills and pain refusing to subside, Diana began to lose all sense of the world around her as she heard Miri pleading with Terra.
“You’re a healer, Terra! You have to help her!”
“I must do no such thing,” Terra replied. In spite of the protest, Diana could feel the tension warring inside of Terra. Something inside of the fire mage was reaching out to Diana, feeling her pain, and Diana couldn’t help but recognize the familiar experience—Terra had the same peculiar empathy as Diana.
“She’s a living being and she needs you! Remember your vows.”
As she started losing consciousness, Diana felt Terra’s anger dissolve into a determination to do what’s right. Diana felt herself being picked up by her arms and legs by the two Naphalei women. Soon after, she was lying atop a soft surface and she felt warm, soft, hands lightly rubbing her body. Before the darkness completely took her away, Diana’s last thought was of Darien.
—
Within the dark prison of her mind, Diana heard familiar voices. The Veil had released her long ago, but she couldn’t seem to wake up from the shadows. Only now, with a commotion somewhere within her hearing, was she beginning to feel her consciousness rising.
It was a struggle for Diana to make her mind work, feeling as if a portion of herself was still trapped somewhere beyond the barriers of physical reality. She pulled at it, forcing it to come back to her waking body.
Just as when she awoke on the plane, Diana couldn’t remember anything about her time in within the Veil, other than intense flashes of lighting within the swirling ethereal darkness. Though she had no memories of her experiences, Diana felt extremely relieved, and somewhat surprised, to be awake. She sensed the residual fear that she’d never again wake from the realm of magical nightmares—a sensation Diana hadn’t known for many years. It felt like she’d just experienced an eternity.
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