And I assume you already know what the consequences are if you break this promise.” Alex
nodded
slowly.
“Yeah,
I
understand.”
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Dyvinius leaned forward in the throne, his eyes glowing with eagerness. “Then I need you to say the words out loud.” Alex glared at him. “I promise.” Dyvinius leaned back into the throne, looking satisfied. “Good. Now that that’s been taken care of, I need just one more thing from Gemma before I let you both go back.”
Oh yippy.“Okay,” I said warily. “What do I need to do?”
“I need you to go back into the vision and correct it,” he told me.
“Correct it?” I asked. “How am I supposed to do that?”
“Well, I’m guessing that when you went in the vision either some clips’ were missing, or things might have been blurry.”
“Yeah…the peoples’ faces were blurry.”
“Good. That will make it a little easier to correct. You see Gemma, every vision has to be
seen
clearly,”
Dyvinius
explained.
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“Otherwise, if left unfinished, it could end up altering past or future events, and the world as we know it could shift.” I was confused. “So how exactly do I correct it?”
“You go back inside the crystal and see the vision again.” Dyvinius looked over at Nicholas. “I’ll send you with her to make sure everything goes correctly this time.” What!? So not only did I have to go back and suffer through the vision again, but I also had to go with a creepy half faerie—whatever that meant. I’d read books about faeries who were able to put up some kind of glamour to make themselves look human. Looking at Nicholas, I wondered if what I was seeing was real or not. Was his blond hair and golden eyes just an illusion?
A trick of the eye?
Catching me staring at him, Nicholas flashed me a sly smile and winked.
I blasted him with a fiery glare.
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“Well, let’s get started then.” Dyvinius snapped his fingers and the chubby little man with elf shoes ran up to the throne. He was carrying a crystal ball identical to the one back at Adessa’s. He placed it in Dyvinius’ hands, bowed, and disappeared behind the throne.
Dyvinius held his hand out, the crystal ball balanced in his palm. “Whenever you’re ready Gemma.”
Sucking in a shaky breath, I stepped up to the podium. I stared down at the crystal hesitantly, the violet ribbons dancing around inside almost tauntingly. “So I just put my hand on it?”
“To start with, yes.” Dyvinius waved his hand at Nicholas. “Nicholas, take her hand.” Not waiting for me to say if it was okay or not, Nicholas grabbed hold of my hand.
His skin still felt exceedingly warm, and it took a lot of effort for me not to cringe away from him.
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“Now close your eyes and picture the vision you saw,” Dyvinius said, his silver eyes twinkling in the pale violet glow of the crystal. “Then hold the picture in your mind while you place your hand on the crystal.” I shut my eyes and focused on the lake…the grey stone castle…the blurry faces of the people. I held the image as I reached out and let my fingertips skim the glass.
I was jerked forward.
Then I was falling.
Chapter 29
I really wanted to be done with the whole traveling-through-a-crystal-ball thing because it sucked. Big time. The falling part made my stomach churn, and don’t even get me started on the landing. We all know how well that goes for me.
My feet hit the grassy ground with a thud, and I tripped forward, rolling my ankle. “ Ow!”
“Are you alright?” Nicholas asked. He stood beside me, still holding my hand.
Which I guess was good, but only because it kept me from falling face first onto the ground.
“Yeah, I’m good.” I slipped my hand out of his.
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The castle towered behind us, the lake rippling in front. The sight of it tugged at my memories of the last time I was here.
“So what do I do now?” I asked Nicholas.
“You wait until the vision starts,” he told me. “You’ll have to tell me when it does, though, so I can help you see things clearly.” I gave him a funny look. “You can’t see when it starts?”
He shook his head. “It’s your vision, so only you can see it. That’s the way things work.”
I gestured around us. “So what does all of this look like to you?” He leaned in, his shoulder bumping into mine. The smell of lilacs, forest, and rain flooded my nostrils. “Everything looks grey.
There’s a little haze and color here and there, but everything’s distorted.” I backed away from him and focused on the scenery. It really was a beautiful place.
Well, if you liked the whole outdoorsy thing 606/695
that is. Which I so don’t. Plus, there was the connection it held to the woman getting yanked away to The Underworld. That connection basically ruined any possibility of me liking the place.
A streak of purple suddenly rushed by me—the little girl.
“Okay, it’s starting,” I told Nicholas.
The little girl twirled in circles, just like she’d done the first time, her face still all hazy.
“What do you see?” Nicholas asked.
I wondered if I was allowed to tell him
“Um...”
He frowned. “I can’t help you if you don’t tell me what you’re seeing.” I sighed. “I see a little girl twirling in front of a lake.”
“Can you see her face?”
I shook my head. “Nope. It’s still all blurry.”
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“Then you need to focus harder,” he said, as if it were that simple.
But it wasn’t that simple. “Focus harder on what exactly?”
“Hmm…” He gave me a look that immediately put me on edge. He strolled around behind me, standing way to close for comfort. And the smell of flowers and rain was killing me. I mean, I don’t mind breathing in the smell of lilacs every once and awhile, or taking in the scent of freshly fallen rain right after a storm, but he was a guy that smelled like flowers. It was too weird.
“Right now your mind is trying to adjust to the power of the crystal, but it can’t quite figure out how to get there.” He leaned over my shoulder, breathing into my ear. “The first thing you need to do is take a deep breath. Then try to relax.” What was it with him and invading my personal space? Maybe it was a faerie thing or something?
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I took a deep breath and tried hard to ignore the flowery smell. “Okay, I’m relaxed.
Now what?”
“Let your mind focus,” he said, still breathing into my ear. “The images are already there, they just haven’t connected with your mind.”
I inched away from him as casually as I could and sighed. “Yeah, I still don’t get it.” He placed his hands on my shoulders.
“Have you ever looked at one of those magic eye images before?”
My shoulders stiffened under his touch.
“Uh, Yeah, I guess.”
“Well, this is kind of like looking at one of those.” He pressed his fingertips into my shoulder blades, massaging them gently.
“Relax you eyes and let your mind make sense of the images.”
I shrugged off his hands—I couldn’t focus with him touching me—and concentrated on the images.
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The little boy had come up during Nicholas’s little tutoring session and was now guiding the little girl away from the lake.
Their faces were still blocked out by a sheet of haze, so I took a deep breath and let my eyes relax. Gradually, a tunnel started to form, fading away the rest of the surroundings so that the only thing I could see was the blurred image of the little girls face. Slowly, her face began to focus like a lens on a cam-era. Clicking and clicking, getting clearer and clearer.
I was getting so close to being able to see who the little girl was. Only a few more seconds and I probably would have had it.