Ashes to Diamonds

Chapter 9: The Paragon

We have now been driving for about an hour, Evan and I in the back seats of Altina's jeep with Waldo on my lap. I didn't usually get out of the city much, the crop fields were passing us by in blurs. It helped me to calm my mind. The past few days have been overwhelming. There wasn't very much excitement in my regular day-to-day life. This reminded me of the times Ember, Lydia and I would go on trips. We would drive for hours. At times, it felt as if we had no destination at all. We could continue driving on until the ends of the Earth. But it still felt good, as long as I was in their company. There was something just so comforting about it. I felt safe and there was nothing anybody could do to change that. But know they are gone.

After about another hour had passed, the car slowed and turned onto a thin path, cut out of a sunflower field. The path was about the width of a car. After turning, we were surrounded by walls of sunflowers on either sides. The further we drove into the growing sea of yellow, the taller the sunflowers grew and the less light passed through the cover of flowers. I pulled out my cell phone from my jacket pocket. I ought to let Alf know where I was even though I hadn't heard from if since the restaurant. He also wasn't likely to pick up his phone but it was worth a shot.

Alf, I'm at the Paragon, idk if you've heard about it. They say they can help find Ember. Pls call back, we need to talk.

I intend on telling him that his house was broken into. It may have something to do with Embers' disappearance. There aren't many conflicts in the magic world, when things like Ember disappearing, and a magical break-in happen, and all in the same neighbourhood, there is a sure chance that these all must be related. But how?

We finally pulled into the driveway, or should I say a driveway. There were three in total each leading to identically sized mansions, all lined up making their mini-street in a mini neighbourhood. The comic sizes of the sunflowers began to make sense. They were now about the size of the homes.

"Hey Altina, where did you get these sunflowers from?... Are they sunflowers?", Evan asked.

She replied," indeed they are. They're magically modified. I believe you call them MMOs?" She flashed a fake smile and headed towards the entrance of the mansion and when she reached it, spun around, stretched out her arms, " welcome to maison Paragon!"

"Are those goats over there?" I exclaimed, pointing to horned animals in the distance. "Can we go see them?", I asked.

She cleared her throat, all signs of cheeriness that was present drained from her face.

"Why can't you just focus on this presentation for a bit, you can see the dumb goats later!" she snapped at me.

Dumb goats? I decided not to respond to it. She might be my best chance at finding Ember. Judging by her temper, she could change her mind in an instant, and for the most unreasonable thing.

Altina continued to mumble aggressively under her breath about disrespect and other inaudible blabber, once again, forgetting her company until Evan scoffed his foot against the pavement to bring her back to.

She looked up at us and put on a genuine smile, "If you would follow me?", she said in a tone completely different than her behaviour of only several seconds before. It was so kind. And fake.

The inside of the building was wide. It spanned the length of three school buses parked each in front of the other. The floor was made of polished pearly tiles that brightly reflected the lights falling down from the gothic chandeliers lining the width of the atrium. A wide, lacquered, wooden staircase was placed in a straight line from the door. It stretched up to the second floor where it leveled and mounted again beyond to a third storey. Altina led us through all of the rooms, each one excessively large. There were about 10 rooms, and more than half of them were uninhabited.