Time's Tragedies- The Books Of Beginning [2]

16. The Loris Hearing

The moment Robert Lloyd's name left Kate's lips, the mood of their group had completely changed. Soon Kate was frantically explaining everything to Emma and Gabriel, while Rafe's face showed visible signs of anger at the mention of the man seeking revenge against his family. The children watched this, watched as Emma became serious and hard, taking in all the information and asking questions, many of which Kate was forced to answer, 'I don't know.'

From there it had been a whirlwind of activity, with Rafe opening the portal quickly and everyone hopping through until they found themselves on a dock. Kate looked at their surroundings and then looked at her husband curiously.

"I wanted to get us to Loris quickly, and I didn't want to have to take the time to open the portal into the citadel," Rafe explained.

"Ah," Kate affirmed. Sometimes it was hard to open up portals into the citadel, depending on what meetings were going on or what artifacts were going through there for inspection. She looked to Emma and the children, "guess we have a little bit of a hike."

It wasn't a long walk, though in the darkness of night, on the empty streets of the island, it felt longer. The group's skin dampened with sweat due to the warmth and humidity of the air. Finally, though, they reached the citadel.

Emma pushed the heavy doors open and hoped at least one of the magical council members were here. Mostly she wanted Michael to have stayed late in the archives reading records and books like he often did. The faster they could have a meeting called, the better.

"Well, this place sure is fancy," Eternity murmured, taking in the architecture of the building.

Abby smiled in the slight glow coming off of the pink tinged stone of the building, "it's pretty."

"It matches your hair," Lili added, her eyes flicking to the bright magenta curls that crowned Eternity's head.

"Are you sure we can just barge in Aunt Emma?" Jake spoke up slightly to ask."

"Yeah," Abby chimed in, "we ain't gonna get arrested, are we?"

Lili hid a slight smile at Abby's use of the word, 'ain't.' Sometimes her father found himself falling back on speech patterns from his childhood in the past and Abby liked to parrot them. Jake found it mildly irritating (it was one of the few things the siblings often squabbled about) but both Lili and her mother thought it was a charming habit.

Emma shook her head, "I basically fix all their problems with evildoers plotting stuff. I'm allowed in here when I want to be in here."

"Technically we work with the magical council to protect the world," Gabriel commented.

"Either way, it's a benefit to us at the moment," Kate commented, "now, where should we go first for help?"

"The Archives. If Michael stayed late, we'll find him there," Emma said confidently.

Rafe made a sweeping motion with his arm for her to go to the front of the group, "lead the way."

The archives of the magical council were huge, set in a tall room with floor to ceiling bookshelves covering the walls. Moonlight slid in from three small windows set near the top of the room and other illumination came from several floating globes of magical silvery light. At the desk in the middle of the room, surrounded by papers and holding a pen in his hand, was a man with hair like Emma's and a pair of glasses perched on his nose. He adjusted the sleeve of his button up shirt, then looked up to see the newcomers approaching.

Eternity's shoes squished into the plush carpet as she walked, whispering to Lili, "I take it that's your uncle?"

"That's Michael," Lili confirmed.