After Nadia left, Clare didn’t want to draw the attention of the other Lightwatchers, so she kept a safe
distance from any passers and kept closer to the darker parts. She didn’t feel as scared as she
expected to. The knowledge that even when the sun was gone, the invisible seals kissed the air with
fractals of light, was like a safety net on its own.
The mountain of Aquadore looked as scary as it could’ve been, with a few caves, but not enough to cut
her tail and run.
Clare found the entrance quickly when she approached closer to the mountain. Taking her first steps
with caution into the mountain, cautious of getting caught in any spider’s webs as it was pitch black, but
nothing, all she heard was water dripping.
Looking around, she realized that she hadn’t thought the whole plan through. Where was she going to
start searching, was she going to scream and just wait for him to come to her, she had no real course
of action. After a while of careful thinking, she saw the time, on her phone, “Half hour gone just
thinking, where are you, Nikolai.”
Walking up the stairs, she made her way higher up through the cave. When she was sure she was
deep enough, she put her torchlight on, muttering, “Apps you just gotta love them.” The stairs spiralled
in well crafted black stone, made of the same stone as the exterior of the mountain.
Clare assumed it was naturally this way, but then again nothing in the realm was ever as it seemed.
She spotted some drawings on the walls, stopped and directed her flashlight towards them. They were
letters that looked like they were written not so long ago, “With each kiss my heart leaps, everlasting
Adrian.” Wow, she thought, as she walked further up the stone stairway. Seeing more messages on the
walls, lots of them, the higher she went, “Steil, may your soul burn brighter than the ancients.”
“They all dead,” A voice from higher echoed. Startling her, she gasps by the sultry voice and deep
British accent cutting the air. Frightened and completely unaware that he was going to say anything she
lost her balance, and fell down a few steps, hitting her knee on a sharp point of the cave walls, “Oh,
shit, that hurt.”
“You should be more careful.”
She got up and dusted her pants, her knee hurt, but she told herself not to show him the satisfaction,
“Kind of hard to do when voices just pop out of nowhere.” She shouted back, flippantly.
Clare walked up the stairs moving closer to the guy. A bottle just missed her head as it swung past her,
breaking on the wall of the cave, “What the hell dude, are you tryna kill me.”
She finally reached the top, where the guy was, her senses strained by the potent stench of brandy and
knew it had to be, “Nikolai Blackwyll?”
“You know my name, so I take it, there’s a reason for your madness.”
Clare tried to look at him but it was too dark, she couldn’t see a thing only hear his voice. Not sure what
he sounded like, maybe twenties, or thirties, she wasn’t sure, it was how he spoke that gave Clare the
impression that he was older than she thought, much older. She started walking closer to Nikolai, she
saw the shadow of him, back crouched up against the wall, knees risen to his chest. A bottle dangled
loosely from his fingers in the centre of his legs. Her torchlight went off, she didn’t bother putting it back
on,
“Vincent Ipswich sent me, I need a man with your talents,”
Nikolai laughed making Clare feel like a fool, “Your flattery will get you nowhere with me, young
watcher, I am over a thousand years old, heard it all.”
Clare checked her phone, she had one hour to get back before the others noticed she was gone, her
leg throbbed, and she had just about enough patience with him, “OK dude, listen, I was trying to be
nice if I was flattering anyone, trust me, it wouldn’t be in a creepy cave with some drunken, old guy,
whom I have no interest in getting to know, no offence.”
Nikolai got up fast, as if the wind carried him in the air like a faltered feather, and grabbed Clare by her
neck pushing her against the cave walls. She let him without flinching, knowing how to protect herself
in these situations but choosing not to, she needed him to trust her. He flicked his finger and the lights
in the cave was lit, he looked deep into her eyes,
“I. Am. Not. Old.”
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