Valentina

"So..." I said as I came home to my tiny flat. "Here: Two packets of boxers, some socks, a pair of shoes size 41, an M t-shirt, a large sweater and a very flexible pair of trousers labeled to be size M as well. And you owe me 85 euros."

I put the bags down in the middle of the only room.

Timothy looked at me meekly with an apologetic smile on his face. He accepted the receipt as I handed it to him.

He was sitting on my bed in my old training pants, wearing my hoodie top and fiddling with his broken phone. His other possessions lay on my worktable: a slightly dirty passport and a map.

I supposed he had gotten all three last night from the Queen.

"I truly owe you, Valentina. I did cook while you were out."

He gestured for the kitchen alcove.

"Thanks."

I averted my eyes as Timothy pulled my hoodie over his head.

There was a warm plate waiting for me by the sink. Timothy had obviously already helped himself to the warm vegetables, and was that tofu topping the dish? He had washed the only fork I owned, so I could taste a warm sliced potato.

"Mmm! You are not a bad cook, you know."

"What?"

I turned. Timothy had just gotten the sweater straight. His short hair was tousled.

"What did you say?"

"That the combination looks horrible. I am sorry. Whoever planned that outfit must be half blind."

It was true. The sweater looked more like a sack than a shirt and the trousers were black and baggy. Combined with the dirty secondhand shoes...

Timothy only gave me a half amused smile.

"I'll pay you as soon as I come up with money. I promise. I just don't know yet how long it will take."

I brought the plate with me from the closet and sat on the bed. Timothy drew a pair of socks on. Then he turned to my worktable and snatched the map and the passport and put them into the paper bag in witch I had carried the clothes for him.

"You are really going?" I asked.

"Yeah. I can't stay here leaching on your hospitality. I'll... I'll figure it out. But not in your home."

He had folded my clothes and the silk robe onto my tv table.

"And where do you go from here, exactly?"

"To Hellebore."

"Why? Is it better in his home?"

Timothy shook his head.

"I need to see if he still remembers an arrangement we once made. If he doesn't... Well. I'll possible make a new deal with him."

I ate a piece of carrot in silence. It was surprisingly tasty. What had Timothy done to achieve such a flavor?

The young man sat on the ground against the toilet door to tie his shoelaces.

"I know its small in here. But you can stay, you know? If you really feel you can go nowhere else."

Timothy lifted his eyes to mine. A trick of light cast an almost red tint to them. I knew it came from the TV. But suddenly I had the sensation I was looking Blizzard in the eyes. Or just Timothy, but in the years I hadn't seen him.

"I never told you... vampires can sense your feelings. You are generous in offering. But I know you don't like me staying here. I can feel it in your aura. We would drive each other mad in no time."

I felt hackle rising at the nape of my neck. My face flashed red.

How were you supposed to answer to something like that?

"Can you really sense my feelings, or are you just guessing?" I asked, almost affronted.

"I can sense them. Not like if I were living in your shoes, but close enough. I know you like my cooking, you are not just pretending fo my sake. I felt your attention shift when you got the first forkful."

"You are right. We would drive each other mad," I admitted.

"Yeah. I don't want to lose my only friend. So I'll go now."

He shifted his head slightly and the illusion of red eyes disappeared, returning his colorless irises to him.

"We will meet again. I'll visit before I leave the City."

"How about Clover's graduation? Will you make it?"

I realized as soon as I had said it that of course Timothy hadn't gotten invited. Clover didn't remember him.

Timothy had frozen.

"Gods! She graduated..." His mouth hang slightly open. "When... where?"

"In her house. Somewhere at the end of May. I find you the date. If you want I can... I say you are my cousin or something..."

He stood frozen.

"I... I need to think about it. Thanks, Valentina. For everything."

"You do come here, if you can't arrange anything else? Even if we drive each other mad?"

He nodded. I opened for him the door.

Then I sat in my small apartment and ate potato slices, tofu and carrots. Somehow I felt like I would never see Timothy again.

Apart from trying to get the eerie presentiment out of my head, I didn't know what I really thought of him. First I had been curious, relieved, happy to just see him alive. But...

Timothy made my hackle rise.

He had blown up. Been a skeleton I had buried in the woods and now he was penniless, homeless and something that wasn't human. Maybe with time I would get used to him again. But now... In the morning when we had really had time to chat, there had been moments when Timothy had obviously been watching and listening to something that wasn't in the room.

And I had Julia to take care of, an immortal sorceress that had taken over the mind of my friend. And while I was getting used to vampires and Julia and Aconite, one more new oddity was a lot asked.

He was right, I was relieved he hadn't stayed for another night. And I really hoped Timothy would find someplace else to crash for the next night.

I turned to regard my own problems for a spell. My laptop lay forgotten on my desk. Unlike Clover, I wouldn't graduate this semester.

I sighed.

Yes. Clover had had only her studies to worry about this semester. I was almost envious.

The master's thesis wasn't done. I had started. I had worked on it. But there was still so much to do I had asked Scale Tongue to move me for the Autumn group. I wasn't ready to present it for debate. Not before summer.

I closed my eyes for a moment, massages my temples.

Then my phone rang.

I looked at the screen.

Cursed out loud in three languages.

Then I picked it up.

"Mimosa. Hi, long time no see. How have you been?"

Hellebore

Professor Scale Tongue had been sighing heavily for the last quarter of an hour. I approached her table with a teapot, and then flipped the pot confidently above her table where I felt her cup should have been. Or had I given her a mug?

"Who is it?" I asked.

"What!?"

"You're in love. So, who is it?"

"In love? Surely not?" She snorted frustratedly. "I hope not."

A sigh.

"And he is younger than I. A lecturer at the university."

I sat opposite her, and rested my chin onto my hand.

"Oh, if only I could fall in love," I said. "I wouldn't mind if they were a century younger, maybe even two. Would be lovely to feel excited over something as curious as romantic love. Tell me, how does it feel? It has been so long my heart has felt for another that I have forgotten."

I felt her considering gaze.

"Are you teasing me, young man?"

I smiled despite myself.

"And if I am?"

"That would be very wicked of you, Hellebore. To tease a grown woman..."

The chime above the entrance rang. And I missed the rest of her words.

My hackle rose as the newcomer found for themself a seat and settled behind my back. The silent presence of a vampire mixed with something else I couldn't name. I heard him sniffling pitifully. Marquise stepped to greet the newcomer. I heard a low voice greet the dog by her name.

"I am sorry," I apologies for Scale Tongue. "Will you excuse me?"

She snorted and undoubtedly made a dismissive gesture with her hand to shoo me off.

I rose, as if in a dream. And turned to attend the table next to where Scale Tongue still sat, fighting a sudden panic. I always knew when someone was coming. And I always knew what to serve them.

I liked my lips.

Maybe the person sitting there was from abroad. A magic touched being from another country.

But no. No...

This was Atlantean magic. I felt it in my bones. It was also obvious Marquise knew him. I heard her tail flapping against a chair leg.

And also... I knew this person was new. They had the Goddess's personal blessing. We were intimately connected. That I could feel as well.

Then it would be safe to guess:

"Timothy," I addressed him, "how can I be of service today."

I sensed him watching. The sniffling noise was clearly turned to my direction now.

"Would you like something warm to drink?"

I was still holding the tea pan with some rosemary flavored black tea sloshing inside.

"If I could have hot chocolate and your undivided attention maybe?"

"Hot chocolate and time. Clear. Give me a moment."

I all but ran back to the kitchen where I almost collided with Catnip who was filling the washer.

"Sorry," I mumbled, reaching for an upper shelf where I kept cocoa powder.

"If you want some hot chocolate, I just made some into a thermos." Catnip had stopped loading the dishwasher. An expectant silence had fallen between us in the kitchen. "I have never seen you like that. Are you quite okay, Hellebore?"

"Yes. Maybe."

I left the cocoa powder be and searched with my fingers for the thermos Catnip had mentioned. My hand found lukewarm metallic roundness. Ah. The thermos. I lifted it. Sighed.

"That holds my late night coffee."

Catnip came to gently pry the metal tube from my hand and guided into my grip the handle of our larger thermos bottle with a woven surface to cover up all metallic parts. Absolutely not safe for a dishwasher.

"Thankyou."

"If you want, I'll send Blizzard a text?"

I shook my head.

"No. No vampires tonight. It's okay. I just... Oh, Iris bless me, here I go."

Armed with a tray of two mugs and a huge thermos, I made my way into the crowded interior of my very own tearoom and on to a table where Timothy was petting Marquise.

I set my cargo onto the table between us and took a seat.

Timothy was still sniffling. I extended a serviette towards the sound. Our fingers touched. His hands were still cold from the outside. It was a windy day of spring.

He sneezed audibly.

"Thankyou."

"You are welcome."

I heard the hiss of the opening thermos just by my ear. A mug was placed on the table. And a second mug, closer to my end. Polite, this Timothy, to pour for the both of us.

Then silence. But a silence filled with the everyday sounds of a tearoom, parts of conversation drifting to our ears.

"You wanted my time?" I inquired.

"Yes. Do you...? You don't remember anything of me, do you, Hellebore?"

I shook my head. Licked my lips.

"No. I remember nothing. But I have reasons to believe I had a hand in your... Being here today."

Silence again. What I sensed of his muffled aura was serene, as if he were contemplating me through deep meditation. Mo had a trick she taught her Court, of emptying the mind in a split second and then staying in an alert state of mind. Usually the staying was short lived however. Emotional detachment went against the nature of living and magical beings alike.

"Yes. You had a hand in it."

Somehow, how he said it made it sound almost sad in my ears. Resigned.

"You don't remember the call then?" he continued.

"What kind of a call?"

He sighed a long exhale out of his lungs. I heard the mug lifted from the table.

"You asked me to receive a bomb meant to kill Julia. You said that if I did what you asked, you would pay me forty thousand euros. When I returned to collect."

"I did what?"

He repeated himself. And then elaborated, painting for me a scene of a simple phonecall and then himself receiving a packet from a witch.

"And so I blew up," he finished for me.

I considered his telling. I didn't think he was lying, at least he didn't seem to be. And the truth of the matter was that for some reason I had understood that Fern, the elder of Great Star, hadn't had any interest in chasing Lavender. I myself hadn't been too worried of new assassination attempts. Nor had Mo. And all this would explain his house exploding. It would explain why Mo had bought the whole neighborhood.

But something in the picture was off.

Marquise came to rest her head against my thigh. She knew it too.

"What did I say to you, exactly? That I would pay you forty thousand if you died for Julia?"

"No," Timothy admitted. "You told me to be an immortal magician for the rest of the day."

"And what else?"

I heard him shook his head.

"I don't think there was anything else."

I took a good gulp of the creamy drink in my mug.

"That's odd. Because, if I knew you would die and sent you to death, then there should have been more. I have a friend who isn't with us anymore."

He thought about it. Timothy's voice was cautious when he asked:

"Does this have something to do with the First witch?"

"So there was more?"

"Mmm... I think that you said you would double my pay if I told her you missed her. But I forgot to tell her that when we met."

I leaned over the table, suddenly very interested in his story.

"You remember meeting with her?"

"She came to meet me last night."

"Oh?" I had thought he remembered something of the time he hadn't been anything but a cold skeleton. I was mildly disappointed. I would have liked to hear from what he had experienced beyond death.

"She never comes to see me. I think she doesn't really like possessing people."

"I had never seen a demon before. I was quite surprised. A dead soul coming on earth and possessing somebody else's life... That's just creepy. I don't like it either. And I am not sure I like her. She was cold, and full of hard edged irony. Almost bitter. She said she was waiting for Julia, and it sounded like she was tiring of waiting."

I didn't know what to say. I hadn't expected this turn of events. And it was driving me mad. I was never surprised by anything. I always anticipated what was coming next.

"I am sad to hear that. I'll pay my debt of course, if you want it in money."

"Really?" Obviously Timothy hadn't expected this turn of events.

"Of course. I owe you. You could have turned away that packet. And you didn't because I asked you to be Moura for a spell. You have lost all your possessions. Forty thousand sounds fair. Think of it as a kind of magical insurance if you wish."

Except that it did not sound fair. Something was off. I felt in the heart of my heart that I owed him more than forty thousand.

But then I located Catnip serving a table to our right and gestured for her to join us.

"What is it?" the girl asked. "Do you want me to call after all?"

"I would like you to make a transfer for me. If you would be so kind. This gentleman will give you the details."

I turned to Timothy once more.

"If you need help accessing your accounts, I will gladly help." Against a discount, that is.

But to my surprise Timothy simply rose to accompany Catnip into the kitchen.

"I am good, thanks. I'll just take the money, and you won't see me again."

"For some time, at least," he added, as an afterthought.

I was left drinking hot chocolate. Wondering how he could access his bank account, and if he had any documents to link his name to his face. But then again, maybe the Queen had helped her son out. Mo could be surprisingly generous, if she wished. Had they met?

Yet, I was left with the feeling of my leg finding empty air in a dark staircase where a landing should have been. I still felt as if I owed him.

Even when I knew he had been a vampire, and I had led him to be this whatever he was now. I shouldn't have felt any obligations to him, apart from the sum Catnip was about to deposit into his account. It was a fair compensation. With Forty thousand Timothy could restart his life.

Still I felt this Timothy had something hanging on my head.

Maybe it was just the memories I was missing, as if he was holding a small fraction of my identity captive somewhere. A part of my own history I couldn't reclaim.

Whatever it was, it was unsettling.

Mimosa

"I am so grateful you came to accompany me, Valentina. To see the place. I really needed your support. I can't imagine there is a new house already." I shook my head in disbelief. "The new owner really didn't waste time."

Valentina nodded.

"So it seems."

She seemed about to say something more, but closed her mouth.

"Congratulations on the new job again. And welcome back to Breasinghae. I hope you find a flat soon."

"I do too. The prices are exorbitant compared to Dale though. I think I'll need to move back into a shared apartment." I grimaced. I had really liked my own place.

Valentina nodded her understanding.

"An own space is truly nice. I admit. But why are you coming back here? You seem kind of to miss Dale already."

"Oh, my contract ended. There are more game studious, more opportunities for 3D modelers, in the capital."

Valentina nodded again. She seemed to sense there was more to my tale than I was letting on. But then again, I sensed there was something on Valentina's mind she really didn't want to talk about.

"It was nice, meeting with you. The last time was a bit hectic." I smiled.

And Valentina responded to my smile. "So it was. This was better. Nothing exploding."

"Yes."

And suddenly I remembered: "Wait! Wasn't there a friend of yours who lived there at the time? Was she OK?"

"Oh. Yes. He is good."

She had the oddest expression on her face.

"I'm going to the gym, now," Valentina excused herself. "I'll see more of you over the summer, once you have settled. Good luck with everything again."

"Thanks. See you."

Then, very determinedly, the shorter latin girl turned around and left me standing alone under the overhang of my chosen hostel for the night. I still had work to do in Dale and an apartment there. But I had wanted to stay for the day in Breasinghae to feel the city. I had wanted to also visit the ruins of my childhood home. Though, to my shock, the ruin had been already replaced by a brand new house.

The hostel where I stayed was one of those new cheap ones where there was no staff present. I found the entrance code in my phone and entered the building, leaving the noise of the street behind the glass door.

I hated lying.

But it was easier to claim my contract had ended and that I was seeking a new job than to admit I was obsessed by a contact in my phone. I felt there was something to this Little One... Something was off. It wasn't just me either. I knew dad knew something. When I had told my parents that I would go to live in Breasinghae for a while, I had seen it in his eyes.

Father never said things out loud, though. Mum would shout all her thoughts to anyone within a mile's radius. But dad kept things to himself. Mum had replaced a whole many photographs in our home. Father had looked at the redecoration in silence. I had no doubts though that he had went later to retrieve some of the pictures. He had a small office in the house where he could hide all mum-disapproved objects.

I climbed up a flight of stairs.

I had come yesterday. My bag was already waiting for me in a locker where I went to retrieve it. I had only rented a shared room, as I was only staying for two nights. Last night I had slept alone however. The other bed had been empty.

It wasn't tonight.

When I entered, a vaguely familiar looking young man was sitting on the other bed of the simple room. Nothing on him was new or fitting. His shoes, that he had left by the door, were dirty white. An empty instant noodles cup had been abandoned in the rubbish bin, along with other plastic wrappings. His hair was dripping wet and he was clean shaven. A plastic bag of shaver tips rested on his nightstand. He was fiddling with a cheap looking, shattered phone.

He lifted his gaze from the phone when I entered. His face fell.

"Hi." I lifted a hand in uncertain greeting.

He visibly gathered himself. A blank expression passed his features, shortly after replaced by a polite smile. He placed the phone, screen down, onto the top of his bed.

"Hi. I didn't realize I had booked a shared room. How embarrassing. A few minutes earlier, you would have found me naked in here." He gestured to a towel at his right on the bed.

"Lucky then that I came only now."

I sat on my bed.

"Last night it was only me here."

We looked at each other in silence. He mirrored my curious expression.

"Have we met before somewhere?"

"I am not sure," he replied. "Maybe."

I laughed, a bit embarrassed. Now this was awkward. And something about him in general was forbidding. It wasn't just the clothes that didn't fit, or the shattered phone. He carried a silence with him that I disliked.

"I used to live here," I said, to fill in the silence. "In the east of the city. Have you been here before?"

"Yes. Yes I have." But he didn't elaborate and the silence gathered around the small room like an oppressing smoke cloud. He had the oddest of expressions as he regarded me.

And suddenly I remembered I was a young woman.

I could have taken a non-mixed shared room.

I took in a breath. I didn't really think he would do anything to me. But if he became interested in my company, it would create more awkwardness. And somehow I felt very awkward already.

Before I could make a fool of myself by uttering something absolutely inappropriate however, he said:

"My boyfriend lives near here. I came to see him. What brings you to Breasinghae?"

All words stuck to my throat. I all but blushed.

God! He wasn't interested in me. What had I been thinking? How? Why?

It took a moment of my brain to compute the whole of his speech. And afterwards I felt so utterly confused by everything that I actually couldn't get my lies and half-truths together and in order. So I told this stranger the truth of the matter:

"I am trying to figure out what happened to someone. I don't really remember him. But... I don't know. I am obsessed by a phone number, a conversation that I apparently have had with someone. But I don't really remember him. Lots of people seem to behave a bit odd of late. And I know it is absolutely insane, but I think this person has something to do with it. There is a picture of our childhood home in the chat. Thus I am here."

He cocked his head to right, thinking.

"I know this is a bit peculiar thing to do," I hastened to add.

My roommate shook his head.

"I've heard of weirder things. Are you sure you want to find this person?"

"I don't know," I confessed. "Yes. And no. I feel somehow incomplete, there are all these odd thoughts. I have had visions even, I am in faith. And in all those visions I have been warned not to come. And I feel like there is something sinister in this person, he is in the center of something I shouldn't approach.

"And even so I am here. I cannot really explain it. I am here. Obsessed by the mystery. I feel like if I find him–Little One, as he is in my contacts–, I find something that will change everything.

"It's insane. I know it is."

But he only shook his head, this young man with an oversized sweater and baggy pants.

"I just hope you find clarity on weather or not you want to find this Little One. I am sure that when you do decide, there will be people who can guide you to him, people that have always known, they just couldn't tell you yet. They were just giving you space, to decide for yourself."

I looked at him, with my mouth hanging open.

He smiled apologetically.

"It sounded more put together inside my head. I just wanted to say that the moment your heart knows what it wants everything will fall in place."

"That's very kind of you." I didn't know what else to say. This stranger was being exceptionally kind to me. It didn't sound at all like he were judging my odd ideas.

Then again. He didn't seem exceptionally judgy in general. His outfit was so sloppily put together that there was absolutely no room for him to feel superior of the most superficial of details: of what anyone was wearing. And many were the people who judged the clothes others were wearing. In my head I called him sloppy. Even as he was clean shaven, recently showered and had left his shoes neatly by the door.

"I think I am going to sleep now," he said then.

"Do you mind if I read?"

"No. Of course not."

"Good night."

"Good night."

He switched off the lamp. I fumbled in the darkness until I found the switch of the small reading light by my table.

After I too had showered and changed into a pajamas, I returned to my small reading light like a moth navigating to brightness. In the other bed I could just distinguish a pile of sheets. My roommate had turned his back to me.

I opened the holy book onto my bed on a random spread. It was a habit I had. But a habit I had been bit by bit feeling less drawn to. And now as I read, random spread after random spread, I felt like every small chapter somehow taunted me.

I found no enlightenment, only more questions and insecurities. Once more I took out my phone and stared at the conversation with Little One. Why, I knew there was my forbidden fruit. There was my temptation in the dessert.

But wasn't God forgiving?

I had prayed for an explanation. And there was none. Only a forbidden path.

There was only the vision of Valentina, the angel, guarding an old castle that had been my home. She knew something, she was the key to this mystery.

But as my roommate had indicated, maybe she knew something I wasn't prepared for.

I closed the Bible and switched off the light.

In the light filtering through light curtains I saw the pile of blankets on the other bed. It seemed like he had turned to face me in the dark. For some reason it seemed to me as if his eyes had been glowing red in the deep shadows.

Then I closed my eyes.

I heard sheets ruffling.

When I took a peek under my blankets, he had turned back to the wall.

I dreamed of a lake that night. I waded into the moonlight pool that was dark and chilling. But there, in the center of the lake was buried a treasure, something I had lost. Something vital. I tried to dive it from the waters. Valentina was sitting in a boat, fishing. She looked at my efforts and shook her head. When I asked if I could borrow her boat and fishing line, she only shook her head.

"This is my boat. Get your own. Then I might borrow the rod. But you cannot fish in the water."

The next morning, when I woke up, my roommate was still sleeping. I dashed to catch my train leaving him to his slumber.