James took her hand into his the moment she settled next to him on the back seat of the luxurious car, the spontaneity of the touch making her draw unnecessarily close to him on the spacious seat. 

The natural simplicity with which she reacted to his touch made James wish he could pull her closer yet, onto his lap and keep her there, encased in his arms, all the way to the Headquarters. Would she mind? he wondered, turning to her to bestow a kiss on top of her head, forgetting entirely that they were only friends-- Jake's bemused look caught in the rearview mirror stopped him at the last moment, and pulled him back to reality. 

"Do you have a family, Jake?" James asked to anchor himself into the real world lying beyond the confines of their flat.

"I have a wife and two little boys," Jake replied.

"That's wonderful," Siena said, meeting Jake's look in the mirror. She hadn't thought of any of the Society people beyond the Society. "How old are they?"

"Harry is three, and Arthur seven."

"Does your wife know what you do?" James asked, making Siena glance at him. She would never have thought of such a question herself.

Jake chuckled, nodding at James appreciatively. "As you've already understood, all this is a big secret. She knows that I'm Christopher's driver, she even met him, but she doesn't know about the Society. It must remain secret."

Siena shook her head. She didn't understand the reason for all this secrecy, but she admired it nonetheless. Keeping what they were doing secret for such a long time couldn't have been easy.

"What's her name?" she asked simply.

"Katie. And she is the most wonderful woman I've ever met." Jake replied even as they reached the road where the Headquarters were, and he slowed down, then pulled to the curb and stopped the engine.

"Have a nice day, Jake," Siena told him as he helped her out of the car, smiling as he replied with a polite touch of his hat.

"Bye, Jake," James said. He accepted the costumes the driver passed him, then took Siena's hand in his and led her through the gate, down the garden path towards the white door, away from the car.

"Here you are." Alicia beamed at them, opening the door before they reached it. "Did you sleep well? You looked exhausted yesterday," she added, pulling Siena in for a hug.

"I slept the entire afternoon and the whole night too." Siena smiled at the old woman. "We brought these back, I wasn't sure how to clean them," she added, nodding towards the costumes even as James passed the garment bags to her. 

"Perfect, thank you," Alicia said, handing the bags to a woman dressed in a white lab coat, who materialised out of the shadows lining the walls of the hall without being called. "And I packed your clothes so you can carry them back with you today. Your phone rang a few times, James. I haven't heard yours, Siena, but you both might want to check before Christopher lays his hands on you," she finished the sentence in a whisper. "All your things are in your changing rooms. Up you go, as silent as you can." She winked, then followed the woman with the costumes behind a door to the left, while Siena let James tug her down the now familiar corridor and up the gloomy staircase, fast and silent. 

She walked with him into his room, watching him frown at the screen of his phone as he picked it up from a bag where it lay on top of a pile of his folded clothes.

"Won't you call back?" she asked curiously as he followed her into her room.

"No, it's not urgent," he replied. Whatever Claire wanted this time could wait. 

Siena nodded, reaching out for her own phone, lying on top of her neatly folded clothes just like James'. To her surprise, she found a missed call, too, from Alessandro.

"Just give me a second, please." She looked at James apologetically. "I won't call him back now because he speaks too much, and Christopher will be furious, but let me send him a text, or he'll worry..." Siena muttered, typing quickly. "There, all done." She smiled at James, stuffing the phone inside her pocket. Leaving the rest of her things where it was, she followed him back out of the room.

"And... he is?" James asked tentatively, unable to help himself. 

"Alessandro, my... well, my only close friend. We teach at the same school," she explained as they descended the stairs, almost bumping into George the secretary.

"Oh, here you are. Hurry, everyone's waiting for you," George urged, putting an end to their conversation.

"Finally!" Christopher welcomed them as they were led into the same office from where they transported into their first fictional world the other day. "Sit down, please, have you slept well? You looked so tired yesterday," he commented, his eyes strolling to Siena before they settled on James. "Tell us everything. How did your first quest go, what did you do? Did you encounter any problems?"

Siena slipped her hand into James' as her eyes swept across the people seated at the long table-- from George, typing busily at a computer, over Christopher, still staring at them intently, to the smiling Albert and Alicia seated at his right, and then the never smiling man whose name they still didn't know sitting at Alicia's other side. Siena didn't know how to feel about him. He looked serious and inscrutable, and the other Bibliophiles not having introduced him only added to the mystery he was shrouded in. There must be a reason for his not wanting to reveal his identity...

She shivered partly because of the feeling of unsolved mystery and partly because of the coldness of the ancient house impenetrable to sunbeams because of the sunshine-devouring jungle surrounding it. James laced his fingers through hers in an immediate response, then followed her look towards the stranger briefly before he replied to Christopher. 

"Everything went well. We did not encounter problems. The antivenom is still in the bag along with everything else you've given to us; we brought it back with the costumes. There are just a few things I noticed which you may find interesting. We did not find the boy immediately. I suppose we landed a few pages off. But we didn't need to forward in the plot, I thought we were close enough. It would have been pointless, we would have risked to be carried even farther away. And Siena knew where to go. She led me across the desert to the well and then to the place where we found the flock of migratory birds."

"Siena?" Christopher demanded explanation, looking at her.

"I believe it was the jewel. My stone, somehow, made me know where to go." She shrugged. "We spent much more time in that world than what it felt to us," she added her observation, glancing at James, who nodded. "Of course, we walked across the desert for a long time, but we didn't feel hungry or thirsty, not even tired until the very end."

"And one more thing. To return, Siena didn't need to hold the book in her hand as you had instructed. It was enough for us to hold on to each other and for the stones to touch, with the book forgotten in her bag."

"Now that's new," Christopher mused. "You are the first couple who tried this."

"And how did you change the boy's destiny?" Albert asked.

"We found the flock of wild birds, the same one he had used before, and sent him back home before his final encounter with the Snake," Siena said, her eyes threatening to well up with tears as she remembered the little boy.

"Wonderful," Alicia said. "Well done to you."

George finished typing and looked at them expectantly even as Christopher said, "I've heard that you intend to visit another world immediately. Are you sure, seeing how tiring it is? The world of The Little Mermaid is more complex than that of your first quest."

Siena squeezed James' hand as she replied, hoping he would not change his mind because of Christopher's words. The Little Mermaid didn't deserve to die for her unrequited love. "We have a full week left. I need to be back in Florence on the morning of the fifteenth at the latest, that's when the school starts. James' work schedule is more elastic, but I can't stay longer. A week should be enough for this quest, don't you think?" She looked at each person seated at the table in turn, and they all nodded. 

"It's better if you leave today then. Your costumes and equipment are ready. As long as you are determined and well rested, you may go."

Siena looked at James; she wasn't expecting to be travelling today... But he met her eyes and nodded his agreement, even as he pulled the small copy of The Little Mermaid from the pocket of the grey hoodie he was wearing, and so she nodded too.

"Now, we are sending you in with the Victorian diving suit, as you already know, James," Albert said, claiming his attention, "to make you look as inconspicuous as possible within that world. We only have one, but you, Siena, would have to stay on the shore anyway to pump the air for him, seeing that he is the one with any diving experience out of the two of you. However..."

"... it might not be necessary that you stay," Alicia said, smiling at Siena, her eyes glistening, alive with mystery. "We know that not all the worlds behave as we expect them to. It might be the amount of fantasy poured into some of them from their writer's imagination that makes them perfectly unexpected and unpredictable, but in some cases, it might be the..." she turned briefly to Christopher, silencing him with a stern look before he could protest, "...the magic of the stones."

"What... does it mean? How does it work?" Siena breathed, feeling awestruck. 

"You've experienced it already when you made your stone lead you to the Little Prince when James' stone made you land off the right page," Albert offered.

"Your tie to your stone seems to be very strong." Alicia beamed at her proudly. "It usually takes years to the Travellers to achieve such an intense connection. But when they do, it allows them to do the most... impossible things. Listen to your stone and see what it can do for you. You too, James. You need to learn to work and live with those stones to use them at their full capacity."

Would the stones allow them to breathe underwater without any equipment? Siena wondered but did not ask; she didn't expect any of the Bibliophiles to have an answer to that. She would have to try and see for herself... Hopefully, she could use the magic of the stone to dry her clothes, too, if it allowed her to dive...

She pushed those thoughts away quickly when Christopher spoke again. "So? Are you leaving today?"

Siena met James' eyes before he replied briefly, standing up and pulling her to his side when she followed him. "Yes. Let us go."

"All right, up you go, your assistants are waiting for you in your dressing rooms and we'll send you Alicia and Albert in a minute," he said with a glance at the stranger which Siena almost missed as James tugged her out of the office.

Just who was the man, and why did he have a say in the Society's decisions...?