James got up in the early afternoon, after only a few hours of sleep.

Finding out that Siena was still asleep, he decided not to wake her. The Society could wait until tomorrow. He dialled Albert's number, and the old man promised that he would talk to Christopher for them and send Jake to pick them up the following morning at ten.

That problem solved, James moved silently around the flat, getting dressed, folding the clothes they had used in their quest so they can be carried back to Alicia, cooking dinner and finally settling on the sofa to reply to several emails and texts he had ignored for too long, and continue working on the article he had started. 

Siena woke up almost three hours later.

She exited her room dragging her feet, looking nearly as tired as before, her hair hovering around her like a halo of an unfinished painting of an angel, in need of a few decisive brushstrokes to set it right. He smiled at her, knowing well how tired she felt; he was feeling the same. Visiting the book worlds was extremely exhausting, but James hoped that it would change soon, that they only needed some time, and a few more tries to get accustomed to it.

"Weren't we supposed to go to speak to the Bibliophiles?" Siena asked, looking through the floor-to-ceiling glass into the garden. Dusk had already fallen upon the world outside. 

James stood up and switched the lights on, dispersing the semi-darkness enveloping them, making her blink. 

"It doesn't matter. We'll see them tomorrow morning, I called Albert," he said as he drew the curtains, then stood next to her, realising how he was looking for any pretext just to approach her. "I cooked dinner; we can eat whenever you feel hungry." 

"Thanks, James," she said, leaning on her tiptoes and kissing him on the cheek quite naturally, before walking away from him.

Siena didn't realise what she had done until she was halfway to the bathroom. She paused and turned around then, blushing when she found his sky blue eyes intent on her.

"I..." She shook her head. She just couldn't help herself around him; the borderline between friendship and 'more' kept blurring in her mind where he was concerned. She swallowed, then started again. "I don't want to eat just yet. I'll get dressed and have something to drink. Then we should plan our next quest; the Society will need time to get our costumes ready, and we won't have any occasion to talk about it until we meet again. If we decide now, they'll get everything ready for us before we return and we won't have to waste much time then... And we need to tell them to book our plane tickets, I have to leave on the fourteenth, that's in three days time, and then the last day of school before Christmas is the twenty-third, I suppose I could either travel back here that night, or the morning after..."

She disappeared into the bathroom then, leaving him with his gloomy thoughts about how little time they had left. The Bibliophiles would probably keep them the whole day tomorrow and after that... Shaking his head to disperse those thoughts before they would spoil his mood-- they still had two full days left and he intended to make the best of them-- he made tea for both of them while she washed and dressed. 

When she joined him on the sofa, gathering her long, leggings clad legs under her as she sipped at her tea, he was ready to discuss their new quest.

"Are we going to visit Mary Shelley's world next?" he asked, looking at the copy of Frankenstein she had left on the coffee table last night. 

She picked it up and placed it on her lap, caressing the cover absently as she replied, looking in his eyes, "Do you mind? Would you rather do something else?"

He shook his head. "No, I don't mind. It's a story that needs to be fixed; it's full of tragic, unfortunate characters. But we will have to plan it well, we can't afford to make mistakes, it could be dangerous. I can't really see the best way to go around this one. Victor Frankenstein will never listen to us if we ask him not to carry out his experiment; he dreams about the glory he's sure a discovery of the sort would bring him."

"But we'll try to talk to him anyway," Siena said enthusiastically, her caramel eyes brimming with excitement. "We'll find him in Ingolstadt before the experiment and explain where it might lead him..."

"Fine," James interrupted her. "We enter the plot before he gives life to his Monster. But I'll let you talk to him without me. You with your blonde hair look a little like his beloved Elizabeth; he might listen to you if you talk to him alone..." She not only resembled Elizabeth physically, she even shared her best features. Siena was just as sweet, loyal, trusting, sympathetic, understanding and caring, an ideal of a man of Victor's era... "And if we don't succeed to dissuade him?" James added, forcing himself to focus on what they were discussing.

"We'll move forward in the plot to the night of the experiment and stop him from running away from his creation. He must take responsibility for the creature he brought into life. We'll visit Elizabeth if we must and explain. She might be able to talk reason into him, I'm sure she wouldn't abandon the creature like Victor did. They live in such a secluded place; it should be simple for them to keep the Monster hidden until they educate him."

It was well after midnight when they finally decided that they had done enough planning for the day and needed to sleep some more before meeting Christopher and his Bibliophiles in the morning. 

Jake was precisely half an hour early, appearing on their doorstep the moment they locked the flat. They found the Bibliophiles waiting for them impatiently when Alicia led them into the office-lab after she handed the costumes they had brought back to one of her assistants. 

"Here you are. Finally, we're so curious! Tell us how your quest went?" Christopher exclaimed. 

James looked at Siena, asking her silently whether she wanted to tell them. When she shook her head, James led her to the two chairs Christopher pointed out for them and explained patiently once they were seated.

"The first part went well. We arrived exactly where we wanted, and Siena dived with me. Without air. It was she who found the vial with the antidote."

His words were followed by excited murmurs that lasted a few minutes when both George and the mysterious stranger forgot to write down what was being said.

All eyes were on Siena, making her cheeks turn crimson, as she told them, "It was the jewel. I had very little to do with anything, I simply followed what... where... Well, I knew what to do because the stone did."

"Haven't you questioned the pull to dive without the equipment at all?" the stranger asked.

"No," Siena replied, her eyebrows drawn together in a frown, feeling silly about it in retrospect. But that didn't mean she wouldn't do it again. 

"Then we moved forward within the plot," James said in an attempt to divert the attention he knew Siena dispised. "We blended with the crowds attending the wedding well enough. Thanks for the costumes, Alicia, they were perfect." He smiled at the old woman who accepted his gratitude with a wide smile and a nod.

"But we were spotted, at the very end," Siena said, shivering as she recalled the moment, lacing her fingers through James' the moment he closed his hand around hers in response. 

"However, we had no problem to return," James continued, his words hushing another bout of murmuring. "If the person who saw us was still inebriated after the wedding celebration, they will probably conclude that they simply saw the Prince's foundling throwing herself into the waves, they'll never believe that they saw two people vanishing into thin air, it was still almost dark."

A collective nod spread among the gathered Bibliophiles like a wave before James continued. "The only thing that worries me at the moment is that there is no way for us to guess how long we stay within the book worlds. The time flows differently in the books, and it seems to be yet different within each plot. I'm afraid that we might spend weeks in our next chosen novel, months in those worlds where we'll need to forward several times..."

"Have you chosen your next quest then?" Albert interrupted him excitedly.

"We'll do Frankenstein," Siena announced. 

From there, the day became a long sequence of interrogations when Siena and James were separated and questioned by the inquisitive Bibliophiles, with only a short break for a late lunch for which Alicia had to kidnap them from the others and the three of them closed themselves in the kitchen to eat.

It was dark outside when Jake was called and they were allowed to go home, after they promised to come back again the following afternoon to try their new costumes which needed to be more historically accurate than any they had used so far.

"I'll have your flight tickets ready too by tomorrow," Alicia promised as she kissed them by the front door.

"I'm almost more tired of all the questioning that from travelling into the books," Siena muttered as she settled in the car next to James, letting him pull her close to himself. 

In an unspoken agreement, they both packed the most of their things the morning after, to be able to enjoy their last evening together.

"I thought we could go out for dinner tonight, we can ask Jake to drive us up to the town and see a play or visit a gallery if you wish, too," James offered as they sat down to eat lunch before heading to the Society as they had promised.

Siena considered his idea, imagining the evening he had proposed. She had almost forgotten how close to the centre of one of the busiest and most exciting European cities they were. But she would be back into the hustle and bustle of a city life tomorrow and without James. 

"If you want, we can walk from the Society and eat on the boat instead." And then spend the night reading on the sofa close together... That was more like she wished to spend their last night.

"Wonderful," James agreed easily, pleased with her compromise. 

When they left the Society that evening after dark, James' left hand was closed around a fragment of the red stone they jewels were made of which Albert had given him after he had begged the entire afternoon.  He squeezed Siena's hand tighter in his right hand, his eyes alight with the excitement of a possible discovery of a way... He didn't know himself what he hoped to discover, but he had promised Albert, who had spent years by studying the stone without Christopher's knowledge, to keep him informed.

"What's all this... excitement about?" Siena asked, narrowing her eyes at him in suspicion through the drizzling rain looking like a shivering veil in the lights of the floating restaurant.

"Nothing," he replied nonchalantly as he led her over the steamer's gangplank, the old wood, slippery from the rain, oscillating pleasantly under their feet.

"Alicia said that you and Albert are up to something," she insisted, letting him help her out of her ash rose rain jacket before they followed a waiter to a table placed under one of the portholes.

"Alicia is a wise woman," he announced mysteriously, passing Siena a menu. "I'll tell you if I succeed," he put the end to that conversation with a wink.