Part One: E

Lia Brooks. I said her name in my mind over and over. The name of the woman who had, over four hundred years, caused my perfect little sister’s death. I impatiently wiped a tear from my eye as I remembered Ri’s prostrate form sitting there in the chair. She, and now revenge, were the only things I cared about. Nothing else mattered.
I walked through the government headquarters, trailed by Damion Corey, trying the small golden key in door after door. I tripped over a floorboard, to fall into the wall. Only, I didn’t fall into the wall, I fell through the wall.

Now that was strange. I had tripped over that same floorboard hundreds of times - somehow I could never seem to remember that it was there - and had hit my head on the wall countless times.

I had never fallen through the wall like that. I looked around, and to the gold key in my hand, and understood. Only the master, the owner of the gold key, could access this secret room.

My gaze quickly passed over a tall mirror in the corner and came to rest on a heavy-looking trunk in the middle of the room. I strode over and kneeled down. There was a heavy padlock on the trunk.

I inserted the gold key into the keyhole. The padlock moved by itself, and the lid opened itself without a creak. I pocketed the key before looking into the trunk.

It was empty.

I sighed - I had been expecting something exciting. Suddenly a gust of wind hit me. I closed my eyes instinctively, and by the time I opened them the wind was gone. And something had appeared in the trunk. It was a thick bag, zippered shut. But even this bag couldn’t distract me from my thoughts of Rialle, and consequently that woman, Lia Brooks.

Somehow Mr. Corey had managed to follow me into the room - I supposed he must have tried to catch me as I fell - and was watching me with his black, beady eyes. I took no notice.

I picked up the bag, but something made me walk over to the mirror before I opened the bag. I stared into the mirror, to see something I did not expect. I shook my head, sure it was a hallucination. But the reflection in the mirror was not me, nor was it the room I stood in. There stood a girl against a white snowy background. She spun around, raising her face up to the sky. Her black curls flew out around her and snow sparkled on her black coat and blue hat.

Suddenly the girl stopped spinning. She faced directly at me and the smile slid off her face. She seemed to be able to see me, with her piercing blue eyes gazing directly at me. “Lia Brooks,” I gasped, and was pulled into a whirlwind.