My brain locked. Twenty minutes? This is impossible! But thinking like that wasn't going to help me solve it. I looked down at the paper. The first of the first, and last of the last. The fate of the soldier... Maybe that meant the first letter in "first" and the last in "last". So maybe it started with an "f" and ended with a "t".

Maybe. I was hanging on a lot of "maybe's" here. Just read the rest of the riddle before you become completely hysterical.

But what was the "fate of the soldier"? Death? I would get back to that. I looked at the next lines: The goal of the tailed diamond, speeding faster and faster. What was the "tailed diamond"? And "what man has achieved". That could be lots of things. What did a "tailed diamond" do? The thought crossed my mind that maybe it meant the shape of a diamond, not the jewel. The tailed diamond... a kite? I wondered. It made sense, but I would have to read the rest.

The path of the fair one, too beautiful to be. The fair one... what could that be? My first thought was of a blond person, or some one with "fair hair". But that didn't sound right. "Too beautiful to be..." I muttered. A sudden memory of my mother flashed into my head. When I was small, my dad would tell me she was an angel, too beautiful to be human. Could that be it? What's an angel's path, though? Through the sky, I guess. To heaven...

The raspy voice of Khalaf brought my attention back to the room. "Two minutes left, earthling. Think quickly, now."

My mind screamed, but I forced the sound to stay in my head and not burst out my mouth. The joy of the one that is the key. An old, wrinkled hand reached into my memory, a wooden hawk resting on the palm. "It is the key..." echoed my grandfather's voice. The hawk is the key. But what is a hawk's joy? My brain screamed again in frustration. The abrasive ticking of the computer clock sounded faster, matching pace with my pounding heart.

A wind trapped leaf... something that starts with an "f"...A cousin to night...The fate of a soldier... a hawk's joy...what is a hawk's joy?!

Flight.

I froze. That was it. The goal of the tailed diamond, the path of the angel, the fate of the soldier as he flew up to heaven, it all fit! I drew a sharp breath. The lizard was regarding me with a satisfied expression, swiveling in little half circles on its spindly stool. It looked like it had quite recovered from its outburst. "And the light bulb goes on", it said quietly.

"It's flight! That's the answer." I almost yelled.

It smiled. "Congratulations, earthling, you just bought your planet another couple hundred millennia." It tapped something into its computer with the unconcerned air of a doctor recording a patient that just passed an eye exam. "You may leave now".

I blinked. The pain in my leg, gone unnoticed in those twenty minutes, suddenly returned at full force, and I staggered. James grabbed my shoulder and slid one arm around my waist to hold me up.

"Oh yes, so sorry about that, we Zartans have a very short temper," Khalaf said. "Here, let me fix that." And with a muttered, "Khaffis" my leg healed, the blood stopped, and the pain vanished.

But upon rolling up my jeans to see the damage, I noticed something. A scar, white, narrow and very obvious, ran the length of my leg. "Oh yes," Khalaf said slowly, "that tends to happen. Nothing to be done about the scar. Sorry."

I looked up at the lizard, then at James, who was staring in shock at Khalaf. He took a breath, his face carefully controlled, but I could sense the volcano about to blow. I stood and grabbed his hand. "James, lets get out of here."

At the touch of my hand on his, his eyes focused on me, and he nodded. And with a last look at Khalaf, I turned around and started to pull him back through the archway into the larger room. Then I realized something, and turned back around to the Zartan, who was still regarding us over its round specs. "Um, how do we leave?"

Khalaf looked up from its computer. "You have to leave the way you came. When you were falling, did you not liken yourself to your talisman? So now all you have to do is relive the feeling. Oh, and take your key on your way out." It tilted its chin down slightly and gave us a look over its glasses. "Oh, and one more thing: neither of you may tell anyone about this ordeal. Got it?" James and I nodded. It returned its attention to the screen. "Good. Now get on with it, we're on a tight schedule today. Three other planets are doomed."

Seeing no other option, I exchanged a glance with James and walked back through the archway.

Before I could think what to do, James (wait, when did he become James? He's Potter. He's always been Potter. I am so confused right now...) POTTER grabbed my shoulders and spun me around. "Lily, do you realize what you just did?"

I looked at him. "Uh, saved our skins?"

He nodded jerkily. "Not just our skins, Lily, the skins of everyone on Earth. You just saved the world."

I laughed into the suddenly slightly uncomfortable silence. "Well thanks, I feel loved."

Potter held my eyes with a level, steady gaze. "You are," he said softly.

My stomach, already doing an acrobatic routine for some reason, flipped again. I looked away from him, away from those penetrating eyes.

"And we're not supposed to tell anyone... what are you going to tell people you got that scar?" Potter asked.

"I don't know," I said quickly. "I was shaving and I nicked myself."

"Shaving? With what, a meat cleaver?" said Potter incredulously.

I flapped my hands in a helpless gesture that I'm sure helped my psychotic appearance a lot. "I don't know, I'll think of something." I trained my eyes on the wooden figure still stuck in the floor. "So um, what did Khalaf say we had to do?"

Potter (okay okay, I give) JAMES kept his eyes on me as he said, "Relive the feeling."

"Right," I said quickly, striding over to the hawk and prying it out of the floor. "Right. So... here goes." I closed my eyes. After a moment I heard James give a small sigh, come over and stand next to me in the circle.

I tried to imagine the feeling of free fall. I tried to feel the wind blasting in my face so strongly it was hard to breathe properly. I could feel the crispness of the air as it whipped my hair back.

I cracked my eyelids open. Nothing had happened. James stood still next to me, but his eyes were closed now. "James, why isn't it working?" I asked.

He opened his eyes and blinked a few times. "I don't know... I think we both have to "relive the feeling". I'm not very good at imagining something starting from nothing..."

The glow from the tiny searchlights around us reflected lightly off of his glasses and lit his face with a dim light. Looking into it, I got an idea. I stepped closer to him. "Why don't I give you something to start with, then...?"

His hazel eyes, already inches from mine due to the close confines of the circle, widened a little, then I saw something connect behind them. He started to smile a little, and bent his head down to mine, as I tilted my chin up. I felt the brush of his black hair, surprisingly soft, on my forehead before he kissed me.

My stomach flipped again, alike to the feeling of freefall. And smiling against the soft touch of his lips on mine, I felt a breeze start to pick up.

The circle of lights on the floor suddenly seemed to expand in all directions, and I opened my eyes. James' face was still inches from my own, his arms still around me and his eyes still closed. A vast expanse of blue stretched out in all directions. We hung there, still motionless in the sky.

A bird's shriek made me look quickly around to the left. I saw a lightning fast streak of red and brown feathers dart downwards, just as the world unfroze. Once again I was plummeting toward the ground. James looked left also, as we searched for the source of the cry, clinging to each other, diving headlong toward a rapidly approaching planet. With a jerk of my stomach, I remembered the definitional parachutes. Panic raced through me again, and I let go of James with one hand to pull desperately at the handle on my backpack.

Something drifted up to fall beside us, and looking over, I realized it was a hawk. I was momentarily snared by its amber gaze, watching the golden rays of light that burst outward in the perfect circle of its eye. The two of us held eye contact for what seemed an eternity, and when the hawk finally pulled away in a screech and a flap of its beautiful wings, I felt strangely calm.

I also felt my stomach start to catch up with the rest of me, and the wind blowing less harshly in my face. A movement above me caught my eye, and looking up, I saw the neon orange oval of my parachute splaying out behind me. James was floating beside me, an expression of disbelief on his face. His own parachute was billowing out above him.

I just tilted my head back and laughed. Logical explanations were not high on my list of priorities today.

I watched the sun break through the cloudy haze and the orange oval of my chute. Just above it, the hawk circled with slow grace. Leaning my head back, I smiled up at it, watching as it banked lightly and plummeted toward the ground in sudden free fall, then spread its copper wings and soared away into the indigo sky.