"So, you think this card belongs to Lissa?"
When I first showed the card to Dimitri in the hotel we were staying in, he was a little skeptical of it belonging to Lissa. I explained to him that they were the cards he was using with her the other day. I also explained that Ralph Taylor was from England.
"I'm sure it does! Why else would this card be in the basement of that building? Why would someone write England on it in mud? It has to be Lissa's!"
He looked at the card a little bit longer, before nodding slowly. "Okay. I'll start booking the flight for England. I'm going to need more information about this Ralph Taylor."
"I can probably get you all the information there is about him, but you'll have to give me some time alone," I told him.
He raised his eyebrows. "Okay, but I'm going to set some other people on the job too."
"Don't you trust me?" I asked crossing my arms.
He grabbed my hands. "Of course! But I need all the information I can get, and you'll need some help."
I nodded, a little peeved that he wouldn't let me handle this on my own. Then again, who was I to decide what everyone should do. He was in charge and I'm sure he knew what he was doing. Still…
We parted, and I went to my room to try to come up with a way to contact Adrian. The beeper only worked one way. I pulled it out anyways, as if I could somehow make it tell me where Adrian and Christian were. Before I could even take a good look at it, it beeped. I looked at the screen, and it had a phone number. I reached for the phone and plugged in the numbers. Adrian answered it on the first ring.
"That was fast," he commented.
"I need to know everything you know about Ralph Taylor."
"I don't know all that much."
"It doesn't matter. Tell me what you know. Everything you know."
I grabbed the pad and pen they left on the desks and got ready to take notes.
He sighed, and I had a mental picture of him rubbing his temples. "He's older. In his sixties at least. No one had seen him for a while. He had a wife, but she committed suicide right before he disappeared."
She was shadow-kissed, I guessed. She couldn't handle it anymore and she killed herself. He went crazy trying to live without her lessening the pain. He went into hiding or something so he wouldn't have to deal with other people.
"He wasn't considered in great mental health even before he disappeared. He doesn't have any family that I know of. Even when his wife was alive, he was deemed a loner. He lived in England for his entire life, in a small house on the outskirts of Liverpool. Sorry, Rose, but that's all I know. But, I doubt you'll find anyone who knows anything more than that."
I looked at the meagre list I'd formed from his description. Frustrated I through the pen across the room. I stood up and ran my fingers through my hair.
"If we needed you to show us where his house outside Liverpool, could you do it?"
"Sure. I printed out a picture that I found on the internet. I'm pretty sure the source is reliable, but you never know."
"I found a card in the tunnel. It was from the set Lissa was using the other day, and it had England written on the back, which couldn't be a coincidence," I explained to him. "My guess is that Victor had someone sneak him out of jail, and he found where Taylor was hiding in England."
"And you think they're using Taylor's house as a center of operations?"
"Yes. And if not, Victor must have a least went there. We're going to England, and when we get there, I'm going to need you to show us his house. We're going to have to tell everyone you're there and convince them you can help. There's no way around it. I won't know the way, and there's no use of me talking to you."
There was a brief pause. "Okay. I trust you."That was it. No complaining. No snide remark. No excuses. No doubt.
"I don't know what to do about Christian. If they find out he's with us, they'll send someone back to the academy with him and we can't afford to lose anyone."
"I don't think anyone could keep him from staying in England if Lissa's there," Adrian commented.
"I'll guess we'll deal with that when the time comes," I sighed.
There was a pause. "There is a reason I paged you," said Adrian.
I'd completely forgotten that he was the one who had paged me.
"I was able to speak with Lissa again last night. I got into her dream."
"How is she?" I asked anxiously.
"Better."
"What?" I asked. I couldn't have heard him right.
"Better," he repeated, his voice telling me that he was surprised as well. "She looks much better. She still couldn't speak to me, but she looked healthy enough."
"Weird," I mumbled, more to myself than Adrian.
"That's not the only weird thing about it. I didn't know what it meant at the time, but she had a card in her right hand. I guess she was trying to let me know about England in case you hadn't found her clue. But in her other hand she had a baby rattle."
"We already know about the pregnancy," I said, stating the obvious.
"I know. Maybe she's worried about baby?"
"But that's too easy. Anyone would be worried about their baby."
I couldn't help but feel there was something we were missing. Lissa would only show us things that were important at this stage in the game.
"Are you sure that it was only a rattle? There wasn't anything special about it?" I asked him.
There was a silence as he thought. "There was a picture of a crown on it. But other than that there was nothing special about it."
"Of course," I breathed. "Victor's after the baby."
I could almost hear the click of Adrian's brain. "The baby will be royalty. The next Dragomir. And the only Dragomir if Victor has anything to say about it."
A/N - Happy St. Patrick's Day everyone!
I was doing some other writing at the same time as this so it took a little longer to finish.
I hope it was worth the wait! Let me know!
Cheers,
I. Goddess
