Even I'm really excited about this chapter. It took me all day to write, and it is quite long but I promise you it is COMPLETELY worth it, so tell me what you think ;)

Chapter 12

"So, let's try and tell the truth, OK Cammie?" Stephen Cavan finished, sitting down in front of me after circling the Circle's own interrogation room.

"If you want me to tell the truth why don't you give me truth serum? You've given me worse before." I remarked, shuddering at the memory of the night they injected me with a fluid that felt piping hot in my veins and made my muscles spasm painfully all night.

"Because, I'm conducting an experiment within an experiment." Stephen sat down on the edge of the table, looking pointedly to the one sided mirror on the wall. It turned off, so I could see onto the other side, into the viewing room.

Zach was tied up to a chair, his face bruised and beaten. He was gagged, and looking around groggily. A cruel-faced woman wearing grey held a gun to his head. When she saw me looking she clicked the safety off. Zach shook his head minutely at me, and then the mirror turned back on so I was looking at my own reflection.

"You see," Stephen pointed a finger towards the mirror. "My experiment is, would you rather have Zach's brains paint the wall, or would you just tell me the truth?" Stephen cocked his head to the side. Stephen Cavan was a cruel man, and I would be surprised if he had a soul.

He was a man in his late twenties to early thirties, with salt-and-pepper hair. If you looked closely enough, you could see that he had one blue eye, one grey eye.

"And surely, you don't want any more guilt over your head regarding Zach, do you?" Stephen's eyes twinkled with amusement. I glared at him, clenching my fists. "OK, OK, I'm sorry." He chuckled, putting his hands up in surrender.

Zach could hear me on the other side, of that I was sure. Just imagining his confusion at what Stephen said made my eyes water with guilt.

"You said you wanted to talk," I said tersely. "So talk."

"Yes, of course. So, Cammie, these various things your father bought home from his trips. You said that there were flowers on them. What type of flowers?"

I glanced remorsefully at the mirror before saying, "Different flowers all the time. Roses, lilies, dahlias, orchids, apple blossoms. Stuff like that."

"Ah, I see." Stephen said thoughtfully. "Tell, me Cammie, what's your mother's favourite flower?"

"Excuse me?"

"It's a simple question, what's your mother's favourite flower?"

My eyes flickered to the mirror again. "Chrysanthemum, I guess."

"And did your father ever bring home any objects with Chrysanthemums on them?" Stephen pressed.

"No, I don't think so. He once got my mom a necklace with a Chrysanthemum on it." I narrowed my eyes, "Look, why are you asking me all these questions?"

"You know Cammie, for a chameleon you don't do a lot of background checks." Stephen sighed irritably. "Now ask yourself this; why did your mother become Gallagher's headmistress?"

"Because she retired?" It came out more like a question. Stephen gave me a horribly pitying look.

"Do you really believe that, Cammie?"

"Well, what else am I supposed to believe?"

"Let me tell you a story, the real reason why you're here." Stephen paused for effect before continuing. "Once upon a time, there was a girl called Gillian Gallagher, who killed this man called Ioseph Cavan. And this made her family and the Cavan family sworn enemies, obviously. The Cavan family were very proud, and over the ages, they kept trying to get revenge on the Gallagher family, which was, admittedly, nigh on impossible since the Gallagher family, although female, were very good spies." Stephen hesitated, thinking about something for a minute.

"No, wait, let's back up a bit." He started again. "After good old Gilly killed Ioseph, she went on to build a school for Exceptional Young Women, forgetting the fact that she left Ioseph Cavan with a widow. She was mourning the loss of her husband, and who should turn up to comfort her but her brother in law? Now here's a bit of family history for you Ms Morgan, Ioseph was unable to have children. The fact that his wife – Amelia- managed to get pregnant with a girl before he died was a miracle, but the fact that she found out she was pregnant for the second time after he died was, well, suspicious.

"Amelia Cavan's brother in law was supposedly a ladies man, shall we say, and it is rumoured that Amelia's second child, a boy, was his. Amelia denied this, of course, insisting she was a faithful wife. Anyway, the siblings grew up together, the girl being the only child who had memories of their late father. The children's uncle acted like a second father to them, teaching Amelia's son, Cedric, how to be a spy.

"Ever since he could crawl, Cedric was taught to hate the Gallagher family and all they stood for, and he passed this on to his children, and his children passed this on to their children, and so on and blah, blah, blah. So a couple of grandkids later, Cedric Jasper Cavan III found a way to shame the Gallaghers in the ultimate way. He happened to hear some information that Gallagher's headmistress was visiting relatives, and when she stopped one night in a nearby village, Cedric Jasper Cavan III saw his chance. He would seduce, who other, than Gilly's beloved great-granddaughter, Victoria Gallagher."

I stifled a gasp. Stephen smiled cunningly. "You do know who she is, don't you Cammie. I recall the night I tried to kill you that you were going into your safe room, behind Victoria's portrait. Beautiful woman, wasn't she?" Stephen chuckled darkly, taking a sip of water from the cup on the table. "Yes, she was already married, but with a little alcohol in her drink, and maybe some other substance Cedric had brewed, you can imagine what happened. Victoria never made it to her relatives. She was pregnant, with who other than a child who was half Gallagher half Cavan."

I started to shake my head, ready to spout out all of my history lesson facts that would prove him wrong, but before I could, Stephen was speaking again. "Luckily for the beautiful Victoria, nobody could help but love her. Her husband forgave her, turning his anger on the Cavan family instead. Victoria's sister helped her through the pregnancy. Victoria, being such a kind and religious woman, refused to abort the child, or even give it up when it was born. Instead, she chose to raise it, as if it was a true Gallagher baby.

"Unluckily, Victoria already had a child. A girl, who was still a baby when her half-sibling was born. Raising two young children was hard, especially when her husband eventually had to go off and fight in the war. But she tried. Unfortunately, Victoria fell ill soon after she heard her husband was dead. She died, leaving her dear Gallagher family heartbroken and her two daughters' orphans. The Gallagher family had to raise the children, but being proud Gallaghers, none of them could bear raising the child who was half Cavan." Stephen stopped to look at me.

"This next bit is explains why I'm asking you about flowers, Cammie. You see, Victoria loved flowers, nature, what have you. She named her two daughters Heather and Ivy. Ivy was the child who was only half Gallagher. So, Heather was taken by Victoria's sister, Claudia, and raised to be, some say, one of Gallagher's best spies. Ivy, was given away to a spy family who couldn't have children of their own. The two were raised separately, too young to remember they even had a sister. But the Gallagher family knew. In memory of Victoria, each generation created something like a time capsule, something that had a flower on it. These capsules could only be opened by logic and through true knowledge of the Gallagher family, and in these capsules was a piece of information. Whether it was a drawing, or some writing or whatever, it contained information about the two family lineages

"Heather and Ivy's families, to be precise. They weren't made by Heather and Ivy's families, they were made by their cousins, who knew the truth, while the actual descendants of Heather and Ivy knew nothing. Heather's family went on to be Gallagher's headmistresses, and if you don't know already, your friend Macey McHenry is part of that family. Ivy's family was harder to trace, but we finally did. So I ask you again, Cammie. Why did your mother become headmistress of Gallagher? Because Macey's family are politicians, not spies. Why do you think Mr Winters, a mere political figure would be so interested in spies? Because he was working on my behalf, tracing Ivy's lineage. He thought Macey might know something. While he was wrong, he did find something else.

"You, Cammie. He found you. At the age of 6 you solved a time capsule that had a flower on it called a Middlemist Red. One of the rarest flowers in the world, because it contained a rare piece of information. Your father, not being of Gallagher lineage didn't understand the clue, but someone else did. He was caught carrying that information, looking for answers to the riddle that Jessica Gallagher had written on parchment and sealed in a time capsule so many years ago. Your father didn't understand it, but the Circle did. We cracked the riddle, and traced the lineage since 1938 until we found who we were looking for. Who other than, MORGAN, CAMERON, daughter of Rachel and Matthew. Your mother saw the riddle while your father was still alive. She suspected she was a descendant of Ivy's but she was too scared to find out. So instead she became Gallaghers headmistress to protect Macey and to protect you.

"When your father gave her that necklace with the chrysanthemum, she turned it into a capsule and wrote down a piece of information on it." Stephen reached into his pocket and took out my mother's locket. He twisted the necklace and pushed on the middle of the flower, and the locket opened. Inside was a slip of paper. He handed it to me ad very gingerly, I opened it to find myself looking at my mother's handwriting. The paper read- Heather- Macey McHenry. Ivy- Cameron Morgan.

I didn't know what to do. I just kept staring at the paper. Stephen finally said, "I am allergic to penicillin. So is my mother, and my grandfather, and my grandfather's father. I injected you with penicillin, and you had a bad reaction to it. It proved, that you and Macey are the last descendants of Gillian Gallagher. But the special thing is, you are also my relative, one of the last descendants of Ioseph Cavan."

I sat, stunned, unmoving. Stephen Cavan was my relative. I was the great-great- I don't know how many greats grandchild of Ioseph Cavan, and Gillian Gallagher, and Victoria Gallagher. I didn't say anything. There was a buzzing sound, and Stephen went out of the room.

"Yeah, go ahead," I heard him say. A second later, I heard a gunshot coming from the viewing room.