Thanks again to my reviewers! =) I can't tell you anything about the story, though, you'll just have to read it yourselves! I can tell you one thing, actually: The ending is a sweet surprise.

I just wrote this chapter, so I hope you enjoy it! Please review so that I can decide whether or not I want to keep going the direction I'm going.

~Soraia~

Chapter 11

The house was much larger than Diana had thought. On the first floor there were two living rooms, the kitchen, a breakfast room and a banquet dining room. On the second floor had been ten bedrooms and a large office, and an uncountable amount of bathrooms.

They were making their way up to the third floor. "Up here there are only three rooms, but they're as large as apartments," he was saying.

"I've been in hotels smaller than this, Aidan," Diana laughed.

He smiled, sharing her joke. "I know. I feel bad having such a house sometimes."

"Why?" she asked, astonished. "I'd feel like a queen in this place. I already do!"

"I just feel it's wrong to live so nicely when other people can't. Someone surely deserves this house much more than I do."

She stopped at the top of the stairway, putting her hands on her hips. "You, sir, are insane. Out of anyone I've ever met, you would have to be the nicest. And I mean ever. You want nothing but to give what you can to other people. I've never felt more at home anywhere, including the house I've lived in my whole life."

The sad look that had started on his face quickly stopped. He smiled gently. "You really think so?"

She put a hand on his shoulder. "Of course I do. Now, let's continue the tour of the magnificent Smith home." She looped her arm through his again and pulled him.

He laughed. "You really are something, you know that?"

"Oh stop. I'm just me, nothing special. Now, tell me about this room." She had directed him into an open door. The walls were lined with bookcases and cabinets.

"This is the universal coven library. Here we keep everything vital to our heritage. There's even stuff in here dating all the way back to when our covens were one." He let her go to unlock one of the cabinets.

She had been walking around, lightly running her hands along the worn leather bindings. Glancing up she saw him setting down the Master Tool box inside the cabinet. "We're done working with those?" she asked quietly.

He looked at the box in his hands, then back at her. "You want to keep practicing?"

Smiling eagerly, she said, "Of course!"

He grinned, pulling the box back out. Opening it, he started speaking again. "How about I teach you through telepathy?"

Diana felt her eyes grow wild. "That would be fantastic!"

Aidan was bending over, putting the anklet on her. "You can wear this and the cuff. I'll wear the necklace, since I'll be needing more power."

She held the cuff again, tracing the etchings, as he put the necklace around his neck. "Just like your cuff at home?" he asked.

Raising an eyebrow, she frowned. "How did you know we had an arm cuff?"

"I know a lot about the past, from when the covens split. I've gotten them in visions my whole life." He continued, pushing his sleeves up. "When your families decided to go to the New World, the original coven, as a group, melted down the first set of Master Tools. They consisted of a cuff, an anklet, and a diadem. From that, the village's silversmiths made our two sets of tools. A piece of silk that had been enchanted by the whole village was cut to make the pieces between the garter links of yours and the necklace links of ours.

"The original coven's markings were the complete cycle of the moon." He pointed to the links on his necklace. "Since only a small group of witches were leaving, they were given the emblem of a crescent moon, horns up."

"You guys didn't have a crystal skull of your own, did you?" Diana asked, grimacing.

Aidan laughed. "No, no." He smiled lightly, "Actually, to preserve our souls, we perform a ritual on the passing, so that it follows them to their incarnation."

"Really?"

"Yes. That's what every one of my lives have done. That's why I have so many visions."

She enjoyed this new view of reincarnation. "How many lives have you had?"

He shook his head. "I have no clue. Numerous. Every once in a while I'll get a small vision from a new one. I mainly only see the original splitting coven, though." He stopped, turning his head as he looked at her. "I just realized that you look vaguely familiar. I can't place exactly how, but I can see you."

She smiled, liking the notion that she had existed in the past. She remembered Cassie asking her if she had thought that souls could split. Turning to Aidan, she asked the same question to him.

"As a matter of fact, they can." He moved his fingers over a shelf of books on the wall, grabbing one towards the end. He opened it, scanning carefully through the yellow, brittle pages. He found the page he had been looking for and turned it towards Diana. There was a sketch--something that looked like it could be work from Di Vinci. The writing was illegible, but the picture gave the reader the idea.

Pointing, he explained what the pictures described. "With a soul traveling through different lifetimes, it slowly gathers more and more karma, kind of like baggage. After so many incarnations, the soul can't fit into a single form, so it splits into two.

"Another way it loses baggage is by giving life." He turned the page to show more drawings. This one was a diagram of a woman and a man, with what looked like mist inside of the stomachs. Arrows pointed down to an infant. "With every child, a new soul is reincarnated, most often an ancestor, but a small piece of the parents' souls are drawn with it. It keeps everyone connected."

"That's amazing . . ." Diana finally said, in awe.

"Mind boggling?" he smiled.

She nodded. "Yeah. But it makes me feel, I don't know. Good, I guess." She laughed, embarrassed at her lack of a better word.

He turned, placing the book back onto the shelf. "Come on, let's get started on the Tools."