Chapter Four

The next morning, Leda was late for work. Instead of rushing through her morning routine like she normally would, she pulled out a cardboard box from under her bed and rifled through the stack of old papers. There was a picture she hadn't been able to get out of her head all night and when she finally pulled it out into the light, her hand shook.

She was young and gap-toothed, partially hiding under the large oak table that had been in her childhood kitchen. Leda squinted, noticing a small pouch clutched in her younger versions lap and Dr Morgan's story about her obsession with the tooth fairy came to mind. In the picture her parents were kneeling either side of her. Leda skimmed quickly over her mum, only allowing herself enough time to register her mum's hair and the shape of her cheek before she hastily looked away. Behind them, a row of professors each held up a glass in cheers, their happy smiles frozen in time. Leda had never really paid attention to who was there that day, but when she saw him, she wanted to smack herself in the face. Because there he was, just where he said he'd be. Dr Morgan was stood to the left of the group, his white hair unmistakable. It was as wild then as it was now despite the twenty-year gap.

The truth of the situation sent her head spinning and she hadn't realised she was calling someone until her boss's voice came through her mobile's speaker.

"I'm really sorry, Annette." Leda found herself saying. She was on autopilot, her mouth speaking before she could even fully register what was happening. Dr Morgan's past-self smiled up at her from the picture and something like fear bubbled in her gut. The lie came before Leda could even fully make it up.

"I've got a family emergency." She said, shakily putting the picture back into the box. "It-It's my dad. I still have all my holiday left over. I just need three weeks. Four at the most. Please. He's all I have left."

Why did she just say that? She had already told herself that she wasn't going on this mad adventure. So why was she lying to her boss about needing time off?

There was no immediate response. Annette obviously wasn't happy. Late notice and three to four weeks of holiday after she already let her go home early the other day? And from Leda of all people, who hadn't taken any holiday in two years and who had never mentioned a father or any family that was alive let alone any who may be dying? Yeah, Leda imagined Annette had a lot to swallow and only twenty seconds in which to do it. But Leda couldn't bring herself to feel sorry for her. Her stuttering fear was rapidly turning into a giddy excitement. It helped to clear the fog from her brain and she felt more in control of herself than she had in all of the last week. She pushed the box off her lap and kicked it back under her bed with a fuzzy-sock'd foot.

"Well. Leda. This is-" Annette stopped herself and sighed heavily down the line. Leda could imagine her rubbing her forehead like she did whenever they had a particularly difficult patient. "It's your father, Leda. Of course you can have the time off."

Leda was about to argue when Annette's words registered in her brain.

"I-Thank you. Thank you, Annette. I'm so grateful." Leda breathed.

"Just keep me updated. If you need more time let me know and I'll sort it. Leda, I hope he-"

"Yeah. Me too." Leda interrupted, already eyeing the clothes hanging from her rickety rail. She doubted puffer jackets and cardigans would be appropriate for a tropical island that didn't exist in the North Atlantic. She'd have to go to Primark. There was no way she was sweating her tits off on an honest to God adventure. It was going to be stressful enough without her having to worry about sweat patches too. Not that she was actually going, off course. This was all hypothetical.

"Take care, Leda." Annette said and Leda felt a stab of guilt at how sad she sounded for her when her Dad wasn't even dying.

"Uh- thanks, Annette, I…I really appreciate everything you've ever done for me. This is-" Leda didn't know why it felt like she was saying goodbye, so she cleared her throat and swallowed awkwardly. "I just want to thank you. I'll keep in touch."

Annette said goodbye and hung up and Leda, her lie to Annette sitting heavy on her chest, grabbed her purse from her desk and jammed her feet into her cheap trainers. If she paused, even for one second, to think about how she had just lied to her boss and how she was going to buy new clothes for a trip she definitely wasn't going on she would change her mind. Even though she wasn't going, that is.

Leda chanced a look to the box that was peaking out from beneath her bed and the picture of Dr Morgan smiling with her parents.

She definitely wasn't going.

"I'm going to the shops, Molly!" Leda called as she practically ran to the front door. She needed new clothes anyway. So what if her next few purchases were hiking boots and cami tops? You needed those in London too. It wasn't at all because she was about to upend all the work she had put into starting a new life by travelling to an island that didn't exist with a mad man. Of course not.

. . .

"Hi, Miss Gauling. It's Milda again. I'm sorry. But he won't come to the phone."

Leda growled as she stuffed all her new clothes into a small suitcase that she had bought from Argos the night before. The phone was hot and nestled against her shoulder and eye and she had to resist the urge to scream as she accidentally jammed her toe on her shitty wardrobe.

This was the fifth time in two days that she had rung and the fifth time her dad had refused to speak to her.

"I know- Ok. Fine. Look. Can you pass on a message for me?" She asked as she picked up a white envelope from her desk and shoved it into her old backpack. It had come the previous day, no name on the front and no return address, just like the one Dr Morgan had sent before. But this time there was a sticky note attached that said:

02:00
Gatwick North Terminal
Wednesday

She hadn't opened it yet because (even though she still wasn't going) if she read more about what she was maybe doing, she probably wouldn't continue to do it.

Her phone buzzed and she dropped the suitcase she had been struggling to close to see an alert on the screen. Her cab was outside. She did a quick once over of the room before grabbing her coat and patting her back pocket three times to make sure her passport was there even though it had been there four minutes ago when she last checked it.

"Yes, Miss Gauling. What would you like the message to say?" Milda's voice brought her back as she locked her bedroom door behind her.

Molly was no where to be found when as she dragged her comically small but overstuffed suitcase to the front door. Leda barely remembered to drop the note she had written for her on the hallway table before she was out the door, huffing as she dragged her suitcase down the steps before she handed it to the insistent cab driver. She hoped Molly would be ok without her. The note she had left her was basically just a list of local takeaways and the various weekly deals they had. It was the least she could do on such short notice. She was scared Molly would try and survive on full fat milk and handfuls of cornflakes alone.

"Tell him- tell him I'm going to the place." Leda said quickly as she slid into the car and shut her the door behind her.

"Gatwick Airport North Terminal?" The cab driver asked when he got into the driver's seat.

Leda nodded and mouthed sorry as she pointed to her phone. She clipped her seatbelt into place and the driver peeled away from the curb.

The high speed would usually bother her but she had been in constant motion for two full days and she wasn't about to slow down now. Lest she actually think about what she (wasn't) doing and ask the cabbie to turn back around.

"Tell him I'm going to the Vortice and that I'll see him when I get back and to stay out of trouble. Tell him… We can both go home when I get back. Together."

"Alright Miss Gauling. Anything else?"

"Nah. Sorry- no. You're amazing, Milda. Thanks a lot." Leda said before hanging up.

The cab driver caught her eye in the rear-view mirror as he sped down the dark street. It was 11.30pm on a Monday night and the streets were empty.

"Skiving off work for a cheeky holiday?" The cab driver asked, and Leda offered him a strained smile through the mirror.

"Yeah," she muttered turning to stare out at the dark streets illuminated intermittently by orange streetlights. "Something like that."

. . .

"Don't say 'I told you so'." Leda muttered as she marched past Dr Morgan and two new guys to self-check her bags in, boarding pass in hand. There were barely any other passengers around her and the airport was so quiet at that time that she could hear the small squeak of her new boots every step she took. Totally different from her vague memories of holidays as a child and the chaos of London airports at the beginning of the summer holidays. Clearly, early morning flights in the middle of April weren't all that popular. Imagine that.

Now that she was here, it was a little hard to keep up the whole 'I'm not going' spiel that had kept her sane over the past three days. Instead she had a revolving mantra of 'What are you doing?' going through her head at lightspeed. Her actions up to that point had been so far out of character that she wasn't even sure she was in the same book anymore.

"I wouldn't dream of it, Ms Gauling." Dr Morgan called to her with a smug smile. He was sandwiched between two men Leda had never seen before. They dwarfed him in height, and if it wasn't for the fact that neither of them looked alike, it might have almost looked like two guys taking their granddad on holiday. And not, y'know, on a trip to a reality-flitting island in the middle of the Bermuda triangle.

Leda snatched her ticket from the machine and made her way to the professor and his two companions. One was a smiling brunette and the other a bored looking red head. How you could be bored while off on a secret expedition to prove or disprove the theory of time and relative space travel was beyond Leda.

"This her?" The red head grunted and jerked his chin in her direction as though moving his hands was too much effort. His green eyes roamed over her and Leda felt her annoyance spike under his un-subtle evaluation of her. He scoffed when they caught eyes and angled his body away from her; clearly, he had found her lacking.

"Yes, yes!" Dr Morgan said excitedly and gestured towards her. "This is Dr Leda Gauling. Roberts daughter."

"Uh. I go by Ackerman, Doc. Leda Ackerman." Leda said, shooting Dr Morgan an annoyed look that he promptly ignored.

The other man, a brunette, equally as tall as the red head smiled sweetly at her before he frowned, confusion marring his pretty smile.

"Ackerman?" He asked, looking to Dr Morgan as though the old man was speaking in tongues. Leda smiled tightly when he looked back to her.

"I changed my name a while ago." She explained in a rush. Better to get it out of the way now and not ten minutes into a nine-hour night flight.

"Why?" He asked. If Leda didn't know any better, she'd say he looked a little offended.

"You try getting a bunch of scientists to take you seriously when your last name is Gauling." She scoffed.

Dr Morgan, obviously worried with the way the introductions were quickly going south, cleared his throat and stepped sideways to let a family by. The toddler was snoozing on his mother's shoulder and Leda's eyes lingered on the way the mum held her son, rubbing soft circles onto his back. She could vaguely remember her own mother doing the same thing and her back twitched against the phantom touch the memory brought.

"Yes. Ahem. Well. Leda, this is Howard Cullen, my research assistant." He pointed to the brunette and then to the red head. "And this is Dr Julian Briggs. A Geologist from the University of Cambridge."

Howard held out his hand for her to shake and Leda took it gingerly. His hand swallowed hers and he shook it so enthusiastically that she had to tug it back a few times before he released her.

Julian only raised his eyebrow and nodded by way of greeting. He seemed delightful. Leda looked back towards the exit. Was it too late to go back?

"Great. Now we're all friends should we get a move on?" Julian muttered, clearly done with introductions. He turned on his heel and stalked to the escalator.

"You heard him, Doc." Leda sighed, and walked past Dr Morgan and Howard to follow Julian.

Security was a breeze and Leda was starting to see the appeal of flying at night, despite probably not being able to sleep for the next week or so, the relaxed security and general experience was way better than the screaming waves of stress that came with flying at the beginning of July.

They had a while to wait before they could board the plane, so the disjointed group all crammed themselves onto the small benches by the gate. Leda plopped herself down next to Dr Morgan forcing Howard and Julian to sit opposite them. Julian slid down his seat until he was comfortable and popped his headphones in almost immediately. Clearly, he didn't want to talk.

Leda hugged her backpack to her chest. Slumped in her chair, she allowed her eyes to close. This was the first time she had permitted herself to relax in three days and she tried to ignore the impulse to pick up her carry-on and run back to Bermondsey.

All was blissfully silent for a moment before Howard began to talk and ruined the peace for Leda.

"I've read all your fathers research you know." He said and Leda cracked her eyes open to watch him warily.

"Oh." Leda said, unenthusiastically. One of the things she hated more than being judged for her father's mental ramblings was talking about his mental ramblings. "Did you?"

"Yes. His theories on specific geological places. Or- the Vile Vortices are truly radical." Howard rambled, leaning forward in his seat.

"Yeah," Leda couldn't help her snort of derision. She stretched her legs and kicked them out, narrowly missing Julian's equally stretched pair of long legs. "Radical is a word for it."

Uncaring or unknowing of Leda's lack of enthusiasm in the subject Howard, continued oblivious. His dark brown eyes shined under the yellow airport lighting and he grinned.

"It's just truly fascinating. Truly. As a theory it's-"

"Bonkers?" Leda interrupted.

Dr Morgan shot her an annoyed look, taking time out from looking at the planes taking off to silently reprimand her. She shrugged at him, in a 'what am I supposed to do about it' way.

"Ah- well. Perhaps to someone who didn't understand it, but the science is correct. The calculations correct. If he's right-"

"If." Lexa muttered under her breath, interrupting again. She shifted in her seat, feeling uncomfortable and Dr Morgan gave her another withering look that she ignored.

"If he's right" Howard continued, ignoring her remark. "It would change the course of history. It would change everything we currently know about Physics. "

Julian, who had his head down opposite and his earplugs in shook his head.

"And with what happened to your-" Leda shot Howard a warning loom that he ignored and tried to carry on. Luckily, the flight attendants voice coming through the PA system saved her from Howard mentioning something she definitely didn't want to speak about when on the verge of making the single worst decision of her life.

"Now boarding flight 09A45 to L.F. Wade International Airport, Bermuda. This is a boarding call for our First-Class passengers. If you are in possession of a first-class boarding pass, please make your way to the desk for last boarding pass check and boarding."

"Saved by the bell." Julian muttered as he stood up. Leda had thought he wasn't listening, what with his headphones being in, but clearly, he had been.

"They're calling first class." Leda said, frowning as Julian stood and shouldered his very cool-looking backpack. It put Leda's twenty-year old frayed rucksack to shame. "What are you doing?"

Julian looked at her like she was an idiot and who knew, maybe she was. She was there wasn't she? Only an idiot lied to their work and took a month off all while denying their actions to themselves to prove whether their cooky dad was right about space and time travel.

"The Professor splurged on our tickets. Didn't you read the pack?" Julian asked.

Leda, already feeling attacked, shook her head and stood up with a scowl. First class? Where had the Dr Morgan gotten that kind of money? Howard, seeing her confusion and taking pity, filled in the block in her knowledge.

"The Aether Group is funding us. They paid for the tickets." He said.

Julian clicked his neck before he walked to the desk and threw over his shoulder: "Yeah, seems like big pharma doesn't want us travelling as peasants."

Dr Morgan fiddled with the strap of his satchel before he too made his way to the desk.

"I'll explain on the plane." He murmured as he passed her. Howard was hot on his Birkenstocks, offering a quick smile before practically tripping over his own feet to walk in step with The Professor.

Leda sighed and, instead of following, looked longingly to the exit back to the main airport.

She could still leave. There was still time to stop the madness of going to Bermuda. She could go home to Molly and watch her drink milk and eat dry cereal separately and do a shift at St. Philomena's. Everything could still go back to normal.

Her parents' face filled her mind.

Her dad, all pulled and drawn and tired and sad. And her mother, lost to time itself. If she didn't go, he would be stuck in The Eyrie until the day he died and her mother- Leda swallowed deeply. She owed it to her mother to go. If there was even a slim chance – and she wasn't saying there was – that her father may actually be right, then she couldn't just abandon her. And even if her dad wasn't right, didn't she owe it to herself to finally put what niggling doubt she had with her mother's disappearance to rest?

"Ms Gauling?" Dr Morgan was waiting on the other side of the desk, already checked through. His voice roused her from her last-minute doubts, and she turned to look at him. He must have seen something in her face, however, because he made to walk towards her, his journey being cut off by the PA speakers.

"Last call for first class passengers for flight 09A45 to L.F. Wade International Airport, Bermuda."

Howard hovered behind The Professor, nervousness playing around the corners of his mouth. Julian was nowhere in sight. He was probably already comfortably seated in first class, unconcerned with Leda's bout of internal confusion.

"Ms Gauling?" Dr Morgan called again. His hand wavered in mid-air, his body poised to march to her if she hesitated any longer. Leda recognised the same look of worry and desperation in his face that he had worn at the restaurant.

With another sigh she gave one last look at the exit, now filled with other passengers all looking around, wondering if they were in the right place. Well. Leda was in the right place. She could do this. She had to do it. For her dad. For her mum and also- well also for her.

"Coming." She said, turning away from the passengers and her last chance home. The way back was closed. There was only forward, now.

. . .

"So who is else joining us?" Leda asked, as she pulled out the blank envelope she had stuffed in her backpack before leaving. She held it up to Dr Morgan and shook it slightly before ripping it open. "This is your handiwork, I assume."

They were twenty minutes into their flight and the lights were dim in the cabin. Leda had lucked out and gotten a booth by the window, as had Howard who was behind her. Dr Morgan and Julian weren't so lucky and were in aisle booths. Though who could really be unlucky traveling first class was yet to be seen.

Julian's pod was next to hers in the aisle and he had forgotten to close the door and she could see him out of the corner of her eye. He was slumped in his seat, eyes closed and headphones in. He hadn't said a word since the plane took off and Leda assumed, she would be free of any of his snarky remarks for the rest of the flight. Some miracles, and all that.

"I delivered the envelope, Ms Ackerman." Howard piped up from behind her and she rolled her eyes.

"Ever heard of a return address?" she muttered as she tipped the envelope over her lap. A sleek black folder slipped out and she assumed this was the mysterious pack she should have read before she pressed pause on her entire life to go on a mad adventure. "And just Leda is fine, Howard. What's with all this 'Ms' stuff? I'm not ninety yet."

"Two others will be joining us." Dr Morgan's voice floated from behind her to answer her earlier question. She could just about hear him over the whirring hum of the planes jet engines. "A Stanford Botanist by the name of Sarah Carmichael and an Aether Group representative called Astrid Babineaux."

Leda hmm'd at the back of her throat and ran her slim brown fingers over folders cover. There was a weird symbol on the front, two overlapping triangles, one pointing north and one pointing south. Written just below it were the words, THE AETHER GROUP in white, bold typeface.

"What is this Aether Group, anyway?" Leda asked, flicking through the pack quickly. She spied a Terms and Conditions and Personal Liability page, and skimmed over them both. "My dad never mentioned them."

"They're a secret society of hood wearing masons who want to take over the world by discovering and controlling portals to other worlds." Julian said as though talking about the weather.

Leda rolled her eyes and looked over at him. His eyes were still closed, and his headphones were still in but clearly he had been listening the whole time.

"Is pretending to sleep just your thing?" She asked, turning back to flip past another, probably important, page entitled Non Disclosure Agreement.

She saw Julian grin out of the corner of her eye. This was the first time she had seen him do anything other than look utterly bored and if he wasn't so annoying, she'd say smiling suited him. His teeth were very right but he had a snaggle tooth that skimmed his bottom lip. Strangely enough it made him look a little more human to her.

"It's not my fault you talk loudly enough to wake the dead." Julian shot back; eyes still closed.

Despite her mild annoyance with him, Leda snorted.

"They're not a secret society." Howard supplied quietly from behind her.

Leda set aside the folder and kneeled on her (admittedly) very comfortable seat and leaned over the back of her booth to look at him. He set down the book she hadn't realised he had been reading and looked about the painfully empty first-class cabin as though worried someone would overhear. It was just them and two other people scattered about the ostentatiously lavish space. And she doubted the businessman in 1A or the glamorous woman in 2C gave two shits about The Aether Group and whether they were a secret society or not.

At Leda's raised eyebrow and unconvinced "Oh?" Howard continued.

"They're a research group founded in Paris in 1612 by Sir Henrie Babineaux. Their motto is: Pour L'amélioration de L'humanité. It means-"

"For the Betterment of Mankind." Leda said with a frown. How did she know that? Hearing the French phrase triggered something in her memory. The words and their translation were familiar, but she couldn't place where she had heard them before. Maybe her dad had mentioned them. Years and years before everything had gone to crap.

Howard smiled at her, not seeming to mind her interruption. "That is the motto, yes. They've been under the radar for most of their existence. Hence the preconception that they are, in Mr Brigg's words, 'hood wearing masons'."

Leda chuckled despite herself and shook off the peculiar feeling of Déjà vu at having heard the Research Group's motto.

"How'd you know all this stuff?" She asked, cocking her head to the side. Sure, Howard looked like a total nerd, but she wasn't sure how broad his knowledge was. Maybe he just really liked seventeenth century secret societies.

"Oh. It's in the uh- it's in the pack." Howard said, with another one of his small smiles.

"Which you'd know if you actually read it." Julian said behind her. Leda rolled her eyes at Howard and enjoyed the way his smile widened. His hero-worship of her dad aside, he seemed pretty nice. Maybe when they got back to the real world she'd ask him to go for coffee with her. Or maybe not. Leda hadn't really been that good at keeping friends. Molly was practically the closest thing she had and all she really did was make sure the pale girl ate normal food once in a while. Turns out being paranoid that someone would find out who she really was and judge her for having a crazy dad and a dead mum who died in suspicious circumstances really discouraged her from making long-term relationships.

"I read it." Leda said, feeling a little petulant.

"Skimming doesn't count, newbie." Julian said. She didn't need to turn around to know he was grinning while he ragged on her. Maybe she should be happy. If he felt like he could make fun of her, maybe it meant he was trying to bond in his weird, all-boys-private school way. He had even given her a demeaning nick name to make her feel like part of the team. Lucky her.

"How would you know?" She barked back. "You had your eyes closed."

"I don't need eyes to know that you-" Julian began.

"Alright, children. Don't make me put any of you on the naughty step." Dr Morgan interrupted, and Leda turned to see him barely paying attention. He had a half-empty glass of amber liquid in his hand and his glasses were low on his nose as he poured over a messy pile of papers.

Instead of finding the sight amusing, her gut twisted in a horrible way. He reminded her so much of her dad. She wished that he had picked up her call. It would have been nice to hear his voice. She coughed awkwardly, feeling the heat of Howard's eyes on the side of her face and tried to change the subject.

"So this Astrid lady that'll be joining us," she said quickly, avoiding Howard's eye to keep up an air of nonchalance. "Is she related to Henrie Babineaux, the guy that founded The Aether Group?"

Dr Morgan looked up from his reading materials and pushed his glasses back up the bridge of his nose.

"Yes. Distantly." He said. "Henrie was the first son of five. He had no children, so it fell to his brothers' descendants. Astrid, I believe, comes from the youngest son, Thibault. Seventh son of the seventh son and all that."

Leda hmm'd again and twisted slightly to look back at the black folder still lying on her pod's desk.

Why was an ancient research group funding an expedition into her dad's work? And if they were so interested, why hadn't he ever mentioned them before?

"Why is it called The Aether Group then, and not The Babineaux Group?" Leda asked, turning back to flit her gaze between Howard and Dr Morgan. "Isn't naming a company after yourself all the rage for one percenter's?"

"Because in classical elements, Aether is the fifth." Howard supplied.

"She doesn't speak Marvel, Cullen." Julian butted in. Leda rolled her eyes again. A response she was coming to realise was a natural reaction to whenever she was unfortunately within earshot of anything he said.

"Aether is the fifth element." Howard elaborated. He too rolled his eyes at Julian's comment and shared a secret smile with Leda before continuing. "There is Earth, Fire, Water and Air. And then there's Aether."

"Ok. Cool. But what is Aether, then?" Leda asked, still confused.

"It's above Air. Ancient Greek's used to think that it was the air that the God's breathed. Particles of it exist in all of the universe. Linking everything together. You might have heard it being referred to as Quintessence. Hypothetically, using Aether and it's permeance, you could theoretically access any point in history in any part of the universe should you, also in theory, be able to establish a link between each particle. It was used as a way of explaining the travel of light within the vacuum of space. And so scholars and I suppose Henrie Babineaux, began to think of its uses of travel in other ways. To other places. Or-"

"-to other worlds." Leda finished for him with a frown.

So an ancient research group that she had never heard of before just so happened to be named after some mystical fifth element that could enable travel through space and time and linked perfectly with her father's research? An ancient research group, that is, that she had also never heard of before that also funded the entire trip? Something wasn't adding up. And although the suspicion was beginning to make her feel uncomfortable enough to want to go home, Leda steeled herself against it. She wasn't much of an explorer or problem solver, but she guessed the easiest way to get to the bottom of something was to be right in the middle of it. Or it was the easiest way to end up seven leagues under the sea next to her missing mum. Either or.

"Yes, Ms Gauling." Dr Morgan said and Leda swivelled her gaze towards him. He took a sip from the glass he had been nursing and Leda's frown deepened. What did he know? He must have been watching for a reaction though, because he nodded imperceptivity and offered her one of his mysterious smiles. "Another world precisely."

. . .

Sometime later, the lights in the cabin were practically off. Howard was sprawled sideways on his seat, mouth hanging open as he slept. He had forgotten to close his pod door and the flight attendant had to keep hopping over his feet as she made her way to and from Business class. Julian was awake and engrossed in some film he was watching. His intermittent jumps, coupled with his less than sunny disposition, Leda guessed it was some action horror monstrosity that had captured his attention.

Leda's own screen was stuck on the little animated plane that showed you how far you had gotten in your journey. She had stared at it for hours, unable to sleep. When she turned to Dr Morgan, she found him already watching her. He nodded when he caught her eye.

"You really thought I would say yes to all this?" Leda's asked quietly, conscious of disturbing the other passengers who she assumed were in various states of rest.

"No, quite the opposite." He laughed gently. "I thought you wouldn't come but I booked it anyway."

Leda frowned and leaned further out of her pod. "How does that make any sense? You didn't think I would come but you booked it anyway?"

Dr Morgan's smile turned fond, and she wondered what it must have been like back before she was born, him and her dad working in a cramped office in Oxford, trying to change reality itself.

"Call it a leap of faith." He said, tipping the last of his glass of scotch into his mouth. "I saw Richard in you. All his stubbornness and intelligence. But do you know what I also saw? Your mother. I didn't think you would come, but I also knew that you would."

Leda didn't fully understand his explanation, but she couldn't quite stop the pride that zinged through her at being compared to her mother.

"Thanks." She mumbled, feeling embarrassed at how much joy it had caused her for anyone to see her mother in her and not just her coo-coo dad.

"You're very welcome, Ms Gauling." He said, reaching up to flick the stewardess light on. He held up his glass as she came rushing over to refill it. When she finished, she scuttled off back to wherever stewardesses went when they weren't helping passengers (most likely a stasis chamber where the air pressure and dryness didn't dry their skin or make their hair untidy).

"Are you ever going to call me Ms Ackerman?" Leda asked with a raise of her eyebrow.

Dr Morgan chuckled to himself and again, Leda wondered what it must have been like. Two young men trying to change the world, not even imagining what might come to pass.

Dr Morgan nodded to her chair, ignoring her question. "You should try and rest. The journey ahead won't be easy."

Leda nodded back and waved awkwardly at him before closing her little compartment door and lowering her chair into the bed.

"Yeah," she grumbled to herself with a snort. "As if getting some sleep is gonna be any easier."

She twisted on her side to punch and fluff her regulation pillows into something that resembled a discombobulated marshmallow, just how she liked it. She had just gotten settled into something resembling a caterpillar before she shot up into a sitting position and clicked the button to slide the door of her pod open.

"Wait a second!" She squeaked, trying to untangle her legs from the blanket cocoon. Julian and Dr Morgan turned to stare at her with varying levels of confusion. "Did that pack say something about loss of limbs?"

Oh Gosh! This took weeks to edit. I'm very sorry for how long it's taken. This is another mammoth chapter and like the last one, I can't say that I'm entirely happy with it. But it's been so long and I'm tired of staring at it lol I've taken major liberties with what Aether actually is and how it links to the Vile Vortices so expect lots of rubbish science jargon that makes no sense in the future because I am in no way an expert am taking some pretty big creative leaps aha Now that I have a better understanding of the chapters, I think by chapter six we'll be in Middle Earth so not that far to go!

I would like to take a moment to say how thankful I am for all of the follows and favourites and the reviews! I'm so happy you're all enjoying it and liking this dumb Indiana Jones-esque adventure I'm trying to tell. Thank you for your continued support and words of praise. I hope you continue to enjoy this story and that we have some fun along the way. Have a lovely week!

Novaer,

Aobh x