Wow, it's been a long time since I've updated! I'm sorry, guys!

Well, since you've been waiting for so long, I'll keep my intro short.

Disclaimer: I do not own W.I.T.C.H. or any of the show's original characters. Trust me, if I did, Irma's gosh darn top would be BLUE in the beginning song like it should be!

Enjoy! :)

Yan Lin offered me a mug of hot chocolate and a plate of cookies before she sat down in the chair across the table from me. When Blunk and I had gotten to the Silver Dragon and explained why we were covered in dust and out of breath, she had ushered the last guests out the door before she closed up the restaurant.

"I'm sorry we didn't help." I said to break the silence.

The old woman looked up at me with a twinkle in her eyes. "Don't be sorry. You know better than anyone that listening to Will has more benefits than not."

A noise that sounded like a cross between a starving alley cat digging into its food and my dad crunching potato chips came from the floor, and I looked to see Blunk chowing down on some leftovers from customers' plates. My nose wrinkled in disgust. "Ever heard of chewing with your mouth closed?" I asked semi-politely.

Blunk shoved one more piece of orange chicken in his mouth before he looked at me. "Blunk tried once. Couldn't eat big foods." As he said that, pieces of who-knows-what sprayed from his mouth and onto the pile of newspapers that Yan Lin had laid down for him to eat on. She was a smart old lady.

I turned back to Yan Lin. "So what are we going to do?"

"This situation is beyond my help. We need higher, more divine guidance."

I grasped the Heart, which hung around my neck, tightly. "Um, no offense, but I don't think that praying to God is going to save Earth from a group of mind-controlled magical creatures and their evil master."

Yan Lin alughed softly at that. "No, we're not praying to a god. We are going to see the Oracle."

In my Greek-mythology junkie stage, I had learned that an Oracle was a person (most likely a woman) who recieved messages from the gods and relayed them to mortals in the form of prophecies. I had thought that that was just a tad too easy to fake, pretending that you talked to immortal beings and making up random futures for anyone who was desperate enough to ask for one. Oracles were supposed to be myths, right up there with witches and fairies, and, oh yeah, Guardians and twenty-feet-tall snake monsters. Apparently, everything I had grown up to believe was quickly unraveling at the seams.

"And where is the Oracle?" I allowed myself to let go of my skepticism and really try to learn more about the world my cousin lived in. It was harder than I thought.

"In Candracar. The place that Will and her friends' powers-And the Heart, of course-come from."

"How do we get there?"

Yan Lin stood and folded her hands in her robe the way she always did while she was standing. She didn't answer me, but instead walked to the door. "Do you know that boy out there?"

I took a sip of my hot chocolate. "What boy?"

She pointed to one of the windows to the right of the door. Through it I could see Andrew Hornby just outside, waving to me with a big smile on his face. It had started to rain, and his brown hair was plastered to his forehead at weird angles.

I smiled back. "Yeah. That's a boy I met yesterday. Could you let him in? I bet he's freezing!"

Yan Lin nodded and opened the door. I quickly hid the Heart under my shirt. Blunk scrambled under the table with his meal.

"Hey, Nina." Andrew said, striding over to the table.

I brushed a strand of hair behind my ear. "Hi. What are you doing here?"

"Well, for starters, you're Will's cousin, and Will and her friends like to hang around at this place. I figured I would find you here." He looked around the room, as if noticing for the first time that it was empty. "But where are they?"

Yan Lin jumped in. "They're doing homework at Taranee's house. Nina and I were having some girl time."

I blushed at that, but Andrew grinned. "Cookies and hot chocolate. Lucky you."

"Yeah," I smiled sheepishly. "Want one?" I held a cookie out for him to take.

He shook his head. "I just ate lunch. So, uh, are you doing anything else today?"

"Um..." I looked up at the ceiling like I was trying to remember if my vacation schedule was full. The last time I told him what I was doing, he didn't show up, a little voice nagged in my head. I looked back at Yan Lin.

She didn't skip a beat. "We were going to go get the other girls and go shopping." She managed to say with a straight face. "You two can go on a date some other time."

I let my mouth drop open. Did she really just say those words?

Andrew scratched the back of his head, while I awkwardly stared at my hands in my lap. Yan Lin looked way too pleased with herself.

"Alright, then." Andrew said finally. "Uh, I guess I'll come back later. Bye, Nina."

I watched him leave, wishing I didn't have anything to do, and at the same time, mentally scolding myself for wanting to go out with him because that would just make what I said to Irma a lie. And I didn't want to be a liar.

Out of nowhere, a purple-colored portal opened in the middle of the dining room.

"That would be the way to Candracar." Yan Lin said proudly.

I raised an eyebrow. "Who made that one?"

"The Oracle, silly!" She said, gesturing for Blunk and me to follow her through. Then she walked into it, leaving us to go in after her.

Blunk tugged on the leg of my jeans. "That boy smell funny."

I laughed. "Maybe you're just finally getting a whiff of your own scent."

His head shook violently. "No. Blunk smell good. Boy smell like monster."

"Fine." I rolled my eyes before I went to jump in the portal. "He smells like a monster."

Blunk was on my heels as we went through the portal, and on the other side, he crashed into me from behind, knocking me over. I sat up, rubbing the part of my back he had probably bruised. "Thanks for that. Now I don't need to crack my back." I said sarcastically.

Everything around us was a shade of purple. We were in some sort of temple or castle that pulsed with magic. High walls surrounded us, adorned with carvings and statues, all purple. I marveled at the beauty of the one-colored masterpiece that I guessed was Candracar. I was so going to paint it later.

A man dressed in purple-tinted robes approached us, Yan Lin at his side. He only looked to be in his mid-twenties, and there was a perfectly-groomed goatee on his chin.

"Nina, this is the Oracle." Yan Lin gestured to him.

"Hello, Nina." His voice was creamy and smooth, naturally gentle.

"Um, hi." I returned the niceness with a smile.

His peaceful face twisted into a frown. "So, what you said is true."

I pulled the Heart out from under my shirt. "Yes. But I have the Heart, so that's good, right?"

He nodded. "That does make it harder for them to have powers."

"So what are we going to do?"

The Oracle studied my face carefully. "For right now, we have a lot of thinking to do. You're in terrible danger because you have the Heart, and Phobos has loads of monsters that he can send to kidnap you. The safest place for you at the moment is here."

I gulped. "But what if I give it to you? Or Yan Lin?"

"You would still be hunted. Nina, we know about your ring." He looked at me solemnly.

"You...you know?" I managed to choke out.

Yan Lin chuckled. "The Council of Candracar knows everything."

"Follow me," said the Oracle. "I think you may want to see this."

So we did. He lead us through a maze of rooms, finally stopping in a ballroom-sized space, still purple and still breath-takingly gorgeous. In the center sat a pedestal that held what looked like glowing balls of energy. A cat-like woman in violet robes similar to the Oracle's stood watch over them. She held a protective hand over the orbs as I approached to get a closer look.

"These are the Aurameres. They are the sources of the Guardians' powers, which are transferred to the Heart." The Oracle explained. "And this is Luba. She is the protector of the Aurameres."

Blunk excitedly hustled over to the pedestal and tried to reach out to grab one of the orbs. Luba slapped his hand away.

"Blunk not steal glowing balls. Only assess value."

Luba ignored him.

I smiled kindly at her. "Hi."

She returned my hello with an almost inaudible grunt.

"Nina, there is something I want to show you. Do you see the pink Auramere?" The Oracle asked, pointing to the rose-colored orb. "This is the source of Will's powers. We've noticed that there is a strange pattern inside of it, almost like it absorbed something that looked like a ring."

I gasped and looked closer. Sure enough, there it was: the same circular stone set in cheap metal, painted a shade of pink because of the glow-ball. "That's my ring!" I whispered.

The Oracle nodded. "Now, because it is a part of the Heart of Candracar now, we won't be able to separate them. But there is another condition I would like to tell you about. You had certain new...abilities...after your ring reacted with the Heart, did you not?"

"Yeah. I could open portals and I think there was a time when I used a force field. Why?"

He ran a hand over his bald head. "Because you still have those abilities."

"What?" I asked, breathless.

"And that is why Phobos would still hunt you. He doesn't like it when people besides himself can open portals. He sees you as a threat."

I laughed humorlessly at that. "What am I to him? I'm just a human, and besides, I don't even know how to open portals without my ring." I held the hand with the burnt skin around the ring finger up to further my point.

Yan Lin clucked her tongue. "I-"

She was cut off by a loud crash in another room. Luba jumped and immediately threw herself over the Aurameres.

"What was that?" My question was drowned out by another crash. The floor shook, and I was thrown off balance.

The Oracle leaped into action. He began sprinting to the noise. "Get out of here!" He yelled as he ran.

With one last look at Luba, who was almost completely covering the Aurameres with her body, Yan Lin, Blunk, and I ran.

"Nina, open a portal!" Yan Lin shouted over the noise coming from the next room.

"I don't know how!" I shouted back.

"Just concentrate! Open your mind; let it flow out of you!"

I stopped running and closed my eyes. Portal! Appear!...Please...

Nothing happened. I tried again.

Nada.

Zip.

Zilch.

I sucked in a deep breath. I imagined the pretty, swirling vortex of blue that made up a portal, the way I was so attracted to the hypnotic glow. Once I was sure it was perfectly conjured in my mind, I ordered it to appear.

"Portal!" Blunk screeched. I opened my eyes to see him scrambling for it.

Yan Lin followed him, and I did as well. We emerged into Will's apartment, which was completely abandoned because Mom and Aunt Susan were still at the exhibition.

Still?

I looked at the clock over the stove. It was past four o'clock in the afternoon. The interviews were only supposed to last about an hour, and all the commotion that Will, Irma and I had caused had to have stopped them. Gosh, that morning seemed like such a long time ago.

Unless the Horn of Hypnos had gotten them, too!

I massaged my temples. So my cousin, her group of friends, my mom, and my aunt were all under the control of a psychopathic tyrant?

Wonderful.

"Nina, we stay here." Yan Lin told me. "Going out is too dangerous for you."

I pursed my lips. "My mom and Aunt Susan are still at the exhibition."

"We will find them later." Yan Lin said sternly.

"No." I said, shaking my head violently. "We are going to get them. If you won't, I will."

The old woman sighed. "Nina, there are monsters after you. How about we have a girls' night? We can dance to music. I've still got some funk in me!" She demonstrated one of her "funky" dance moves.

I bit back a groan of frustration that she was trying to distract me. "I-"

Just then there was a knock on the apartment door.

People have got to stop doing that!

Yan Lin gave me a warning look. "I open the door. You stay quiet."

By that point, I was so caught up in my anger and fear that, instead of listening to her, I beat her to the door and peered through the peep hole. "It's only Andrew." I said, calming down immediately. "Can I let him in?"

Yan Lin looked at Blunk, who crawled into the trash can in the kitchen. "If it will help you to have someone else here, then I guess..."

I flung open the door. "Hey." I tried to make myself look visibly together and happy to see him.

"Hey." He said back. He glanced behind me to where Yan Lin was. "Oh, right. Girl time. Am I interrupting anything?"

Yan Lin plastered a kind smile on her face. "Not at all. Come in!"

"You sure?" He asked me.

I nodded. "You're fine. We were just talking. How did you know where Will's apartment was?"

He shrugged. "I know people. Everyone knows everyone in Heatherfield."

I stepped aside so he could come in. "Well then. I guess you're welcome to come inside."

3rd POV

As he entered the quaint little apartment, he held a bag behind his back...

Yes, my friends, a bag. What will he do with it? Find out next chapter!

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