Back again! Have fun with the new chapter!

"Ok, let's lie him on his bed „Jake said, carrying the Ezekiel while Eve opened the door to the young thief's room. As they put him on the bed, both stood still for a moment.

"It's strange to see him like that" Eve finally broke the silence. And it was true. Ezekiel was never a quiet person, always having a smart-ass reply to say, not to mention his restlessness. However, now he looked… different. New sweat pearls were constantly forming on his forehead, as if he was trying to wake up but wasn't able to. He looked so small and valuable. Two adjectives that she would have never connected to their 'great Ezekiel Jones'

Jake nodded. He was still furious with Cassandra. Since he was a librarian, he had always refused to use magic and had the opinion, like Jenkins, that magic shouldn't be used. And although they had seen what bad things magic has managed to do (and continues to do), she wanted to use it. He understood her curiosity to new things, but when he looked at Ezekiel, he knew that it wouldn't be easy to forgive her soon.

"Maybe…. You should go to Jenkins, and see if there are any news," Eve continued. She put on "the look". Jake knew what she wanted to say.

"Ok… but if you want me to apologize to Cassandra, you can wait for a long time."

Without waiting for a reply and without looking at Ezekiel one more time, he went out of the room.

Eve sighed. She hated it when they were arguing. Why do they always have to be so stubborn? However, right now, she had other things to think about.

She pulled over a chair next to Ezekiel's bed and took his hand. It was still cold, but now she had the feeling that it was a bit warmer than before. The pulse was as labored as earlier, though.

"Come on… wake up soon" she whispered as if this could wake him up. Unfortunately, their thief was lying on the bed, still as ever.

In Jenkins lab

Why did they never listen to him? Hadn't they had enough missions to see what magic does?

Jenkins had a pile of books in front of him, but he wasn't really sure what to do. There had never been a librarian that was…. stupid enough to try out magic on someone else. He had never had to cure a person from this special spell, too.

"Can I… help you?" he heard a small female voice, coming from the door. For a second, he closed his eyes, trying not to sound too angry.

"Actually…" he said, while turning around. He knew that it was Cassandra who was standing in the door frame as if she was too scared to come in. "… well, you can tell me from which book the spell was. I need to have more information."

Cassandra came in, relieved that at least Jenkins wasn't that furious with her. "It was from the book of Thousand and One Night", she remembered. "But not the original version"

"So you took it from the edited version?" Jenkins asked and Cassandra nodded. "Yeah, you know, I already knew the other stories, so I wanted…."

"… To try out something new", Jenkins continued. Cassandra shut her mouth. It was unfair! As if every new thing was something bad…

"You know that I never wanted to hurt someone" Cassandra said, not able to hold it back any longer. "Plus, even you have to admit that something new could help during missions. I mean, if I didn't put the spell on Ezekiel, we would have never got the bag."

Jenkins looked at her, not sure what to reply. Sure, he knew that she was right, but on the other hand, Ezekiel was lying unconscious in his bed, and nobody knew when (or if) he would wake up or if there were other symptoms than just his unconsciousness.

"Look… Let's talk about that later. We should focus on a cure for Ezekiel first."

Cassandra nodded. She was fine with that, but she knew that this discussion wasn't over yet.

"Any news yet?" Jake's voice was coming from the door as they started to look into the books.

Annoyed, Jenkins looked up. "No" he said. "But we have just started. I guess the Colonel is with our thief?"

"Yes. Somebody should look after him and see…. If he wakes up." Jake said with a glance at Cassandra. He thought it was difficult to formulate this sentence in connection to Ezekiel. He had never been in such a situation before. Also, he felt guilty for both, Cassandra and Ezekiel.

"Well… then he is in good hands" Jenkins said. "Ok, so I know where the spell is from. However, it will be difficult to find a cure, since I can't see any great symptoms. It would be better to wait for some hours, see if we can find anything in the books or if Ezekiel's state changes."

"Yeah…"Jake replied. "Waiting sounds good". And with that, thy started to read through the books.

And that's it for today. I hope you liked the new chapter. There wasn't a lot of Ezekiel, but there will be more of him in the next one – promised