The stack of paper felt with a loud noise on the ground, which was strange considering it only looked like paper but there were pens, paperclips, hair pins hidden in the stake of paper that Lacie Eventide, originally named Elisabeth threw on the ground. "Where is it!?" she screamed furiously at the papers, that obviously wouldn't answer. "It can't be gone!" which she ended with screaming noises that didn't really form a word but show off her frustration. How difficult was it to find a sun coloured book with a sunflower on it, one that was thick! This made no sense at all and she couldn't imagine that she had placed it somewhere else.

No one came into this room apart from her, she hired this place and now it was for her alone again. While she was sitting on hands and knees she stared up, her brown eyes narrowing down in anger. There had only been one guy in this room and she regretted that every day, he wouldn't be capable of stealing her mother's diary! Did the knights steal it back? Had that stupid sister of hers figured out it was stolen, was that kid even alive! "All I heard was that she was in Hargeon but Selena had not find her, she isn't here anymore and I can't ask the knights." she growled in annoyance again, on one hand Judina hadn't acted as if Alice perhaps be dead. It would only be more fun but that would never happen.

She let out another scream and stood up again and threw some more paper away, she slammed open the door of this study and walked into the living room of the apartment that she was hiring from this hotel in Baska, ever since she arrived. Because she had planned to stay long, she had unpacked all her belongings (which she had been taking with her since running away from Alice) but she had hidden the diary somewhere and suddenly it wasn't in the drawer next to her bed anymore. Neither was it in the study. A diary didn't have feet so it couldn't walk but this was getting very frustrated and she didn't have the magic or capablity to explode and be done with her emotions. Finally she found it, it must have fallen off the bed, and she must have forgotten that she was reading it, it was a disaster. It was hidden by the long cloths that were on the bed as it had been accidentally kicked underneath.

She grabbed it, as some sort of obsessive monster that couldn't understand anything but the fact that her most prized possession was in her hands again, it didn't make her happy considering what she was reading but it was something and she needed it. She couldn't summon her mother back but perhaps she could hold a seance. She had more things to do and even though she looked like a wildling, she hurried out of the door, leaving the mess around. There were three things to do;

1) know where her father was;
2) find a cure for her body;
3) the seance with her mother.



528/500

There was no place for other thoughts, the diary was her most important item at the moment and it was pressed against her chest as if to prove to her the whole time that it was there. Her hair was in a braid but it was messy as she had not brushed her hair since last night when she made the braid, no problem. No problem at all. Her brown eyes were looking left and right, she had no time to bump into someone, no one was allowed to see her. But most people were on their way home so it was difficult to avoid people. She had to go to the library and be accepted there before they would kick her out because of closing times. She didn't come there all too often so they didn't know it was her for example.

She zigzagged through the people that were making their way out and avoided to look at the security mage that stood near the door or the librarian for that matter, but she quickly walked on, more tiptoeing so her high heels wouldn't make a sound. She was so confused at the moment, so worried, her life had gone back on track after arriving in Hargeon, even considering she sold her soul but now..
She had thought it had made her better, she hadn't been coughing, no blood, no pain but yesterday it had all rushed back, or was it the day before yesterday? It didn't matter, it only mattered that she needed answers and she had to be discreet about it.

She started in the section where she had been weeks ago, where she had found the curse for her dad. It wasn't written like that but even though Lacie wasn't the smartest or good with magic (especially now), she was able to make a curse with the information that she had found here. She had written it all down, had gone to gather herbs and used it in her room. But now she needed more information for she needed to be able to track her father down. It was no fun to not be certain if the curse in question had worked, it was bad to say that the inspiration now was because of Judina and her brother Regis. She had locked him up and had no idea how to heal him or if he was okay. The stress that must be giving and yet Lacie wanted the direct opposite. She needed to find Richard Dubois and she would have to find him soon for her own sanity.

The books were of course on high shelves and the first thing she did was look around, she had no idea of names and titles of books and just used her senses, most artists or well writers put the right name on the title and she had find the curse in that way as well. That book she immediately took and dropped on the desk that was between the bookshelves. It wouldn't be so difficult to find a book about tracking people right?



515/500

She stopped when she found something and froze, could she find Alice in that way as well or Lucifer, did that count because could you find a demon in another person's body? Did she want to find Lucifer as she still had no interesting information at all to tell him, unless you counted the idea that her sister was pregnant, something she had not said to the demon but she doubt it had any effect at all. She had sold her soul for this goal and it brought a grin to her face. She grabbed the ladder that was a few rows down and pulled it towards the right bookshelf. Her answers might be so much closer now, there were many more questions but the two that she needed the most, perhaps three if you counted finding Alice as one as well.

She froze for a second when she had tilted her hand in front of the book to grab it, that would also mean that she was able to figure out if Alice was still alive, where would Selena be? She noticed how her hand trembled, Selena who had said something about reuniting family but had run off with only the information to write a letter to the knights and she would get it. That's not how it worked, she had no idea where she was, liars all of them. She held her right hand with her left around the wrist and took the book and quickly decended the stairs before she would get more angry about things she couldn't change.

She would hold this own family reunion if the book immediately worked than she would be able to find Selena as well. She quickly read the list of stuff she needed and went to find a map of Fiore and the cities as well. She used her necklace with a drop of her own blood as a bond to find either of the three people that she needed, afterall they were family. The most difficult one for this was Selena as she was her cousin from her mother's side. Alice and her father would be a lot easier but she would have to try first. She held the pendant on both ends so the little flower that was on it was down and she opened herself to the mana that was manifested inside her.

As soon as she felt it glowing, she opened her eyes and stared at the pendant that didn't move yet, "Find my father," she whispered so only the pendant would hear her and it started to move around in circles while she held her hand steady, all she needed to do now was move it over the map and see where the feeling of this magic would get stronger. Which was near Baska and she quickly turned to a map of the town itself to make sure it was there and the pendant tugged on her grip and dropped itself near something that looked like ruins and that meant that he was indeed in Baska.


511/500

With one found there were only two more left and perhaps she should try to scry for her father to see how he was looking if she dared. Perhaps without a soul she was a bit tougher than she used to be, when she was all crying and screaming but she would see if it worked. She should try that back at home in her rented apartment and not in the library for obvious reasons.

She dropped a new blood drop on the pendant and moved it back to the map of Fiore and started it again, her magic power still surged through her so that was not a problem, the pendant needed a new quest, "Find my twinsister." she thought to be very specific, she didn't have another sister but that didn't matter at all, she didn't want to make any mistakes. The pendant started again but tugged her soon enough to Baska, thank god the map was still next to her. She believed that she was doing something wrong as she moved the pendant to the map of the town, perhaps it was searching again for her father. But this time the pendant dropped on another part of the town and she bit her lip to not laugh about it. This was great, perhaps the curse had worked even better than she had thought. Though she shouldn't bring any harm to Alice, that was Lucifer his job for now. She wasn't strong enough to do that anyway.

She cleaned the pendant from the old blood and dropped a new blood drop on it and muttered a new request to the necklace, "Find my cousin Selena Maelstrom." this time she mentioned the name on purpose, she had no idea if there were more cousins alive. She had never put any thoughts into that and she didn't care at all because they either would be dead or their parents so they would never come into contact anyway. But the pendant started again to search for her cousin in the map of Fiore, moving from one spot to another as if it had more difficulty to find her cousin, unless Selena would be able to move very quickly into one place and the next while she was trying to find her.

Finally the pendant stopped above Baska as well and she didn't believe it for a second but moved onto the smaller map and at another spot the pendant dropped which would tell her that Selena was in Baska as well.
Her shoulders started to shake and she had to bite her lip very strong, tasting a little of the iron taste of blood but she couldn't help but laugh. If she would open her mouth it would be a cackling loud laugh and she didn't want that again for obvious reasons. But this was too good to be true, her whole family was in Baska or well all that was left of it and that made it easier to get to them.


502/500

She actually believed that she would have to get out of the library as she felt like laughing so badly but she didn't. She stayed because there was more to do. She had to find another book actually a couple more before she could leave but she had her note book with her and quicky scribbled down the locations where the pendant had dropped, and that one she quickly cleaned and drapped around her neck again. Her father was around the ruins something called the Giant's Tear Ducts.. absolutely lovely and the other two were streets, perhaps the hotels were there or inns or whatever place they were staying and apart from that, they might be out on jobs or food or hospitals that Lacie didn't know about and couldn't see on the map, although she suspected that the hospital would be easily seen and she stared at the map some more time but couldn't figure out too much about the street names that the pendant had shown her for her sister and cousin. They were at least not together, who knew what Alice would say to Selena. Lacie wondered for a second if Alice would be able to convince Selena to get rid of her, for she absolutely didn't feel like dying yet!

Which brought her to her second task of the day here at the library. She first quickly wrote the last information she needed about the curse book, for she had taken that back to the table as well and cleaned it up, putting the book back about searching through maps and putting the maps back, which was a lot of work for she had taken a lot of them with her the first round. When that was all cleared up, she went to look through the section that she was standing. The darker books but she heard a cough and turned hastily around. One of the librarians was there and she tried to act as if she had every right to stand here. The Library did look her up and down, but didn't say much apart from that they were closing in half an hour and Lacie only nodded and said she was almost done. She wasn't but she would figure out a way. At first she had no intention to steal books but if she had to leave in half an hour she perhaps should.

Considering it was going on about her health, she first took the books about a seance and scrying information and wrote down what she so all needed to start either of them. She scribbled it down so fast that she could barely read it herself, still a bit unsure about stealing books, she wanted to grab all the time she needed. She still had to find a book or more books about it anyway and that would take perhaps already twenty minutes!

When she was done with the ingredients that she needed for the seance and the scrying, she put the books away and slung her bag over her shoulder, feeling the diary and her notebook bump into her hip but she didn't care.



524/500

The red head quickly tiptoed to another section of the library about health and health issues, it was ridiculous that anyone could find this information. Perhaps they thought they were safe considering Blue Pegasus and here Lacie still had no idea how that so called war moment had gone, she had not spoken anyone about it, Selena told her that Alice had run off to fight here and Judina had mentioned something about it if Lacie recalled correctly but that was about it. She didn't feel like thinking too much about it, considering the pendeling, her sister was still alive but perhaps not for long if she bumped into a man called Lucifer or whatever his real name was because it didn't matter.

She let her eyes scan the shelves and picked up a few but quickly noticed that this was about herbalist cures and she couldn't try that for it didn't work. They had tried enough of that in Era and yet here she was. It was something about impurity as she had noticed that with her soul gone it had gone better but it couldn't be only her soul. So she left this section of the library and shook her head, some librarian asked if she needed help but she waved it away, said it was research for a paper and walked on to the district where she had been before which had been about a darker way of magic. She read something about magic experiments that had gone wrong and took it, she had always believed that she had gotten the magic through the Divine and the Maker but was that even an option? Was there something she couldn't remember?

She leaned against the table that was standing next to it as she looked into the book, her sister was the one with memory loss. She could remember being raised in the monastry and that had been all a piece of... cake. She lingered while reading the page, she had tried to turn it around but her eyes looked at a picture. Had she not seen such an instrument before? At the age of ten or so? Had the nuns not told her it was for some prevention of an illness? It had hurt like hell and she thought it was something that had made her ill as well but after a couple of days it had gone by. Yes! At the age of ten they started to work with her on the magic power that they suddenly felt with her.

Her brown eyes turned brighter and more open as she read about it, it had not been the divine. It had been something like a lacrima that they placed inside her. She had to find the address from the monastry and find the answers soon because perhaps it had gone wrong! There was a person specialized in working with Lacrima and to her own happiness this man was in Baska as well and that meant that she had more reasons to go there. She heard a cough and looked up at the librarian.



517/500

The Librarian didn't plan to leave so stealing a book was not an option but she was not a citizen of Hargeon so she couldn't take it with her and that made it a tough call at the moment but she placed it back on the shelf where she had found it after scribbling down the address from the man in Baska. Perhaps it was something with the lacrima, she had not had enough time to read if that was a possibility and she sighed and walked after the librarian who walked away at that moment. Which made Lacie freeze and look over her shoulder to the book, it wasn't within reach and her heels would make too much noise, so she took them off as silent as she could, picked up the book, put it in her bag and stepped in her shoes again and quicky followed the librarian with a tiptoe motion so she wouldn't suddenly make much noise.

She had tried a lot of things, selling her soul, killing her sister in half attempts, curse her father but stealing a book was more scary than anything she had done before. Perhaps because this really involved her at the moment and if they would check her bag she would be in immediate trouble. But they didn't because the old librarian thought she had put it back. She thanked them for their time and headed out, taking a deep breath in and exhaling the moment she rounded the corner of the next street, where she pressed herself against the wall to catch her breath. Actually all of this was very funny to her, she had just stolen a book, her only known family members were in the same town as well as the healer that she needed to find.

But soon the fun was over and the blood was boiling again, Alice had everything, like her dad and Selena had promised to help her and yet she was with her sister! She could see how important Lacie was because she was left alone all the time. The only way to hurt their feelings was by jesting but she didn't have the right people for that, telling Judina about Alice had not been fun and the mask that she had worn there was tired and wanted to be loved alone. Not her sister, Alice was everywhere, it was a shame. She didn't plan to stay here much longer and headed back to the hotel where she rented the apartment. She should probably order room service as she had no time to figure out where to eat and take that time.

She needed to read this book and have all the information that she needed because the sooner she could go to Baska, which meant she should probably pack her stuff as well, leave a letter to Judina? That instead of going to Marigold they should go to Baska? Would her friend mind, did she at all plan to travel together or had Lacie made that up in her mind?



509/500

When she opened the door to the apartment she stared at the mess, it took her a few seconds to realize that she had made it the moment before she had left and that no one else had been in here for as far as she knew. She quickly closed the door behind her and dropped her bag on the kitchen island before heading back into the living room part and the study that was next to her bedroom. She grabbed all the papers and put them on one stack, she would look through them for she had probably the need to burn a few things as she didn't needed them anymore but that wasn't bad because she needed to make a fire for the scrying and seance anyway.

She took a deep breath and put the pins back into her make-up kit and the pencils in the cup that she used as a penholder. When everything was cleared up she dropped herself on the couch and grabbed the menu from next to the lacrima. Her eyes lingered on it a little longer, was something like that inside her or how did that work? She would research it in a bit and that would be enough but right now she needed to order her food because that might take a while and she didn't want to be disturbed during the scrying and seance. In the mean time she would be able to read the book that she had stolen, hoping it would have more answers.

When she finished typing the dishes that she wanted into the lacrima, she threw the menu next to it and stood up to walk back into the kitchen and take her bag with her to the couch and take her notes out and place them on the other end of the couch. Next she took the library book and went to read more in it, it wasn't like all the other books as it was written by hand and a lot smaller, there wasn't much information about it, it had been illegal and a lot of cults had put lacrima in young children to create new and extreme magic. Others had tried it for the health of children and Lacie could not remember if she had been a weak child at the age of ten. When she was a baby she was, Alice had been born the strong one while she needed extra food and attention, something that she still wanted but didn't get anymore. No parents, no family or friends that cared in that ways about her as they had cared when she was a baby. Apart from that it all went uphil for Alice, with her boyfriend, her lovely job and so on and probably thousand of friends that looked up to her and here was Lacie, alone, she had Judina but the knight was friends with Alice as well so it was like sharing again. Something she wasn't good at and couldn't stand.


501/500

She shut the book as she had read enough, there were no complete answers in the book as Lacie was no expert and the expert was in baska. She wondered while she stood up if it was possible to just waltz in and ask him for a solution to the problem. She had read there must be for some children a red dot on their body from the needle and she walked to her bedroom to see if she could find it, it wasn't obvious to her as it had been something that could happen, as long as you didn't know it was from the needle. Finally she had found one right above her hip more towards her back, which was with angling around the mirror visible to her. She dropped her dress back to how it belonged when she heard a knock on the door. Her food was here.

She closed the door to the bedroom and walked towards the door that was close to separating the kitchen from the living room, there was no hall, the apartment would be too small for that but she tried to stand in front of everything from the room as they came to bring the food, they had a little cart for it and she simply said she would take it herself, for she bet they had more to do. She was disgusted by her own masks lately but there were no answers to it as she would not get anything if she would not continue to play this game. Which is how she should see it, it was but a game. If there was only someoen where she could be herself but she always had to play this game and that had made it bad, that had made it that she was sick of it.

She took the food to the kitchen and took a plate for herself and grabbed the little dishes and placed it on the plate and the red wine that she ordered as well. As if she was going to the underworld herself, this looked like some christmas dinner. Normally she would cook herself but she had better things to do, to keep her energy and positive mood for as far as it stayed along.

She didn't plan to sit down and remained standing and leaning on the kitchen island and eating the food that they had brought. It was way too much but she believed that after scrying and a seance she might need more food anyway to restore her energy. She needed to clean up more of this room before she could start either of them and she went to find a bowl where she could make a fire in without actually destroying it. It might be broken after that but she was sure she would just throw it back into the kitchen cupboard and be done with it.

When she finished her food, the glass of wine and found the bowl she needed, she headed back to the living room part, where she rolled up the carpet for as far as she could.


519/500

It wasn't entirely possible because it was stuck underneath the couch but it worked like this and the floor, the beautiful wooden floor was visible. She sat herself down on her knees and drapped the skirt of her dress around her bare legs and placed the bowl and the papers that she didn't tend to keep in it. She had everything around her, and took the lacrima to add the fire to the bowl and the incense and the candle that she had. There was a lot of fire now around her, something she wouldn't be comfortable with if she had no other way to do this but there wasn't, so she should deal with it. She dropped a page of the diary in the fire and a drop of blood and started the incantation that she head written down in the note book that she had read in the book in the library.

She coughed a little when there was a lot of smoke boiling out of the bowl, but the smoke started to go up and form a face that she was all to familiar with, it was now all gray but she remembered the redbrown eyes her mother had, her bright red hair in light curls that Lacie didn't get but Alice again. Her mother looked around her as if she didn't understood what was going on, Lacie didn't say anything but simply had her narrowed look at her mother, until Rowena Eventide had time to look at Lacie, where she could see the spirit lingering, "Lacie?" Well at least she had the right twin immediately, "You are surprised to see me, did you not believe that it would be so crazy to do this?" If her mother would have been able to turn pale with this dark gray smoke, Lacie was sure she would have done it.

For Rowena seemed to be hesitated to say anything, "What did you do to me? You blamed Alice but," and she held up the diary, "Here you admit that you made a mistake. Why did you leave this to me if you had so much to hide. The cult you worked for, I always thought it was for the divine but you are simply a liar. What have you done to me?" Perhaps it wasn't the monastry perhaps it was her mother, she was trying to connect dots that were too far away from each other to actually be connected.

Her mother shook her head and it actually broke Lacie her heart because she had seen Rowena do that so many times, "I might have made a mistake with that but I did everything to protect you Lacie, really deary." To which Lacie only could scream shut up! But that didn't change anything, "The cult was for Alice, they would clear her from the demon inside her but they didn't want to work it out for me, so I did the ritual myself, but everyone who joined was tainted for the child was stolen from us and she didn't die. I only figured this out when I came here to the afterlife." Oh joy.


525/500

Oh joy, this still didn't make up for the mistakes that her mother had written in her diary, "You didn't even trust me," she said with a grumpy tone in her voice. "No, it's not that honey. You didn't read that right, I..", "DONT LIE TO ME." she yelled and she felt a surge of magical energy grow inside her but nothing happened, her magic was gone afterall, no Sun's blessing and apart from that she rather had that it would be burning or something but it didn't change anything, the seance died. Her mother had left the building because Lacie had screamed at her, but it didn't matter, the woman wouldn't give her answers anyway, not the ones she wanted. She was lying that much was clear to the youngest of the twins and she sat up straight and pulled her knees up and hugged them. Not the best position in a dress but she was alone anyway.

She felt like crying but all she did was stare with an intense glare at the flame that was in front of her. She had to work on the scrying for her father but she didn't feel like doing that anyway and she should stop the flames from burning the papers and the rest of the bowl. She stood up and grabbed some water from the kitchen and stopped the flames. Which was a lot of smoke that came from it and thus she opened the window quickly. She had found answers but also was lied at by her dead mother which had pissed her off more than anything.

She grabbed her purse with the keys, her coat and headed out of the apartment by slamming the door close. She noticed no one in the hallway and walked out of the building completely, she needed some fresh air because she was completely done for today. She would figure out something else, she would do that scrying at another time, perhaps check out where Alice was as well, if she was able to make it work. But the seance had worked and she was sure that so would the rest. She bit her lip and started crying. She simply stopped walking when she reached the light house and let her shoulders shake, her tears drip on her cheeks even though she tried to brush them away.

Life was not fair but there was a burning passion and rage within her that would make sure that she would be the one of the whole Eventide-Dubois family that would figure out everything, would become the happiest and rather only one alive for else it might be a bit tough.
She leaned against the stone barrier that prevented people from falling into the sea and stared at the wild waves and the light that sometimes passed by because of the light house. Here was the spot where she had sold her soul, perhaps it gave her a feeling of determination. But she had to hurry, she shouldn't stay here too long anymore.


507/500
Exit.