Misgivings

(Part 2)

The employees of the Coliseum Theater in London were already gathered at their posts, their uniforms sprinkling the rich, white corridors of the building as they waited for the doors to the packed auditorium to open.

Tonight's show — like all of those from the past week that had shared the same performer — had sold out weeks ago, the speed with which the tickets had disappeared only matched by the enthusiasm of the crowds that had managed to acquire them and their wonder once the curtain closed and they rose from their seats, faces filled with wonder.

Contrary to what had happened the previous night, however, and the night prior to that, today was the first day the hands on the clock on the security office near the theater's entrance joined to announce midnight without any of those things happening, it was the first time the show had ever run late.

Taking a glance passed one of the building's opened front doors, out into the street in the center of London where the Coliseum Theater was located, Johnathan Archer, chief of the theater's staff, ignored the Georgian buildings on the other side of the road and the cars going by in favor of the clouds overhead and, perhaps selfishly wondering if he was to get home before the skies once again tried to drown England, stepped back into the foyer.

Footsteps made silent by the red carpet under his feet, he walked passed white columns, went up the stairs, and headed straight for one of the doors leading to the theater's Dress Circle, the second of the four levels of audience seats. Hearing applause coming from the auditorium on the other side, taking a moment to adjust the jacket of his uniform, Archer pulled the door slightly open and peeked inside.

Beyond the door, a sea of people sat on red satin chairs, the gentle incline to the different levels of stands allowing this clear view over the seats on the ground floor, the white boxes that climbed up the theater walls, the golden statues standing high over those same boxes, and to the stage itself. And it was there, under the imposing arch that framed the stage, under the red curtains hanging high overhead and the word 'COLISEVM' embroidered in them, that the same man who tipped his hat from the many posters embellishing the theater's corridors, had just raised one hand to the multicolored patchwork quill that was his audience. Immediately, the hundreds of people seated on the four levels of the auditorium fell quiet, hanging on his every word.

"The hour grows late," The Enigma spoke, the musical quality to his accent doing little to hide his Scottish nationality. "It all comes to its inevitable conclusion. We must depart, but first my gift to you."

A shiver of excitement went through the audience, a buzz of words filled the auditorium, be it on the boxes or in the audience seats, people dressed in their finest clothes turned to the husbands and wives, sons and daughters, mothers and fathers who sat at their sides, chattering, talking, smiling.

Enjoying their excitement, not knowing he had even managed to capture the attention of an old theater worker who, a mere minute ago, had just wished to go home, The Enigma tipped his top hat at the crowd and, walking across the stage with long, determined strides, approached this small support table hidden behind the red curtain and the glass of water that was there. Hidden from the audience, even if not from the many, many eyes backstage that trailed him or the large camera that was still filming him, The Enigma positioned himself towards the curtain and, careful as to ensure no one saw his expression or the tension the simple act of breathing brought to his gaze, looked towards the stage.

The atmosphere inside the auditorium had been obvious to him for the best part of the last half an hour, but it wasn't until now that it had become so oppressive he had no choice but to force himself to pay it mind. The air, The Enigma couldn't help but notice, smelled of electricity, it tasted like it, so much so that it left this metallic flavor on his mouth, that it felt like a storm was pressing overhead, roaring near the large dome on the auditorium's ceiling. The tension was palpable, dangerously, worryingly so, and, pondering on his promise to the audience just a minute ago, The Enigma had to wonder if it had been safe to speak of one last act. Standing here now, he wondered if he shouldn't play it safe and fetch the large illusionist box that was just a few steps to his side. Staring into the water on the glass he had just picked up, the slow rotating movement of his wrist making the liquid inside swerve, he did wonder, the sensible side of him calling for caution, the performer in him calling for action, both taking far too much of his time.

Growing impatient, The Enigma took his attention to the very limits of the stage. There, just inches away from the empty orchestra pit, four candles burned, their flames strangely long and inert, the white candle wax under them having yet to reach the plates despite the three hours of the show. Satisfied with what that told him, The Enigma pushed his concern aside, took a sip from the glass and made his way back.

The audience erupted in applause upon seeing him again, the fact that he returned empty-handed seeming to thrill them more than anything else. And as if to prove exactly that, this time, The Enigma didn't have to ask for anyone to quiet down, the applause faded on it is on, as did the voices, silence going to hang around him alongside the pressure of two thousand different eyes.

Breathing in, however, The Enigma thought about that less than about the green cliffs back home and the white flowers that bloomed this time of year, covering the green fields and jagged cliffs and looking just like snow. He remembered them as clearly as if he could see them, as clearly as if he was standing on one of the island's many pastures and, in truth, he might as well have been for the green grass around his legs, the chopped sea in the distance and the night sky overhead felt more real than the theater, they did make him feel like he was back on Muhr.

And yet, he wasn't. The metallic taste to his tongue was reminder enough of that and so, The Enigma leaned forward over the white flower field he saw in his mind, he closed his hands around as many of the flowers as he could, picked them up, and tossed them into the air.

There was a distant whisper of surprise, then clapping erupted around him. The green pastures of Muhr fading from his mind, The Enigma opened his eyes just as the flowers started to rain inside the theater, he opened his eyes not knowing that forty years into the future a very different kind of audience would be watching his performance and that that audience didn't care so much for the miraculous nature of his illusion, but for the fact that it was very much real, he stood center stage not knowing one day the cameras around him would show this very moment to those who knew his secret and that it would break his heart if he was ever to find out why.

But that future was not one Jessie Mulholland would know, the fire where he would perish would make sure of that, and so, with his entire life still ahead of him, The Enigma bowed, and smiled, and reached out for the flames that had been burning, not on the candles, but over them, to snuff them out with his mind. Then, he allowed himself a moment in the adoration of his public before the curtains closed and the cameras lost him from sight.

Standing on that present Jessie Mulholland was no longer part of, David Styles frowned at the video camera he held on his hands, the dark eyebrow that wasn't hidden by the mask covering half of his face drawing closer and closer to the pale material as he kept his attention firmly on the still rolling video. The grainy image had just panned away from the stage The Enigma had left, a second camera going to show the fully packed Coliseum Theater and the thousands that were there.

"He was famous, obviously," David noted just as one of the BBC's old logos, the one from the late fifties, appeared right in the center of the display. "And yet, I don't believe I ever heard of him."

The declaration was punctuated by the melodic chime of the bell hanging over the door. Attention called away from the smiling faces of the rising crowd on the camera's display — from the white flower an old lady had picked up and was sniffing — David found himself going over the illusionist wands, vials of stage blood and disappearing die on the shelves around him, the blast of cold air that was making its way inside the small store where he stood forcing his attention to follow the tall, middle-aged man who was the store's proprietor as he walked towards the door.

"Such is the fate of us performers," he was sighing, all the while welcoming the nervous-looking student who had just stepped inside. "We charm, we delight, we marvel, but it is luck and luck alone that dictates those who are remembered or those who are not."

Back towards the same wood counter where Sam had taken to sit, half-aware of her feet dangling several inches over this blade of wooden floor between the counter and the carpet, David stole a glance at the now black display of the camera, a deeply pensive expression taking over his face before he closed the camera's lateral display and offered it to Sam.

"You knew The Enigma?" he asked.

The paper bag he carried, one embellished with the words 'The Black Wand', being offered to his lonely customer, the proprietor looked back inside his store, then at the wet cobblestones and lit streetlamps of Cornmarket Street just outside, at the sporadic groups going down the road. In a moment, the same hand that had bid farewell to the store's departing customer had dived for the doorknob and pulled the door close.

"Not in the meaningful manner you might be imagining," he remarked while reaching for the plaque that hanged from the top half of the door, the word that faced the interior of the store went from 'Closed' to 'Open'. "The Enigma was of the opinion that us not knowing him was for the best, otherwise, he used to say, we would just find out how utterly mundane and boring he was."

Fingers tuning an old-fashioned metal key on the lock, the proprietor let out a chuckle at the memory.

"He was quite the mentor for us young ones," he went on to share, only to visibly swallow his laughter once he turned back to his present audience. "Well, even I was young once."

Four long fingers, their nails unsurprisingly painted black, had just closed over the sleeve of David's coat. Through the mirror, the same one that oddly enough was the store's window — the same one that had made him aware of Sam putting the camera inside the backpack she had over her legs and that now showed her leaning in his direction — David could see Sam's best attempt at a serious expression being utterly undermined by the mischievous smile taking over her face.

"He has proof and everything," she whispered, words playing near David's ear before a finger directed his attention not to the mannequin with a magician coat and the hat hanging from the strings attached to the ceiling, not to the large bookcase filled with magical props that was right beside it, but to some kind of golden puzzle box and the portrait that hang overhead.

If David had been in need of any evidence as to the fact that The Black Wand's proprietor hadn't come into the world in his late fifties, that would indeed have been proof enough. Things being as they were, however, David was not so much looking at the man's face as at the name on the golden frame. The letters read Houdini. In the meanwhile, the proprietor's true name escaped David's mind as vehemently as if, in the twenty or so minutes he had been inside his store, it had fallen through the cracks of his memory. Something which unfortunately could also be said for how quickly the details of how he had gotten here were fading. Not that it required that much effort to stitch things together. It had involved Samantha—unsurprisingly—and...

"That's the report on the cafeteria?"

Yes, that. The report. The thing had been over the kitchen aisle back at Dread Hill when he had come up from the lab some hours ago. There had also been something else. He believed Sam had been going over lunch, but it would make little difference if she had made good on her angry outburst about hordes of buffalo and put one on the kitchen, he doubted he would have seen it with as focused as he was on the report. In fact, for how little he recalled the kitchen, he actually had a very good memory of reaching for the pages and having Sam put her fingers right over them.

"You aren't going to like it," she had sentenced, sliding the report across the aisle and away from him the first chance she got. "Wouldn't you rather have the good news first?"

The good news had apparently come with a side dish of tea and scones for that had replaced the report he had been aiming for.

"You are feeding me and providing me with distraction," David remembered saying. "What is next? Tuck me into bed?"

"It would certainly be an improvement."

That admonishment had come from Stella and that was where the memory became fuzzy. There had been something about Sam trying to convince him to go to Oxford, there was this very clear memory of Stella right on route to the fridge and to find he had left last night's dinner untouched on the top shelf—Or had that been the day before? Regardless, David remembered fetching his jacket from the hanger right beside the front door and following Sam into Dread Hill's front courtyard. If that had been about escaping Stella, escape he had, only—

His mind heading back to The Black Wand, David looked around the wooden paneling around him, attention jumping from the high bookcase filled with magical props to his right to the back of the store and the place where half a dozen wands peeked from inside some sort of cylindrical container, where there was this box with daggers and a crystal ball. Truly, it was remarkable how little attention he had paid to Oxford prior to the past month. He had lived here all his life, studied here, he had gone down this very street hundred of times — he knew it for he recalled the ATM. The ATM. — but this store, just like the bookstore that shared Samantha's name, just like rest of the street, converged into the same blur from which he couldn't retrieve the store's proprietor name and indeed it took the man stopping right in front of him and reaching out to shake his hand for David to recall the reason.

"I assume you are Doctor Styles?"

They hadn't been introduced yet.

"Yes," David said and he would have taken off the glove covering his right hand out of courtesy if a glimpse of the disfigured mass of burned skin peeking from between the glove and the jacket's black sleeve hadn't stopped him on his tracks. A second passed and he reached a gloved hand to Mephistopheles instead.

"David Styles."

The pale green eyes framed by the proprietor's heavy eyebrows smiled alongside his lips.

"I have heard of you," he mused in a low voice and while giving him a nod. "Oh, I have indeed."

It was like the buttons on the box Sam had just picked up from the counter were connected to her. Sat as she still was, legs hanging in front of her, studying the box, she had seemingly just triggered it to work when the proprietor spoke. As spectacular as the Jack-in-the-Box cackling leap was it had nothing, nothing on Sam's own jump.

"This is Mephistopheles!" she exclaimed, all but slamming the Jack-in-the-Box against the counter in the midst of her panic to wave at Mephistopheles. "He is—!"

A walking display of flamboyance David would say if he wasn't staring perplexed at a flustered Sam. After all, standing right in the middle of his store, Mephistopheles had just taken a bow.

"I am indeed Mephistopheles," he announced with a whip at a non-existent cape. "The one who invited this young lady to perform at the Deadalus Club."

A smile that did far too much credit to his name making the wrinkles around his eyes more obvious, Mephistopheles rose from his bow and went to face David.

"I am also the one who left your invitation on the front window, Dr. Styles," he informed, polite, and while nodding his head at the mirror to their side. "I thought to send it with the courier that dropped Samantha's invitation at Dread Hill but I decided against it, not all sponsors wish to have their privacy invaded by the Club."

David blinked, eyes seizing to gaze at Sam to do the exact same thing only with Mephistopheles.

"Sponsors?"

Mephistopheles' shoulders seemed to have just slumped.

"So I am wrong," he muttered and he turned to Sam, a note of disappointment to his voice. "Dr. Styles is really just your employer?"

"What do you mean really just my—?" Sam's eyebrows drew in, comprehension seeming to hit her like a lightning bolt. "Wait. You thought I was behind those pranks and he—" A finger was pointed directly at David. "—was in on it?"

Mephistopheles hit them with a sudden grin.

"Of course!" he exclaimed. "Oh, it all made perfect sense! What other way to justify that rather extravagant Game? The track, the pool, it doesn't take my experience to know those needed money and your spending on this store was so frugal, I could only conclude you didn't have it and couldn't possibly be behind it."

Sam's eyes narrowed, she crossed her arms, the fabric of her short black jacket scrunching when she did so.

"That was because I wasn't," she retorted.

"Yes, I know that now," Mephistopheles sighed, fingers running over his goatee. "But at the time, I was convinced you were, and I could but ask how was it possible. And then, you mentioned Dr. Styles and it all became clear. Who was financing your Game? Dr. Styles. Who was getting you inside St. Edmund? Again, Doctor Styles."

Mephistopheles crossed his arms, eyes dropping to the large carpet with its intricate beige and red pattern.

"I became convinced that was the answer to that rather fascinating puzzle."

It felt to David like his brain had just reconnected. His eyes narrowed, looking away from Sam, the line to his lips curled down.

"Fascinating?" he repeated and if anything Mephistopheles was not deaf to his tone. Looking back up, his expression became serious.

"If it had been a Game it was original and as far as you were informed, harmless," he said, allowing for the weight of that last word to settle in before nodding at his own speech and continuing. "I was proven wrong in my assumptions, of course, but I won't apologize for believing Miss Everett has the brains for a Game that intricate. I still think she does."

Fingers drumming on the backpack she had on her lap, Sam had just pinched her lips.

"Jeez," she grumbled. "Thanks."

Mephistopheles let out a small chuckle and turned back to David.

"Still, even if you are not a sponsor," he said with a building smile. "The question remains, what did you think of the show?"

"It was—"

David's eyes glanced to his left, to where Sam sat. It would have been easier to find the right words without her looking at him with that much anxiety.

"Quite good."

Mephistopheles nodded, pleased.

"Yes, that seems to be the overwhelming opinion," he stated, fingers again moving through his short beard. "But I have talked enough already. Samantha was rather insistent that I assist you—"

Those words having just caused Sam to open her bag, to put this tiny red fairy on top of the counter, Sam nevertheless looked up, the notebook she was clearly aiming for peaking from inside her backpack as she did so.

"She was also rather insistent in asking if you wouldn't get in trouble," she pointed out only for Mephistopheles to offer her this deeply innocent gaze.

"More trouble than I did for your behavior back at the Club, Samantha?"

Sam's cheeks had just gone red. So, David noticed, had the tip of her ears.

"I said I'm sorry," she said with a wince. "Twenty times already. And I am sorry!"

Mephistopheles eyebrows had, if possible, became even more arched.

"For accusing me of running a Game?" he probed, the Arabic-inspired chandelier on the ceiling drowning his face in both light and shadows. "Or for your creative use of the Club's props?"

Sam had just taken a sharp inhale and crossed her arms.

"Not for the second one," she stated, eyes like blue fire.

"Not for the second one," Mephistopheles repeated and, glancing at David, let out an overly dramatic sigh. "Given your reasons that might be excused."

Still standing with his back to the counter, David frowned, attention moving from Mephistopheles to Sam and then the other way around. Was it just him or—

"Am I missing something?" he queried only to see Mephistopheles eyes bulge.

"You don't know?" he practically gaped and turned to Sam, grinning. "My, my…"

And there was definitely something David was missing here, that was the explanation for this panicked sidelong glance Sam had just given him—and how much she seemed like she wanted to flee when he looked back at her.

"Question still stands!" she threw at Mephistopheles.

Chuckling rose up the Black Wand's wood-paneled walls, it echoed between the wands, crystal balls and the assortment of magnets, changing dies and flash powder. Still, it was with what looked to be a pacifying gesture that Mephistopheles made his way across the store.

"A secret is hardly a secret when the entire room knows of it," he said, moving passed David and Sam. "Also, some matters are far too grievous to abide by the Club's secrecy oath."

Mephistopheles stopped behind the wooden counter of his store, attention running over the pair of newspapers that he had left there and this small news article that featured Angela's picture. If the letters surrounded that article were so small they couldn't hope to be understood from where David stood, the same couldn't be said for the ones in the newspaper under that one, even half-covered the aisle of Christ Church Cathedral, blocked out by police tape, could clearly be seen. That and the giant words on top of the page, the ones that screamed the headline in bold, over-sized letters.

"Blood at Christ Church: Student Jumps to her Dead."

David's lips curled with disgust. To the other side of the counter, Mephistopheles was shaking his head.

"Dastardly business," he whispered, eyes lingering on Angela's small picture. "Since you are a member of the faculty, Dr. Styles, may I inquire how my colleague is fairing with—?"

There was this wave at the articles. To David's side, Sam's eyebrows shoot up, right hand closing over David's shoulder she jumped to the floor.

"Fairing?" she repeated once she turned back to Mephistopheles, eyes narrowed. "You—"

Sam stopped, David having just raising his index finger her way leading her press her lips as he took the lead.

"I regret to inform you I don't have good news," David spoke, his voice gentle. "Jessie Mullholand passed away several years ago."

Mephistopheles blinked.

"He—?"

It took him a moment, but a head shake leading him back to the newspapers, Mephistopheles went to gaze at Angela. At David's side, however, Sam's eyes were still narrowed in suspicion, her fingers tapping on her jacket.

"You didn't know?" she pushed forth.

"No," Mephistopheles said, shaken. It took him a moment, a long one, to gain back some of his flare and resume talking. "The Enigma retired some—Let me think it was 1982… That makes it twenty-so years ago?"

"Twenty three," Sam exacted, while opening the notebook over the counter. A curious glance from Mephistopheles, however, and she sighed. "I better know my own age."

David shook his head.

"You were going to say The Enigma retired," he reminded Mephistopheles.

Mephistopheles nodded, smoothing the newspapers in front of him.

"Yes," he said in a slow, pensive tone. "It was a rather abrupt departure. The Enigma gave one last Grand Tour, and just like that—" Mephistopheles snapped his fingers. "Gone."

David frowned, the drumming of Sam's pen against the notebook raising from his side.

"That wasn't considered strange?" she asked, pulling her bangs away from her face.

Mephistophles chuckled, the Zoltan that was on the shelves behind him seeming to peek from over his shoulder.

"Strange?" he repeated and his face opened again, wonder taking over his voice. "Oh, it was a mystery! The Enigma always knew how to make an exit, every year we questioned if he would come back, his disappearance kept us talking for years."

Arms crossed, David traded a quick glance with Sam.

"And no one knew why he left?" she spoke for him.

"We had our theories," Mephistopheles shared with a nod. "But I doubt anyone knew for a fact—and even if someone did know why would they reveal it? Why should the Club strive to destroy a good mystery?"

There was this rustle as Sam turned a page in her notebook. Looking down, Mephistopheles found her looking straight at him.

"Because something could have happened to him," she put forth, tone penetrating. Her answer? A shrug.

"Or he might have preferred to fade away quietly," Mephistopheles pointed out. "Or got tired of fame, or just wished people would leave him be. It would be rather ungraceful of the Club to pursue answers if that was the case."

Sam pressed her lips, unsatisfied. Whatever she wished to say, however, remained sealed inside her mind as David took the lead.

"I will infer from what you said just now," he said, speaking to Mephistopheles. "That you have no knowledge at all of what happened to the Enigma."

Mephistopheles' eyes had just bored into David's.

"I assume he wasn't taken by old age," he pointed out, darkly. "But no. I truly thought him well and alive. Rather naively, I fear, he would be seventy if not more by now."

Silence took over the small store once more. Looking at the newspaper over the counter, Mephistopheles' expression saddened.

"It must have been a horrible shock for that child," he reflected. "They seemed very close."

The chimes that hanged from the ceiling trembled, the soft song filling the air leading David to glance back, to where they hanged near the door. In the meanwhile, and right at his side, Sam had ripped her attention from the notebook to look straight at Mephistopheles.

"You knew Angela?" she pressed.

"I knew of her," Mephistopheles remarked, him too looking at the singing chimes, then at the closed door to the Black Wand. "The Club is rather private, I can only imagine the scandal if any of us tried to sneak our children inside. Still, it doesn't say anything about us attending one another performances."

Sam had just rolled her eyes. Elbow over the counter, she leaned her head against one hand.

"That is a long way to say no," she muttered and stopped, a quick glance being directed at the way David was still looking at the now quiet chimes before she went back to Mephistopheles. "You saw Angela in one of The Enigma's performances?"

It took Mephistopheles a full five seconds, perhaps more, to be able to stop frowning at the chimes and go back to face Sam.

"Yes, on that last tour I mentioned," he informed and crossed his arms. "He called her… Let me think. It was rather endearing."

Mephistopheles scratched his chin, thoughtful.

"Yes, I remember," he finally said and the chimes rocked near the door. "He called her fairy." They rocked so hard it was almost impossible to hear him, that all three of them were looking back now, towards the door and the golden chimes hanging from the ceiling. "My fairy."

It was like something had just exploded out in the street, the door was tossed open, it crashed onto the wall with such strength, Sam and Mephistopheles jumped. For David, however, had the door remained close or flown across the store and crashed into the display to the back, it would have made no difference. He never saw Mephistopheles step from behind the counter, muttering in confusion, he never saw Sam stride behind him and straight for the chimes, anger to her expression. The Black Wand had just fallen around him, he was back at Christ Church Cathedral with Angela, desperately trying to make her listen, to make her step away from the balustrade. He was there with her again, watching as a moment of lucidity made her stare into the abyss under her feet, as it made her sound exactly like a child.

"I used to love fairies," she whispered.

David stepped away from the counter that same instant, he fled least what had happened just seconds after replayed in his mind, least it caught up to him just like the flames used to.

"You remember anything in particular?" David probed, his tone as forceful as the steps that took him to the bookcase that was right to the side of the door. As many magical props as were there, he wasn't seeing any, he focused solely on the place where Mephistopheles stood, one foot keeping the door to the Black Wand open, stopping it from being hammered against the wall again. "About Angela or her father? Were they behaving normally? Did something happen that was out of the ordinary?"

A concerned look being given to this crack that had appeared on one of the door's squared glasses, Mephistopheles looked back.

"You must understand that the entirety of the Enigma's shows were out of the ordinary," he spoke. "But I understand what you mean and no."

David frowned. Still holding the door, Mephistopheles seemed to be trying to understand how it had burst open.

"No?" David pressed on.

Closing his hand over the doorknob to turn it from one side to the other, going so far as stepping outside to look up and down the darkened street, Mephistopheles made his way back just as a group of students started going down the road.

"That child looked happy, normal," he went on to inform just as the group outside burst into a drunken song. "In my mind, she is just this small girl all dressed in pink trying to help her father pack his things. I also remember several instances of my colleague pretending to get her mixed for a prop and preparing to pack her."

Mephistopheles closed the door on the students and their singing, a sudden gleam in his eyes.

"I remember, yes, I remember her being put inside this large illusionist box and my colleague acting confused as to why the door wouldn't close. It made her laugh herself silly that."

Sam's interest had just been peeked, as stuck as her nose had been on the chimes the last time David had glanced her way, as much as she had looked like a bloodhound while trying to look for God knows what on the floor behind the counter, she stepped away from all of that now.

"The Enigma was an illusionist too?" she asked, head appearing over the counter.

His attention having moved to the merchandise the sudden blast of wind had pushed out of the shelves, Mephistopheles grinned.

"Oh yes, if only in the intervals of his more extravagant displays," he informed while picking some cards from the carpet. "But that was not the reason why anyone went to his shows and he knew it. We wanted the showers of flowers, the dancing fires, we wanted that moment when the air went stiff with electricity, we wanted real magic. Even those who didn't know that was what they were being treated to."

Mephistopheles sighed and got back up, cards on his hands, a note of nostalgia taking over his voice.

"Those were absolutely wonderful performances," he whispered, a quick gesture making the cards he held disappear as he arched his eyebrows at Sam's thoughtful expression. "Yes, Samantha?"

Back to leaning against the counter, Sam frowned before she continued.

"How did you find out about him?" she asked Mephistopheles, her index finger going to rest on the red fairy she had put over the counter to push it back and forth. "I can't imagine how one brings something like that up."

Sam tilted her head to one side, raising her right hand to greet an imaginary public.

"Hi, I'm The Enigma and I have magical powers?"

Mephistopheles' face contorted with mirth.

"That would be quite the introduction," he chuckled. "But no. He never spoke of it and I seldom, if ever, found anyone who shared my opinion on what The Enigma was actually doing."

Sam's eyebrows arched, the mirror behind her showing the way the hair on her ponytail moved to the side when she tilted her head.

"But you investigated, right?" she pressed on.

"If you can call being caught inspecting the Deadulus Club fuse box investigating, yes."

David crossed his arms, curiosity making him stride back to where Sam and Mephistopheles stood, the man now leaning to pick what seemed to be a pair of fake thumbs from the floor, Sam with one of her elbows over the counter and biting the back of the pen.

"The fuse box?" David asked, stopping beside her. "Why the fuse box?"

Mephistopheles took a glance around the store, seemingly to make sure there wasn't anything else on the floor, before answering.

"The Enigma liked to play with the Club's electrical illumination," he informed. "It was quite common when he was in the Club for the entirety of the building's lights to start behaving oddly."

David blinked, a glance at his side, at Sam, was all took, however, to tell she was not even remotely impressed.

"That is not hard to do," she pointed out, lips, covered in black lipstick still over the back of the pen. "There are timers, circuit breakers."

Mephistopheles nodded.

"Indeed," he agreed, crouching to put the pair of fake thumbs back in the cabinet underneath the counter. "What was hard was doing it the way it happened, on command, regardless of the circumstances." A sigh broke through the words. "Not that it didn't take me a lot of convincing to accept there was no way he could have every single building he stepped on rigged and that every venue couldn't have allowed him to play with their illumination. Less so when lamps tended to explode."

Sam's eyes had just gone wide, she turned back to her notebook, scribbling furiously as Mephistopheles kept talking.

"Even so, it was quite the endeavor to get the courage to bring that up," Mephistopheles admitted, a rare modesty to his voice. "When it came to it, I fear I could only bring myself to talk to him on the street outside the Club."

David's fingers were drumming against his forearm, the fabric of his black jacket rendering the sound mute.

"What did he say?" he asked.

"An illusionist never reveals his secrets," Mephistopheles shared, a gleam of mischief taking over his eyes the next second. "And then the street lights went out."

Sam snorted, the pen she was holding scrapping at the paper as it put down the words 'exploding lights' and 'weight room' and underlined them three times. A glance at that and David went back to Mephistopheles.

"You seem to have held him in high regard," he commented.

"I still do," Mephistopheles said. "It is strange how inconceivable it is to me that The Enigma is no longer with us, that he could be cut out by something as trivial as death."

Mephistopheles shook his head, just like that he seemed to be pulled right back to the newspaper and Angela.

"Even so," he now said, voice so quiet it was almost a whisper. "It might be a kindness that he isn't here to see this."

Something to the gleam of Mephistopheles' eyes seemed to go out, his gaze remaining with Angela as she looked back at him from the black and white photo.

"People are indeed full of surprises," Mephistopheles stated, his eyes seeming to struggle to abandon the newspaper before he went back to Sam and his voice got back its usual flare. "Not all of them pleasant."

Sam let her head fall into one hand.

"Do you really want me to apologize again?"

Considering what happened next the answer was 'yes' and there was little David could do but stand and frown as some trouble with props and Sam's use of them took over the conversation once again. It might have a good ten minutes before they were stirred back on track, before the topic went back to The Enigma. In the end, however, and stepping out into Cornmarket Street with Sam, David had little choice but to admit that the last half an hour after that interruption had been nothing more than the three of them going in circles. In fact, it might have taken David quite a while to acknowledge that only one question had been left unanswered.

"Did that help?" Sam's voice queried.

And no, that wasn't remotely the question he was concerned with, and with it, David turned back to where Sam presently stood, pulling the Bentley's trunk open.

"What exactly were you apologizing for?"

All it took was a glance at him for Sam to shrug and lean forward, head disappearing inside the trunk. If that was by any means an attempt to flee the question it rapidly came undone, David was still very much waiting when Sam reached up for the trunk's door and stepped from behind the car, umbrella in hand.

"So?" David insisted.

Sam offered him a grimace.

"Is it important?" she queried, going to massage the back of her neck. "The Deadalus Club only took an interest in me because they thought I was the one doing those things at campus, and after what I did in there I don't think they will ever want anything to do with me."

That was as good as a non-answer, God knows why David said what he said next instead of acknowledging just that.

"That wasn't what I took from that conversation."

"You—"

Eyes ablaze with hope, Sam never got to finish. David had turned his back her, on the Bentley, he was walking towards this sadly neglected garden that stood among the night and, had he cared to look, he might have noticed he was standing somewhere he knew, that there was something familiar to the toolbox and moldy portraits and red bike he had just left behind, things being as they were, however—

"You know we are in the garage!" Sam exclaimed.

If David was a step from the puddle of water covering Dread Hill's driveway, it certainly looked like less. Water was streaming down the gravel outside in this slow-moving river that was only disturbed by the water dripping from the garage's roof and the rapid dive into a drain near the old folly. Had Sam spoken a second later and he would have been roused not by her voice but by having his feet sink into the water. Still, that wasn't what would have surprised David more. That was saved for—

"You didn't notice us getting back home?" Sam was asking, the sound of her heels hammering on the gray slabs as she jogged passed the Bentley and her bike to stand right at David's side at the garage's entrance. "You kind of went away on the way here, but I didn't think—"

David shook his head, the sharp gaze he had been giving the tall trees and to the shrubs with their dried branches that were being illuminated by the garage's light, flying right to his side and Sam.

"Did I drive here?"

Sam switched the umbrella to her left hand, reaching inside her short jacket's pocket, a moment later the Bentley's keys were swinging from her finger.

"I took the key," she said, stealing a glance at him, or more exactly at the gray trousers and white shirt that could be glimpsed under his jacket. "Were you working the entire night? I'm kind of sure you were wearing that yesterday."

Sam wasn't wrong about that and yet, having just pulled the garage's door close, the tip of his fingers grazing her hand when he took the umbrella, David had taken a quick look to the mud pattern on Sam's jeans rather than answering.

"So were you," he pointed out, the umbrella snapping open over their heads when he pressed the button. "You weren't here last night?"

Walking at his side, bots sinking into the wet gravel, Sam looked from the driveway leading directly to Dread Hill—and the large puddle the lit lamp over the garage door showed to be in their way—to the neglected flowerbed right across the driveway.

"I stayed at Oxford," she informed, her fingers closing over David's arm as she took to guide him towards the flowerbed. "It started raining like crazy, I bunked up with Helena."

Now, stretching his arm so that the umbrella would remain over Sam as she went up the small step that lead to the shrubs and trees and the many soaked leaves lying on the ground, David stared at her, eyes wide.

"At St. Edmund's?" he queried, the overgrown shrubs pulling at the fabric of his trousers when the two of them started to walk along the flowerbed. At his side, night pressing around her, Sam sighed.

"Nobody saw me," she said, the water lazily going down the black canvas overhead and dripping into her shoulder making her put her arm around David's as she looked at him. "Oh, come on! You are the one going around telling me not to drive through storms!"

"Someone bloody well has to," David grumbled, both of them stepping back into the driveway. On the manor now in front of them, only the warm light coming from the parlor window was lit, the back of a skeleton and the computer to its side cut out against the windows squared glass.

"You can write down the information from this last interview?" David asked looking back to Sam.

Sam tilted her head, arm still linked with David's arm, her thumb distractedly caressing his arm.

"You managed to make that thing work again?" she asked, looking towards the illuminated parlor and the computer wherein. "I thought it was a goner."

"I have very little doubt that it will be," David whispered, the locked front door forcing him to take the key from his jacket as Sam stepped away from him, her hands diving for her jeans' pockets.

"As Mrs. Dalton left already?"

She had. Beyond the door, the yellowish light from the parlor offered some light to the atrium, but the rest of the house, the kitchen, the stairway, the floor above, everything was empty and silent. In fact, and going up the stairway, going by Laura's portrait, the plant on the landing and the large window, so where they and it wasn't until David had his hand closed over the doorknob to his room, until he heard the door to Sam's door being opened and he looked back, over his shoulder—the door to an unoccupied room and the wood bench, all he could see of the part of the corridor Sam stood at—that that same silence was brought to an end.

"Sam," David called out. He couldn't see her. For all he knew she might have already entered her room, she might not even be here anymore, but—

"That store owner," David spoke, recalling a question she asked on the garage, a question he hadn't answered. "He helped."

There was this clicking of heels to the other side of the corridor, just like if Sam had turned away from the door.

"And still you don't seem to be in a very good mood," she spoke.

David scoffed.

"Have you ever meet me in a very good mood?"

"No," Sam admitted and her voice softened just like it would for a smile. "But I haven't lost all hope yet."

The corridor fell into silence again, outside soft rain hit the large stairway window. They should have left. They were still here. And standing near his door, David had no idea why he kept looking back, what he was expecting to say or hear.

"Are you still coming down?" Sam finally spoke and if it wasn't so quiet David might not have heard her, he might have not gotten a chance to answer.

"I still have to go over those bad news of yours."

Sam must have just cringed, her tone certainly made it look like she had.

"I had forgotten about those," she said and the door closed behind her, the bolt clicked, the quiet hammering of Sam's heels echoed beyond the closed door only to stop once she reached the carpet to the side of the bed. There was this quiet stomping now, right before Sam's voice changed to this high pitched register—and why, why David was picturing her crouching to pick up that white, over-sized rodent of hers was so beyond him that he shook his head, turned the knob and hit the switch to the side of the door.

It was already nine when, having taken a bath, David made his way down to the parlor. Sat at the desk, half-hidden by a skeleton and giving this soft knocks to the side of the computer as if trying to coach it into working, Sam took a quick glance at him.

"Mrs. Dalton left a plate with your name on the fridge," she announced. "And I mean it literally. There is a place holder right in front. It reads 'David'."

It would. And that it did earned the same answer David felt he had spent the last three years perfecting.

"I'm not hungry."

Stepping closer to the desk, a glance around it showing David little more than the box where he kept his old photos with Laura and a wallet, David tilted his head at Sam.

"Your report?"

Sam raised one arm over the computer's display, right at the living room area of the parlor.

"Table."

By her lack of insistence on him fetching dinner, David should have known Sam had something up her sleeve. Or in this case, as he discovered as he made his way passed the nearest armchair, right on top of her report. A plate, a mug, and—and a scone. David picked it up, turning back to the picture of innocence that was Samantha Everett.

"What?" she asked, head peeking from behind the old-fashioned computer display.

"I swear you are turning into Stella," David remarked.

There was this lopsided smile on Sam's face now.

"Does that come with the cooking?" she queried, the playfulness to her tone almost causing David to smile before he went to sit not on the armchair he usually occupied, the one that would leave him with his back to the door and Sam, but on the sofa, the pages to the report being put over his legs.

David was right in the middle of an interview concerning someone named Anna Botting when he took a moment to press his eyes. He remained like that as the grandfather clock in the dining room to the other side of the house stroke eleven. He was still in that position when Sam stretched and yawned and, stepping away from the computer, moved passed the armchair closer to the parlor door.

"That thing just flashed a blue screen at me," she informed, raising the floppy disk she had on her hand. "I can't believe you still use these by the way."

David didn't move even as Sam put the floppy drive on the center table and started to leave. He didn't move, not until Sam closed her hand over the doorknob, pulled the door open and seeing her step towards the atrium, disappearing beyond the door, roused him.

"Nothing," David said towards the dark parlor, the report being raised when Sam took a single step back and reappeared, walking backwards, from the other side of the door. "They saw nothing, they felt nothing."

Sam pressed her lips, her footsteps quiet as, leaving the door open behind her, she made her way back.

"I said you weren't going to like it," she said, softly, left hand closing over the top of the green armchair she had walked up to. "You look about as frustrated as I thought you would be—"

The report had just been tossed onto the center table, hitting the unused ashtray on its way down.

"Okay, more," Sam corrected herself and stepped into the living area. "It really doesn't look good, does it?"

David had taken to press the side of his head.

"It looks irrelevant that's what it looks like," he snapped as Sam dropped the boots she had been carrying in one hand near the empty fireplace. "I had thought that with as many witnesses as the cafeteria had, we would have a clearer picture of what happened, even a timeline, but—"

Sam dropped her eyes, her quiet "Sorry" making David stop mid-rant.

"Sorry?" he repeated, turning to find Sam with her back towards the fireplace and clutching her hands. "What for?"

Teeth biting into her lower lip, she pointed at the report.

"That isn't exactly of help," she said.

"Yes, and I fail to see why you should apologize for it," David remarked, confused, and only for Sam's silence to make him shake his head.

"If I approach this with the data alone" he continued and, for whatever reason, he tried—he tried to sound calm. "It might yet make sense. The cafeteria is an abnormality, it makes little sense with the observations in all other events, it might be easier to explain its absence than the inclusion."

Sam frowned, in a moment she had stepped away from the fireplace and the bookcase to its side and, going around the small center table, walked the entire length of the sofa to sit on the carpet in front of where David sat.

"You mean it should have happened at the track?" she asked him, legs pulled to her chest, eyes sharp.

"Yes," David said and immediately looked down at her. "Did something happen there?"

Sam lay her head over her knees.

"I thought it might, you know? I even left Eddie on lookout."

Eddie?

David pressed his lips before the question had a chance to reach his voice. It was unnecessary to lose time with it, he remembered that name, it had glared at him from Sam's first report. Eddie. He was the witness from the track, the one who had himself convinced he was dealing with aliens, and that wasn't at all important, much less considering what Sam said next.

"Anyway, he didn't see anything."

David immediately frowned.

"Odd," he pondered while crossing his arms, eyes gazing blindly at the painting of flowers over the fireplace. "There should have been something."

That phrase, unsurprisingly, didn't get passed Sam.

"There should have been?" she repeated. "You have some theory already?"

"Only the obvious one," David shared, his attention slipping back to where Sam sat, her legs now crossed under her. "That Angela's ability to project herself was connected with her imagination. The timing between the experiments and the events on campus, even the behavior of the shadow the witnesses reported seeing, all seem to indicate she was responding to the stimuli given during the sessions."

A thoughtful expression took over Sam's face. Now straightening, she turned her torso to look towards the table behind her.

"So, running, swimming—" she said, reaching for the report David had tossed there. Flicking through pages, she frowned at the words she herself had typed.

"And the lines?" she went to ask, a frown being directed at David when she looked back to him. "The water changing color? The weights making that kind of pyramid I witnessed? What do you think those were?"

"Possible residue," David theorized. "Or perhaps she imagined it as well, I have no explanation for it yet."

There had been something to Sam's expression just now, something David knew he better pay attention to—and yet he was far too focused on his work to pay it much mind.

"Still, the similarity between what was witnessed of Angela's powers and what Mephistopheles was able to describe of the Enigma's, the fact that in both cases electricity was involved, seems to imply we are dealing with genetic, not a 'gift' like many paranormal researchers and some parapsychologists defend," David said. "Since I proved science can be used to measure the phenomenon Angela could create, since it can find the brain structures responsible for it, observe them while they work, what this means for biology is revolutionary."

The report Sam had on her hands was put back over the center table, right between the ashtray and the silver box where the matches for the fireplace where stored.

"There is a but, isn't it?" she pointed out, back to hugging her legs.

There was. And, irritation again getting the best of him, David got up.

"The truth is that all that is irrelevant without facts to back it up," he snapped, making his way around the sofa and towards the closed door to his former office. "My experiment is hardly valid when I couldn't even keep my test subjects the same each session. My observations, my data can be easily dismissed as an unrepeatable glitch. And then, of course, there is my own bias. My theories are sufficiently known that something like this would easily make my usual critics think I'm delusional. The rest of my colleagues would be happy to follow."

There was this rustle coming from the living area of the room, now making his way passed the anatomical model and the small table behind the sofa were the pictures of some of his old patients were, David could see Sam kneel on the sofa, arms leaning over its back.

"Isn't that a little harsh?" she asked him.

David scoffed.

"Harsh?" he said, looking back at her. "Would you believe?"

Sam's fingers ran over the green fabric of the sofa before she looked straight down, seemingly going to gaze at the back of the picture frames. In the end, those large blue eyes of hers came back to him while Sam shook her head at herself.

"Honestly?" she spoke, her tone apologetic. "I wouldn't. I'm having trouble believing it now and I actually saw it."

David scowled, this time aiming straight at the desk Sam had been working on and the computer resting there.

"And you are not the scientific community, whose skepticism, I might add, strives dangerously close to the close-minded."

"So, what are you going to do?"

David stopped his pacing beside the desk, the mist that pressed against the windows behind it leaving him facing this grayish curtain that seemed to have been pulled over the driveway. He couldn't see anything. Absolutely anything. Not even the streetlamps lining the road just passed the estate's walls.

"I don't know," David admitted after a while, the anger to his voice sizzling out as quickly as it had taken over it. "I had hoped any dead-end I might run into would be in some far off future, but, given this, it seems to be just around the corner."

David shook his head, turning his back on the window to face the place where Sam still was, kneeling over the sofa, arms over its back and looking straight at him.

"Can't Angela's files help you?" she was offering. "I remember there was a phone number there. I can call it if you don't have—"

Sam's eyebrows had just drew in.

"You already called, didn't you?" she pointed out.

The steady beating of David's heart seemed to him to have just become dull. Gazing for a moment longer into the mist outside, he made his way back across the living room and sat on the sofa, right to the side of where Sam was still kneeling, his head going to rest against the sofa's back.

"I called," David told her, the already dark parlor going completely black when he closed his eyes. "The connection was cut off the instant I mentioned I was with Oxford University. I have tried to call again, but the phone seems to have been left off the hook ever since."

A soft "Oh" had just came from his side, the pillow where David sat shifted. Opening his eyes, turning his head to where Sam was, he found her sitting right at his side, the right side of her body resting against the back of the sofa.

"That isn't the end of the world, right?" she said, voice quiet despite the obvious encouraging tone. "You still have the address."

David had just sunk deeper into the sofa.

"Yes, and I haven't had much luck with getting an answer to my letters either," he told Sam. "I actually went so far as writing to a neighbor so I could at least know they were being delivered—"

Sam had just leaned forward. She was close. She was so close David actually could see some brushes of gray to her otherwise blue eyes, that he might have wondered why he didn't mind how close she was if his mind had written any of this as odd.

"You sent the letter to the wrong address on purpose?" Sam put forth. "What happened?"

The back of David's head went to rest against the sofa again, his attention slipping away from Sam's eyes and to the fangs of the Indonesian guardian that was over the bookshelves.

What happened? At this point, it was easier to just go ahead and show Sam and so David got up, he stepped outside the parlor, he made his way across the atrium and opened the door to the dining room.

It took a moment for the line of chandeliers in front of the Viking heads near the ceiling to go on, it took an even longer moment for David to stop looking up and frowning at the third lamp from the window and convince himself it wouldn't turn on. Overall, however, it made little difference if that particular chandelier worked or not, David's target took him straight under it and passed the fireplace, it made him leave Laura's watercolors behind and walk along the table as he strode for the cabinet near the large windows.

Attention sliding over the china and silver inside, not actually seeing any of the cabinet's content, David dropped to one knee and opened the cabinet's lower door. Not a moment later, a pile of paper had came tumbling from inside, water bills, electricity bills, taxes all going to fill the floor around his feet.

"That sure is messy," Sam commented, dropping to help collect the papers. "Do you want me to take these upstairs and go over them? I don't think it would take long."

"There is hardly the need."

Sam had just rolled her eyes, her head appearing over the open door to the cabinet.

"There is tons of need," she remarked, while squaring the many papers in her hands against her leg. A glance inside the cabinet and she had pointed out the colorful folders to the left of the basket. "Those look neat. Two or three more and—"

Sam fell quiet, attention going over the dates on the folders. The first one, right against the cabinet wall, read 1998, the last 2002 and judging by Sam's falling expression, by the worried sidelong glance she had just given him, that spoke for itself. Laura was the one behind that. She had been the one with the patience to go over these things, to organize them, to store them neatly into those colorful folders — of course, now that David thought of it, it was possible she simply did it for fear of what he had just done, which was to simply toss the bills back into the overflowing box and hope for the best.

Right now, just as back then, however, if the entire pile decided to fall apart the next time he opened the cabinet — or even right now — was the last thing on David was concerned with. The letters he was looking for were stuck between the folder that read '2002' and the paper weight keeping the group from falling, and getting them out of there, David rose to his feet, offering the letters to Sam.

"Unknown recipient," she immediately read and she flipped the first letter, studying the unbroken seal before frowning at the post office stamp on the second one.

"Unknown?" she repeated with furrowed eyebrows.

David walked passed her, his shoulder going to rest against the closest window, the cold from the glass filtering through the white shirt he had on as he looked outside, through the squared glass, and towards the same dense fog he had been facing on the parlor.

"Maybe I tried to reach out too early," David pondered, locks of black hair getting stuck on the damp glass when he rested the side of his head against the window. "It had barely been two weeks when I sent that."

Silence descended over the dining room, it took its place over the large table to David's back and the chairs around it, over the fireplace and the watercolors on the wall, over the angel statue standing high over the room.

"It was definitely too early," David whispered.

A blur of black and purple appeared on the window, it filled one of the squares of glass, then two then three until Sam finally stopped in front of David, still going over the stamps on the envelopes.

Was David focused in anything else other than the timing of his letters, was his mind not threatening to slip back three years and to things he rather not dwell on, not right now, he might have noticed Sam's expression, he might have seen the way her teeth were biting into her lower lip, how pinched her expression had become, that crease between her eyebrows. Things being as they were—

"I forgot I had something for you."

David came back to reality, attention moving away from the fog outside and back inside the living room, to where Sam stood, reaching inside her corset.

"Here."

David could but stare, these two paper rectangles, these two pictures she had just given him leaving him to stare at what was depicted in confusion. The first photo showed an elderly man with sharp blue eyes. The second the green cliffs of an island. None told David what on Earth he was meant to do with them and so he looked up again, at Sam, the black eyebrow that wasn't hidden by his mask being raised at her.

"That is Angela's father," Sam clarified, one of her black colored nails tapping the top of an elder's photograph.

At that information, David actually looked. A few seconds of studying the confident face smirking at him, however, left him with this uncomfortable feeling on the back of his mind.

"Where did you find—?"

David stopped short of looking at the second picture.

"Do I want to know how these even got here?" he snapped looking at Sam. She simply shrugged.

"I searched through Angela's belongings," she said, her candor such David was left glaring.

"Sam."

Sam crossed her arms.

"The University was packing her things," she explained. "You know, so they could open the room to a new student? I just dropped by and grabbed hold of those."

David had just stepped away from the window. A disbelieving look being thrown at Sam, he moved passed the table and the empty fireplace.

"We are putting these back," he announced, long strides aiming him right for the door. "If the University was going to ship these to her family—!"

"Those weren't going to her family."

David stopped. The words that had just risen from behind him made him turn to find Sam still where he had left her, framed between the red curtains and with the large window behind her back.

"Those weren't going to her family," she repeated and she hesitated, for a moment she did. "Those were going for the trash. No one wants her things."

There was silence. The hammering of rain on the windows the only sound in the living room as David found his attention called to Laura's watercolors over the empty fireplace, to the stereo, to the many CDs that were inside, to that line of colorful portfolios inside a cabinet he had left open.

"No one?" David repeated quietly, attention going back to Sam and the necklace she wore, the one that had belonged to his mother, that had somehow made its way to her. "Maybe her family wants her things to be donated or—"

"They don't care?"

The rain just seemed to have become harsher, it hammered against the window with enough strength to almost drown Sam's words—and judging by the way she had just shaken her head, her eyes fleeing David's, she would much rather they had.

"Look, those are just pictures," Sam went on to say, right hand closed over her left arm, pulling it closer. "Angela was the only one who valued them, even if the University finds someplace to donate her things, those won't mean a thing to anyone. It makes absolutely no difference if I took them."

David pinched his lips as he stopped in front of Sam. That wasn't the reason why he had just crossed the entire dining room to come back to her. That wasn't the reason why he had just touched her face. Still, he went back to the pictures, frowning at the man smirking at him from the first one and at the green cliffs and gray skies on the second.

He had a very good idea of what he was looking and yet, for the sake of taking Sam's mind out of whatever had left her with that expression, he asked it all the same.

"What place is this?"

"Angela's home," she immediately answered. "The Island of Muhr."

What happened next wasn't anything like David had planned. He had meant to distract Sam, to distract her. Instead, he seemed to have just found a way to distract himself. In fact, it was very probable he had done it to the point he had even forgotten Sam was here. Fingers slipping away from her face, going back to hang beside him, David had just turned his back on the dinning room, he was moving into the atrium to sit on the first step of the stairway, eyes jumping between Jessie Mullholand and the island he was born, where his daughter had grown up.

By the time David finally came back from his thoughts, Sam sat at his side, on the atrium stairs, legs pulled to her chest, attention resting on the uncovered side of his face.

"You just thought of something, didn't you?"

Glancing Sam's way, finding a curious gleam to her eyes, David pinched his lips.

"Yes," he spoke, already getting up. "But I don't have time to explain it, it will prove hard enough to convince myself."

Sam raised her eyebrows. Arms letting go of her legs, she stretched her neck as high as she could to watch David march to the door to the basement.

"To convince yourself of what?" she called after him.

"Not now, Sam."

The door clicked behind David, the light being turned on on the stairs to the basement making a small blade of light appear under it.

Left alone on the atrium, Sam shook her head and rose, a last look being given to the basement door before she went up the stairs.

Yeah, she sighed mentally. Not now. She would try to ask David another time, but be it tomorrow, or the day after that, she would get no answer and at one point she would just give up on asking. David, Sam told herself, would tell her. Eventually. She just had to wait.

In the end, however, Sam would regret waiting, for when she did find out what David was up too, he would already have his bags by the door.