Page 318 of The Blairville Legacies

“Why did you want to see me?”

He pulled his hands out of the pockets of his trousers and leaned against the kitchen counter. Just as he had done back then. This house made him feel young, even though there were almost twenty years between his current self and his old self.

“Why did you give my daughter this book?”

She turned to him questioningly. In her hand was the blue leather book with the golden dragonfly. But it wasn't justanydragonfly that she had let print on her cover back then. It had beentheirdragonfly, the dragonfly of all the members. Their common symbol.

He cleared his throat.

He had never expected Diana to confiscate it. The fact that she had discovered it alone was something he should have taken into consideration. Diana had always been the most observant of them all.

“So that someone other than us can read her words,” he said, to be honest at least.

Diana eyed him thoughtfully before expressing her displeasure.

“Her words are dangerous, especially for our kids. Just like the contact between our children is on campus.”

“Diana, you know how I feel about the contract.” He was annoyed, not with Diana, but with this ridiculous agreement that seemed to haunt him like a curse. “You know what she thinks...thoughtof the contract...”

In his mind, he was back in the past.

“Wesawlast night what can happen when the species don't stay away from each other,” Diana dodged his suggestion.

Her eyes were bloodshot and her shoulder-length dark blonde hair was disheveled. You could tell she was exhausted, especially after what had happened to her daughter.

“It's not about thespecies, Diana. You know that as well as I do.” She looked down at the floor. And he knew he'd hit the mark. “Ifshesaw what we've become, she'd turn over in her grave.”

His own words caused him incredible pain.

He bit his lower lip.

How could something so far in the past still affect him so much? He asked himself that every last Tuesday of the month when he wrote another letter and then put it in the drawer; when he went through the pictures from back then and when he was always on the verge of entering the room.A room full of memories.

“We both signed the new contract. You were there, Alarik,” Diana told him firmly. “And we should finally realize that it's better this way.”

He wanted to see it. But he didn't see it. He remembered the values they had all shared, ahigher ideathey had all held.Shehad warned him that the project must not be forgotten. He remembered that. The way she had laid there and stared at him, her pleading look, almost panicked. It had broken his heart.

“I'm giving you this book hoping I'll never see it in Bayla's hands again.”

She looked at him insistently.

He wondered what she had done with her own copy. He still knew Diana from back then. She had even helped work out the plans. It would never have occurred to him that she would change her mind in such a radical way. That she would evengive upon their shared project.

But he finally nodded.

Diana looked at him for a moment, and he was about to ask if something was bothering her when she pressed the book into his hand.

“I know her words meant a lot to you,” Diana sighed.

He swallowed and looked at the dragonfly imprinted in gold. Her words were the real gold. They were music to his soul.

“She would have liked others to read it, too,” he finally said and turned to leave.

He was in no hurry, but he didn't want to stay here either. The house with all the memories evoked far too many emotions in him.

He thought about how Diana had managed to live here – going to work every day, cooking here, sleeping here – up there, where her room used to be. He wondered if it still looked the same.

“Alarik...” Diana said when he had almost reached the door. He turned to her with expectation. “I miss her just as much.”

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