Diamond Sky (Love Lines Series)

by Diana Nixon

  When the bars covering the symbol were melted, we saw an arrow that was about the size of my palm, and it pointed at the small window that opened right to the Great Hall’s tower.

  “Now what?” I asked Evan.

  “Now we need to go to the tower and see if there’s anything that could explain the meaning of the symbol.”

  The tower of the Great Hall had been closed for years. There were bedrooms that no one used because of the lack of modern conveniences.

  A few years ago Evan asked me to make a copy of the key to the tower where he was going to have a date with Tara. The date turned out to be a disaster, because after that night Tara left Dever without any explanation.

  “You sure you want to go there?” I asked him, knowing how painful his breakup with her was.

  “Why wouldn’t I want to go there?”

  “Well….”

  “If you think I still cry in my pillow because of her, you are wrong.” Yeah, sure. Keep telling that. “I moved on,” Evan said, as if guessing about my doubts.

  “Whatever.”

  “I mean it.”

  “Okay, okay. I believe you.”

  “I was actually thinking of asking someone for a date,” Evan said, walking up the old wooden staircase.

  “Really?” It was a big surprise for me. Evan was trying to forget Tara, and Eileen said he really wanted to succeed. But I saw them together and I knew that neither of them was ready to move on.

  “Yep. I thought it was just about time to stop being a heart breaker. Sometimes I think that all the girls in Dever hate me. Though I know that most of them still secretly want me, but I feel like a real asshole treating them like that. So, yes, I’ve decided to be a nice guy.”

  “Sounds like a plan.” I chuckled. “Do I know the one who’s going to be your next victim?”

  “I thought I told you I wasn’t going to break anyone’s heart anymore!”

  “Do you believe yourself?”

  “I do. And I’m not going to tell you who she is.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because you will tell Eileen, and I don’t want her and Amanda to follow my every step. I know they will never leave me alone, and I really want to have a date. Like any other normal guy.”

  “Fine. Just don’t forget about my sister’s talent.”

  “Huh, trust me Christian, this is something I will never be able to forget about.” Evan hated Amanda’s gift. His thoughts were like a forbidden territory that she was intruding whenever she wanted to.

  There were seven dorms in the tower. We checked all of them, but didn’t find anything useful. The one the arrow was pointed at was the smallest. It was dark and empty.

  “We must have missed something,” Evan said, carefully examining the walls.

  “We are wasting our time, Evan. The only thing we see here is dust.”

  He stopped in the middle of the room, hands on his hips. “There must be something important here. I know it.” He went to the window and looked outside. “That’s it! The portrait!”

  “What portrait?” I asked, standing next to him.

  “See those portraits of the founding families?” Evan pointed to the Great Hall’s windows. “Only one of them is easily seen from here.”

  “And it’s….”

  “The Fairey’s portrait. The arrow is the emblem of the same-named faculty.”

  “So you think the symbol has something to do with our family?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Okay, let’s go to the others and tell them about our discoveries, and the conversation with your grandma.”

  We found our friends in the dining room. There was Eileen, Amanda, Lucas and … the guy from the dungeon. And his seat was definitely too close to Eileen’s.

  “Morning,” I said, bending to kiss her cheek. I took a spare chair and sat on Eileen’s right. The guy on her left shifted. Yes, move as far as you can, I said mentally, watching him.

  “Do you remember William?” Eileen asked, nodding to the stranger.

  “Should I?” I asked in response, still drilling the guy with a murderous gaze. And I could swear Evan was doing the same thing.

  “I thought you knew each other.” Eileen looked puzzled. “This is Joseph’s son.”

  Now I remembered someone mentioning the guy who was supposed to become our new student. But I didn’t know he was our distant relative’s son.

  Joseph Fairey was an outstanding person. He was known for his numerous inventions in magic and other spheres.

  “Nice to meet you finally,” I said, nodding to the guy. Then I moved my gaze to Evan whose attention was focused on Eileen.

  Was he seeing something I couldn’t see? I remembered our talk about her powers getting stronger.

  I should talk to him later, I thought to myself.

  Chapter 7. The Symbols

  “I was surprised to wake up in an empty bed,” I said to Eileen. We were going to my father’s apartment that seemed to be the epicenter of all the most interesting events and discussions happening in Dever.

  “I told you I didn’t want anyone to see me.”

  I rolled my eyes. “We are not kids, Eileen! Do you really think your father doesn’t know about you and me spending time in each other’s room?”

  “Even if he knows, it’s better to pretend that we behave.”

  “For God’s sake, Eileen! He doesn’t think we are playing chess there. That’s ridiculous!” I burst out laughing.

  “This is not funny, Christian!”

  “Actually, it is. Well, never mind. If you want to keep it a secret, we’ll keep it a secret. But could you stay for the whole night next time? I swear I will check the hall before you leave.”

  “I will think about it.”

  “Please?”

  “Don’t puppy-eye me! You know I can’t resist you when you do this!”

  I pulled her to me and kissed her lips that I had been dying to touch since the very lonely morning. “This is how the day was supposed to begin.”

  “Mmm, what were we talking about?”

  I smiled and kissed her again.

  “Sneaking into each other’s rooms doesn’t do you any good, my dear friends,” Evan said, passing by.

  “What?” Eileen and I asked in unison.

  “Yes, Eileen I saw you leaving Christian’s room. It was about five in the morning, right?”

  I looked at Eileen, laughing quietly. “So this is what being careful means?” Her cheeks turned pink, making Evan laugh too.

  “Blushing? Seriously, Eileen, I thought you were a big girl!” he said.

  “You are impossible!” she snapped. “Both of you!”

  “What did I do?” I shouted after her.

  “Mission accomplished,” Evan said, becoming serious.

  “Excuse me?” Confused, I stared back at him.

  “I needed to get rid of Eileen.”

  “What for?”

  “We need to talk. Come with me. I’ll show you something.”

  Evan headed for the Academic building and stopped in one of the classrooms where students usually practiced magic. There was a huge mirror standing in the center.

  “Look in the mirror,” he said.

  “Did you bring me here to remind me how I look?”

  “Just do what I say.”

  I turned to the mirror, and Evan stopped a few steps away from me.

  “Now, make the fire appear.” I closed my eyes and did what he said. “Look at yourself carefully, Christian. What do you see?”

  My reflection in the mirror was swaying slowly from the heat the fire in my palms radiated. But everything else was as usual. Until the moment I felt Evan’s power, connecting with mine. He used his magic to turn my fire into a magical creation. Now I was surrounded by the walls of red flames that were sparkling, making the air around me crackle.

  And there was something else … something I’d never noticed before. The shade of my emerald eyes. It was unbelievably bright. As if s
omeone was illuminating them from inside. As if someone shared his life energy with me. As if the force of the power I possessed was increased by something I couldn’t see….

  “Oh, my God,” I whispered, watching Evan, moving around me, changing the size of the fiery circle I was locked in, and making my eyes change their color. When he stopped, the circle vanished. “So this is what’s going on with Eileen, right?” Evan nodded. “Someone is playing around with her powers. And she doesn’t feel anything.” Evan nodded again, and ran a hand through his hair. “When did you notice that?”

  “The night we came back from Norfield. And today when we joined her at breakfast.”

  “I’m speechless,” I said, feeling the increasing excitement indicating the new troubles coming. “So what do we do now?”

  “Wait and watch. Try to pay attention to everything that’s going on around her, to the things she does, and the people she talks to. I have already talked to Amanda and asked her to do the same thing. We need to find out who or what is behind the whole thing that’s happening.”

  My father’s apartment was overcrowded. As always. Eileen, Amanda, Darcy and Lucas were now joined by Elena, Marion’s daughter and Anna, our friend from Embry faculty. And they were drawing on a plastic blackboard that took up one of the walls.

  “We are still on holiday, aren’t we?” Evan asked, coming to the blackboard.

  “Our holiday ended the moment we returned to Dever,” Amanda replied. “And now we have to plan how to find the spell.”

  “It looks like a police department investigating another crime,” Evan said. “What do all the lines and arrows mean?” He pointed to the drawing.

  Darcy was the first to talk. “We gathered all the information we had found about the spell and the symbols, and tried to connect the different parts of the map. And we found three almost identical symbols. One of them is a symbol of a diamond. The other one has only one difference — a small drop to its left. And the third one has two drops on both sides.”

  “Wait, did you say this one means the diamond?” Evan asked. He came closer to the drawing. “Three almost identical symbols … well, of course! These are different colors of diamonds.”

  “Backwards?” Darcy looked puzzled.

  “The one you saw on the Great Hall’s picture of the sun must be a yellow diamond. The one with the drop on its left must be a red diamond, as a symbol of heart on our left side, and the blood it pumps. And the third one, with two drops must be a blue diamond, as a symbol of water that consists of many drops.”

  We all stared at him, speechless. Personally I would have never guessed any of the above.

  “You are a genius!” Darcy exclaimed.

  “Thanks, I know.” My friend smiled. “So what else do we have here?”

  It looked like Darcy didn’t hear the question, as she was still staring at Evan. Eileen came to her rescue.

  “The first symbol of the line is still a mystery. The second one is an arrow. We don’t know the meaning of the third one, but the fourth one is the sun or a yellow diamond, as Evan said. The next one is a blue diamond, and we know that it’s written on the Great Hall’s moon picture. This one is a combination of a flower and a horseshoe. The meaning of the next symbol is unknown. Then it goes to the picture of the letter ‘M’, followed by the circle and the stars. And we guess it means we need to use magic to get to something with the stars. There’s one more mysterious symbol here, followed by one more arrow, the symbol of infinity, and three red diamonds.”

  “Looks like only four parts of the puzzle are still missing,” Evan concluded. “What the hell could they mean?”

  “That’s what we need to figure out,” Amanda said. “Meanwhile Eileen and I have something very important to do,” she added, pulling Eileen to the door.

  “Where are you going?” I asked them.

  “Somewhere we could talk without witnesses,” my sister replied.

  “Don’t plan anything super big,” Evan said. “I want it to be a quiet dinner.” Amanda grimaced in response and stuck out her tongue at him. And I realized they were talking about my friend’s birthday that was supposed to be next Saturday.

  Evan didn’t like his birthday. And as far as I remembered he never celebrated it. No such luck this time, I thought to myself. If my sister has already decided to turn it into something big, it will be so. Period.

  “Something tells me that this is going to be one hell of a birthday,” Evan muttered, pouring himself a glass of water.

  “You will like it,” I said, patting his shoulder.

  “Yeah, it doesn’t look like I have much choice about that.”

  The moment I entered the hall where my room was, I felt that something was wrong. And then I saw Vanessa, standing in the shadows.

  “What are you doing here?”

  “I wanted to surprise you,” she said in a velvet voice. “Do you remember what day it is today?”

  “The last time I checked, it was Thursday.” I crossed my arms, thinking of how to get rid of her as soon as possible. Vanessa was my ex. She and I dated before Eileen came to Dever. And my new girlfriend was far from being Vanessa’s fan.

  “Today is the Day of Smiles, and I thought … maybe you’ve missed mine.” She came up to me, burning my nostrils with the bittersweet scent of her perfume. She ran her fingers up and down my arm and leaned in closer, as if she was going to kiss me.

  “Um, Vanessa I can see your smile pretty clearly. Did you want anything else?” I took a step back, but she didn’t move.

  “Yes, I wanted to ask you how things are going between you and Eileen?”

  “Why do you care?”

  “I always wanted you to be happy, Christian. The fact that we broke up doesn’t mean that I hate you.”

  “If my memory serves well, the last words you said to me had a hate verb among them.”

  “It was a long time ago. Time changes everything.”

  The talk was getting on my nerves.

  “It was nice to see you, Vanessa,” I said, opening the door to my room.

  “I just wanted to let you know, Christian, that I’m not the person I used to be. People change too.”

  I shrugged indifferently, and closed the door behind me. What a meaningful conversation. True, people did change, but not Vanessa.

  I went to the balcony and sat on a chair, breathing in the wintry air — so refreshing after Vanessa’s awful perfume.

  I hadn’t seen her for months. The last time we met was the day of my return from Eric’s dream. Back then she looked really happy to see me. But today there was something else in her eyes that I couldn’t understand. She looked more self-confident. As if she knew something I didn’t….

  I looked at Dever’s surroundings and sighed. There were so many secrets hidden here, I doubted we would ever be able to reveal them all. And then I remembered one more thing — our university looked like a huge diamond, lost in the mountains. It wasn’t just a coincidence. Diamonds disappeared in the water, and Dever was surrounded by the lakes. When humans were near, we simply disappeared under the water surface, taking hundreds of lives and dozens of buildings to the depths of a blue abyss.

  Had Dever’s shape anything to do with what we were looking for? Were all those diamonds supposed to lead us to the spell? How big was a missing part of the mystery?

  Too many coincidences happened since the moment we found out about the hidden spell. Was there someone in Dever spying on us? Trying to seduce us out of the right way? And what the hell did a new guy want from Eileen?

  The last question worried me the most. He obviously wasn’t happy to see Evan and me at breakfast, especially me. He kept silent for the rest of the time we spent in the dining room, but his eyes never left Eileen’s face. What if….

  “Son of a bitch!” I swore the moment a new idea came to my mind.

  I left my room in a hurry and rushed to Evan’s. I was about to kill the damn distant relative.

  “Oh, no Christian, not now!
” Evan groaned, seeing me. “Why the hell do you guys always drag me out of my bed?”

  I looked at my watch. “It’s six in the evening.”

  “So what?”

  “Never mind, I need you to come with me. Now.”

  “Can I ask you where we are going?”

  “Yes. To kick someone’s ass.”

  Chapter 8. A New Room

  “Why would he do that?” Evan asked, almost running to keep up with me. He wasn’t happy about leaving his bed, but when it came to Eileen, my friend was always there to help. And I still wondered if he had some hidden reasons. It was really hard to get used to the idea of him and Eileen being bound.

  “That’s the question I intend to get an answer to very soon.”

  I was furious. Thinking about William hurting Eileen was making my blood boil. And although I wasn’t sure if my assumptions were correct, I wanted to get things straight.

  We came to room № 303, and I knocked loudly. The door opened a few seconds later.

  “Well, well … what an unpleasant surprise,” William said, crossing his arms. “To what do I owe the honor?”

  “What the hell have you done to Eileen?” I growled, grabbing him by the collar.

  Fights were forbidden, but at that very moment I hardly cared about breaking Dever’s rules. I pinned him to the wall, and the guy grimaced. He was shorter than me, and though he had an advantage of possessing magic, I wanted to put him in his proper place.

  “Um, Christian, why don’t we talk first?” Evan said, trying to take me away from William.

  “Your friend has a point.”

  My hands were dangerously close to William’s throat. But I tried to calm down. “Fine, let’s talk.” I took a deep breath, and let the guy go.

  “So you wanted to ask something about your girlfriend?” William straightened his shirt, and walked to the opposite side of the room. “Go ahead.”