Don´t judge a book by its cover...
“Truly?”, Gideon wasn´t able to hide the hope in his voice. He half turned to me, but Mr George answered nevertheless: “It is all very complicated, it´s best you just go to the Dragon hall for an explanation.” With a last shy glance at me, he left the room, but as he passed me, our hands brushed for a split second. At least I got some kind of body contact.
“Gwaine, the time travel gene causes unpredictable time jumps.” Mr George lent me into a different room. “You could jump from a skyscraper and land in the middle of a war. Or find yourself burning on a pyre. But in this room, you are safe, no matter the time.” He handed me a ring. “This is our insignia, should you meet someone in the past.”
“How often does it normally happen?” I asked.
“Nobody can tell, sometimes travellers, like the Count Saint-Germain, jumped seven times a day.”
“Well at least he was never bored”, I muttered. “Can you control it?” What I really wanted to ask is, can you control me? Will you try to control me?
“As soon as it is proved you really are the ruby, you will be able to safely elapse with the chronograph.”
“Elapse?”
“With the chronograph you will be able to prevent uncontrolled time travels, because we will instead send you for a few hours into a safe time. We only require a few drops of your blood.”
My blood. My attention turned to him, he had my full attention. Blood was precious, it was dangerous, with blood, especially a wizard’s blood, one could do so much harm. I had drabbled in blood magic a while back, and I had been so immersed, that I now knew everything there was to know about that subject. Consequently, I had long cursed my own blood as though no one but me was able to work any kind of magic, or experiment of any nature with it. Therefore, I wasn´t that worried, but still you never know what properties my blood held in this life. What kind of aspects a time traveller’s gene achieved? Blood was a touchy subject. Ignoring the blood for now, I brought another question up.
“If Lucy and Paul stole the chronograph, how is it possible for me to use it to elapse?” “That’s a good question. We luckily were able to get a second one to work. More questions?”
“No, see you later.” The last thing I saw, before I was yanked back, was the perplexed look from Mr George.
Landing in a dark barely lit room, full of old furniture wasn´t how I envisioned my day to go. Snooping around, I ended up searching the desk. It was full of papers, letters, books. I took one of the more interesting looking books, it seemed to be some kind of journal. Depicting the different identification phrases for the different days and what happened on those days. Turning page after page, I found a letter stating ruby on the front. Intrigued and feeling I still had time before the jump back, I opened it and I recognized the handwriting almost immediately: Grandpa Lucas.
“Blood opens the lock and you shall find what is written about you. Trust in your magic. The Ruby, gifted with the magic of the raven closes the circle formed by the twelve.”
Well sounds ominous. I liked it. A bit of mystery brightens the day. I tucked the letter in my pocket, and jumped back to the present, landing perfectly on my feet, though I startled Gideon, who had stood a few centimetres from my arrival spot. He flinched back and lost his balance. Milking the situation for what is was worth, I saved him from a fall to the floor. Holding him securely in my arms. His whole body being held up by me, he was relying solely on me. Like a princess while dancing, being bent over. Caressing his cheek bone discreetly, we gazed in each other’s eyes. He had been completely taken by surprise; pupils blown wide. While I had a gently smile on my lips, someone cleared their throat, efficiently alerting us to the world still spinning around us. Gideon blushed bright red and hastily straightened himself. He wasn´t able to look any of those present in the eye, keeping himself a tad behind myself. Not embarrassed in the least I turned to Mr George, Falk and the glasses guy. “That were almost 45 minutes.”
“Gwaine, is everything alright? Did someone see you?” I casually leaned against the desk next to me. “Sure, all clear on my end. No, nobody was present.” Glasses guy was getting upset: “Our whole planning is going down the drain!”
Gideon had pulled himself out of his state:“Gwaine, can´t even begin trying to catch up. Etiquette, French, fencing, dancing, historical procedures. I will have to finish the mission on my own”, studying my soulmate carefully, I noticed a slight quiver in his tone, when talking about solo missions. Was he afraid? Had he been on missions already? Or had he been waiting for Charlotte to accompany him?
“Please don´t judge me before you have tested me on my supposed missing knowledge”, getting rid of the growing tension in the room, with that simple statement.
“Exactly, I am sure Gwaine will surprise you”, Mr George came to my aid. This time it was Gideon who scrutinized my whole body. Not that I had a problem with that, oh not at all. He was welcome to look all he wanted. My facial expression must have said so, because he again started to blush and hurriedly turned away.
“Anyway, if we are done here today, I would prefer to leave. I still have an important appointment.” If Falk could have dignified dropped his jaw, he would have done so now.
“Yes, of course”, George was more than eager to approve, even though I was quite sure he held not much power in the lodge, “What appointment, may I ask?”, Falk asked.
“I am entering a karate tournament, in”, I checked my wristwatch, “about two hours.”
“A karate tournament?”, glasses guy parroted. I rolled my eyes. While Mr George had apparently taken the statement as personal offence. “You don’t know Mr Shepherd is the worldwide karate champion? How can you not know?!” Glasses and Falk, even Gideon had been startled by the outburst, even more by the content of said outburst. “Worldwide?”
“I told you not to judge prematurely.”
“Fucking hell”, was Gideon´s eloquent answer. “Now that I think about it. Would you like to accompany me?”, I bowed to Gideon and held my hand out, portraying a gentleman incarnate. Stuttering, tips of his ears growing red he replied: “I…yes…I´d really like to.”
I grinned, took his hand, waved with my free one at the three stunned man and pulled my soulmate out for the room. Relishing in the contact, I kept his hand in mine. It was small in comparison to mine.
“Do you need anything before we go?” “Yes, wait here for a moment, I’ll get my bag.” Before he could run back up the stairs, I stopped him with a hand on his arm. “Do you have something else to wear as well? Maybe jeans and t-shirt? It would make you stand out less and be more comfortable, we will need to drive for an hour after all.” “Good idea.”
“I´ll wait here for you.” I called the old man, to let him know to pick us up here and not at myhouse.