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Sonia looked taken aback at Faith’s easy agreement.

The other woman must have noticed because she grinned in response. “You usually have a hard time getting families to agree to join your group?”

Sonia nodded. “Well, lost lines don’t turn up very often but yes, they tend to fear being subsumed – and most of them didn’t have their first encounter with the families by one of them trying to kill them. We expected that to make things harder.”

Faith chuckled. “Well, yes, I might have been more cautious but you did send Alison, Logan and the others back unharmed when you would have been justified in not doing so.” She paused and pointed to the sky. “And then there’s that. You need our help and in the circumstances it would be remiss of us to refuse it.” Read the rest of this entry »

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Silence followed Alison’s statement. Daniel stared at the girl; she was still hugging herself but now had a defiant look on her face as if she were daring them to argue with her. He risked a look sideways at his parents and saw they looked just as stunned as he felt.

“How?” Matthias asked eventually.

“The normal way, I imagine,” Alison said. Read the rest of this entry »

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“Mum! Dad!” Daniel rose to his feet as Arran led his parents and Sarah Tyler. “You came! What about the meeting?”

“You’re more important than the meeting, Dan,” Sonia said. “We were worried.”

“We wouldn’t have detained them,” the woman said. “We just wanted to know what’s going on.” She held out a plate piled high with burgers. “Please join us. I am Faith Silver, these are my brothers Arran and Edward.” She nodded to Arran and th Read the rest of this entry »

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“Mum! Dad!” Lydia leapt to her her feet as Sonia and Matthias came into the lounge. “It’s all gone wrong! What are we going to do?”

“Hush, Lyd,” Matthias said. “It’s not your fault. There’s no way you could have predicted this. The good news is that we don’t sense any danger to Dan, so this family probably isn’t hostile. As to what we are going to do: Sonia and I are going to talk to them. Probably Sarah as well.”

“Definitely!” Sarah said. Read the rest of this entry »

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Daniel tried to keep his wits about him as they headed into the garden of the house. Arran seemed friendly enough in the circumstances but he could be dissembling, though Daniel could not think of any reason why he would.

“Julie!” A young man came running down the path to them. “It was you who was looking for us? Are you okay? We couldn’t find you when the warriors sent us back and we were worried about you.” Read the rest of this entry »

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“Complicates things?” Daniel asked.

Julie nodded. “We’ll have to be very careful about how we approach them. Lost lines tend to be rather touchy even in the best circumstances and given their encounter with the Turners this is not the best of circumstances. We’ll need to discuss it so let’s go–” She broke off and swore before whirling around. Daniel swallowed and turned as well. There was a man standing behind them, staring right at them. He chocked back a wave of panic, both because he hadn’t sensed the man and because the man had apparently managed to get through his wards and sense them. Read the rest of this entry »

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“Hmm… it’s a big house.” Daniel looked over the semi-detached Edwardian house. Julie had scryed out the location of Alison and Logan with Kyle and Darya and that had led them here.

“Yes, and a very big garden,” Julie looked thoughtful. “Interesting.”

“What is it?” Read the rest of this entry »

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“Organise scoping things out?” Lydia muttered to herself a couple of hours later. She was sitting at the desk in her and Karen’s room trying to come up with a plan and drawing a blank. “How am I supposed to do that?”

“Having trouble?”

Lydia looked around and saw Julie standing in the door. Read the rest of this entry »

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“Of course I’ll help Sarah-alra,” Draylian said when Matthias spoke to him the next morning. “It’s not likely that you’ll find a cure but even a remote possibility is better than nothing.” He was rubbing his hands together anxiously and twitching slightly. “I don’t want to be a dragon but I don’t know how much longer I can hold out.”

“Not long by the looks of it,” Lyrrekka said. “I really think once Sarah has run her tests, you need to think about this hard. You know you’re going to slip up soon and you know how much damage a frenzy will do.” Read the rest of this entry »

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“That’s not a bad idea, Lydia-ida,” Indaturan said once she told him and Ystelyan about her conversation with her mentor. “And for once I actually agree with Fellaria-ida. I have no idea why we didn’t think to try that before. It’s suspicious and just makes me even more certain that we should try it.” He hummed to himself. “Now, who would be best to send? I don’t think we should send just one. If my gut is right and someone doesn’t want us looking at the tear from the void side, they might have a trap set.”

Ystelyan nodded. “I agree.” Read the rest of this entry »