<---VOTE! VOTE! VOTE!

I made my way to the back alley of the mall. I stood around, waiting for Gerrard to appear. I felt shivers go up and down my spine as I waited in the eerie looking alley. The walls were made of brick and were dirty, the ground was littered with garbage. I could make out a security camera just above me. I wondered if it worked. And if it did, what the security guards would think once Gerrard Transported into the alley.

A faint popping noise indicated his arrival. I looked up at him and then pointed at the camera.

"It doesn't work," Gerrard told me, walking up to me.

"How do you know?" I asked.

"Because," he said, "I'm the one that made it stop."

I rolled my eyes at him and he took my arm. We landed gracefully on the ground in front of the tall wrought iron gates of Eljah's mansion. It looked a lot less haunted in the daylight, which was a relief to me. I followed Gerrard into the house after he tapped the doors with that metal stick thing.

"What is that?" I asked him.

"Elijah fashioned one for each of us. They were tree branches, but Ellijah infused them with silver. They act as a key to get in and out of the manor. And they also serve as a means of communication," he explained.

"How do they help you communicate?" I asked.

"It freezes when he's calling a regular meeting, it burns when he's holding an urgent meeting. Things like that," he told me. I nodded.

"Will I get one?" I asked.

"Maybe," he replied. "If he decides to keep you alive and on our side," he added with a smirk. I glared at him, but felt my heart race faster nonetheless. Would Elijah really kill me?

Gerrard led me to a different room this time. It looked like it was supposed to serve the purpose of a formal dining room, but at the moment, it looked more like a meeting room. There was a long wrought iron table with delicate designs in the center of the room with several dozen chairs around it. Elijah was sitting on the far end, by the windows. The curtain in front of one of the windows was drawn back, allowing light to pour in.

Next to him were his two minions, the man and the woman. Other than that, the room was empty.

"Ah, Caley. So good to have you," Elijah told me.

"How long is this going to take?" I asked, ignoring his greeting. His eyebrow twitched in amusement.

"How long do you have?" he questioned.

"Well, I told my father what you told me to tell him. Typically, movies last an hour and a half and then shopping would take another hour or two. So I have about three hours," I said.

"That's plenty of time. You'll be back before 5," Elijah said.

"Good," I said, pulling out a chair and sitting down.

"Thank you, Gerrard. You may leave," he said. Gerrard nodded respectfully at Elijah and then exited the room.

"So, I trust you now know what the Trinity is?" he asked.

I nodded.

"Gerrard explained it to me," I said.

"Do you have any questions?" he asked.

"A few, but they don't all have to do with the Trinity," I said.

"I won't answer anything about your mother until later," Elijah told me.

"Fine. Who are those two?" I asked, pointing at the two figures that were on either side of Elijah.

"These are my assistants. This is Gianna and this is Isaac," he explained.

I scrutinized them and they looked at me with an air of arrogance about them.

"Is Gerrard your son?" I asked.

"That's something you should discuss with him," he answered.

"Are you going to kill me?" I asked. He chuckled.

"Of course not," he answered.

I pursed my lips and looked at him.

"All right. That's all I have. Now tell me about my mother," I said.

"Very well," he said, leaning forward. He placed his elbows on the table and crossed his fingers in front of him, peering at me over them like he did when we first met.

"When your mother was your age, it wasn't me that was in charge of the dark side. It was another man named Jerome. During that time, I served the same purpose that Gerrard serves now. I was your mother's guardian, for lack of a better word. She had no idea, of course, until we contacted her. Just the same with you. But we found her in almost the same way. She was independent and strong, much moreso than you are now. At the time, she had just been engaged to your father. She was going to become a Lucia. And that's when it was important to recruit her," he explained.

These words stirred something in the back of my mind.

I remembered the conversation I had had with Valenya, the elderly woman with the white hair and brilliant violet eyes that owned the antique shop in Trinity Hollow; the one that sold Trey the necklace I had around my neck.

"He is not a female of the Lucia surname," she had told me.

What did that mean?

I hadn't had a chance to ask her to explain because at that moment, Natalia had burst in and forbade me from ever talking to her again. But that wasn't going to happen. Clearly, Valenya knew more than I thought and she could give me some answers, too.

"I was once told by someone that there was something more to women that had the Lucia surname," I said.

"You've spoken with Valenya, then?" he asked. I blinked. How did he--?

"I know because Gerrard has been following you, remember?" he told me, answering the question that hadn't even formed in my mind.

I glared at him. He was reading my thoughts. I closed my mind off, something I had been practicing ever since that first night when Gerrard so easily intruded the thoughts in my brain. I was getting pretty good at it, but I knew Elijah and probably everyone that worked for him were a lot strong than me and could evade my mind whenever they wanted. My attempts, at this point, were futile.

"Well, what did she mean, then?" I asked.

"It dates back to a very long time ago, before the Trinity was created, when magic first came to be. One witch had come into existence, a female. How this happened is completely unknown and has not been investigated yet. But this original witch was very, very powerful. She had magic beyond any normal witch's realm. She was the master of all elements and phenomena and could have easily killed anyone she met. But instead, she used her power to fashion other witches and wizards. She needed companions and wanted to continue the race of the Magii. So she created several other Magii: one that was the master of water, one the master of fire, a master of air and weather, and one for the earth. It's still unknown as to how the seers were made," Elijah explained.

"But anyway, the water master was a devilishly handsome young man, but he desired power. He wanted the same amount of power that the original witch had. So he tried to fool her into falling in love with him, but she found out his plan. And so she put a curse on him, that any woman that falls in love with a man that has the ability to master water will be doomed," Elijah said.

I swallowed hard, absorbing the information that Elijah was giving me.

"Wait, but I thought you said that she cursed the man? It sounds like a curse for the woman," I said.

"Precisely. But you have to look beneath the surface. Because of the curse, any man that was the master of water could never fall in love, out of fear of hurting the woman he loves," he explained.

I felt my eyebrow twitch as I took in this information.

"And since the Lucia line is the only line left of the water masters, the curse only applies to us?" I asked.

Elijah nodded. I rubbed my forehead, feeling confused.

"But what does that have to do with me?" I asked.

"Well, that's what is strange. Valenya predicted, when you were born, that the curse would transfer on to you. This made no sense because you are a female Lucia," Elijah said.

"So I'm cursed?" I asked.

"Perhaps. It is extremely difficult to decipher what seer's predict. Their words can have more than one meaning and can be interpreted in many different ways," Elijah said.

"So I might not be cursed?" I asked.

"Maybe not," he replied.

"What does this have to do with my mother?" I asked.

"Once she found out about the curse, she wanted to do everything in her power to make sure it didn't work. She loved your father, you see," he explained.

"I'm confused," I sighed, leaning back in my chair.

"Let me explain," Elijah said, leaning forward. "Just like all things, a curse also has an opposite: a countercurse. There is always a way to reverse a curse with a counter one," he explained.

"So why did she join the dark side?" I asked.

"Because the dark is only the dark side because we want to be able to do magic freely. In order to find a counter to a curse that is so ancient like the one put on the water masters, it is essential that we be able to practice magic as we wish. Because whatever the counter is to that curse in particular, it will be powerful, just like the curse itself," he told me.

I frowned, letting this sink in.

"But it didn't happen, did it?" I asked.

"What do you mean?" he questioned.

"Well, you didn't win. It was all in vain," I said.

"Exactly," Elijah said with a nod.

I gazed at him for a moment before his response sank in.

He was recruiting me so that I could finish my mother's work. He was asking me to join his army so that I could help to finally take this curse off my family.

My thoughts wandered to Trey.

If the curse did somehow transfer to me, that meant that whatever was going on between Trey and me was either transitory and would have to end soon or I was going to have to find this countercurse to save any chances of me staying with Trey.

I closed my eyes and rubbed my temples.

I couldn't let Trey go, that much I was certain of. Even in just the short period of time that we had known each other, I had grown much too close to him. I knew those painful yearnings that I got whenever I was with him meant that I felt very strongly about him. And the fact that this past week without him was extremely excruciating for me just backed this up further.

No, I was going to have to agree to whatever Elijah had in mind. I needed to find this countercurse. I needed to pick up the pieces that my mother had left behind and take up the fight that she was forced to abandon due to her death.

Her death.

Elijah had told me why my mother had joined forces with him, but he hadn't told me why she died.

I looked up at him.

"How did she die?" I asked.

"Your mother?" he asked.

"No, Helen Keller," I replied sarcastically, saying the first famous female name that popped into my mind. Elijah raised an eyebrow at me.

"How did my mother die?"I clarified.

Something flashed through Elijah's eyes. I couldn't place what it was. It wasn't an emotion, at least I didn't think it was. It was something else, but I had no idea what. He took a deep breath before answering my question.

"She died because your father found out what she was trying to do. He didn't agree and left her," he told me.

"So she died of depression? I think it was a little more extreme than tha-" I began.

"She had figured out one part of the countercurse," Elijah interrupted. I fell silent and allowed him to continue.

"It was love. And since your father left her and abandoned her love, the curse lived on. She died because he stopped loving her," he said.

I felt my heart racing faster and faster and my hands clenched in fists on the table in front of me. I felt anger bubble up inside of me, filling me so that I began to see red.

Was what Elijah was telling me true? If it was, it meant that my father really was the one that killed her and that I was right in blaming him. But he told me over and over again that he loved her. Did he realize that after she died? Did he feel guilty about it now? Is that why it was so painful for him to talk about her death? Because he was the one that killed her?

And the curse rebounded on him because since she died, he was left loveless. That was his curse: living a life of guilt. Because every time he saw my face, he was reminded of what he had done to my mother. I was his punishment, a living reminder of his abandonment.

It was all making sense, the pieces falling into place one by one.

As I looked across the table at Elijah, I realized that all my doubts about being here were worthless. This was the right thing to do. This is where I should be. I was going to avenge my mother's death and make sure she didn't die for nothing. I was going to continue to fight and figure out the countercurse. I wasn't going to condemn myself to a cursed life. I was going to be happy. And the only way to do it was to join forces with Elijah.

"I think we have chatted long enough, don't you?" Elijah asked me, pulling me out of my storm of thoughts.

"I think I've heard all I've wanted to," I replied.

"Excellent, excellent," Elijah said, a glint in his blue eyes. "I will have Gerrard contact you soon for our next meeting. Wear something comfortable," he said.

"What--?" I began to ask, but was ushered out, as Gerrard had walked into the room at that moment.

Gerrard led me outside. My mind was still preoccupied, but I had one last question before we went back to the mall, where my father would pick me up. Gerrard handed me a shopping bag just as I opened my mouth to ask my burning question.

"What's this?" I asked, taking the bag.

"You told your father that you were going shopping for a new bathing suit. There are three in there," he replied simply, leaning against the archway that led to the foyer. I looked up into his icy blue-grey eyes. He wore a bored expression on his face.

"So this is what you were doing for three hours? Shopping for bathing suits for me?" I asked.

"All a part of the job," he replied. I chuckled and opened the bag.

My smile immediately fell when I saw the skimpy bathing suits inside.

"There is no way in hell that I would ever wear something like this," I said, pulling out a blood red bandeu-bikini top that had black lace over it.

"Why not? You'd look extremely hot in it," he replied, a smirk on his lips. I glared at him.

"I repeat, there is no way in hell that I'm wearing this. It looks like freaking lingerie," I said, shoving the bikini at him. He let out a low rumbly laugh and pushed it back towards me.

"That's the point. And you will wear it. I bet your pansy of a boyfriend would love to see you walking around in that when you go stay at his beach house," Gerrard said. I narrowed my eyes at him.

"You are the creepiest stalker in the world. And I am not wearing this," I said, throwing the top back into the bag. "And don't talk about my boyfriend," I snapped. He smirked at me.

"Whatever you say, my love," he whispered. I felt an involuntary shudder run down my spine and took a step back.

I rummaged through the remaining bathing suits. One was a black one-piece that had it's sides cut out. The other was an aqua bikini that had silver beads on the ties. They were a little more decent than the red one, which was just beyond scandalous.

"Ready to go?" he asked, leaning against the wall again. "Or would you like to do a little fashion show for me?" he asked, wiggling his eyebrows at me. I aimed a kick at him, but he deflected it easily.

"So no to the fashion show?" he asked. I rolled my eyes at him.

"Just take me home," I said.

My question would have to wait for another time, but I was going to find out: was Gerrard Elijah's son?

______________________________________________________________________

A/N: LOTS of information in this chapter. Now we know why and how Caley's mother died. And now we know that Caley will most probably become a part of the dark side.

Stay tuned for more delightful magic-ness!

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XOXO