Sapphire nodded and chuckled. “That’s the last one you need to worry about. Maybe if the others come home you can just introduce yourself. I don’t know if Bassi is coming home anytime soon but once in a while Mama calls for her.” 

As they spoke the door came crashing in. Angela’s leg came through it like a ton of bricks. She looked in a panic around the room. She took a sigh as she ordered the door back to the wall. “I thought I sensed something bad. I’m sorry if I scared you.” The malicious to kill aura that Angela had faded as she gave a smile to Sapphire and Drae. “Might be all this busy work getting to me.”

”I was sure I sensed her… but here? Would she be that dumb?” She thought about it for a long time before sighing a bit. Her green eyes hit the book they were looking at. “Find anything good in there little one?”

“Yup! I was showing Drae all of my brothers and sisters who come here!”

“That is a good idea little one.” She reached in and pet the girl’s purple locks. “Who knows maybe even Basselina will come home.” Sapphire’s eyes lit up as Basse was someone she loved to hear about. “I can see her now, ‘Look at that wee little man you have mama.’” Angela imitated Basselina and Sapphire began to laugh. “Why don’t you go see what Fern is up to? I heard her in the clinic.” Taking that as her moment to leave Sapphire left in a hurry.

“Did you sense anything just now? It was for just a second…”

When Angela crashed through the door, Drae protectively shielded Sapphire against any threat. Upon seeing who it was that had interrupted them, however, he relaxed as Angela fixed the library door. 

"My love, I don't think that door is going to hurt anyone, other than maybe the occasional finger pinching," Drae said with a bit of a chuckle to alleviate the kill vibes that Angela was putting off. He picked up the book from where it had clattered to the floor when he had stood up in a hurry. 

"She was giving me a lesson in Family History, to help me know names and faces of the children I haven't met yet," he smiled as he patted Sapphire's shoulder. He laughed at the imitation of Basselina, but looked indignant at the description. He watched as Angela sent Sapphire off. Clearly she wanted to speak to Drae in private, and he found that he was needing to speak to her as well. 

"No… nothing that would require you to blow a door off its hinges," Drae replied. "I guess my Patron mark burned for a moment, but it was really brief," he admitted, but shrugged it off. He lifted the book and opened to the picture of Cyprus. 

"Love… I need you to tell me about her…"

Angela smiled and laughed. “There are a lot Love. You won’t be able to memorize them all in one go but we will help you.” She brought her hand up and gently pet his face. Once she sent Sapphire out of the room it was clear that Angela was worried about it. She hugged him and put her chin on his shoulder for a few moments. “I felt something… or rather someone that I haven’t for a long time.” Her eyes were burning with hatred.

When showed her the picture of Cyprus, Angela almost walked away. She was hiding something and it was clear by the way she was holding herself and the way she was clutching her fists. “Fine, but what I tell you cannot leave us. It can’t even be discussed in this room.” 

Taking his hand, she teleported them to her private study. It was a mess from her running out as fast as she did. Her eyes were glued on a jar up on the top shelf in her study. “No one can hear or peer in here with magic. I’ve never told anyone what I did. She deserved it.”

She began to pick up books. “Ash needed a playmate bad. At least that’s what I thought. So I created an avatar to watch over him but my bright idea was to make them the same age. Raise them as brothers and let them love each other the way siblings should. I never watched out of Raven’s eyes. I always just listened. Fat mistake that was.” Angela was upset. “It happened around the time that we had ripped Cyprus’s daughter from her arms. You have heard about Kirika? She is our chosen to take over Cyprus’s position in Arri. She had a nasty habit of trying to kill her children and most of them she did.”

She put stuff back up on the shelves. “We saved a few but it was Kirika that got to her. Something about the birth mark on her… It was the chosen child that some demon had warned her about. So when we took her and hid her… She took something that was mine and broke it. I couldn’t even identify Raven’s body. She just dropped it outside my manor in Sularia and sat there screaming at me. I was so livid. I think I caused earthquakes and tsunamis. I think… I blacked out… I think I killed people in my rage.”

That wasn’t what she was hiding. “Everyone knows I did that. What they don’t know is what I did to her. I tortured her like she did those kids. I’m not one for violence but I absolutely lost it. My kids are suppose to be safe in Sularia and she broke that.  I had her deep in the underground here for a long time. Doing unmentionable things to her… Then I bound her soul to her body and set it on fire. Should have thrown her ass in the Casimir but I didn’t.”

She shivered. “I threw her to brimstone and fire instead. Told her to come back when she was ready to piss me off again. I would gladly kill her again, I told her. I was so frustrated. I wanted to kill her dozens of times over and if I had the power I do now I would have.”

She took the jar down. “This is her or what’s left anyways. I keep it here, where no one can get to it. Where no one can resurrect her without my say so. Where she can’t hurt anyone anymore.”

She paused and looked at him. “Adraejen, why when your mark burned did I feel her for that tiny second?”

Suddenly so much made sense, recalling words that had been spoken so long ago. At first, Drae did not answer Angela's query, but he looked deep in thought. 

Now he knew how he knew her. There was no doubt. She was different than how she had appeared to him, but he knew the face all the same, and now he knew her intent. Perhaps there was still time. 

The warlock sighed, and shoved his hand into his pocket. 

"Don't ask me questions that you don't want me to answer, my love," he said as he pulled the box out of his pocket and pressed it into her hands. "Fortunately I think there is still time to correct this rather egregious oversight…" he said as he leaned forward and pressed a kiss to her forehead. 

"Whatever you do, do not follow me… and do not let the children follow," he said softly as he turned away. "And please… do not open that box until I return," he added as he cast a backwards glance at her before he left her study and disappeared.