Assumptions

Nevaeh kept blinking at him in stunned silence.

'Till this moment I had been thinking that the Cloak did not exist, when in fact, it does.' Loki laughed with heightened amusement, his teeth sparkling white under his wide grin.

'But Loki, you cannot possibly think that this is a similar Cloak from the one in the story!' Nevaeh said, laughing a little as though he were being irrational.

'Similar? It's the same Cloak, Nevaeh!' Loki said it a bit louder than he had intended.

'No,' Nevaeh hushed.

'What do you mean by no?' asked an annoyed Loki.

'It can't be!' Nevaeh said in defiance.

'Are you questioning my knowledge?' Loki asked with eyes as sharp as a knife.

'No, no. But it's a myth!' Nevaeh said.

'Exactly! I still don't believe it is real,' Loki said in an overly amused voice.

Nevaeh took the Cloak in her hands. 'Do you – do you really think this fashionable piece of cloth was created by Goddess Gabriel?' asked Nevaeh holding the Cloak at her eye-level and laughing disbelievingly at Loki, who she thought was logical and practical, but now suddenly had transformed into a fairy-tale believer.

'If the Cloak is real, then why not its creator?' Loki said that more to himself than to her. Loki's voice which was sounding as close to a whisper made Nevaeh's heart skip a beat.

Nevaeh took the book from Loki's hands and shuffled to the page where the stone-like-sun was glowing brightly. She pointed a finger at it.

'This looks a bit like GRACE. They are the same colour!' Nevaeh said.

Loki quickly glanced at it. 'Now that you mention it, they do look a bit similar, but what you are implying is highly unlikely. The Aurora Stone is a huge one, massive, and it is said that it bathes the Nirvana into heavenly light, spreading life. It is said that its size is equivalent to that of the Sun. The stone your family possesses is minuscule.' Nevaeh pouted and shot him an annoyed look when Loki quickly took the book in his hands.

'But I would like to point out one thing. When I compelled you to reveal your scarred hand, the energy that hit me and knocked me away from you felt scarily similar to the one described in the story,' Loki said, turning two pages and pointing at the picture where Gabriel's body was glowing gold. Nevaeh looked at it with a heavy frown on her face.

'Now that you mention it, it does look similar to the light that attacked you!' hushed Nevaeh through wide eyes. Her head was filling with questions. She remembered Loki attempting to heal her hand against her will after the revelation of his sordid misdeeds and how furious she had been.

'Goddess Gabriel was enraged right before she revealed her true self and hit the monster with the light blast,' Loki said, his eyes growing wider with each word he uttered.

'I don't understand. I can't perform magic without my wand. That's like, the basic thing about us. We are useless without our wands!' Nevaeh said, shaking her head. 'And my parents have told me everything I need to know about us! All of this can be a huge coincidence,' muttered Nevaeh with uncertainty.

'Need to know, yes? And what if he thinks that you do not need to know this?' Loki asked quietly.

Nevaeh shot him a glaring look, especially because of the way he emphasized "he". 'Are you implying that my father is withholding information from me?' she asked slowly.

Loki cackled. 'No. I am implying that he could've right away lied to you! It is a huge possibility, you know' Loki said pointedly.

Nevaeh shook her head. 'Our first rule is that we do not lie! My parents have never lied to me!'

'How can you possibly know?' Loki hissed, 'The fact that you have never even heard of the tale reassures me that there is a lot about your family that you still don't know. And I am sure that your father knows about the myth because he has possessed the Cloak of Reflection since a long time, hasn't he?'

Nevaeh clutched her head. 'If – If I find out that – that he has been lying to me – all this time – then – I – I would –'

'Kill him? Oh, I know the feeling,' Loki said.

Nevaeh slowly turned to look at him. 'I would snap.'

'You will know it once you feel it' he said simply.

Nevaeh sighed heavily and put her head between her legs but he did nothing to console her.

Loki was marvelling over the fact that the most important element of his beloved childhood story had been the possession of Nevaeh's family for all these years. The Cloak of Reflection had been the most appealing aspect for Loki ever since he was a child who was able to understand spoken words. He had a flash-back of his childhood, when he was all tucked in under his soft blanket and on his lavish bed while his mother read the story to them and him dozing off, soon getting lost in the dreams of possessing the Cloak which was created by manipulating raw darkness.

Nevaeh couldn't bring herself to simply ignore Loki's assumptions; he did have a lot of experience of being lied to by his family. But after everything that had happened today, she knew if she pondered over this any longer, then her skull might split into two. Nevaeh straightened herself and sighed again, glancing at a silent Loki who was gazing ahead with unfocused eyes as though deep in thought. 'You still haven't told me how you fell from the sky,' Nevaeh said quietly, bringing Loki's mind back into their bubble.

Loki froze again. Not for the fact that he had faked his own death and was reluctant in sharing that information with her, but because a certain urge of revealing a major secret he had been keeping for a long time was suddenly flooding Loki's heart. He closed his eyes for a moment. Could he do that? Could he reveal his one act of mischief which had went and will remain unnoticed by everyone? Could he tell her what he had done?