Chapter 5

Ivy, Elisia and Isaac continued talking, as the night went. Alex left after a small amount of time to greet new people. The sound of people and music was behind them as they talked about anything, mostly about how and where they grew up. Halfway into the conversation, Ivy realised that she actually started to enjoy the party. Some people had come up to greet her or to admire her wings while small talking, but that was better than having people staring at her.

The candles around the room made it smell like a combination of cinnamon and sweat. Sometimes during the evening, professional singers came up on stage but that didn't prevent the three from talking, not until a person came up to them and interrupted them.

"Ivy, I've been looking everywhere for you," It was Jason coming out of the crowd. "It's good to see that you've found some company."

"Jason, this is Elisia which you met before," Ivy introduced. "And this is Isaac Deamomium, prince of hell and apparently my new soulmate."

The happy aura around Jason disappeared as he studied Isaac. He didn't say a word, he just looked at him as if he was reading Isaac's minds and that freaked Isaac out. He looked at Ivy, pleading for help but all he got back was a supporting smile before she continued talking with Elisia. What was probably seconds felt like minutes and it made Isaac uncomfortable.

"Uh, can he read minds?" Isaac asked carefully.

Before anyone could answer, he got saved by a small tap on his shoulder. He turned around to face the person behind him. It was three boys, Luke, Jack and Aiden. When Ivy saw them she pressed her lips together in frustration, she didn't want to deal with it now. Isaac on the other hand turned his attention back to Jason, and this time he spoke.

"You'll have to treat her right," Jason finally said. "A soulmate is a special gift, don't you dare ruin it."

"I won't," Isaac replied, terrified of the man.

"Good. Feel free to join us for dinner sometime," Jason said with a smile. "I'll leave you alone now. Ivy, call if you need anything."

"No promises," Ivy called after him.

"Promise me you won't leave soon," Elisia begged when Jason was gone. "I don't want to be here alone with my boring brother. You made my life interesting for once."

"I promise," Ivy laughed. "Can't let you go through this alone, can I?"

"Third wheel deluxe," Isaac muttered.

"Don't worry your majesty," Ivy joked. "You won't be able to get rid of me anyway."

"May I talk to Ivy?" Luke interrupted politely.

"No," Ivy responded to Luke. "I need some air, someone who wants to join me?"

Elisia and Isaac looked confused at each other, then at the three boys. Without any answers, they followed Ivy out, and so did the trio because apparently, they didn't get the hint. So all six were outside in the pitch-black night where only the moonlight lit up the garden. When Ivy realised that Luke was still behind her she didn't stop, she just walked without any certain destination.

"Ivy!" Luke called. "Can you stop for a minute?"

"No!" Ivy shouted back without looking at him.

"Come on. I wasn't the only one keeping a secret," Luke said. "You didn't exactly know that I knew. You're not exactly innocent in this."

Ivy stopped in her steps and turned around furiously. Her eyes lightened up by anger, which made Luke take a few steps back. The other four kept a distance, this was no longer their business. Ivy was now heading towards Luke and didn't stop until there were about 2 feet between them.

"Do you think I'm ignoring you because you kept a secret from me?" Ivy shook her head in disappointment. "No, I'm trying to accept the fact that my best friend was with me as a guardian and not as a friend."

"Ivy, you know that's not true," Luke said.

"Do I?" Ivy asked harshly. "Do I know that? Be honest now Luke, if it wasn't for the mission, would you have approached me that day?"

Luke didn't answer because deep down, he knew that he wouldn't. He would have been with a group which could give him useful information to the Prostátis. They both knew that it's what they do. Young protectors usually just collect useful information. Perhaps Luke would have greeted her only because she was lonely in the hallway, but he wouldn't have put in so much effort as he did that day.

"Ivy, we can't think about what if," Jack said. "We're doing what we're doing for a reason."

"You better shut your mouth now," Ivy hissed. "Unless you want to discuss you too."

Jack closed his mouth, but Elisia gave him a questioning look. He mouthed that he would explain later. She pressed her lips together and sighed impatiently, who knew when "later" would be. There was tension in the air, everyone could feel it. No one said anything, no one dared to say anything. Ivy was still looking at Luke with anger, but none of them said a word.

"Can we please talk alone?" Luke asked the others. "Or we'll say some things we regret."

Nobody replied, nobody took the first step, and nobody knew what to do. They stood there as they thought through the options, to leave or to stay. The four people studied the duo in front of them, the duo that until now seemed inseparable was now standing in front of them, with seconds from breaking apart, or just to heal the bond.

"Are you okay with this?" Isaac suddenly asked Ivy. "We can leave if you want to,"

Elisia nodded assent, Ivy gave them both a grateful and approving look, before they walked away with Aiden and Jack right behind them. Ivy watched them leave until they couldn't be seen anymore, only after that did she sunk down on a bench. Luke walked up to her and sat beside her. At first, nobody said nothing, but then Luke started.

"So you're not extremely mad at me?" He asked very carefully.

"I'm furious, but at the same time I'm not even sure if I'm mad at you at all," Ivy sighed. "Well, probably a little. I'm just frustrated, I guess. Maybe a little shocked, but I'm not sure if anger is the right word."

"So we're okay then?" Luke said, hopefully. "I mean except for that unknown feeling."

"Yes," Ivy laughed slightly relieved. "I can't stay mad at you forever anyway."

"Awesome," Luke placed his hand on his chest and sighed in relief. Ivy studied the dark blonde boy in front of her, the boy she's known for about a year now. Perhaps their friendship started out fake, but she hoped that it would remain honest.

"By the way," Luke suddenly said. "What's the thing with Isaac? When did you meet him? What exactly is he?"

"Just in case I needed to replace you," Ivy shrugged but saw Luke's confused

"Just kidding" She added and chuckled a little. "I met him earlier, he's a prince of hell, and he's my newfound soulmate."

Ivy hesitated before saying the last thing, she wasn't sure how Luke would react, or how she wanted him to react.

"Soulmate?" Luke asked sceptically, and Ivy started to explain everything to him in detail. She started with the shopping day and then continued with what had happened when she woke up. Then she told him about how Jason helped her hide her new eye colours and how she, just earlier, found out that Isaac was her soulmate. Luke listened patiently without interrupting her once. When she finished, he sat there and nodded slowly while thinking.

"So, should I expect a wedding invitation soon or?..." Luke said slowly as a smile grew on his face.

"Ha ha ha, really funny," Ivy said sarcastically and rolled her eyes. "A Soulmate is more like a best friend than a lover."

"You're not replacing me, are you?" It was the first thing Luke asked after hearing her answer. It made Ivy giggle, and Luke gave her a small smirk.

"Never," Ivy replied at last. "That would be an impossible task."

"Good, very good," Luke sighed in relief. "I just realised that we dragged four people into this unnecessary drama, two of them are going to be annoyed."

"Jack and Aiden? They'll be fine," Ivy assured. "How did they get involved in the first place?"

"Oh, they got involved when you found me talking to them," Luke explained. "They came to warn me about you, that I should tell you the truth before you found out by yourself, and that's when you found me."

"They warned you? They thought of you, and me?" Ivy said, quite shocked.

"Don't be so surprised," Luke laughed. "We all get a role to play, and unfortunately for them, they got douchebags as personality."

"Why can't everyone just be themselves?" Ivy asked, annoyed by their system.

"We need different people in different places to get all the information," Luke explained. "We need to have access to everyone because the information we get is knowledge, knowledge is wisdom, and wisdom is power."

"Okay, cool down with the poetry," Ivy laughed. "So are they better in reality? As people I mean."

"Not really. Jack is still a competitive ass," Luke laughed. "I'm kidding, kind of. They're them, perhaps not the kindest on earth, but they often have good intentions or they're just being ambitious."

"It feels weird hearing you talk about them like that," Ivy grimaced. "I guess I'll get used to it. We should probably go back to the others."

"Sounds like a great idea," Luke agreed on Ivy's plan. "Then I have to introduce you to my family."

They both walked in and saw that their friends were waiting for them. There was a little distance between the two groups, but Ivy and Luke just smiled. They got some questions, mostly from Isaac and Elisia and they explained everything, with fewer details. They talked for a while, Aiden and Jack didn't say much, but they were at least there. Ivy still found it weird that Jack and Aiden were good people, it was almost easier to hate them.

After the talk, Ivy and Luke walked away from the group to find Luke's parents, and they found them, talking amongst other Prostátis. Luke's father was a tall man, with dark brown hair and espresso skin. Luke's mother was more like Luke, dark blonde hair and a skin tone that was deep golden brown. Ivy noticed quickly how elegant they both looked, the coupled shone with positivity and power.

"Mom, dad," Luke came forward when the ones they were talking with had left. "This is Ivy, the girl I've talked about."

"Hi," Ivy greeted while trying to hold back a giggle. Luke had introduced her as if she was his girlfriend, which probably wasn't on purpose, but still a little bit funny.

"Finally," Mrs Wintermoon squealed excitedly. "I've heard so much about you, but Luke would never let me meet you. The reputation of you and your beauty makes you no justice."

"Reputation?" Ivy questioned.

"Mother, please stop talking," Luke complained.

"Luke, there is nothing to be ashamed of," Mrs Wintermoon ensured. "And to answer your question, Ivy. You are very famous around here, and famous people always have a reputation either a positive or a negative. In your situation, your reputation is positive. They say that you're a beautiful creature, but beautiful isn't enough to describe you."

"Oh, thank you," Ivy said awkwardly.

"Mom..." Luke groaned and shook his head. "Please stop. I'm starting to regret that I introduced her."

Ivy, Mr Wintermoon and Mrs Wintermoon laughed, and Luke was blushing. Can someone please explain why parents always find a way to embarrass their child? It's like a secret pact between every single parent in the world. Ivy enjoyed it at the moment, but would hate it if she was in Luke's position.

"Stephanie, let the boy be," Mr Wintermoon finally said, and Luke gave him a grateful look. "I'm Harry Wintermoon please call me Harry."

"Pleasure," Ivy flashed a polite smile. "Are you both Prostátis?"

"Strong and proud Prostátis," Harry smiled. "Even in the inner circle if I may say."

"Can this nightmare stop," Luke muttered. "If you two don't mind we'll keep on going."

Before anyone could say anything, Luke grabbed Ivy's arm and practically dragged her away. She could help but laugh at her best friend. While this was humiliating for him, she thought that it was hilarious. But it's because those were his parents and not Jason, as long as she wasn't the victim, Ivy loved this.

"Can you stop grinning?" Luke asked. "It's humiliating."

Ivy continued smiling. She couldn't help it, this evening was going better than expected. She had made new friends, and hopefully, the annoying constantly disturbing from Jack and Aiden would never come back. She felt closer to Luke, now more than ever, and Ivy had found her Soulmate. There was a lot she'd realised tonight, many secrets were revealed, and somehow, she was okay with it. Now that everything was out in the open, it was easier to understand what's going on.

During the night, one of the higher-rated people in the magical world came up to Ivy for a small chat. He was interested in how her life had been and wanted to know about her powers. She showed how it worked and even Luke got impressed by her ability to move things around with her mind. She didn't do much, just something light, whoever the man was very fascinated and complimented her, before continuing his round.

So much had happened this evening and she wasn't prepared to leave. She wanted the night to last longer because she knew that tomorrow would almost be as yesterday, it always went back to the ordinary life. After some short hours, she and Jason went home. It was early morning, and people were returning to their houses. Elisia had promised to call so that they could meet up again, and Isaac had invited Ivy and Luke to his house. Ivy knew that years could and would pass by quickly, but she would always remember this night in detail.

*****

Isaac woke up quite early, considering the fact that he came home very late. He was thinking through life while he laid on his bed. Isaac knew that he needed to go up to begin his day, but he felt lazy, which wasn't a positive sign. He grew up learning that laziness is a distraction and a bad habit. He chuckled, he almost missed the souls in hell. They always got mad every time Isaac did something impolite. Respect your elders, they usually said.

He suddenly felt how his thumb hurt, a drop of blood appeared. He was shocked, but then just laughed when he understood that it was Ivy, being clumsy. It healed quite quickly, mostly because of Isaac's ability to heal himself, pretty useful in situations like this. Healing himself, making people experience their deepest fears and teleporting are Isaac's specialities, his powers. They are practical in fights, but terrifying if you lose control over them, especially his power over fears. When people hear about his abilities, their attitude towards him immediately changes. They start to fear him, they fear that he'll use them against them. Not Alex on the other hand, the moment he learned about Isaac's powers he was determined to become immune towards the nightmare in his own mind. It usually became a catastrophic disaster, but Alex was slowly reaching his goal.

Isaac doesn't know who has it worst, him or his brother. Alex has similar powers, but there are differences. He has the ability to heal himself, but instead of fear, Alex can cause chaos wherever he goes. He doesn't have anything like Isaac's teleporting, either he hasn't discovered his third power yet or he doesn't have any which is very common. The normal amount of powers are between two and three, but there are some special cases where people only have one and in the history books they were told about a man with four different powers which is extremely rare, no one known has four powers today.

Isaac heard his phone buzzing on his nightstand, and the roof lit up by the light from the phone. He reached out and saw that it was Ivy, she was apologising for the cut earlier. Isaac quickly wrote to her that it was okay and that she should be careful next time. He could feel how she rolled her eyes on the other side, not literally. They continued texting for a while when Isaac saw a shadow in the window corner, someone was looking in through the window. Isaac took his dagger and made small movements towards the window, the shadow had disappeared as fast as it had appeared. Whoever it belonged to, they were long gone.

The thought of someone spying on Isaac made his body shiver. He knew that if there is a spy there is something big going on, and something big is often something terrible. Isaac took his arm boost and loaded it before he walked out. He needed to see if the intruder had left any tracks after them. He sneaked out while focussing on what he saw, but he found nothing. Whoever that person was he or she left with no trace.

*****

The day school started again they had to pretend as if nothing had changed as if Jack and Ivy hadn't gotten along during the weekend, kind of. They walked and talked as if everything hadn't changed over one night, but something else had happened Sunday morning. Isaac felt Ivy's worries when he had biology, no matter how many times he tried to capture her attention and ask if she was fine, she always slipped away. There was nothing he could do, not when they were doing a project in pairs and Isaac didn't come with either Luke or Ivy. But the second they stepped out of the classroom, Ivy grabbed their arms and dragged them to a less crowded place.

"I think someone is stalking me," Ivy whispered, but loud enough for Isaac and Luke to hear. "Yesterday, I saw someone outside my window, and my room is on the second floor. The shadow left as soon as I saw it."

It surprised Isaac, this was just another sign that he wasn't hallucinating yesterday. Whoever they were, they had paid Ivy a visit too. She told him about how Jason had gone out to investigate the situation, his magic had found tracks of a person being there, but nothing that could identify the person or lead him to them.

Once Ivy was done, Isaac added his experience of this mysterious person. He told him about the shadow, and how it quickly disappeared the second that Isaac spotted it. While Isaac was talking, Luke was pressing his lips together in frustration, this wasn't a good sign, and they all knew it.

"We have to be careful from now on," Luke warned. "Someone somewhere is planning something, and I guess that you two are one of the main parts."

When Ivy told the boys about the shadow, she had hoped that they would call her silly and that she should let it go, but now reality hit her and she understood that this was important. The rest of the day, they were all on their guards, preparing their minds for the worst imaginable thing. Luke told them that he was going to inform the Prostátis about the shadow. Ivy feared that they moved too fast, that they were exaggerating and got too many people involved too fast.

Isaac on the other hand, knew immediately that something was wrong when he saw the shadow. The tales of the people from the pond of punishment, some thought they got away, others were punished while being alive and now in the afterlife. Most of them had a similar structure when it came to the crime, spy and then attack. It was a classical and well-planned move because later they could use the information against the victim. Isaac didn't like the thought of someone collecting information about him, just to use it against him.

Luke was reviewing all the options that he had. He knew that he had to tell the organisation about this, about the danger they both could be in. He knew that it was the right thing to do, that is what the Prostátis trained him for. But that would include more people involved in their lives, more spies in the area and every detail would be recorded and sent to the Prostátis. It was something Luke had never done, not even as Ivy's guardian. He respected her privacy and made sure only to send in the things that were necessary. This could get him replaced, this could make him lose his job as Ivy's guardian, but he didn't have the heart to tell them all her secrets, especially not when she'd trusted them to him.

Luke was now torn between what he's been told to do and what he wanted to do, so he made up his mind. He was going to talk to his parents and then Jason, to get some other opinions. Jason had always been good at giving advice, even before he knew that Luke was Ivy's guardian. Perhaps Jason had some ideas before he told the whole organisation. Luke was going to inform his parents, he knew that they would always have his back, he just hoped that he was making the right decision.