The Eye of Truth

Frank and Julia had been inseparable, since the night Frank visited Julia's room. Julia's nanny wasn't coming back for another month, so Frank had gained all the more reason to be with her. The anxiety he felt before about hurting her, had somehow resolved itself after that night.

Julia too, was very much delighted to have Frank's company. And as the way it occurred to her, Frank was equally happy as well. Being together was quite fun, they studied together as Raymond had told Frank to study with Julia. Frank and Hannah's little quarrels were always entertaining and so was the time after the study that they spent together in the estate library reading books. Sometimes they went to the gardens and played hide and seek.

A week had passed and the weather became colder with winter approaching and they had become so attached to each other, that everyone on the estate knew how much they were affectionate to each other.

And they had found a new joy in being together, which neither of them, being always alone, had experienced before. They always held hands now whenever they went somewhere together. And if they left the hand of the other person, their hands instinctively looked for each other. Hugging and cuddling to sleep together had become a part of their routine and every night, Raymond carried Frank back to their house as he fell asleep with Julia in her bed after playing together. And they had started calling each other comfortably. Julia had allowed Frank to call her with her nickname given by her mother; Lia.

Frank's presence had reduced Lia's outings to the Brooklyn Library a lot, so Lloyd didn't oppose their deep bond much. But he never would have known that the bond he had allowed to develop was far beyond friendship and attachment only.

Now, on the weekend, as the day Lucifer had asked Lia and Frank to visit the library, they both went through one hell of a hard time convincing Raymond that they won't be in any danger. Raymond was even more difficult to convince than Lloyd. After the whole morning of continuous whining and pestering Raymond, they finally got the permission to go to the library as well as the evening festival celebration in the capital square.

Lloyd was suspiciously complacent with them going out. Though he had assigned five guards to them, it was still weird to Lia that he agreed so easily when he used to make such a fuss before. But she thought it might have been because she wasn't alone this time. She just shrugged the thought off, even if Lloyd seemed to be, in fact, forcing them out.

So, by the afternoon, they had reached the Brooklyn library. The supposed guards were told to wait outside with the carriage.

Lucifer was waiting for them in his original body by the entrance. But as they entered, Frank saw Lucifer's female body behind the reception, which shocked him.

Lia explained to him that it was actually a humanoid artifact Lucifer had made to take his place at the library when he was working on the bureau's jobs.

They walked past the reception counter and several book shelves. Though it seemed to be a small library at first, Frank saw that it was actually very large, with a huge reading room surrounded by book shelves behind the initial shelves. The library was not the one with the best lighting but that was also what made it such a cosy and warm place. The little windows with seats were the only source of natural light in the large reading room. The book shelves were all made of wooden planks which gave the room a slightly dusty smell. But the hearth near the stairs that led up was what had the whole room's charm. The bright light and warmth from the hearth filled the whole reading room with a sweet charcoal like smell of wood burning as if it was an incense. The soft grey carpet in front of it and the large armchair on it. It made Frank want to grab a book and go there and get lost in the imaginary world of words. He could now easily guess, why Lia liked coming there so much.

As they headed towards the stairs which led up to a small door. Lucifer opened the door with a small key. As they entered, Frank noticed the small door. It was alright for a child, but a full-grown adult would have to bend over to cross through it.

And, entering a large hall that covered the entire floor of the library, Frank saw what he could call the strangest place he had ever been too.

He saw a large room filled with all sorts of things he could imagine seeing in a single room, even more than that. Weird objects, shiny stones, strange animals in bottles, all sorts of eerie looking books and a series of destroyed tools and equipment could be seen in every corner of the room. Even though with that, it was surprisingly clean, which was because of a cleaning artifact as Frank found out later. In the later half of the room, was a well-kept area with a bed by the window that looked down into the street outside the library. There was an almirah, a table with a few books laying there and an entire side of the wall covered with shelves and stuffed with books to the last corner. And lastly, a hearth similar to the one below, but only cozier and more welcoming, on the wall right in front of the one with the shelves.

Lucifer made them sit on the warm and soft carpet near the hearth as he lit up a blazing fire in it. Now, facing each other as they sat in a circle around the hearth, Lucifer spoke first, "So, now that I've decided to help you, you need to tell me every thing you remember about your parents and every thing else that you might think would be helpful."

Lucifer looked at Frank's face for an answer. Frank, finally snapping back to reality after being mesmerized by the cosy spot, said, "Well, the thing is that I remember nothing about my parents. My oldest memories are that of the orphanage where I lived till age five."

"Hm, ok, so we can always check with the orphanage about how they found you or who left you there, tell me the name and location of that orphanage," Lucifer said.

"Um, the orphanage, it's not there anymore," Frank said while looking down at his hands.

Lia and Lucifer looked at him with blank faces and then sighing, Lucifer asked, "What happened?"

Maybe Frank imagined it but Lucifer's tone was softer than before but the frown on his face never disappeared. Frank looked at Lucifer and said with gloomy eyes, "Five years ago, a fire started in there at night. Nobody knew about it until it burned the whole building down. I… I was the only one who survived that fire."

"Was it you? The one responsible for the fire," Lucifer said with cold eyes and stood up to go near the bookshelves covering the wall.

Frank could hear his heart beating so fast inside his chest that he thought it would jump out. But he still wanted to answer honestly. If he was to be honest, the one week, that he had lived at the Shuzar estate, was the happiest of all his memories ever since he had left the orphanage. He wanted to reciprocate the goodness the people there had shown him. And to do that, he had to be honest with them first. He wasn't ready to tell Raymond yet, but Lia was different. He had this feeling that he could tell her.

He bit his lips and then looking up at Lucifer with teary eyes, said, "Yes."

Lucifer stared at him for some time, and Lia… Frank didn't have the courage to look in her direction. He had said yes, but now that he had done it, he immediately regrated it. Creating a possibility for Lia to hate him, he regrated it so much that he wanted to disappear.

But Frank continued by swallowing back his tears.

"Ever since I had consciousness, I could see the lights. So, everyone naturally assumed I was a healer. I believed it too. But at the age of five, someone broke into the orphanage and tried to kidnap the children. I couldn't watch it happening and without knowing, used the fire magic. But I couldn't control it… and …," Frank pressed his lips and stopped speaking. He thought that it wasn't hard to talk about it. But it was just his delusion because he never actually talked about it. Now that he was saying it all with his own mouth, it was far more difficult than he had thought it to be. He closed his eyes and lowered his head.

Suddenly, he felt someone's hand hold his. He looked up and it was Lia. The instant he saw Lia's face, he jolted his head down back again.

'How can you be so kind?' he thought.

"It must have hurt," he heard Lia's voice say as he refused to look up.

'No, don't say that,' Frank screamed in his thoughts. 'Don't pity me. I'm don't deserve that.'

"It hurt for me too," as Lia said that, Frank couldn't help but look up.

"You too?" Frank asked impatiently. "What do you mean by that?"

Lucifer crouched in front of Frank and said, "You aren't the only one here who have done something disastrous in the past."

Frank looked at Lia, dumbfounded and questioning.

"She also has a witch's blessings," said Lucifer as he continued to explain in Lia's stead. "And there is no other way to find out the powers given by that blessing unless it's used in person. Discovering a new power within you is not always a pleasant experience."

Lucifer stared right into Frank's eyes and said, "Like it was unpleasant for you, it was also the same case for Julia."

Frank gasped and turned towards Lia, who had now tightened her grip on Frank's hand. Lucifer still continued on, "Aren't you even a little bit curious about her abilities?"

"Lucifer," Lia said his name to imply him to stop.

"I want to know," Frank said looking at Lia but obviously answering to Lucifer.

"Foresight and Telekinesis," Lucifer said immediately. "She killed all the servants in the estate because of the shockwave she released on the day she awakened her powers."

This discovery was more of a shock to Frank than a relief that Lia was just like him. That guilt he had to go through every time he rampaged after seeing a grey light. He could not even begin to imagine Lia going through all that.

He just smiled foolishly at Lia and said nothing about that topic any further. Having Frank's silence as a positive sign, neither Lucifer nor Lia discussed about it any further.

"Now, that we have nothing on you, I don't think I can assure you that I would actually find your parents for you," Lucifer said after getting up and placing the book he had taken from the shelve wall in front of Frank. "However, this might be your only chance."

Frank looked at the book and opened it. The book had no title and it was incredibly old. So old, that its pages were almost look-through paper.

"It was the diary of a great wizard. His name was Agnito Ilea. I think it's a hundred years old. Apparently, that wizard created an artifact that could look into the past. It was called the Eye of Truth. Now, here is my deal," Lucifer handed out a map to Frank and continued, "I'll give you every thing you need to find the Eye of Truth. And you will find it. Then we will use it to look into your past and find out the whereabouts of your parents if they are alive. And in payment for finding your parents, you will find me this artifact and only I would have complete ownership over it."

Frank pondered over it for some time, then he nodded and said, "I agree, I'll find it for you."

Maybe Frank again imagined it but Lucifer almost smiled at him, but that must not have been the case. Lucifer said, "Well, that's good then. Take that diary with you and don't damage it. Now that we are done with our job here, get out you two."

And saying that, he kicked those two outside the library.

They laughed as they walked together to the carriage, hands in hands and somehow more affectionate now than they had been before. Now, that Lucifer's thing was done, they headed to the festival. But Frank would have never gone there with Lia, if he had known what was going to happen there.

Never in his wildest dreams he had thought that he would encounter someone with a grey light there.