Eternal Night

(II) Chapter 9: Quid Pro Quo

This clearly caught the attention of the others who all looked on with rapt attention, awaiting further explanation, but before Frankie could elaborate further, they were interrupted by a knock at the door.

Zeke peeked his head through.

"I hope I'm not interrupting."

"Not at all!" Tempest called out. "It actually is getting quite interesting."

"Talk about perfect timing. Oh! And look who I found wandering through the halls..." and he opened the door more fully to reveal Niklaus standing in the corridor behind him.

Tempest was on her feet in an instant as she shouted her brother's name before racing across the room and leaping into the man's arms. She would have tackled him to the floor in her excitement had it not been for the wall behind him.

When he placed her back down on her feet, she smacked the side of his head abruptly, much to the surprise of Frankie, though the others all laughed at this.

"You idiot!" Tempest shouted at him. "I cannot believe you would do that!"

"What did he do?" Francesca asked Jack quietly, not wishing to interrupt the moment, but the three in the hall had heard her.

"This fool of a brother of mine thought it would be clever to break into the palace archives without any back-up whatsoever!" Zeke explained, shoving the man into the room with a smile as Tempest led him toward the sofa by the arm, directing him to sit down between her and Louise.

"You did what?"

"Guilty as charged. But believe me, it was well worth the risk," and Niklaus pulled a folded piece of paper out of the inside pocket of his jacket, placing it in the center of the table.

"You got it," Louise breathed in disbelief, squeezing his hand as Frankie unfolded the parchment. "You actually got it."

"Of course I did!" he exclaimed, beaming with pride as Tempest reached into a pocket of her own to pull out another piece of paper with what appeared to be a sigil of sorts sketched into the center. She placed it on the table next to the page he had clearly torn from a book.

"So my drawing was a little off," she admitted, "but I got this part right. See?"

"Yes, but we need to confirm the rest; and the book I pulled this from had been damaged, so part of the actual sigil is still missing."

"So we still don't know if my drawing is accurate?"

"Sadly not, but we're closer than we were before."

"So what does it say?" Jack chimed in. "I don't recognize this language at all."

"Your guess is as good as mine," his brother admitted, leaning back in his seat on the sofa between his two sisters.

Louise wrapped her arms around him, appearing to be near tears all of a sudden as she buried her face into his shoulder.

"What you did was very, very stupid, Nicco."

"I know... you're welcome, Lou," and he kissed her brow affectionately as Ezekiel dragged over another chair so he could join the group by the fire.

Meanwhile, Frankie had begun to study the two pages in silence, committing what she saw to memory. It was true, the text on the page Niklaus had stolen from the palace archives was unfamiliar to her, but she recognized the sigil from somewhere. It was a kind of circular brand with unfamiliar runes along its edge.

"My apologies again for interrupting, Francesca," Zeke interrupted, pulling Frankie's attention away from the curious pieces of paper.

"Oh, it's quite all right... what are these?"