lilith. {series one}

the kaleidoscope secret. {part two}

When Jade Watson walked into the pod she shared with Lilith Holmes that fine afternoon, she could only stop and stand there as she stared at the seven relics sitting before her. They sat there, scattered across the floor, staring back at her emotionlessly. Obviously emotionlessly, they were sculptures.

She hardly made an effort to close the door. "Um... mind explaining?" She didn't know what to say or do at that moment. The wind blew through the opened door and swept through her hair and towards the living room.

Her podmate was sitting in her respective leather chair, slouching down like a child. Lilith normally didn't slouch. Sometimes Jade would walk in the pod and see Lilith sitting with as much posture as she possibly could, her eyes glazed over the room like it never existed and her mouth set in a straight line. The most marvellous thing about Lilith's eyes was that they never had just one colour. It was beautiful.

This time was no different. Those eyes sparkled and flickered over to Jade's face when she entered the room. A firm smile appeared below the eyes. "The artworks. All seven of these were the vandalized ones."

It took Jade a moment to remember the case she had oh-so-thrillingly picked up on earlier that day. Her mind was still flushed from the events with the strange man with the strange voice and the strange car in the strange underground parking lot. It was all very strange.

"Yes..." Jade's voice was slow. "So why are they in the middle of the sitting room?"

Lilith's hands clasped together so quickly it nearly made Jade step back, alarmed. Her eyes, those marvellous multi-coloured eyes, darted towards one that looked like a humble tree. "There's only one thing that connects all the artworks. They were all made by the same artist."

Jade narrowed her eyebrows and stepped in the room completely to sit upon the short coffee table, facing the detective. Never mind the four other very possible seating places she could've took shelter in. The coffee table will do. "So... perhaps whoever damaged them had something against the artist?"

"Precisely," Lilith grimaced. She looked across the room at her, shifting ever so slightly in her seat to face her. "Every single sculpture was vandalized with a different colour paint. Orange red blue purple yellow green and violet. It's odd that someone would use such precise colours for precise artworks."

Jade frowned. "That's just more load to carry when they broke in the building. All those paints"

"Yes." The answer was so huffed and inaudible Jade hardly heard it.

A reminder struck Jade's mind. "Oh, and uh, I met somebody today."

"Oh deary me." Lilith rolled her eyes. Much too quickly.

"He calls himself your rival."

Now Lilith decided not to take it seriously. "Oh? Which one?"

Jade liked telling people stories. She wanted to tell her what he had told her. The man who killed his best friend. The one who burned the entire lot down all because of a quarrel with her that ended horribly. The way he would sit there and watch her skin and bones shamble to ashes. The way he ran, the way he left the city and tried to outrun karma. Then she remembered it had been Lilith herself who had solved the case and caught the filthy man and all his anger. She wished she had something more to say than 'I met a strange and eerie man in an abandoned parking lot who sang a song for me and drove me in a fancy black car.' She decided not to even say that.

"He seems to know you very well," Jade continued, deciding to ignore the strange question she had been asked. "He told me you're very stubborn, and honestly that's not hard to believe."