Unknown L (Book 1)

~~ Coming Together ~~

Bryce began to smirk, but something cut it short. He looked away and shook his head.

"No, I'm not twenty anything... I'm much older. Let's leave it at that."

L frowned deeply and shook her head. She could feel something pushing at the corners of her mind. She knew it would be something to do with Elves and their ageing process.

She quashed it and kept her eyes on him.

"I want to know though, you look like you're in your late teens or early twenties, and I know that's different 'cause you're an Elf... so, how old are you?"

Bryce was fighting with something inside, and he glanced at Edra for a moment. If L's senses hadn't been enhanced, she wouldn't have caught the gesture Edra made that said 'go ahead'.

Bryce turned back to L and finally replied, "Technically, I'm in my late teens of Elf development since we don't really count in years like Norms do. But none of that means much to you right now, so I suppose in your idea of years I am... two hundred and sixty-four years old."

L didn't feel any shock at his words. Somehow, she had a feeling he was about to say a number like that, and she just nodded to him.

"Alright then... so how come you didn't tell me Edra existed before? I could have gone to her for help and answers? Maybe seeing me would have broken the spell she was under, and I could have found things out a lot sooner."

Bryce's jaw had dropped open. He must have been expecting more of a reaction. He couldn't seem to collect himself, and Edra answered instead.

"He couldn't tell you because he didn't know that I knew them. Any record or knowledge of my involvement was wiped away with the spell. It only had one way to be broken. It was designed as such."

L huffed out a sigh as she let it sink in. She still wasn't sure she believed it all, but hearing that Bryce knew Edra and they had a past made L feel a little better about it. Bryce, on the other hand, was still recovering from something, and L wondered if it was her lack of reaction to his age. Only after Edra tapped his shoulder did he come back to reality.

"Sorry, my mind wandered off then. Where were we?"

"We're about to show L a memory of her parents, if you can bring yourself out of your daydreams long enough."

She flickered her brow at him, and L furrowed her own as she watched a silent conversation seemingly pass between them.

L sat up straighter in her seat and eyed the two of them.

"If there's something either of you want to tell me, can you do it now, please, before we get into this memory stuff?"

They both looked at her with shared blank expressions, which they quickly covered up with a hurried smile. Edra stood up suddenly from her chair and walked over to a cabinet that was leaning against the wall.

"Don't worry about it, it's just some business Bryce and I have been debating over since I arrived... aha! I've got it! Just what we need to make this whole thing work. I knew I had it somewhere around here."

Edra bent down to pick something up, and when she turned around, L felt vast amounts of knowledge push through her mind and force its way to the surface. She couldn't stop it no matter how hard she tried and more was pushing through by the second.

She felt her grip on the room slip away, dragged under as the information took over, and she began to drown in the flow of knowledge. She didn't know how long had passed. Time was meaningless in the void of her own mind. When finally a voice and hands were pulling her up, up out of the stream of information and the living room began to swim into view.