Anya soundly slept all the flight to Cusco. In her dreams, she witnessed ancient pyramids with their tops concealed in mystical mist built and turned to ashes. She traveled through dark, solemn woods that whispered in her ears, revealing secrets of the beyond. She walked among the shadows of yet-to-come and with the spirits of the bygone...
After all these visions created by her slumbering mind, Anya felt shattered to pieces and even more tired that before falling asleep. The daitias, on the other hand, seemed peculiarly vigorous and full of energy. Except for Nikk though, who casted Anya a concerned look on their way out of the airport, suggesting that his dreams could be of some the same kind.
Despite everything, the Peruvian city welcomed its visitors with warming sunshine and jolly hustle and bustle in the streets. Fresh wind brushed Anya's skin and the air of adventures soon filled her lungs with calmness and determination once again.
"Well, the lord of the GPS, where are we to go now?" Nikk asked Eirney as they all stood in a central city square facing a majestic cathedral.
"Inspiring," Rill said, gazing upon distant hills where a hundred of tiny red-roofed houses were scattered. Green forests were fading in the horizon, dressing up the nature in its ultimate power and beauty. "Can you hear those trees silently saying that they've been growing here long before human race and would be growing still long after it's gone? I can."
"Now we're to go through those exact trees," Eirney rubbed his forehead, frowning at his digital map. "Maybe we stop here for a while and have some rest en la ciudad?"
"Have some rest?" Daphne gave him an annoyed glance. "You've been snoring for six hours straight in the plane and now you want to have some rest?"
"My neck always aches in planes. I need time to recover." Eirn made a sick face. "And some real food, not that half-frozen half-burned apple pie I've been fed aboard."
Nick listened to his sister argue with Eirney for a few minutes, then loosed a breath of irritation and said, "How about a compromise? Let's have a break from each other for two hour. Rest, eat, find a car to drive through the woods and then go?"
Surprisingly, everyone agreed. Anya wondered whether Nikk was born good at parleying or was he just good at sensing Daphne's mood and knew ways of reasoning her. The second guess soon proved to be wrong, actually.
In a few minutes, the daitias somehow drifted away, mingling with the masses and vanishing from the view. Anya found herself left alone with Amarillis. They bought ice cream and lazily roamed along the busy street stashed with souvenir stalls.
Folks were shouting and rushing back and forth, flashing before Anya's eyes in a chaotic dance. Nauseating. Anya never liked crowds, never understood those who loved parties or being surrounded by unfamiliar people, their searching eyes and their silly jokes. Besides, the air in the market place was so hot and stuffy, it was hard to breathe.
"Look at those shawls," Rill stopped by a stall covered with scarves and capes of all colors. She ran her hand over the clothes and drew her eyebrows together. "Do you think it's cashmere?"
Anya indifferently glanced from behind the daitian shoulder. "I don't know." Humming, sweaty men and women were swirling around, pushing and shoving and elbowing each other, making Anya sick. But Rill seemed to be paying no attention.
All this madness made Anya think of a better place to be in right now. Kelas, maybe? It was quite peaceful there. Home would be the best though. Home... My room where the string lights are flickering over my bed at night, where I can bury myself in the blankets and pillows and forget all the noises and disturbing thoughts... And where Leir tried to kidnap me once. Damn. The last memory caused a chilling shiver run down Anya's spine.
"What if we won't find The Book of Fates, Rill?" she looked at the crimson-haired girl admiring another horrifyingly colorful poncho.
"No problem," Rill shrugged the question aside without turning her head. "We'll keep looking. Sooner or later, everyone finds what they're looking for."
"And you don't miss your home?"
"A little." Nostalgia was suddenly written over Rill's face, but it vanished so quickly Anya was unsure if she'd seen it at all. "But I also love it here." The daitian eyes traveled across the street, through the crowd and up at the clear blue sky. "I think I can call this place my home, too. I think I can feel like at home anywhere, actually. It's what inside you, not outside."
Amarillis turned away, back to the stall, pulled out her purse and started bargaining with an old lady about the ridiculous poncho. Anya stayed still, watching her friend, the only thought lingering in her mind—what was inside Anya that made her feel like nowhere was her home?..
"Hey," someone touched her shoulder. Anya flinched and cocked her head at the sound of the voice. Nikk's copper eyes caught her own. "Are you all right?"
"Yes." No. "I'm just slightly overwhelmed with all the people hustling around."
"Yeah, I hate crowds too." Nikk nodded absentmindedly, his thoughts were elsewhere apparently. "Have you seen Daphne? Has she come back?"
Amarillis approached them, her eyes shining like two big emeralds. A new poncho was in her hands that she was eagerly struggling to tuck into her full backpack. "I thought you left with your sister."
"I did. But then I stopped to buy some water and she disappeared in thin air." Nikk scanned the throng and sighed. "Saint Ariy, get lost on the other end of the world is the last thing we need right now."
To tell the truth, Anya was more than fine with Daphne being away. No harsh comments and quips, no withering glares. But seeing Nikk's preoccupied face made her anxious. "Can't you give Daphne a call?" she suggested. It seemed as an obvious solution. Did Anya miss something important about her alien friends again?..
Nikk shook his head, his dark hair swaying. "She left her phone in Kelas. Explaining this as a precaution from being tracked down by the fomoires. I should have slipped the phone back in her bag, but I didn't."
While Anya and Nikk were discussing the possible and impossible ways of finding Daphne and Rill was fighting for a bit of free space in her backpack, Eirney emerged from a nearby café, chewing a cheeseburger. "Phat... phappened?" he asked without bothering to swallow up the bite first.
"Have you seen Daphne?" Nikk and Anya asked in unison and stared at each other in surprise.
A shake of a curly-haired head. "Pho."
"Oh, come on!" Rill finally won the fight and slung the backpack over her shoulder in relief. "Daphne's not a little girl. And today's not the first day she's staying on Earth. Even if she's lost, she will find us soon. Oh, you see?"
The others flicked their heads to look at what Amarillis had spotted. A tall, slim figure was graciously pacing across the crowded street, her long white hair pulled into a high ponytail swinging from side to side as she moved. Daphne's eyes were wild, but face expressionless.
She slowly crossed the road and, suspiciously eyeing everyone who dared to glance sideway at her, stopped beside her friends. "I just saw Charna," she hissed, her eyes still restless. "Literally bumped into her! She ran off like a cockroach at the sight of a light."
Nikk tilted his head skeptically. "Are you sure it was her, Daph?"
"A black tunic, a red hair and a contemptuous grimace on her face. Rings a bell? I couldn't mistake the fomorian for anyone."
Eirney chuckled, wiping his hands on his unchangeably checkered shirt as he finished the burger. "Red-haired people wearing black clothes do exist on Earth. And about that contemptuous face... Well, Daphne, I hate to break it to you, but you look almost at everyone pretty much the same way."
"Very funny," Daphne flashed him a wrathful look. "But if the fomoires find us, we can forget about the book until we deal with them!" She said it like she would be actually glad to deal with them, Anya realized.
"What a troublemaker you are, Daph," Rill laughed with amusement, and playfully twisted a lock of her pink hair around the finger. "The fomoires could not find us for there were no chances for them to know we'd be in Peru."
"There were if they managed to trace a signal of someone's phone, for example." Nikk's sister peered at everyone, her piercing eyes lingered on Anya.
"I broke my phone in Kelas," Anya blurted out the first thing she could come up with to make the daitian's gaze stop tearing apart her entrails.
Daphne bit her lower lip, probably thinking whether to believe Anya or not.
"I'm a witness." Rill said.
Eirney sniggered, but said nothing. Though, it was enough for Daphne to switch her poisonous attention to him. "You have a GPS." She stabbed her accusing finger in Erin's chest.
"Are you out of your mind?"
"I'm being careful!"
"You're being paranoid!" Eirney snapped.
With worried expressions, several passing by locals glanced at the screaming at each other tourists. But Eirn was beyond being stopped by a mere look now. He pressed his lips tight together, then his mouth twisted with growing fury.
"If I throw my GPS away, Daphne," he spoke in a low, menacing voice, "How are we going to find a route to the bunker? Asking around about a legendary manuscript that allows predicting the future and changing the past? Besides, I don't recall that the Patealish people were experts in spying."
"Eirn's right, Daph," Nikk said and calmingly put his hand on sister's shoulder. "Do you remember when we met them and Anya in the theatre? They didn't seem to be hiding."
Daphne shook off Nikk's hand and gave him a long merciless stare. "So you're with Eirney now?"
Anya felt cold inside as she imagined standing in Nikk's place. How could anyone who usually looked as feminine and gracious as Daphne also look as cruel and dangerous as an assassin? Suddenly, Anya vividly pictured Daphne swirling a sword, slicing flesh of her foes.
"I'm with common sense." Nikk replied, his shoulders stiffed, jaws tightened, but he was still holding sister's gaze.
"And others?" Daphne shifted her eyes at Amarillis and Anya, but they stayed still. "Wonderful."
The quarrel ended as abruptly as started when Daphne crossed her arms and turned her back on the others. She never admitted her mistakes, and today was not an exception.
For a long moment, the others stared at one another blankly. Then Eirn exhaled wearily, "We still need a car."
Without a word, Nikk demonstrated him keys in his hand.