Chapter 34 - Cafes and Questions

Well colour me surprised. My uncle Brett might be alive?! How much more surprises could I take today?!

Nicholas promised to do more research and try to find him. I decided fo let him do his thing, mostly because there was nothing else I could do. And I didn't want an additional thing to worry about.

The roar of a sleek black car signaled Jace's arrival. The sleek black car belonged to my father and it wasn't my go to choice for going out mostly because it was a sports car and it didn't fit my aesthetic. But the car with Jace fit him and his bad boy persona perfectly.

My heart quickened as I stepped outside, greeted by the sight of him leaning against the vehicle, effortlessly cool. Jace, with his tousled dark hair and that air of mystery that clung to him like a second skin.  The black leather jacket on him almost looked part of him

at this point, seeing as I've never really seen him take it off.

"Hey, Cleo," he said, a faint smirk playing on his lips as he opened the car door for me.

I narrowed my eyes at him.

"That's Ms Cleo or Ms Fontana to you Jace."

I corrected and he nodded his head as he rolled his eyes.

"Hello Ms Cleo."

I nodded my head as I got into the car, settling in as I brought out my phone. The engine purred to life as we sped away into the afternoon.

The cafe was a perfect spot and it happened to be one of my favourite spots too.  Jace was a bag of surprises today, opening the door for me and pulling out the chair for me. And he did it so naturally, almost like he wasn't doing it just because it was me but because it was something he would do on a normal day.

Interesting.

As we sat across from each other, the atmosphere hummed with an unspoken tension. Jace's piercing gaze held mine, and for a moment, time seemed to slow.

"So, Ms Cleo," he began, a glint of curiosity in his eyes. "How was your little getaway? Were the Morettis and the Itzam to your liking?"

His question caught me off guard, but I gave him a small smile.

"It was lovely. I had a swell time!"

Jace raised his eyebrows.

"Really now?"

"Yes, really. Now can we talk about what we're here to talk about?"

Genuine concern etched across his features. "Well, are you sure it was good? You know you can tell me about it, I will try to help out in any way I can."

I smiled, touched by his unexpected tenderness. "I can handle myself, Jace. Besides, everything went fine, I'm more worried about what's happening now, with this lead of yours and everything else."

"That's literally the only reason I called you here."

I added

He chuckled, a husky sound that resonated with the rebellious spirit that defined him. "Fair enough."

He leaned in, his voice a low whisper. "So, I've been digging around. I think I found a lead."

"What did you find?!"

I said as my heart skipped a beat.

"I thought about who the threat could be from and at first it didn't make sense because everyone assumes and believes that the Arcani are long gone and extinct."

"Then I remember the Magia."

My heart skipped a beat as I heard that clan name.

"That's another clan right?"

I asked, even though I knew the answer. Even though Nicholas had told me that Alex's mother was from the Magia clan.

"The Magia are in tune with the earth. You can call them magicians of nature. Before the disappearance of magic they were nature's servants. They could do stuff like growing plants, preventing drought or famine, controlling seasons and stuff. They also studied basically anything that can affect our continent and nature."

"After the disappearance of magic they just became scholars, they continued studying nature and started collecting information on the magical clans, magic, trying to see if they can find a way to bring back magic and all. Information going around from them is that the timeline has been reset."

"What does that mean?"

"I told you there's a rumour the Arcani can manipulate time right?"

I nodded, the dots were connecting in my head already, even before Jace finished telling me about his discovery.

"Well apparently the Magia scholars believe the timeline has been reset. The seasons have changed, meaning an Arcani has been tampering with time again."

"And how? How would they even know that's me?!"

"You're not making any sense."

I laughed nervously.

Jace shot me a look. He looked serious, I felt like he knew something and he was going to tell me very soon.

"Jasmine had dreams that you drowned. She saw you drowning so many times in her dreams. It was what prompted her to look for you in the first place..."

"...Because she believed you were in danger..."

I settled back into my seat as I shrugged.

"So?"

"I talked to Lisa, she told me you've become different. That it's like you've become a whole new person. She said she didn't even know how found out your ex fiancé was cheating on you. That you woke up one day and it seemed that sweet soft girl they all knew was gone forever. And never came back."

Lisa was a blabber mouth. I just hired Jace, why would she tell him all these things?!

"I should fire Lisa for revealing such sensitive information about me."

Jace sighed.

"She didn't do anything wrong. She just sounded worried about you."

I shrugged.

"I don't pay her to worry about me. She's my assistant."

"She is. But you know she also cares deeply for you. And it's obvious your whole new personality has bothered her if she told me about them."

"Is there a point to all these things you're telling me?! Because it seems like you're just working with speculations over here."

Jace sighed.

"I also talked to Lisa. She told me you cannot swim."

"She told me about how your mother died."

He added quietly.

Ah yes.

The day my mother died.

It was years ago. Every memory of my mother was quite foggy except for that one. My mum took me with her on my father's private yacht. It was a beautiful day. We had a beach house by the water so it was all good. My father watched us from the shore. My mum drove the yacht far away from the shore.

I couldn't swim but I was taking swimming lessons then. I think I was getting pretty good at it. I was on the yacht in a swimsuit with my mother. I remembered her hair flowing in the wind. I looked away for one monent, the next moment I saw my mother jumping into the water.

I rushed to the railing to see her, thinking she was just going in for a swim.

But we were so far away from the shore and she had not come up for air.

I called her name so many times. She didn't come up for air.

I knew it was stupid of me to, I should have called for help, I should have used one of the life jackets on the yacht, but I stupidly jumped into the water without thinking.

I wasn't even good at swimming, but I tried looking for her in the water.

I tried to save her and ended up almost drowning myself.

How I found myself on the shore hours later I don't know.

They never found her body, they ruled it as an accidental drowning but I told my father what really happened. I saw my mother jump.

She wanted to die.

She wanted to kill herself. As a young girl I cried endlessly wondering what I did wrong to make her so mad at me and kill herself.

For years I wanted to find out why, I tried to look for clues, I tried digging through her stuff. And then there was a fire in her room months later and everything she owned was burned. All her pictures and stuff had been placed in her room right after her death because my father couldn't bear to see them.

And one fire was all it took and it was all gone.

She didn't even write me or my father a letter or anything. She just left like that.

My mother committed suicide and till my father's death he refused to acknowledge it. We never mentioned her after that, almost as if she never existed. He didn't take any press questions or any interviews or comments about her. Nothing at all.

And I didn't go to the ocean ever since then.

Not since that day.

"Cleo??"

"Cleo are you okay?!"

Jace asked and I blinked back tears, composing myself. I didn't even realise he had called me by my name. I glared at him.

"Why don't you just say it?! Ask me the question you're dying to ask."

I retorted. I was tired of the back and forth.

Jace looked me in the eye.

"Did you reset the timeline?!"