She turned around, took the bowl of cherries that was on the counter as she released a slight breath in all casualty. "Oh well I'm still not saying sorry. You sneaked up on me." I couldn't keep a straight face when around her other than at times when she wanted me to so she tempted me to the max.. She was always tempting really, just in that moment, hearing her humorous tone.. I was simply glad she was handling it well.. At least for now. "Your father trained you well.. It's true that your bloodline is the cleanest." Luke's comment made me think that perhaps I should've told him not to mention her father.. It was a really bad time to discuss family when she was already drowning in that kind of drama.. I stood up and clasped my hands before Lana could snap. "Okay, enough chit-chat." She glanced at me, then back at Luke who already knew exactly what I had on mind to ask.. And before I could, he answered. "Adam's corpse is still in the house." Right.. Perhaps that's what I was afraid to hear.. Witch craft was always the worst thing that could possibly mess with your head.. And apparently, some witch bitch was messing with Lana's. I guess then the witch that was the reason why we were throwing the ball could give us those answers as well.. "Good." It was always a good relief to know that Adam was suffering in that old crap of a house, half dead half alive for more than two years now.. "Now the problem is, I was right.. It was all just a mind game." I watched how Lana's eyes met mine, such despair in them, hoping for some kind of a solution to this.. "And I'm starting to think that we're going to need that witch on our party more than we thought we would.." ~ Lana's POV Christian seemed desperately eager to find an answer to all our questions.. All at once.. All in one bight. Was that even possible? I mean, considering the fact that we had many many problems just willingly sliding into our lives, not one by one, but very much all at the same time.. We needed a solution. But how in the world did he think he could that he could kill two birds with one stone? After what the sneaky wolf came in the house, he confirmed the fact that Adam was still unconscious in the house.. So Christian seemed very much sure that whatever was going on with me was some kind of a mind game that was still tightly connected to Adam.. Even though that didn't have to be the case.. Adam was one of the highest possibilities, but what if it was someone else? Either way, his idea of using the witch he planned to invite on the ball for information seemed pretty damn clear. Invite her with a simple occasion that was by chance marking two years from Dimitri's ruling.. Basically, two years since they put their father down.. So, with that being said, Christian was sure that the witch would be the first to come since she hated the old king, and a polite invitation was apparently going to be enough to get her in the house.. What I didn't understand was how he was planning on getting so much information out of her.. Torture? Yea, that sounded like him.. So he could use violence to find out the truth about the vision Amelia and I both saw, but what about this? How could he possibly think that after torturing information out of her he could get her to help us.. With the crazy hallucinating sounds I've been hearing.. Huh.. Maybe it was just me.. Perhaps it didn't have to mean that it was all a mind game.. Maybe I just lost my mind after everything that happened.. Luke on the other hand somewhat helped out by telling me about how he found me in the woods that night.. Saying that I was still conscious when he saw me helped a lot.. Now I knew that I was alone.. Well, at least part of the night.. What I couldn't understand was how I got there? Running for miles and miles to get to Venedocia definitely didn't sound like me.. I was too lazy for that. Either way, that memory loss as a side effect from that night was our least problem. Now we had to figure out the ball.. And Christian was determined enough to stay almost all night long to do that.. I lead Luke to one of the guest rooms since he was apparently staying, mostly because we needed as much backup as we could get for the party.. Christian said he had other friends that could help out and that he trusted.. Amelia and Dimitri were of course one of them.. Calliope as well.. If she could make it.. However, by the time I got down, Christian still hadn't had given up.. He was going through some papers that were all over the dining room table, with a glass of whiskey on his side, completely focused on whatever he was doing.. I doubt he even heard me walk in the room. I walked over to the small counter that had all the classy crystal bottles of nothing but whiskey and other kinds of alcohol, taking a glass and pouring some for myself as well.. It was already a long night.. And he seemed to be just starting.. Not even noticing that I was in the room. I walked closer to him. "So what are you up to? Is all of this still about the ball?" I took a sip from my drink, stopping on his side and observing how he scanned one of the papers he was holding.. "I never said planning a ball was simple." He answered without taking his eyes off whatever he was so focused on reading.. "I'm trying to figure out if Lycia's adress is still the same.. I last visited her around a month before I came to your father's holiday celebration that night.. But witches move almost every damn week, it's hard to keep up all the time." So that was her name.. Lycia. The witch that cast the boundary spell between vampires and clionas, making a cliona's first vampire bite a real love spell.. Bounding spell.. Pretty cool if you ask me.. Sucks for them though. Either way, Lycia seemed to be our answer to everything.. Christian on the other hand seemed awfully stressed.. Frustrated. And seeing him like that.. It just proved to me that there were a lot more possibilities of this going wrong than I thought there would be. I mean, of course there would be, but Christin was always the subtle one.. And seeing him under stress made me nervous as well..