He finished telling this story when he noticed that tears were flowing down Thea’s cheeks.

She was sniffing sweetly and wiping away tears with the back of her hand.

- And why did I even ask you to tell me about it? – she said sobbing uncontrollably. - It’s so heartbreaking that I can’t stop thinking about the pain you all had to go through.

Raphael tugged at her elbow, prompting her to turn around to face him. His hands were on her cheeks, and his fingers were wiping away the tears. He hadn’t expected her reaction to be so violent, otherwise he wouldn’t have gone into details.

- It’s already in the past. – he said, hugging her again and feeling her hiccup. – But she will always remain in my heart and I really ask you not to take it away from me.

- This is a situation in which I have no right to do so. – she concluded, involuntarily wiping her nose on his shirt. – Now I understand your attitude towards witches, although I cannot say that I support all these countless murders and cruelty. And it is also clear why you reacted so much to the name I chose for myself.

- I hate it, but I’m making exceptions for the second time. - He chuckled, stroking her back.

- The fourth, actually. – she said suddenly and he raised an eyebrow, waiting for an explanation. – Have you forgotten about Tethys? And also my friend Jenine. Oh, you don’t know for sure that Jen turns out to be Adeline’s sister.

- Mmm, is that so? – he said, trying not to seem strange and arouse suspicion. – Wonderful.

Rafael understood that sooner or later everything would come out and become known, but he was afraid that it would happen now, when they had just begun to resurrect their relationship.

- Speaking of the name. Why did you choose him?

It was a day of revelations, in which Thea told about when her powers began to wake up and about her strange dreams, which puzzled Raphael even more. But with the last answer, she finally brought him out of the impasse when she said that she could conjure the sword that Raphael had told her about with the power of her mind.

In confirmation of her words, she stretched out her hands, turning them palms up, and the next moment, not a sword, but a dagger appeared in her hands. Exactly the same as Raphael remembered him, but only in a slightly modified form.

As if he couldn’t believe his eyes, he stretched out his hand to take the dagger, but it instantly disappeared into thin air. 𝙛𝒓𝒆𝙚𝒘𝒆𝓫𝙣𝓸𝙫𝓮𝒍.𝒄𝒐𝓶

- I didn’t do anything. - she shrugged her shoulders. – This has happened before. Eugene, my mentor, also wanted to take it, but the same thing happened as now.

His hands gripped her cheeks tightly, almost squeezing, and he stared into her eyes with complete seriousness, saying nothing and asking no questions. It was as if he was trying to see something in her, as if he was looking for answers to some questions, or confirming his guesses. But apart from the furrowed brows and the bewilderment on his face, Thea couldn’t see any more.

- Is everything all right? - she finally asked.

- Yes. It seems simple that I have found what I have been looking for for so long. - his lips broke into a wide smile, and his heart was fluttering in his chest, convulsively twitching with overflowing joy.

- You know, if you explain, I might understand what you mean.

- Just stay with me like this. - he hugged her, afraid that if he let go, he would lose her again.

- So, it turns out that Lillian, who threatened Temi eventually killed her? - Thea asked suddenly.

- For a very long time it was just my guess, since all the traces led to the last supreme witch ... Lilian and her mother urgently fled after they realized that they could not defeat me.

- Her mother?

- Exactly. - he nodded. - But while you and I were in Riliya, my people found her mother and questioned her a little. That’s when we found out that Lillian was behind all this mass murder, and because of the bonds of silence, the witches could not give away her secret.

- But why would she do that?

- At first I thought she wanted the powers of wizards, but the fact that she didn’t do anything to my parents suggests that it was Artemis she needed. Or rather, her crown is an artifact of Artemis. That’s just they didn’t take into account that only the one who put it on can take off the crown.

- That’s why your rulers have always worn the crown themselves... - she finally realized. - And you were the first to take the artifact...

- Yes, in fact, he was left in a pile of ashes when her flesh and bones were completely burned... I showed up there earlier than Lillian... But all this was before the artifact disappeared.

- Earlier you said that he was kidnapped. – she clarified.

- Yes, in principle, it can be called a kidnapping, because the artifact has been outside its native walls for a long time.

- Are you still going to look for the artifact? - Thea asked, and he shook his head.

There were already guesses in his head that the artifact might be inside her, but he didn’t know how it happened. Was there something he hadn’t considered? How in general could a person absorb an artifact?

The thought bothered him, but at least now he understood that Thea was doubly more valuable to him than she had been before.

Previously, he had the opportunity to use the Artemis artifact with his own hands, but now this power was not available to him. Now he was going to teach Thea how to handle her newfound strength, as well as help her reach her full potential to the end.

- I don’t know how it happened, but I believe the artifact is inside you. – he said calmly, as if there was nothing strange about it, however, Thea was clearly surprised, looking at him as if he was crazy.

Pulling back a little to find traces of a joke on his face, she realized that he seriously considered this thought in his head to be correct.

- You know that sounds absurd, right? - She arched one eyebrow gracefully and grinned.

- Who else would we be if we couldn’t freely express our idiotic thoughts? - he returned her grin, but then continued seriously. – There’s still a lot you don’t know... That was before you were born. After the artifact disappeared from Abion, I went to look for it wherever I could, and that’s how I ended up in Riliya.

He paused, biting his lower lip and thinking about how to choose the right words, while Thea carefully waited for the continuation. It was their day of revelations, when she wanted to learn as much as possible from the mouth.

- I was very angry and did not want to show sympathy to anyone who could be involved in the abduction, so your parents fell under my hot hand. - He felt Thea stiffen all over. - Your mother was deeply pregnant and if it wasn’t for your presence in her stomach, I’m not sure I would have left her alive.

- But what stopped you then? Why did you save our lives in the end? - Thea couldn’t help but ask.

- I scanned their memory, but both of their memories were interrupted at the same moment, at the moment of your death in her womb, and you are more than alive here now. This is surprising. But unlike your mother, who lost consciousness at the moment when memories are interrupted, your father resorted to erasing his memory and only the one who erased it can return it. Without this, we will not know what happened that day. – he said, clicking his tongue.

- Why would he erase his memory? – Thea’s head was spinning from the questions that arose.

- Obviously to hide something, don’t you think?

- It makes sense. But then what to do?

- I’ve already sent someone to your father. You may remember Derrick Rochester... he was more than helpful to help me.

- Oh, I haven’t seen him in years. I didn’t know you knew him either. - Thea’s surprise followed one after another.

- It’s a long story. So you just have to be patient and wait. The web I have stretched out will be too big for Lillian not to fall into it with her own feet. - his lips curled into a malicious grin. – And since we opened up so much, I’ll tell you right away, so that it doesn’t come as a surprise to you in the future – I killed your grandfather.

- What? – she was taken aback. - What for?

Thea had no memories of her grandfather because he died long before she was born, but she still considered him her relative.

- He was a very bad person who caused a lot of problems. That’s all you need to know. Don’t worry your head.

Thea took a deep breath to catch her breath. She didn’t feel grief or the pain of loss, but it bothered her how easily Raphael always talked about someone’s death, as if someone else’s life didn’t matter to him. And that was the biggest problem.