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should be with me; it broke my heart to tell her no. I slowly let go of her. “I’ll see you in a few days – K?” I said, looking away and catching a stray tear that had escaped my eye.
     
    Olivia let her head fall, and I walked away before my guilt would allow me to change my mind.
     
    Felicity was waiting for me to say goodbye to her. Allie was in her arms, and Libby and Preston were at her side. “Is Olivia OK?” she whispered.
     
    “She wanted to go, but I told her no.”
     
    “Really?” Felicity said, bewildered. “I wonder why?”
     
    Preston and Libby looked at each other, then up at me. I could feel their confusion.
     
    “What?” I asked, looking back and forth between them.
     
    They hesitated. Preston’s eyes found Landen, and he looked him over carefully, then back to me. “It doesn’t matter,” Preston said.
     
    Before I could question him, he and Libby ran to Olivia’s side. It didn’t take Chrispin long to realize Olivia was upset. He said his goodbye to Landen, then went to meet her and the children.
     
    “Don’t worry, Willow,” Felicity said to get my attention. “It’s just a few days.” She hugged me, then walked past me to catch up with Olivia.
     
    I looked over my shoulder and saw Brady and Landen whispering to one another. I then stepped closer to the passage. Stella and Clarissa blew a kiss in my direction and followed the others. Dane then came to my side, carrying the books with which we were to return. Marc had joined Landen and Brady’s private conversation. I looked up at Dane and shook my head; his calm was too out of place.
     
    “Do you know something I don’t?” I asked under my breath.
     
    “I just know how I feel, and that’s relieved to be able to protect you,” he answered with a crooked smile on his face.
     
    “You’re insane. Anyone else would have run away - like you almost did when we were kids,” I said, finding a little humor in the memory of Dane’s young face so many years ago.
     
    “Um, yeah...you zapped us to another place – freezing, if I remember correctly – then expected us to resume our game of hide-and-seek like nothing happened. I thought I was crazy,” he said, laughing.
     
    “You thought you were crazy? OK, and what did you think I thought?” I said, laughing quietly.
     
    “You didn’t look crazy; you looked like you were doing what you were born to do, like you do now,” he said, looking proudly down at me.
     
    “Maybe so, but that doesn’t mean you should be dragged into it...stay,” I said, knowing his answer would be no.
     
    “It’s just three days – well, two now,” he said, looking at Landen and Marc as they approached us.
     
    “Promise,” I said in a whisper.
     
    Landen picked up our bags, which were by the passage, then took my hand and led us inside the string. I could feel him struggling to suppress his anxieties. “ What were you and Brady talking about?” I asked.
     
    He looked down at me, then back to Marc and Dane, then forward again. “ Did Olivia tell you about her dream?” he asked. I nodded “ Brady thinks we should have taken her. I knew if we did, Chrispin would have come. And if Chrispin came, Brady would have come – they all would have come. It’s bad enough that Marc and Dane are coming.”
     
    “ I’m sure Perodine meant Dane. It just makes sense that he would be more of a protector,” I thought. I knew it was true that both Olivia and Dane had played that part throughout my childhood, but Dane had seen more; he’d traveled through dimensions with me. He was just stronger.
     
    “ I hope so. I told Brady if Perdoine said we were wrong about Dane, we’d come back for Olivia,” Landen thought.
     
    “ Did that calm him down?” I asked.
     
    “ No. He thinks the dream is a warning, telling us that we’ll be divided forever. In his opinion, I just left the key to finding them again there,” Landen thought.
     
    “ Preston told me it didn’t matter that