Jason woke sometime in the morning and stretched his painful neck. He must have slept the wrong way. He opened his eyes and found himself sitting in a chair. Confusion clouded his mind for a moment, then was replaced by understanding. He had spent the night in Sesilia’s room after she had the dream of the black dragon that was supposed to be dead and the man who tried to seduce her. Who tried to take her for himself. Who called her his love. . . He cracked his knuckles again in a threatening manner, then stopped and almost laughed at himself. He was becoming protective of this woman. Down right possessive. He could have laughed at his idiocy. Why would who she slept with bother him in the slightest?

But he knew the truth behind his false uncaring front. He was hurt deeply by the idea of Sesilia sleeping with another man. Jason had to wonder what was her relationship to this Tianus. They seemed extremely close.

Jason stood and yawned, stretching from toe to head. He heard his back pop and he twisted his neck, cracking the spine into place. Both Darkblood and his wolf who he decided to call Frostfur after her silver hide still slept on the bed. Sesilia was gone, however. He left the familiars asleep and walked out of the room, pausing to shut the door. He was wearing a tunic and a pair of breeches he had been granted to borrow while his clothes were washed. According the Caarin, today they would get to go home and gather some of their clothes to bring here. Sesilia would give them something they could use to come and go through this world and theirs until they learned the teleportation spell. Jason followed Sesilia’s thoughts and found her in the kitchen eating breakfast. Her eyes danced when she saw him, and she indicated a seat next to her to sit down in. Tianus sat across from her and they were laughing about something. He sat down, eyeing Tianus suspiciously, and helped himself to breakfast.

"No coffee," he sighed.

Sesilia laughed and patted him on the arm. "Sorry, Guardian, but no coffee."

"I can’t protect without my coffee," he replied.

Sesilia smiled and told him, "We’re going home today. Don’t worry about not drinking coffee now. You can drink all the coffee you want when you get home."

"So, how are we going to explain being gone an entire day?" Sesilia grinned at him.

"Don’t worry about it. Okay, in times, an hour goes by here for every day there. The point of the teleportation spell is to open a portal that will allow us to go back to the exact moment in time that we left. Your mother will no more know that we even left the dimension than we will have to know the wrath of our parents for being gone so long. It works out beautifully."

"And what about us who can’t do the teleportation spell?"

"Don’t you worry your pretty little head about that. I’ll deal with it. In fact, hang on a minute. I will go get them now."

Sesilia stood and left the room. Jason shook his head and turned back to find Tianus gazing at him with an open expression of disgust.

"So, you’re Jason, hm? The man that she went out with?" When Jason nodded, Tianus snorted disgustedly and glanced away. "What she sees in you I will never understand. You don’t seem to be good enough for her."

"Excuse me?" Jason snarled in reply. "And you are?"

Tianus cocked his head to the side. "I never assumed I was. I am only her friend and trusted companion. I am not her mate or lover. Though both of our species are physically the same, it would be a most uncomfortable coupling. I only offer her my love and friendship, nothing more, and if you were to learn anything from your time with her, you’d know that’s all she ever asks for." Tianus stood and left the table, leaving Jason on his own to think over what he had said.

‘So Tianus does feel something for her,’ Jason thought to himself. ‘I will remember that.’

"What’s up Guardian?" Sesilia asked, feeling his mind close off from hers for a moment.

"What things?" she asked aloud as she returned to the kitchen. "And where’s Tianus?"

"Nothing in particular, and Tianus left."

"Oh. Odd." Sesilia sat down in the seat vacated by Tianus so she could look across the table at Jason. "Here," she stated, holding out something on a necklace. He took it and saw it was a key in the shape of a dragonfly.

"To use this key, simple stick it into the air of somewhere private with no one around, and twist when it doesn’t go in any further. A piece of the air will become a door and will open. Walk into the door and leave it open. As long as you leave it open, time will stop in our dimension for you and when you walk back into it and close the door, time will continued again. If you close that door, you’re going to have to come crying to one of the seniors, teachers, or journeymen who know the teleportation spell so you can get back to your true place and time. So just make it easier on yourself and leave the door open."

When Jason nodded, she let go of the chain.

"What did you tell Tianus about me?" Jason asked suddenly into the silence. Sesilia looked up and a strange look crossed her gaze.

"Just about everything I thought and felt. I told him what I didn’t like about you and what I did. I gave him all my information from an omniscient point of view. Any judgement he’s come by of you has been on his own and not made by me. He is a wonderful judge of character from what people do, and once he classifies you as something, it is very hard to break free of his judgement."

" ’Morning!" Nate greeted them as he came in. Sesilia sighed, handed him another dragonfly-key necklace and repeated the instructions. She was forced to repeat them four more times before Caarin came in.

"Sorry, Sesilia, but these new ones are going to have to stay one more day. We need to teach them the basics of Hearing and the Com."

"But of course," she replied. "I was wondering why you were letting them get away without it."

Caarin used a wing to indicate where the group was supposed to go. Sesilia watched them leave, then returned to her breakfast. Tianus slid back into the room.

"What do you think of them?"

"Most of them are just normal people to me," he replied. "The one with the ferret, though, I don’t particularly like her. Something about her doesn’t seem right. And I don’t like Jason."

"Pray tell?" Sesilia glanced up at Tianus in shock. Tianus’ kind almost never referred to people by their names. The only time they did was when they had either won their respect, or when they knew that person would be important in their lives.

"I don’t like him," Tianus repeated. "He’s too sure of himself. He thinks he’s better than you."

"Tianus," Sesilia began.

"Don’t you Tianus me," he replied. "You are worth more than you know to this University."

"Only for nine more days, Tianus. Then I will be free of everything that ties me here. Only nine more days."

"And how is Jason going to take it when he finds out that you are due to die in nine days? Do you think he’s going to sit back and let you throw your life away? He considers you his, you know. To him, you are his possession."