It was just meant to be another job, another easy ‘get-in-get-out’ after months of casing the place – but, god, I don’t even know; something, something went wrong. Well no, that isn’t exactly right. Everything went, for the most part, according to plan. We got in undetected, nabbed everything we’d intended – and then a little something extra. More specifically, I grabbed a little something extra. And it isn’t so much what I took that’s the issue; but, rather, what happened when I took it.

I don’t even know how to explain it. One minute I was the room, standing in front of the opened safe with the stone (fox-shaped, unique) in my hand, and the next, well, I was somewhere else. I don’t remember the details of the place, all I get is a blurred image if I try and remember, but I know I was somewhere else, it felt different.

There were people there, two of them, men. Again, the specifics elude me. But it isn’t them that are important, not exactly, but rather what they said. They said the stone I now held wasn’t a stone at all, but an Eilian – a crystallised child from a collapsing world. I’ve been chosen to care for this child (Reed is going to be thrilled), which, I’m told, will emerge within a short time.

I’m not sure how I’m supposed to feel about all this.

Don’t misunderstand, I adore children, and have welcomed the recent new arrivals into our household happily, as have Hayden and Hunter; but, well, Reed .... Reed is another matter entirely. He’s still pissed about the twins, is still fighting to find Bridget and Amelia’s original guardians to give the little ‘hell spawn’ back, as he has so affectionately dubbed them.

Oh boy, he’s going to be pissed.

Only time will tell how things will work out. Wish me luck.

- Connie.