James Hiwatari

“Hey, Vác! It’s been such a long time! How are you?” Vilém’s phone call caught me by surprise. I wasn’t used to friends calling me early on Sunday mornings. In Vilém’s case it was even more so. He had been my best friend since we were little children in the small Czech town of Rakovník. Even at that young age he already cultivated a no-love-all-hate relationship with alarm clocks set before ten in the morning. Vilém was never awake this early if he could help it. This couldn’t be good. “

‘Who is Alana?’ I asked Kris at some point when we were both bored in the dark waiting for the diary to shine on Lydia’s answer. ‘Friend. Dead.’ He passed his finger through his neck to make the point. ‘Sorry.’ ‘No. I.’ He did the same gesture again. ‘You’re dead?’ ‘No. I.’ He repeated the gesture again, this time with urgency and anger. ‘You will die?’ ‘No! I!’ He pointed to his own chest, then made a fist with his hand and pretended to hit me. What a great time

Thanks! Alana is Kris's friend, and... something more... But you'll have to wait and see what that something more is (or try to guess!) We'll find out Lóránt's fate eventually. Nessa wouldn't let us wondering forever... but after this fight it might take a while. It all depends on how and if Nessa escapes kidnapping. Nessa will keep writing to her son until she covers 23 years of her life in this book, or her son's 20th birthday comes around - whichever comes first. So you'll still have plenty of story to enjoy.

Kris has been giving some hints that he's not all "ant-social lone wolf", though the communication barriers with Nessa usually get on the way of showing it. Also being in this kind of situation either brings out your best or your worst, and fortunately for Nessa, Kris is showing off his best.

Mind control is an art of subtlety, so I’m glad neither you nor your siblings have an affinity to it. All the time that Zhofie was technically in control of my mind… it didn’t feel like it. I didn’t hear voices telling me to do this or that, urging me to make bad choices. I genuinely believed whatever I was about to do had been my own decision. I don’t remember much of it now, though, and not only because it’s been 23 years since. It’s part of the spell’s nature to forget whatever the caster

Gummi held the last chord of Brahms’s second symphony much longer than usual. I was almost running out of bow when he finally closed his left hand and the orchestra stopped as one. “Thank you everyone for another great rehearsal!” he said. “Now go home and rest before tomorrow’s concert!” I rushed to Dmitri’s side as soon as could, dashing through the tiny space between the second violins and violas in much the same way he had become (in)famous for doing. I tried to apologise to my coll

You're free to comment on them if you want! I'll probably find it amusing or learn something new. Looking up references to understand things has always been a part of living in another culture and another language, so welcome to the club, I guess?

Thanks! According to Lóránt's trial at the end of the previous story, they don't quite escape this time, do they? I mean, they eventually escape from somewhere, or Nessa wouldn't be writing this thing, but that's not where this little bit is heading, unfortunately... On the plus side, you'll get to see what a demon-controlled island is like! It's the ideal holiday place, if you like having your mind controlled and your idea of entertainment is random cruel executions of rebels at lunch time!

Hope you like it. There are *just* another 50 chapters available for your entertainment...

Thanks, but I'm going to stick to the British way of doing English. Which is already a bit of a compromise on the Glaswegian way of where I live... I don't have anything against individual US people, but growing up in Brazil as a sort of "unofficial cultural colony" of the US, I usually make a point of distancing myself from that country as much as I can. It's quite tiring to be expected to get references and know useless information/trivia about a country that is not mine and not somewhere I'm particularly interested in. It's overwhelming, actually. To the point that British/Scottish/European things have a much more "refreshing" or even "comforting" appeal to me, even though technically Europeans have played their part in cultural imperialism too (and other forms of imperialism). Not to mention that learning English as a second language in Brazil you will learn US English, not British. So I actually had to put some effort to get to the level of Britishness I am in now. So don't take this personally. My anti-US feelings don't extend to individual people unless they're proven arseholes, which you don't seem to be.

Don't worry, Gunni is almost 17! (Joking aside, I do acknowledge now that Dmitri & Co. might have come out slightly creepier than I intended. Hopefully the new book version will make it clearer they aren't that bad. Though even as this version of the story goes on, it won't take much longer for readers to get a more "balanced" peek at Dmitri other than Siggi's point of view.)

My hands are shaking as I type now. I don’t like to remember what came next. One moment, Unn is sick, and the next thing I know I’m being mind-controlled and made to walk straight into a trap. If it wasn’t for your mother I would’ve lost my mind long before Hereweald got to me. The actual event that led to our kidnapping was caused by Unn, but it’s wrong to blame her for it. Nobody realised what the demons were planning, so there is no point in blaming anyone but Zhofie and Hereweald for bei

Wee! Thanks! See you next week!

Thanks! I'm glad you liked the chapter! We're getting close to some properly new information being revealed, so hold your horses!

Running away from Floresfada wasn’t easy. I had obviously committed the most heinous of crimes, so any fairy who saw me had the right to punish me the way they saw fit. And I too despaired because I thought I was a murderer and deserved all that punishment. By the time I crossed into the desert, I wasn’t so sure I should keep going. I arrived in Macchikai by a miracle (or rather, by a stranger on a car who refused to believe I didn’t deserve help and took me to the nearest hospital). I don’t