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“Is there a room that I can use?”

The girl nodded and turned to lead them from the room. She took them down a short hall and stopped outside what appeared to be an office of some sort. “Can I get you anything?” she asked, pushing the door open for them.

“No, Lynnea, we’re fine. Thank you,” Scarlett answered.

Lynnea nodded, gave a small smile to Sorin, and left them, shutting the door as she left. The office was small. There was a desk in the center and a small couch along one wall, a bookshelf along the other. Scarlett claimed the chair behind the desk, propping her feet upon it. A puff of dust flew up. “How many are different?” she asked then, looking to Sorin.

“What?”

“How many are different?” she asked again. “How many are not human?”

“Why do you think they are not human?” he countered.

“Because Nuri is a Night Child, Cassius appears to be a Witch of some sort, and I am apparently Fae. We have known we were different since we were children, and a vast majority of the children who end up here are also odd and different. That is why they are being targeted, and your High Force is being trained and taught all about us,”Scarlett answered. “So which of my innocent people are going to be next?”

Sorin stared at her, the realization and truth of everything she had just said clicking into place. “But…why? Why would they want the children just to kill them?”

“That, General, is what I need you to find out,” Scarlett answered. “How many are different?”

Sorin shook his head, sitting down on the small sofa. “There were too many scents in the large room, and my Fae senses are muted here. I could not scent Nuri until her blood was spilled.”

“Because we take tonics for that. To mute our scents,” Scarlett answered. “Mine is in my nightly tonic.”

“But you did not know she was a vampyre,” Sorin said.

“No, but I’m venturing to guess our daily tonics do more than we were originally told since mine seems to. The children, though, do not take anything. Not unless they are recruited by the various businesses here,” Scarlett explained.

“Many in the large room have mixed bloodlines. Some might display magic if they were not here and come of age, but I was only able to scent three that are for sure pure-blooded,” Sorin answered.

“Who?”

“Malachi. He is a Night Child.”

“He’s a vampyre?” Scarlett asked, her brows rising.

Sorin nodded his head.

“Interesting,” Scarlett said, tilting her head in thought. “That would explain his younger brother being taken.”

“He has a younger brother?”

“Had,” Scarlett corrected, her eyes darkening. “Who else?”

Sorin swallowed. “The one who brought us here.”

“Lynnea?”

“She is a Witch,” Sorin answered.

“And the last?”

Sorin’s mouth twitched in amusement. “Tula.”

Scarlett nearly fell out of her chair as her feet slipped off the desk to the floor. “What?”

“She is a Shifter.”

CHAPTER 32