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“And through these experiments, the Immortals created the first vampires, witches, changelings, genies, and all of the other sixteen supernaturals,” Jiro said.

“But the original supernaturals were not like those you know today,” Eva added.

“How so?” I asked.

“They weren’t human in form,” she said. “They were beasts.”

I frowned. “That’s…weird.”

Eva shrugged. “Not really. Those Immortal scientists didn’t want humanity to get in the way of studying the raw magic. That’s why they made them beasts.”

“So beasts were the original supernaturals.” Damiel rubbed his chin. “Fascinating.”

“Beasts…” My mind raced, rewinding back, back, back. “A beast.” I snapped out of my flashback. “That’s what I fought in the Treasury four years ago: an original supernatural.”

“But what was the beast doing in that Treasury?” Eira asked.

No one knew the answer to that question.

“On which world was this Treasury?” Jiro asked me.

“Palak,” I replied. “Do you know it?”

“Yes.” Jiro traced his finger across my sketch. “And which of these rings did you find there?”

I frowned at the picture. “Aren’t they all the same?”

“No.” He smiled. “You drew them. You know that.”

“She was half in a trance when she drew them,” Cadence told him.

“Well, in that case,” he said, tapping the page, “look closely.”

So I did. And he was right. The rings were almost identical, but onlyalmost. There were slight variations in the thickness, smoothness, color. And the text on them was completely different.

“That one.” I pointed. “That’s the one we found on Palak. That’s the ring the djinn stole from the Legion and sent to that creepy old Treasury.”

“Its original home,” Jiro said.

“What? Really?”

“Yes. The ring you found was the ring for Psychic’s Spell, the ring of telekinesis.” He turned a few pages to a picture of a very familiar Treasury. “And Palak is its origin world. The origin world of all psychics.”

“Someone brought that ring back to its origin world,” Damiel said. “It stands to reason that they would do the same for the other fifteen rings. Which means we will find them on their origin worlds.”

“Yes,” Jiro agreed.

“Then let’s go. Let’s get them.”

Damiel caught my arm as I turned to go. “Not so fast, Sierra. The last time you went after one of the rings, a beast was guarding it.”

“And I took care of it.” I shrugged off his hand. “I handled it.”

“Yes, you are very impressive, but how about we learn more about what’s going on before we charge in?” he said with a half-smile.

“Fine.” I looked at Jiro. “Tell me about these beasts, these original supernaturals.”

“They’re strong. And powerful.”