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Pan smiled at Noah. He didn’t care if Noah’s desire to help came from curiosity or the goodness of his heart. Or his own desire to do more than look at him. He’d seen the heat in Noah’s green eyes. Smelled the lust on his skin and had wanted to kiss him on the steps in front of the dragon.

Linda narrowed her eyes. “You only want to help because he’s been using sex demon magic on you.”

Pan laughed. That wasn’t how incubus magic worked.

“Don’t you dare laugh at me, acting Lord Silas Wilde. I see the way you look at him. And now you’re all dressed up, I see the way Noah looks at you.”

Noah groaned and walked away from the table as if done with the conversation, even though he hadn’t been dismissed by him, the acting Lord. So much for the ring giving him any kind of authority with humans.

Pan drew in a breath. “I can honestly say I am not using any magic whatsoever. There is none.” He put his hands on the table and leaned over the map. “And I don’t coerce people into my bed with magic.”

No, but they often wanted magic from him. They loved him for what he did for them.

She held his stare as if unconcerned that she was challenging a temporarily magicless god. If the vampires didn’t need her help, he’d put her on his magic-induced inconvenience list. He didn’t smite; he just made sure there was always a rock to trip over, a worm in their apple or a hole in their sock. And the more frustrated they became, the more magic plucked at their laces and spilled their drink.

Noah returned to the table with a glass of water. “Can we focus on the actual issues? Like the missing dragon, the dead in the palace, and the lack of food and water in there.”

And the lack of magic.

But that wasn’t something that could be solved before the next full moon. Or at least he didn’t think it was possible. It felt like a much bigger issue. He would sort out the vampires and the dragon and then have Noah whisper his name until he tasted magic again.

“This is only one building. How many other buildings have trapped vampires and others in them?”

“I don’t know.” Pan shook his head. “And this is only the main city. There are other smaller towns and farms that are also part of the city-state.”

“What is a city-state?” Noah asked as he peered at the map.

“It’s kind of like local government, except they’re independent. They existed in mediaeval times,” Linda said.

Pan had no idea what local government was, though he could guess. “Each city-state had trade deals and alliances with other others. It got very complicated politically. Not all of them rule the same way, either. There was a lord, or a king, or both. If a city had both, one was political, and one was military. There was also usually a Strega, who used magic and read the fate lines, and a knight who dispensed justice. Neither the Strega nor knight have come to the palace, which is troublesome.”

“You think they’re dead?” Linda asked.

“I think we need to go to their homes and check.” Another thing to do before he did what he needed to do. “We need to tell my people that they haven’t been abandoned. They need to realize that this human city isn’t out to harm them.”

It better not intend to harm them.

Not that there was much he could do if the humans decided to slaughter every mythological being. But he could hold a grudge for a very long time, and when his connection to magic returned, he’d make them all suffer. Though he suspected the humans responsible would be long dead.

“The mythological beings here are safe. There is an EU directive that they are refugees.”

They kept using words he didn’t understand and could only guess at. He didn’t like not understanding. “And the EU is?”

“The European Union,” Noah said. “You are lucky you arrived here because in other countries?—”

“We have enough problems without detailing the happenings in other countries,” Linda said rather too quickly. Pan guessed that meant other countries were not treating them as refugees. “These maps are in two different scales. We need at least two other buildings to be able to marry the two together.”

While he’d flown over the human city, it hadn’t been to identify Tarikian buildings. Nor was he familiar with Beita to recognize what he’d been looking at, especially when everything was broken.

Pan considered Noah for a couple of heartbeats. Like the cook who’d made him a sandwich while listening to the radio, Noah had news from other places. Humans didn’t have Strega, so how did they get news so fast? “How do you learn what is happening in other countries if you are not connected to magic? If you have no Strega to pass the message?”

“The news and social media.” Noah pulled a small black rectangle out of his pocket.

The cook had used the word news, but that didn’t tell him how it worked. “How are the newspapers finding the news so fast?”

Pan had no idea what social media was. Just because he recognized the words didn’t mean the meaning was conveyed.

Noah tapped the rectangle, then put it on the table. “People record what is happening on their phones and post it to social media—which is kind of like news but informal. So we can see what is happening in other countries. News stations do much the same. They record the events and report on them, and then they’re posted to the Internet.”