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“You saw him too.” I narrowed my eyes at her. “Is this some kind of test?”

“I want to know what you’re thinking, not just see what you’re seeing.”

“Ok, so that’s a ‘yes’ on the test.” I chewed on her question a little, trying to figure out exactly what she wanted. Maybe I could nab a few Merit points while I was at it. “I’m thinking that guy and his six buddies all look like they spend half their lives lifting weights in the gym. And they’d totally overload a metal detector.”

Eris didn’t comment.

“Because they’re all so big, buff, and carrying lots of weapons,” I explained.

Actually, ‘lots of weapons’ was a major understatement. The men wore big swords and so many knives strapped to them, their bodies were probably magnetic.

“So, I’m guessing they’re soldiers.”

I considered the rude man’s six companions. They were wearing dark t-shirts, camouflage pants, and combat boots.

“They would prefer the term ‘warriors’,” Eris said. “Congratulations, you’ve just become the lucky winner of a close encounter with a vampire prince and his entourage of vampire bodyguards.”

Eris’s tone told me she thought I was anything but lucky.

“There are vampires? Like for real?” I asked. “How can I not know that?”

“The Government tries to hide as much about the Many Realms and its inhabitants as they possibly can. So people don’t panic.”

“Those vampires were rude, but they didn’t look like scary monsters at all,” I said. “Actually, they looked pretty normal.”

“Vampires only look monstrous if they allow their lust for blood to get out of control.”

Gross.

“There are consequences when you don’t control your magic, when you allow it to control you instead.” Eris waved us in closer. “And that goes for all magic, guys. Not just vampire magic.”

“I’ll remember that,” Bronte said immediately.

From the eager look on her face, she was already composing an essay about this Discovery Quest inside her head. No wonder she was at the top of the Scoreboard.

A chorus of whinnying drew my attention to the street. But I didn’t find a horse there. I found a pegasus. No, make that three pegasi. Two more had just landed beside the first, and together they charged down the cobbled road toward a pair of very large bulls.

“Animal fighting?” Horror was etched into Kylie’s face. “Are the Many Realms really into that kind of thing?”

“They’re not beasts,” I whispered. I turned to take a final look at them before we entered a large multi-story building. Human forms lurked beneath all that beast magic. “They’re men.”

“Metamorphs, actually,” Eris told me as we ascended the stairs into the indoor mall.

“Metamorphs? As in, people who use magic to change their physical appearance?” Bronte said eagerly. “Some Metamorphs turn into beasts. Some turn into other people. And some turn into human-beast hybrid forms like mermaids or centaurs.”

Asher snorted. “Wow, what people say about youistrue, Vance. You really are a walking encyclopedia.”

Bronte didn’t look offended; in fact, she looked proud. And she had every right to be. She obviously studied even more than I did.

“And these Metamorphs…they like to fight?” I asked.

“From the absence of war cries, they don’t appear to be actually fighting. I think they’re just letting off some steam,” Eris commented.

“Do Metamorph Knights also need to let off steam?” Kylie wondered.

“Yeah, they do,” Eris said. “Metamorph Knights get their magic from the spirits rather than being born with it like natural Metamorphs, but both groups share the same kinds of abilities—and the samecharmingbehavior.”

It was Dutch who asked the question we all must have been thinking. Or at least I was.