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“Yeah, it was good actually. A lot more physical than the others, and only physical, which I’m incredibly glad for, especially after yesterday’s challenge,” I reply.

I can’t help but frown when I say yesterday, so much is happening in the days at the moment that it feels like more time should have passed. To be honest, it feels like it should have been days since this morning’s trial, not just a few hours.

“Were you in Luesidious? You said that one of the same creatures that you encountered there gave you the burn,” Doc asks.

I shake my head, “No, it wasn’t that realm. I don’t know where I was, but it felt different.”

“What was the trial?” Ransom asks curiously.

“There was a pack of them, and I had to kill them all,” I explain. “I had help, though.”

“From who?” Van asks, surprised.

“I think it was definitely more of a what than a who,” I reply with a smile.

“You think?” River asks, raising an eyebrow.

I pull a face, “Yeah, so this is going to sound absolutely crazy, but whatever helped me was invisible. So I have no idea what it was, it was big and deadly, it killed several of the backward knee things, and I have no idea what its motivation was for helping me.”

“Well, that’s interesting,” Raiden says, his eyebrow raising along with his curiosity.

“Yep. I thanked it, and was going to see if I could find out more about it, but I got pulled back here before I could. I figure it was probably a creature of the realm that decided to help,” I explain, with a shrug.

That is not what I meant to say, I meant to tell them that the creature was the same one that bit me, and that the necklace that Flinotive and the imps gave me reacted weird before he showed up, but none of that comes out of my mouth and the harder I try the more the thoughts slip from my mind until I have no idea what I was thinking about.

Huh, I’m sure it wasn’t that important anyway.

Van nods, “Most likely. There are no rules against outsiders helping us, they just don’t tend to.”

“Yeah, they always seem to want to attack or eat us,” River says with a wide grin.

“Why are you smiling about that?” Griff asks with an eyebrow raised in amusement.

River’s smile widens. “Because it’s fun.”

Griff shakes his head, but his smile grows. “True, although it’s exhausting trying to hold back so that we don’t give away too much.”

“Agreed,” Ransom says.

“Hey, at least you guys have something to hold back,” I smirk.

Reed’s eyes light with a mischievousness as he says, “Well, yeah, there is that.”

Sticking my middle finger up at him as I laugh I change the subject, “How long has it been since RIbit left? She’s going to be okay, right? He can’t do anything to her?”

Raiden’s eyebrows dip over his eyes, “While there are some supernaturals that can affect the dead, Kylen isn’t one of them, so unless he has some sort of spell on him and activates it at the right time, Ribit should be absolutely fine.”

“I know that was supposed to reassure me, but Kylen is already doing things that he shouldn’t be able to do, Coen is proof of that, and it really wouldn’t surprise me if Kylen has something that meant that he could feel the dead if they’re around him, and something that means that he can do something about it if he did feel them,” I reply with a frown.

Raiden nods, “I get that, but I would be able to feel it if he had something like that on him. I can always feel death,” he stops mid sentence and his eyes widen.

He shakes his head, “Damn it, that’s what I was feeling on the stairs, it was Ribit.

I was so distracted by finding you, and I’m clearly tired, because it didn’t even register that that was what I was feeling. ”

Reed claps him on the shoulder and squeezes once, “Don’t worry about it, we’re all really tired and running on empty by this point. It's been full on, emotionally and physically for a while now.”

Suddenly the door to the room glows red, in what I can only assume is a warning from the castle.

Rushing to the door, I don’t even think twice as I pull them open, a shadow disappears down the stairs and I rush after it the guys hot on my heels.

It takes me only seconds to get to the top of the stairway, but there is nothing to be seen and the doors at the bottom are still shut tightly.

“What the fuck was that about?” Doc asks.

“I think the castle was warning us about something,” Raiden suggests, sounding slightly unsure.

“Did you see something, Nene?” Van asks.

I nod, and turn back around, heading toward the room, “Yeah, I thought I did anyway. It was a shadow of some kind. It was moving really quickly, and by the time I got to the top of the stairs it wasn’t there anymore.”

“I saw it as well,” Reed says with a frown.

“What or who was it?” Ransom questions.

Once we’re back in the room, I look toward the fireplace, from experience with House it’s easy for enchanted houses and in this case castles to speak through fire, so that’s where I direct my question.

“Castle, can you light up the fire if there was someone listening at the door?” I ask and flames instantly flare to life in the fireplace.

“Well, that was a pretty definitive answer,” Griff says with a frown.

“That’s really not good,” Doc says, his eyebrows pulling down with worry. “What were we talking about? Was it anything that shouldn’t have been overheard?”