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I didn’t particularly want to get in a magic fight with a bunch of goth fairies who had a legitimate beef with a psychopath who died ages ago and didn’t seem to realize that wasn’t Lucian. I wasn’t a violent person, and I liked Liam, too, but I probably would have punched him in the face by now and Lucian hadn’t.

I just had this sneaking suspicion that as soon as Lucian had a Wi-Fi connection and a full charge, he would get his revenge for the insults and kicks to the kidneys. Which was why I was certain Lucian didn’t beat Lola for fun instead of biting her and then make her think it was her teammates.

I was pretty sure Lucian had super strength in addition to the super speed. He could get his point across in a way Liam would get with his fists, but he found that uncouth and preferred his methods.

He wasn’t doing it in his sleep, either. Liam’s animal friends were sleeping outside. They were loyal to Liam, but they were looking out for all of us because we were with him. They would have woken Lucian.

So, the fairies left three of their team to guard the crystal and the rest left with us to look for their missing friend. The only fairy I’d actually spoken to was Saffron, so I didn’t know if them refusing to even talk to us was an Unseelie thing, a Lucian thing, or a fairy thing in general and Saffron was just really friendly.

“When was the last time you saw your friend?” I asked.

Because that was important. I didn’t want to be police like my baba, but I was interested in his work. We needed a lot more information.

“Star is a healer. Most of the herbs she would use come from Fairy and have to be harvested at the castle, but there is a root out here she said we could use on brush burn a few of us got fighting off the last contestants. She left after breakfast. Fairies can portal, so we thought she was having trouble finding the root, then we realized Vlad was here.”

“My name is Lucian, and I didn’t ask for this. I’m not thrilled I have to put my mouth on people’s neck to survive and hope they don’t skip that part with soap in the shower. I don’t even like it when people brush up against me without my consent, so trust me, I’m not interested in biting fairies unless they want it. And even if they ask me, it’s kind of intimate, so I might still say no.”

“Interesting. Fairies are full of germs if you are thinking of biting us, anyway.”

Lucian visibly shuddered. If a fairy asked him to bite them, I had a feeling he would run away screaming. Still, trying to change these fairies’ minds about Lucian wasn’t why we were out here.

“Where would Star be gathering this root?”

One of the fairies waved their hand and opened a portal. One of us was going to have to figure that out. The missing fairy could very well still be out here looking for that root. I doubted it. Fairies were connected to nature. That fairy would have had an easier time than I would and she went to school here, so she was familiar with the land.

We walked through the portal and looked around. Star wasn’t here. She wasn’t dead. I had a feeling I could see her soul if she was. She was just gone.

“Would she gave gone back to the castle?” Liam asked.

“No. It’s an instant fail. We have to live out here, too. We’re given tents and rations. You don’t get into Ouroboros if you leave the trials. We don’t graduate. That and the written are equal portions of our grade to finish school. You can do badly on one, but you can’t get a zero.”

So, if Star was in danger, she would have opened a portal back to the other fairies instead of back to the castle. And she could not only open a portal, but fairies were fast. They also knew we were near the crystal without laying eyes on us.

Star might be a healer instead of a fighter, but she’d have the same base magic. The chances of anyone getting the jump on her would have been slim. And it looked terrible for Lucian.

“Who’s faster, vampires or fairies? And can you see them when they are moving fast?” Liam asked.

It was a good question because we needed to know, but we didn’t need a target on his back again.

“We’re about the same, but vampires are stronger. And we are at a disadvantage because they can see us, but we can’t see them. That’s what happens when a psychopath tortures a dark witch for power,” they said, glaring at Lucian.

“Yes, but I think you also have extra powers that vampires don’t,” Liam said. “You knew Lucian was watching you and you knew when he came back with his team. If Lucian can open a portal, he doesn’t know how. None of us do or we’d be back at the castle singing karaoke so I can impress a girl and get a kiss. I don’t think most people could have snuck up on your healer without her knowing and being able to portal back to you before they got close.”

“And you’d be right, but if Star sensed someone who meant her harm, she’d come right back to us to report it. She’s not with us and she’s not here. She wouldn’t go back to the castle.”

“No, she was here,” Sage said, looking around like she was feeling something. “There wasn’t any type of battle. She was here and then she wasn’t.”

“She didn’t open a portal,” one of the fairies said. “There’s no residual magic leftover from one where I could tell where she went.”

The rest of the fairies had fanned out and were inspecting everything.

“It doesn’t make sense. Star was a healer, but she knew how to fight. She was also smart, so she wouldn’t have tried to take someone on alone. She would have come back and gotten us. She never would have run, but there are also no signs she did that, either. I can track her walking into this area, but I don’t have her leaving, running or walking. If she’s not here, she should have left by portal.”

“She didn’t. No one has opened a portal here. She opened her first one a little further away and walked this way. She should still be here.”

“The ground isn’t disturbed like someone buried her,” Liam said. “That bird over there says she’s gone and we won’t see her again. She also said someone out here means all of us harm, so we should wrap up our business as soon as possible and start learning. She can’t show me who it is, but the animals don’t like them, either. They are a reincarnation, like us.”

“Sorry, but I take extra history classes. You’ll take them if you complete the trials. There’s not a single being that could be reincarnated that has the ability to disappear someone without a trace.”

“Wait, shut up,” Sage said.

“Excuse me?”

“No, I can hear it, too,” Liam said.

“I don’t want to drink any fairies, but Sage asked you to shut up,” Lucian said, smirking.

I tried not to laugh. Lucian didn’t have much in the way of a sense of humor, but he enjoyed every minute of poking the fairies like that. Good for him.

“I can’t see her, but my familiar is talking to me for the first time. It’s not like the animals with Liam. She uses full sentences and I think she’s Irish. She said the one that none of them are allowed to speak about is back. Something about a geas? She said they are back, and they’ve made a friend. Oh. She just cursed me out for thinking she’s anything but Irish.”

“I feel that. I’ve stabbed people over that,” Liam said.

“So, that rules out Lucian. If no one can speak on this being, then it’s probably been removed from all your books. I didn’t know Vlad the Impaler was really a vampire, but I even heard those rumors as a human,” I said.

“It probably rules out Ivar, too,” Sage said. “My father thought even the Marvel movies with Norse gods were Satanic, so I didn’t get to watch them, but I know who Thor is.”

“It could be unrelated,” I pointed out. “It’s a completely different MO. There was no fight here. Star just disappeared without a trace. Lola had the shit beaten out of her.”

“If this person is so evil, they’d been erased, then whoever just became their bestie probably is, too. Star disappeared the way she did because she had magic and training. They couldn’t risk her getting away like Lola did and telling a bunch of trained fairies what they looked like. Lola was funsies.

“Look, sometimes bad people need to die. I don’t feel bad about it, but I don’t get all stabby in the moment because I’m enjoying it. There are some nutfucks out there pop a boner when they are hurting people. The person who disappeared Star is one nutfuck and the person who beat Lola is probably the nutfuck who befriended them. One could have just disappeared Lola like they did Star, but letting the other beat her first is like Christmas presents between psychos,” Liam said.

I mean, yeah, Liam was raised by criminals. He probably understood this much better than I did. Ivar had the size to beat a woman like that, but I didn’t really get a feeling from him that he did that kind of thing.

And speak of the devil. He just showed up to another crime scene.