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T he general consensus was safety in numbers in more ways than one. I was pretty sure all of us were aware whoever hurt Lola and was disappearing people was probably already with us. If they weren’t, they would be soon because we were portalling to different quadrants and getting everyone.

We figured if we all got our crystals and the seniors adapted to what was going on, no one would say anything and everything would be copacetic. Or, at least they couldn’t flunk the entire senior class and kick all of us from attending if we showed up at the castle and they didn’t like our story.

It made sense to all of us.

We were still all keeping to ourselves. The fairies didn’t want to be near Lucian. The fairies, succubae, and incubi were fawning over Ivar and his team. They knew more about their abilities than we did and they all seemed to think they weren’t capable of hurting Lola.

Lola was upset no one believed her and was off by herself with Mazen and Radames. I got it. I didn’t really think those guys hurt her, either. If I’d been in the store and someone was following me, all three of those guys would have noticed and pretended to be my boyfriend. Khalid would have, too. Lucian would have done something with his computer to get them arrested and Liam would have just followed them into an alley and gutted them.

Something wasn’t making sense to me. We all had just enough time to find people we were drawn to and introduce ourselves before we met with Headmaster Mykene to request our teams. I went straight to Khalid and Liam found me. I didn’t talk to Lucian before, but he’d latched onto something to request us.

I couldn’t sense connections like a succubus, but Ivar, Ari, and Alexios clearly went together as a team. They also weren’t strangers to the outdoors. Which meant Lola either lied about them begging her to be on her team because she was a hiking influencer or she was made to think that.

And I didn’t see how she’d be made to think that if she ended up on their team in the first place. Something was up. Ivar and Ari were clearly in love, and they weren’t shy with the PDA. I was so shell-shocked when we were eating that I didn’t really notice anyone else, but I doubted they would have stopped in the dining hall.

The two conflicting stories about how their team formed worked if you thought Lola’s mind had been messed with, but there was one key thing Alexios said that I didn’t think anyone else had paid attention to.

Alexios said she had a problem with gay men. If she did, she wouldn’t have agreed to be on their team if they were the ones who asked. They would have agreed if she was the one who asked them if they didn’t know she was like that.

So, their team origin story was a lie. Alexios could be lying to make her look bad, but half the people I went to high school with would have wormed their way on their team to proselytize to them and tell them why they were wrong.

If Lola was the one lying, then we were all fucked. We were either dealing with someone who was able to plot some elaborate ruse in a brief time or Lola was the one we needed to be worried about. And she was willing to be beaten to the point of broken bones to fool everyone.

I needed to marinate on this. I was going to bring it up to my team, but not when we had so many people around. Mazen and Radames had taken Lola’s protection seriously and were practically cuddling her now that she was so upset to be around Ivar and his team.

My big question was that if this was all Lola’s plan, and she was awake, who was she working with? I knew Khalid had problems with Mazen because of Set, but I could just sense when Mazen got Ivar, Ari, and Alexios alone, he was going to get justice because he took hurting women seriously.

I was going to have to investigate to know for sure. Who did Lola know before all of this?