I had never experienced something as extraordinarily troubling before. For a moment, I’d lost control over my body and mind. I’d disappeared—or the entire universe had vanished, with me in it. The second I blinked, however, we were all somewhere else, surrounded by palm trees.

The change was so sudden that it knocked the air out of my lungs.

“Whoa…” Dmitri gasped, coming to terms with what had just happened.

“Did you just teleport us?” I blurted, my entire body shaking.

Kailani nodded. “We’re a mile and a half away, on another island,” she said, then made her way between the trees, headed straight for the edge.

“Kale, you just zapped us all away from there!” I replied. “That was incredible!”

She gave me a weak smile. Her aura was strange, mixing a variety of colors and glowing brighter than ever. It seemed to me that its intensity increased whenever she performed a swamp witch spell. Something had definitely changed in her, but this wasn’t the time or the place to address it. We had bigger problems on our plate.

We reached the edge of the woods. The sky was pitch black over the pier. Lightning flashed above, and thunder ripped through the night, repeatedly. Whatever those creatures were, they didn’t follow us. Instead, they continued to shoot around like manic falling stars, releasing fireballs at the ice shield that Nevis had left behind.

They battered it with fire until it all came down, crashing and spreading over the white sand like watery snow. They then shot outward and spread over a wider radius. There were definitely three of them. The farther apart they were from one another, the easier it was for me to count and confirm.

“They’re looking for us,” I muttered. The palm tree forest offered us good coverage, given the circumstances.

Rose shushed us, just as one of the flashes passed above our little refuge island. We all stilled and waited, but nothing happened. The lights went away, releasing the occasional sonic boom whenever they increased their speed and moved farther out.

“We should stay here for a while, until they’re gone,” Rose said.

“I know I’m asking this again, but what the hell were those things?” Dmitri replied, wiping some of the blood off his face. He’d gotten scratched across the forehead and cheeks, most likely when the flash tore into the ice tower.

Rose scratched the tip of her finger, then dripped some of her blood into Dmitri’s mouth. This wasn’t the first time the wolf had been injured, nor was it going to be the last. Vampire blood was good to have handy at this point.

“Whatever those things are, they can fly at incredible speeds,” Ben said. “Being able to break the sound barrier like that, over and over… That’s not easy.”

“They can shoot fireballs, too.” Vesta sighed. “Like me. Like the fae, in general.”

“Yeah, but no fae is capable of melting a Dhaxanian prince’s frost,” Kailani replied.

Nevis nodded, visibly concerned. A muscle ticked in his jaw. “Dhaxanian frost can be destroyed. Our strength lies in numbers then. The more of my people behind an ice wall, the harder it is to break. But my frost is indestructible. It’s in my royal blood… I don’t understand how they did it. Only I can destroy my ice creations.”

Ridan grumbled, crossing his arms. “I would’ve loved to take them for a spin, though. Give them a run for their money. I could’ve handled it!”

“Save your energy for later, Ridan,” Rose told him. “You’re one of our most precious assets. And, judging by how those things move and react—”

“They would’ve handed your ass back to you, my friend,” Hunter cut in.

Ridan scoffed but didn’t engage any further. Deep down, he knew Rose and Hunter were right.

“We’ve clearly struck a nerve with someone, somehow,” I said. “There’s no way those attacks were unintentional. There’s no way those creatures are part of the wildlife. Something is incredibly fishy here.”

“What if they’re connected to Derek and the others? The capsules, too,” Kailani replied. “What if it’s all linked in some way?”

Rose exhaled sharply, then ran a hand through her long black hair. “There’s more going on here than before. At least that’s clear,” she said. “Something we missed.”

“We spent months casing this place.” My exasperation was bubbling back to the surface. Guilt was beginning to gnaw at my insides. “There was nothing off. Nothing strange going on. No aerial phenomena. All clear and no reason to worry…”

Dmitri then froze for a second. He pressed the long-distance call button on his earpiece.

“Team Calliope, anyone there?” he called out.

We all listened quietly. Nothing came back other than static. That didn’t bode well for us.

“Harper! Jovi! Phoenix! Anyone!” Dmitri tried again, visibly frustrated. “You’ve got to be kidding me!”

I pinched the bridge of my nose, in desperate need of releasing some of the tension that had gathered over the last day. I groaned, no longer able to contain my ragged nerves.

“This can’t be Neraka all over again,” I said.

“It isn’t,” Ben replied firmly. “The comms might not work everywhere.”

“Or they might not work at all beyond Strava.” Dmitri scoffed.

“Either way, they have eyes on us,” Ben said. “There’s a blood spell linking the telescope to us. They know where to find us.”

Kailani took a deep breath, then cleared her throat.

“So, what do we do now?” she asked.

“We do what we came here to do,” Rose replied. “We’re going to find our parents, our grandparents, and our friends. We’re going to head back to the resort and try reaching out to Calliope again. We’re going to investigate, as per protocol.”

“And if we find ourselves in need of assistance, one of us will fly back to Calliope and bring back help,” Ben added. “But until we figure out what it is we’re dealing with here, there’s no point in requesting backup.”

I nodded, even though my first instinct was to bring back an entire army from the whole of Eritopia, plus a fleet of daemons and dragons, just to be sure. “Ben’s right,” I said. “Until we identify the enemy and their full range of abilities, we can’t devise an effective retaliation. Besides, our people are still here, somewhere.”

“And those flashes may have something to do with that,” Kailani replied.

“We’ve got supplies and equipment,” Ben added, giving us an encouraging half-smile.

“And I covered the shuttles in a protective spell,” Kailani said. “The telescope is watching us at all times. They’ll check the feeds. They’ll probably see what happened.”

Rose scoffed. “They might send backup.”

“We’ll have to wait and see,” Ben replied. “But, in the meantime, we’ll do our job. We’ll check out that weird coliseum you saw, too,” he added, giving me a brief nod.

I looked out into the distance once more. The lighthouse was still standing. The ice had melted away on the beach, though the path that Nevis had made for us was still there. The flashes had had no interest in it, whatsoever. They’d been aiming for us, not our tools and contraptions.

Somewhere farther away to the east was a mysterious structure made of clear, crystal-like materials, where I’d seen someone, though I hadn’t been able to make out their identifying features. We were definitely going to check it out.

We’d stumbled across something incredibly dangerous here.

Our elders were still missing. There was no trace of them anywhere. We had lots of questions with no answers, and a handful of bruises to show for what had just happened.

When we’d built the resort on Noagh, we’d had no reason to think this might go wrong. We’d done our due diligence. Despite my occasional pangs of guilt, I had to admit, there was nothing more we could’ve done to prevent this.

We’d only wanted to give our founders the proper vacation that they deserved.