We’d all agreed before the Spring Ball that we’d meet at the infirmary before midnight. I left the party earlier, quietly rushing down the stairs in my champagne-pink ballgown, my heels clicking down the cobblestone pavement.

There were barely any Maras in the streets, as most had gathered in the Kifo mansion, and Emilian had just announced they’d opened his villa as well, to accommodate the increasing number of guests. Apparently, they’d been surprised by the high volume of attendees—higher than usual. It turned out that nothing made the Exiled Maras thirstier for a fancy ball than the threat of being abducted from their own city.

I spotted half a dozen Imen slowly walking up and down the alleys, retreating to their homes, and I walked behind a group of three girls. They were weirdly silent for the five minutes I spent in their vicinity, until the one in the middle suddenly collapsed. The others fell to their knees, trying to get her back up.

I rushed over to check on the fallen girl. She looked pale, with dark circles around her eyes. She blinked slowly, limp in her friends’ arms.

“Come on, Akila!” one of them whispered. “We need to get home!”

“What’s wrong with her?” I asked. “Is she ill?”

The girls gave me frightened looks, as if I were the last creature they wanted to see.

“She’s fine,” the other friend retorted.

I helped them pull the girl back up to her feet. Akila took a few deep breaths. She seemed drowsy and confused.

“Are you okay?” I touched her forehead to check her temperature, but her friends pulled her back and frowned at me.

“I told you, she’s fine!”

“We need to go,” the other said.

They walked away, headed down a side street and holding Akila up. She occasionally glanced over her shoulder to get a better look at me.

I was baffled.

“I was only trying to help,” I muttered, then watched them for another minute, until they disappeared into one of the houses at the end of the narrow street.

I continued on my way and stopped by the Broken Bow Inn, where I picked up the map and the notes we’d gathered from interviews and the library. Then I resumed my descent toward the infirmary, having a hard time shaking off that image of Akila. She looked weakened and pale, and her friends were acting too weird toward someone who only wanted to help.

Nevertheless, those thoughts subsided as I reached the infirmary. The lights were on inside, and I could see the Mara nurses moving through the room. I stopped in front of the door and took a deep breath. The idea of seeing Patrik again made me nervous.

I went in, just as two nurses were finishing changing Minah’s bandages. Patrik was quietly watching over her, as she was still in a state of deep sleep. The sound of the door opening made him turn his head, and he seemed to freeze, his steely blue eyes wide, his lips slowly parting.

One of the nurses gave me an appreciative smile and a polite nod.

“We’ll give you some privacy,” she said slowly, then left with the other nurse and a basket of used bandages.

I closed the door behind me and walked toward Patrik’s bed. He looked stunned, and I figured it had something to do with my dress. I brushed the hopeful thought away and placed the map and notes on a table nearby, then looked at Minah.

“Have you tried waking her up?” I asked, my voice barely audible.

A moment passed before Patrik finally blinked.

“I tried. She’s not waking up,” he said hoarsely. “Holding out hope for the morning. It’s a bit odd that she’s still sleeping and unresponsive—her wounds are healing up nicely and her vitals are good, but… I don’t know…”

I nodded, then stepped closer to his bedside, unable to hide my concern.

“How are you feeling, Patrik?”

“I’m fine. Fit as a fiddle. No need to worry about me.”

“Okay. Well, the others are on their way. They should be here shortly,” I said, then pointed at the map and notes. “I went ahead and brought these over.”

“You look ravishing tonight,” Patrik said, prompting my pulse to go on a marathon through my body. I even felt my cheeks catch fire under his darkened blue gaze.

“Thank you,” I murmured, suddenly feeling self-conscious.

He cleared his throat, then pulled himself into an upright position, his back resting against the headboard.

“How was the Spring Ball?” he asked, refusing to take his eyes off me. Instead, he allowed his gaze to wander up and down my body, to settle on my bodice and bare shoulders before finding my face again.

“It… It was nice. An interesting affair, to say the least.” I smiled, my nerves buzzing. “Everyone was so well dressed. The music was good. They had a variety of delightful blood cocktails at the bar… I caught up with Avril and Heron before I left. They returned from the Roho mansion and kept dancing around, pretending nothing happened. They got some information from Arrah, which they’ll share with us in a bit… It was a good night. A fun night, too… I even danced with a couple of Maras.”

I noticed the subtle change in his expression as I mentioned my dance partners. He looked away for a second, then gave me a weak, almost sad smile.

“I’m not surprised,” he said. “What person in their right mind wouldn’t want to dance with a beautiful creature like you?”

My skin simmered under his softening gaze. My heart picked up its pace, but I didn’t get to say anything. The door opened and in walked the rest of our team, all still glamorous in their ball outfits, causing Patrik to roar with laughter.

“Wow, don’t you all look dashing and fabulous?” he chuckled.

“You’re lucky you got to stay here,” Jax muttered as he walked over to the table and pulled it closer to the bed. “Let’s get to work.”

“Someone’s in a mood,” Heron quipped from behind.

We all gathered around the table. Jax ignored him and spread the map out, pinning its corners into the wooden surface. I ended up standing next to Patrik’s bedside, his natural scent tickling my senses. I stole a glance at him and saw he was watching me intently. I shifted my focus back to the table, where Caia opened one of her notebooks and helped Jax place pieces of torn paper on precise spots in and around the city, where the victims had last been seen.

“Minah is still under, huh?” Hansa frowned, looking at the Iman girl.

“Yeah, I think we’ll try to wake her up in the morning,” I replied.

“By force, if you have to,” Hansa said. “Cold water, the works.” She then scanned the map, her gaze following Jax’s hands as he marked more disappearance points with pieces of paper.

“Most of the abductions took place in the Valley of Screams,” Harper said, reading the map, while holding her journal and flipping through the notes. “However, six months ago, people started disappearing from the plains. Mostly moon-bison herders.”

She pointed at a designated area on the map. Fiona joined her side, her gaze darting between Harper’s notes and the pieces of paper.

“Then, three months ago, they started vanishing from the base of the mountain,” Fiona added, pointing at specific locations. “Here, here, then here, here, and here.”

“The most recent disappearance was Sienna,” Hansa said, her finger on the top of the mountain, where House Obara was marked.

“See, that’s where we’ve been getting stuck.” Caia shook her head. “If you remove Sienna from this equation, just for a moment, you can see the actual pattern. If you consider her to be an anomaly, it all makes more sense.”

“Meaning?” Jax asked, squinting at the map as he tried to follow her reasoning.

“Look here,” Caia said, circling the gorge with a hand motion. “Two years ago, they started vanishing here, closer to the… let’s call them free lands, since Imen tribes live freely on the other side, according to what we know so far. Right?”

We all nodded. She moved her hand to the other half of the Valley of Screams, the one closer to the city.

“One year ago, they started to disappear from these parts,” Caia continued. “Keep the time periods in mind while I go on… Now, six months ago, the plains. Three months ago, the base of the mountain, the first level.”

“Crap.” Jax scoffed. “It’s systematic.”

“Exactly!” Caia grinned with satisfaction. “It’s not every three or six months, but there is still a clear, mathematical descent, based on both the distance between disappearances and the time passed. If we follow the descent in both time and space, I think it’s safe to assume that tomorrow, the date marking the full three months since the first disappearance from the first level, someone from the second level will be next in line to go poof!”

I stared at the map, and, as Caia had put it, it made sense. By her calculation, tomorrow night was when the daemons would move deeper into Azure Heights and, most likely, start hunting on the second level.

“But how is Sienna an anomaly?” I frowned. “I just don’t get it…”

“This is where House Roho comes in,” Avril said, her eyes twinkling as she put two and two together with what she’d probably learned from Arrah. She patted Caia’s shoulder and put on a satisfied smirk. “Now it does make sense. We spoke to Arrah tonight, and, while we couldn’t get too much out of her, we do suspect three things. One, that Arrah knows more about Sienna’s disappearance, but she is afraid to come forward because her brother is in prison, and we think House Kifo—and probably House Roho, too—are holding him as leverage to keep her from telling us what she knows. Two, she knows Minah personally. And three, she didn’t want to talk about daemons. Emphasis on ‘didn’t want to talk’. Not that she doesn’t know about them.”

“Her brother is in prison?” Jax raised an eyebrow. “What did he do?”

“That’s just it, the accusation was vague,” Avril replied. “They sent her a letter notifying her that he had conspired against the city, but they’ve ignored her appeals.”

“Oh, man, now I understand why she was so wary of coming forward in front of Vincent last night!” Fiona gasped.

“So what you’re saying is that House Roho knows more about Sienna’s disappearance than they’re letting on.” Jax nodded slowly. “Despite their eagerness to help us find her.”

“Yup! It all comes down to the Correction Officers and House Kifo,” Fiona said. “The next question we need to answer is why Arrah’s brother was arrested in the first place. What if the accusations were bogus?”

“Why would the accusations be bogus?” Hansa scratched the back of her head, visibly confused. “I thought they had a very strict rule of law…”

“Well, what if ‘strict rule’ is an Exiled Mara euphemism for ‘dictatorship’?” Avril shrugged.

“This is a lot more complicated than we’d initially thought,” Jax muttered, staring at the map. “On one hand, the disappearances are wreaking havoc here. On the other, a potentially useful witness is being silenced through the imprisonment of her brother.”

“But the single, key unknown variable right now is: was Sienna taken by these daemons, or was she taken by someone else? Caia spotted this right: it is an anomaly!” Fiona replied.

“Well done, Caia.” Jax gave her an appreciative smile. “You’ve correctly identified Sienna as an inconsistency, potentially unrelated to the disappearances. It helped establish a clear pattern for what the daemons are doing.”

“Thanks.” Caia grinned, then pointed at an area on the map, marking the second level of Azure Heights. “As for the disappearances, based on the pattern we mentioned, this is the least populated area, and quite an open space. I don’t think the daemons will go straight for the crowded parts of level two. I think they’ll start nabbing people from this side of the square. The alleys are quite dark and narrow, the perfect hunting ground.”

“We might be able to stop the attacks with a spell,” Patrik interjected. “I put together a strong protective ritual to cover the entire base of the city. I will need the team to go out and plant certain satchels into the north, south, west, and east walls below the first level, though, before I can arm the shield. It’s a combination of several ninetieth-level spells and swamp witch magic, and it also involves painting some symbols throughout the city to further enforce the shield. I can’t guarantee it will work, though. It’s meant to fend off hostiles, but I don’t know what the hostiles look like, so I’ll have to visualize their red eyes when I chant the spell. That was all I could see, and I’m not sure it will be enough.”

“It’s worth a shot!” Harper replied. “And we could patrol the hotspot on the second level tomorrow night, just to make sure. Better safe than sorry, right?”

“Agreed.” Hansa nodded. “What about Sienna? Should we keep investigating her disappearance, given that it might be a dirty Exiled Mara secret? I mean, I know they want us to find her, but do they really? Or is there a trap waiting at the bottom of this hot mess?”

“We’d have to ask ourselves why the Exiled Maras would want to lay a trap for us in the first place,” Jax mused.

“It all boils down to Arrah,” Avril said. “And that prison. We could find her brother in the prison.”

“How do we do that? We don’t even know where the prison is. Or her brother’s name, for that matter…” Caia sighed, her gaze fixed on the map.

“Actually, we know the brother’s name.” Harper smirked, then pulled a couple of folded pages from her notebook. “I came across a household registry for the Roho mansion when we were in the library earlier. I found all the names listed there, including Arrah’s and her brother’s.”

She handed the papers over to Jax, who unfolded them and stilled, realizing what he was looking at.

“You ripped these from their official record book?” he asked, disbelief blaring from his voice.

“Yeah, sorry about that.” Harper shrugged. “We were getting ready to leave, and I didn’t have time to write them all down.”

Jax exhaled sharply, then shook his head, but didn’t reprimand her action further. Instead, he scanned the pages.

“Demios and Arrah Greywood, siblings, children of Marina Greywood,” he read out loud. “Demios is the brother, then. He worked for House Roho. And so did Marina…”

“Oh, damn, I know that name.” Caia’s eyes widened as she flipped through her notebook. “Yep, this is it. Marina Greywood. She’s one of the victims of these daemon abductions! She vanished a year ago, almost to the date.”

“Yes, she did,” Heron remembered, and got a nod from Avril. “Arrah mentioned her mother as an abductee.”

“So one member of the family taken by daemons.” Jax frowned. “Another arrested on a vague charge… No wonder the girl is scared to come forward. Heron, didn’t you try mind-bending her?”

“Fun fact…” Heron pursed his lips. “Arrah is immune to mind-bending. Otherwise I would’ve gladly done it.”

“How is she immune?” Jax replied. “She’s an Iman. They’re all highly susceptible to our abilities.”

“Not Arrah.” Heron shook his head. “For some reason, unbeknownst even to her, she cannot be mind-bent.”

“We should definitely keep investigating Sienna’s disappearance.” Jax nodded. “If these Maras are doing something shady, we need to know.”

“Yeah, Arrah said she was afraid that they were also jailing Imen for no good reason, but she didn’t want to say more,” Avril said. “I think we should help her, maybe even get her brother out and get them both to safety so she can tell us what’s going on in that house. And what happened to Sienna.”

“All the more reason to investigate,” Jax replied, then looked at Hansa. “If they’re abusing the Imen in any way, it becomes a GASP issue, whether they like it or not. I couldn’t give a damn about their laws and ways of life if they’re infringing upon the rights of innocent creatures.”

“I completely agree.” Hansa scoffed. “We need a plan. We clearly have a lot to do. We’ll need to do this in teams, and we’ll run a tight schedule. Let’s meet up again in the morning and hash it out.”

We all nodded, and, one by one, the team left the infirmary.

“Patrik, I’m guessing you’ll spend the night here and watch over Minah, but one of us can take your place in the morning,” Hansa added, glancing at the Druid from the open doorway.

“That’s fine.” Patrik nodded, and Hansa left.

I was the last to move, my arm brushing against Patrik’s hand as I moved toward the door. He caught my wrist, bringing me to a halt. I looked at him, and my stomach dropped. He wore an expression of genuine concern, his brow furrowed and his eyes burning through me.

“Be careful out there,” he said softly. “Lock your door and windows tonight.”

“Thank you, Patrik.” I gave him a gentle smile. “But don’t worry about me. I’m too fast for any of those daemons to catch me. They almost got lucky last night because I was trying to keep them away from Minah, but if they ever try to come after me, they will fail. Miserably.”

“I need you to be safe, Scarlett. Just lock everything up before you go to bed.”

“Okay,” I replied, swallowing. “I will. Goodnight, Patrik.”

He didn’t say anything, but his gaze spoke for him with a single blink. He let go of my hand, and I left the infirmary. I heard the door close behind me as I rushed after the rest of my team. They were only a dozen feet away.

I held my wrist close to my chest, as if still feeling Patrik’s touch on my skin. I didn’t want that sensation to go away.