“I mean, I’d ask my wife why she fucked my brother. If she wanted to fuck him, I’d dump her on his doorstep and they could have each other. If she didn’t,thenI’d kill him. I’m not going to go over there and ask, but I get vibes Mazen is like that, too. Radames is the one who acts like his shit doesn’t stink and I think he’s got the stinkiest poops of all of us,” I said.
“It’s hard to get reads on Mazen or Radames anymore because they stayed so close to Lola. That could either be because the men she named as her attackers were here or Mazen had figured out it would be difficult for all of us in her presence,” Sage said.
“There were several gods associated with the moon, but none of them were evil. Thoth in particular represented balance and he opposed Set. They are paired up for a reason.”
“We don’tknowhe’s a moon god,” I said. “He got shady when you asked him to clarify what he saw. Iknowhe got shadybecause I do that any time the cops bring me in for questioning. The more you blab, the more they can nail you with.”
“I can hear heartbeats,” Lucian said. “I think eventually I might be able to tell if someone is lying with the right training. Want to bet these seniors already have that training?”
Probably.
“They probably would have said something if he lied about seeing the night sky,” Sage pointed out.
“Obviously, a lot of what my Nana told me about the fair folk was shite, but she said they can’t lie. She said they got around that by omitting things to suit what they needed. We all didn’t see just one thing. He wasn’t lying that he saw the sky, but that probably wasn’t all he saw. If he revealed the rest when you asked, you would have guessed and if he lied, someone might know.”
“No, I believe him that he wouldn’t know what he saw. He’s got a Coptic cross around his neck. He would have been wearing it when he was kidnapped. If he went to one of their private schools, he would have been given a Christian education and his history wouldn’t have really gone into depth about the old gods.
“We used to have alotof gods. There were several gods associated with the moon, but we had some that were just gods of night or gods of the night sky. He very well could have just seen a night sky.”
“Maybe,” Lucian said. “But weren’t all Egyptian gods associated with an animal? Like, they were depicted with that animal for a head? You saw a jackal and knew. I’m guessing Mazen knew he was Set because he saw an animal with something else. It makes sense Radames would have seen one, too, so why doesn’t he want to tell anyone?”
Sage shrugged.
“This is probably a lot for him. I went to Christian private school, too. Growing up a pastor’s kid did the exact opposite ofwhat they intended and I got kicked out at eighteen for having an opinion. It wasn’t like that for some of the kids I grew up with. Some of them wanted to go to seminary school or marry a man of the church. They wanted that and good for them, but I didn’t.
“I don’t know about Coptic Christianity, but mine teaches all of this is demonic. Like, other gods don’t exist and if you worship them, you’re worshipping Satan in disguise. My parents even thought yoga was satanic. I can accept all this because that life kicked me out with nothing but my babysitting money and I have no intention of going back. His life was probably completely different from mine and what you’re picking up on is him being completely uncomfortable with all of this.”
“She’s not wrong. My family are pretty devout Muslims. I’m easily able to accept this because history fascinates me, as does studying other religions,” I said.
“They are both sticking to Lola like glue,” Lucian said. “Their scent is harder to pick up when they are near her.”
“I was thinking about that,” Sage said. “I think it’s her magic protecting her and I guess them by extension because they took charge when she got hurt. She’s a magical blind spot. I’d be suspicious she was the one hurting people with that power, but we all saw how badly she was beaten.”
“It’s a trick the mafia uses,” I said. “You want it to look real, but you don’t want to get totally fucked up. One of the lieutenants sees this woman who beats the crap out of him and then makes him clean her loo with his toothbrush. I don’t kink shame, but the man is a total pain slut. He had paddle marks all over his arse every time he hung out at our pool. If someone needs to take a beating, he always volunteers. He’d safe word before it got to the point someone hit Lola.”
Everyone just stared at me. What? That washelpful.No one would let themselves get beaten that badly if they were doing itfor show. You wanted it to look real, but you didn’t want it to look likethat.
That was extreme. Like, I’d been in the room when we needed someone to take a beating and Paulie volunteered as tribute because he was into that. He tapped out before anything got broken and Lola’s ribs, nose, and probably her cheekbone were broken.
She didn’t do that on purpose. Someone did that to her.
The 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, butthere was one key thing Alexios said that I didn’t think anyone else had paid attention to.
