I just grunted. We were all given the same test. We had to talk about what we saw in the pool before they’d let anyone join the rescue party. I was pretty sure every supernatural was using their magic to see if we were lying.
The majority of usdidn’tknow who we were or what our clues meant. A lot of the supernaturals didn’t, either. They all seemed to know who Liam was, but not Sage, other than she was related to the fair folk. And some pantheons were vast withmultiple gods. If Radames was a moon god, he could be one of several. Same with Alexios and the sun.
There were only a few of us who knew who we were and only one who was admitting they were awake. Lucian didn’t do it. At least, I didn’t think he had. He was doing things in his sleep, but I would have woken up if he tried to leave the tent. Unless I did and he used his mind control.
Still, no one said he was lying when he said not only did he not know he could mind control, but he didn’t want to learn it, either. I didn’t think it was him.
Zephyr came back with two more groups. One of us and a group of supernaturals.
“The auras here aredire,”one of them said, tossing her hair over her shoulder.
“Can you read who we need to worry about?”
“Well, no one’s aura screams guilty, but you have tofeelguilty for it to show in your aura. The little one has no aura,” she said, pointing at Lola.
“I don’t know what that is,” Lola said, bursting into tears.
Mazen wrapped his arm around her and squeezed.
“Someone beat her hard enough to break her ribs. All she wants to do is run away and hide, but even withthemhere, it’s more dangerous for her if she doesn’t go here. We don’t know who she is, but her magic got triggered enough to protect her so they wouldn’t sense her when she was getting away from them.”
That was basically what Sage thought. It made sense. Lucian’s magic was triggered when he had blood. It also meant Lola could be awake, which didn’t make sense. She hadn’t tried to go after anyone. I mean, yeah, their other teammate disappeared, but the fairy made no sense at all.
And I was starting to think Mazen wasn’t awake, either. If he was, he was a talented actor that was fooling Sage’s mojo. It waslike he was in physical pain every time Lola cried and he was seconds away from just destroying Ivar, Ari, and Alexios.
Set was also the god of storms. I wasjustabout to comment on that and then the clouds opened up and dumped rain on us.
Great. Now it was raining, and that seemed to mean more than just us getting wet. Khalid and Liam both seemed like they were expecting this. I thought Lucian would be annoyed at getting wet, but he seemed to welcome it. I, apparently, underestimated how much he hated not being able to shower.
“How did you both know it was going to rain?”
Liam and Khalid both started talking at once, stopped talking, then started talking over each other again as they told the other to go first.
“Liam, you’re connected with nature. Can you sense the weather?” I asked.
“What? No, I’m in bloody England. It’s shocking we were out here this long without the skies pissing on us. If you’re going to go to school here for four years, you’ll want an umbrella. It doesn’t actually rain that often, but it’s a thing to moan about. I like complaining, too.”
“You knew it was going to rain, too,” I said to Khalid.
“I love the rain,” Lucian said.
“How Prince of Darkness of you,” Liam snorted.
“Fuck off.”
“I was thinking about Mazen. Set was a god of storms, too.”
“This isn’t a proper storm, though,” Liam said. “It’s just nature shaking off after a piss. If Mazen was this big baddy in his previous life and he was awake, he’d probably be dumping more than just a drizzle on our heads.”
This was fucked up. I suspected Lola for absolutely no reason but a feeling in my gut. Khalid was looking at Mazen because he was a history scholar. And I wasn’t sure any of it was fair. There could be a completely logical explanation for why there were conflicting stories about how Lola came to be on her original team.
Mazen seemed just as thrilled to be Set as Lucian was to be Vlad the Impaler. And Headmaster Mykene even said we weren’t our original lives. Which meant someone mightnothave been evil before, but they were now.
This was complicated and my blood sugar was getting a little low, so it was annoying me more than it should. And don’t ask mehow,but Lucian knew.
“Eat some of that fairy bread before it gets bad, please?”
He whispered it privately, so he wasn’t outing me and it was more like he was pleading with me than giving me an order. It was nice. It felt like he gave a shit and my diabetes wasn’t this massive inconvenience like my father did.
