Klix had finished interrogating the Six.

  Even though there was an urgency about getting Mive free, I was thankful for the day off. For once, I actually slept in on purpose and woke up after Ether did.

  Some of the others had already left for the large tent by the tree where they were coordinating the Adventurers. Now that there was a system in place, they only needed to have four, five if the Scarlet wasn’t there, of them at the tent. I could hear noises from the kitchen and guessed that was where most of my team was, but I wanted to check on Trent before I got something to eat. It had almost become like a morning ritual as I looked into the tent where Shelly was watching over our teacher and teammate.

  “‘Morning Shelly, Any change?”

  “Not yet.” Shelly touched Trent’s forehead. “But no change is better than getting worse.”

  I nodded. “How about you?”

  “I’m fine.” The tank smiled at me, then motioned at the private dining area. “I think Klix is waiting to talk to you. She asked me to send you to Her once you woke up.”

  I swallowed. While Harror had mellowed just a little, though She still didn’t want us talking casually to Her, Klix had kept a casual-at-times-explosive attitude towards me in particular. There was no denying that She was the one calling the shots in the city. Harror could slow Her down, but ultimately the city needed someone who could act quick and kill faster. The green Goddess was great for healing people and anyone who got under Her tree was not only safe from monsters, but also healed almost instantly. But healing wouldn’t take back the city, so while people were grateful to Harror, they needed Klix.

  That Ether was my… actually, I wasn’t sure what designation to give her. Prime was the one she’d used, so I probably needed to adopt that title for her as well. Anyway, it felt like because of how close Ether was to me, that Klix was being especially hard on me, the few times that I’d seen Her anyway.

  “Thanks.” I turned and started walking towards the room. My stomach growled in protest, but Klix had been waiting already and I didn’t want to give her an excuse to get upset with me by making her wait any longer.

  The Six were in the private dining room, along with Klix, Ether, Kara, and two other Scarlets. Mive was still on the middle of the table and I’d interrupted something by walking in.

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  “I was told you wanted to see me. Sorry, I can…”

  “Get in and sit down.” Klix pointed at an empty chair by Ether.

  I closed the door behind me and took my seat. The city’s leaders were on the opposite side of the table against the long side of the wall. They each looked worn out and I had no doubt that Klix had only bothered to question them at the end of the day if She’d felt like it.

  Sandez Jinsu had led the Six when we’d arrived, but it looked like Yasmin Gara was sitting at the front of their group. The sixty seven year old silver-skinned woman had black hair and eyes that were so black that they looked like voids. She held herself up straight despite her current situation, while the rest of her colleagues looked like they were trying to back away from the table.

  The seventy-one year old woman on her right was Sandez Jinsu’s granddaughter, not his daughter. Varina Jinsu didn’t share a single major feature with her grandfather. She had black hair, green eyes, and golden skin, while her grandfather had light brown hair, yellow eyes, and snowy-white skin. I was kind of glad that she didn’t have those glowing yellow eyes. My heart still sped up whenever I thought about the demon glaring at me with them.

  I remembered from the lecture Trent had given us at the start of our trip here that Evan Harlax wasn’t a Harlax by birth. The forty-three year old man also wasn’t even the next generation under Remy Harlax, but I was starting to see how sometimes that didn’t matter. His spousal name was Baxu and he came from Juel, but he had the silver skin that Remy craved, so he had been the one to receive the backing. The green-eyed man had the same fiery red hair that his daughter and son shared and I wondered if Astrid got her temperament from her father or her mother.

  I’d already met Pete Inon when we’d gotten Zel. The forty-three year old man was wearing a lot less formal clothes now, or maybe it was just that the clothes he was wearing were probably the same ones that he’d been in when the Scarlets had detained them. The blonde man was picking at his fingers like I’d seen Zel doing when she was nervous. I tried to look into his blue eyes to see if I could get a read on him, but the black-skinned man was keeping them focused on his hands.

  Garce Faeru was on the left corner. Sydney’s husband looked tired and his snowy-white skin looked like it had taken on a light shade of gray. His green eyes had dulled and his black hair was unkempt. I felt bad for Sydney, she had taken a big risk to help us get our friends back and to avoid capture. It felt like we were repaying her generosity with bitterness, even if she had been bound to help Trent out.

  That left Remy Wesh as the final member of the Six. The forty year old green man reminded me a lot of his cousin, Hayz Calx, who had taken over teaching Trent’s old class back at the Cathedral. His mother was Hayz's aunt and he had married Shelly’s aunt. There was a nagging part of me that wondered why we hadn’t been sent to them, since our team had so many connections to the family, but that was a question for Trent whenever the older man woke up. The red haired, brown eyed man had his full attention on Mive and there was a genuine look of fear on his face.

  “Now…” Klix put both of Her hands on the table. “We can begin.”

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