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“They haven’t even bothered the local shifter pack,” Wyatt volunteered. “You can sense the fae near you, watching you from the woods, but they’ve kept their distance. Not a single shifter has reported a direct encounter.”
“This is strange,” Chen murmured to Shixiong. It was only when Moon nudged him with his elbow that he realized he’d spoken in Chinese. He repeated himself in English so their guests did not feel slighted.
“It is strange. What about the witch community?”
Fox snorted and Sky rolled his eyes.
“Calling us a community is generous,” Fox muttered.
“We’re getting better,” Sky chided.
“Yeah, tell that to the dead witches who tried to help the fae.” Fox turned his attention to the rest of the gathering and shrugged. “It’s hard to tell. A lot of witches went missing. However, it has taken a long time to figure out who was in the woods when the door opened and who has disappeared since the door opened. Our best guess is that only a handful of witches have disappeared in the past couple of weeks. Far fewer than most were expecting, but then we’ve all got this ‘waiting for the other shoe to drop’ feeling.”
“Though there has been one other weird and ominous development,” Sky offered. “The forests are expanding.”
Silence blanketed the room full of people to the point of becoming suffocating.
“I don’t understand. What do you mean?” Xiao Dan said.
The blond necromancer was sitting between Fox and Wyatt, wearing a sparkly gold vest that wildly contradicted his dour expression. “It’s been hard to prove, but there have been some quiet posts online that have caught our attention. People have reported empty fields sprouting forests that look to be decades old, but it happened overnight. People who have their homes near woods complain their backyards disappeared in a day or two, trees springing up where they weren’t before. My friends Mad and Red are digging deeper and collecting reports. Right now, it looks like the fae are attempting to expand their territory and push out the humans.”
Sofia huffed. “There’s no need to attack the vampires. You push out and kill the humans, and you’ve killed us. How would we survive without our food source?” The vampire tilted her head and flashed Moon a toothy grin. “No offense, of course.”
Moon laughed and motioned toward Chen. “None taken. I’ve got my hands full keeping just one vampire fed.”
Chen rolled his eyes and wrapped an arm around Moon from behind to scoot the mouthy witch a smidge closer to him.
“Has anyone been able to sneak into their territory for scouting?” Aiden inquired.
Wyatt shook his head. “I’ve asked the local wolf pack to keep their distance. With the growing number of human deaths and disappearances, I don’t want to start something. The pack is recovering from some internal struggles and wouldn’t be up for taking on that many fae.”
“Sky? What about Greg?” Moon chimed in. He shifted to the edge of his seat, practically wiggling. “Did you figure out if Greg could track Yichen?”
The necromancer winced. “About that. I had a visit from Zalramon, king of the underworld. Trust me, it’s never good when a demon pops in for a visit. It seems he has laid down the law with his people. No demon or minion is to go anywhere near the fae. They have a long-standing truce, and he says he won’t allow it to be broken by him and his kind. So, while I can use my magic to help, I can’t send minions in against the fae. Otherwise, I’m going to piss off a very scary demon king.”
Chen grunted. “I have seen this king. Please don’t piss him off.”
“I’ve tried to sneak along the fringes using my magic,” Winter admitted. He paused and licked his lips. “I hesitate to go farther. I’m not a hundred percent sure, but it feels like they can see me, or at least sense my magic.”
“We’ve…” Xiao Dan’s voice broke off and Chen automatically placed a hand on his brother’s slumped shoulder.
Chen took over when his shixiong couldn’t continue. “We sent a friend of the Zhang clan into fae territory a month ago. His name is Huli, and he is a huli jing—”
“Jiuweihu,” Moon corrected, bringing a ghost of a smile to Chen’s lips.
“Yes, a nine-tailed fox spirit. He is a very powerful, very old shifter. We believe he should have been able to sneak into the fae’s perimeter and find our missing brother. However, we have not heard from him yet, and we worry about his safety.”
Xiao Dan frowned. “First Yichen and now Huli. They can’t be permitted to die here. We need to find them both. Take them home.”
“We will find—”
Moon shot straight to his feet, stopping King Aiden’s reassuring words. His entire body was stiff, and he cocked his head slightly, as if he were straining to hear something in the distance.
