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It didn’t take long for me to reach a conclusion.

“Listen, we can’t go out guns blazing,” I said. “Whatever we do, we must be cautious and diplomatic. These are Aeternae, and their existence is extremely important to us. We won’t jump to conclusions, because they’ve been nothing but kind and welcoming. Reserved, sure… but they haven’t done anything to hurt us.”

Sofia nodded. “Derek is right. We cannot fault all of them for something we have yet to investigate. Have you tried Telluris with Nethissis?”

“Of course,” Amal said. “I can’t even feel her.”

“We’ll certainly help them with the Black Fever,” I replied, looking at her. “I suppose you won’t have a problem with that?”

She shook her head. “No. But I could really use Nethi’s help for this,” she said. “We need to find her, Derek. Something doesn’t feel right.”

“We’ll start our search right away,” I concluded, keeping many other concerns at bay. Nethissis going missing was big and troublesome enough as it was. My heart couldn’t deal with more for the time being, at least not until we got her back, safe and sound. “We’ll report this to the golden guards, and Danika and Acheron, as well. We’ll let everyone know she’s missing.”

Tristan frowned. “We can use a tracking spell,” he said.

“True, but we need to see their reactions, before anything else,” I replied. “You and Esme are right. We need to know who we’re dealing with.”

Amal got up. “I’ll go fetch the ingredients from her room,” she said. “I know she left her backpack behind, because she went out in snake form.”

“We’ll meet you back here,” Sofia said, walking her out. As soon as she shut the door and turned around, she let a deep sigh roll out. “Derek… what are we going to do?”

Glancing at Tristan and Esme, I knew I couldn’t let them down. I couldn’t let any of them down. I stopped by the fireplace, watching the flames die in the candle stumps, one by one.

“We take this one step at a time,” I said. “First, we find Nethissis. Then, we deal with everything else.”

Ready for the next part of the journey?

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Thank you for reading An Origin of Vampires!

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