pack that the Tribunal keeps on hand treats us like enemies, trying to break out the prison’s inhabitants.”
“Good. What’s next?”
“Some of those wolves will meet us on the road and run with the vehicle until we reach the actual guard gate. The guards at the gate check our IDs, and the wolves will back off and continue patrolling the desert. We’ll be allowed in, and you’ll take us to the parking lot, where we’ll probably be met by one of the Wardens.” He sighed. “Then we go inside with whoever that is. Tarak is the werewolf, Dian is the fae, and Eliphas is the witch. They’re all called witches, right? Not warlocks or anything?”
“Depends on where you live and what type of magic they do. It’s something they pay attention to, but not really anyone else does. Any human who dabbles in magic is a witch in our eyes, and whatever rules or terms they want to use is their own business.”
“Our?” Raphael gave me a strange look I caught out of the corner of my eye.
“Most supernaturals who have never been human and never will be human,” I clarified. “If you want to find out their specific titles, you can, but I’m not interested. I just look at the resumes when I need to hire one of them, which isn’t very often. I prefer fae magic.”
“You are so strange sometimes,” he muttered, shaking his head. “I didn’t know that was even something to care about.”
“Yeah, those are nuances you’ll learn over time with different supernaturals. I don’t use witches for much because they can be unpredictable in that human way. Humans are a wild card, and so are witches. People say fae are unpredictable, but they really aren’t. Don’t get caught in word games with them when you might owe them anything. Some fae are worse about it than others. Paden is very chill with me, but he’ll tongue-tie others to get something out of them. Cassius doesn’t play those games, but that might be because his father is very good at playing them. If you ever meet a fae named Brion, just turn around and walk away.” It took me a second to realize I had rambled as I often did on long drives. Normally, I drove alone, and that got intensely boring, so when I did have someone in the car with me, I liked to get it out of my system and fill the dead air.
“You’ve talked about him before, Cassius’ dad. He’s like a missing king or something?”
“Yeah…” I shrugged. “I knew him a long time ago. He was the fae king who sat on the Tribunal. When he mysteriously abdicated his power and disappeared, it was supposed to go to Cassius, who turned it down. Now, we have Oisin, Brion’s brother, whom you’ve met.”
“The one who didn’t like me and wanted to hand me back over to Mygi.” Raphael groaned. “Sometimes, I feel like my head is going to explode. Growing up human, I knew there were werewolves. I knew the government and others believed the fae existed, but I always thought of them as aliens, you know? Now, I’m on the bad side of a fae king. Rumors of witches are real. Werewolves are…well, exactly what they let the public believe. And there’s even more. Just the other night, I was reading the stuff you printed out about sirens. Are they fae or nymphs? Are they demigods? Does anyone really know? Has anyone ever met a demigod? I’m pretty sure I haven’t.”
“It’s a lot.” I was amazed he was opening up. Four months of nothing and a two-hour drive finally let me see behind his stoic exterior. “But you’ll get there. When you live a long time or just in our world, you’re bound to make enemies. There’s no avoiding it. As for the demigod question, they’re not common, and they’re laws unto themselves. They don’t really play well in a group and definitely don’t follow the Tribunal’s rules if they don’t want to. I haven’t heard stories about one in…” I hummed, trying to remember the last I had heard of that demigod. He was the son of some Greek, which thankfully was less common now than it had been in ancient times. “Sixty? Seventy years?”
“You probably have more stories than the history books can hold.”
“Not really. I’m pretty young compared to most, and most of my stories don’t belong in the history books. I never met the demigod. There are no