What the mystics failed to understand was that even without their powers joined, the Compasses were beyond anything they’d dealt with before. I never knew the Four when they were young of course, but in my head, they hadn’t been on the level of my quads. Sure, I was biased – probably the most biased supernatural you’d ever meet. Maybe their parents, Jo and Jack were as bad, but us three definitely formed the basis for the quads’ fan club. The other members consisted of the simpering fools in Stratford, females who thought they could tame a Compass.

Oh shit, I was one of them now, one of those females I’d always pitied. Gone all soft for a male. Love did a real number on you. I barely recognized the hardass I used to be. I was all soft and fluffy … my wolf was like a goddamn kitty cat.

Quale waved us forward. “Since our time is limited we’ll start with the twins, the quads will be last.”

We joined my parents and Mischa. All of us followed the grays through the double glass doors. The sanctuary was so weird. On one hand it was all natural, with its forest and ice-land and desert and ocean, and on the other they had all of this advanced tech stuff everywhere. Such a mix of old and new, natural and manufactured. Magic laced through all of it, though. Ancient power had created this place and something told me it would stand through any war.

Once inside the pale yellow, shiny, glassed building, we moved through what looked like a foyer of sorts and then … of course … into an elevator. I closed my eyes, though I felt I was dealing a little better with the caging. Thankfully, it was a short trip, and with a ding the metal doors slid across and I opened my eyes in time to exit with everyone.

The room was massive, a single expanse without any pillars to break the space. The black rubber floors had a spongy feel, and I envisaged that this was a training ground of sorts, perfect for fighting.  Standing along the far wall, which was about a hundred yards across, were two dozen supernaturals. As we closed the gap between them and us, I could sense there was a mix of the five races. A few vampires, three shifters – no wolves – wizards, fey, and two demi-fey: a centaur and a pixie.

“Do you think the reason we never knew if demi-fey were marked was because they were either in prison or in the sanctuary?” I murmured to Braxton, thinking back to our conversation in Vanguard.

“Yes,” Quale, the eavesdropper, said, “their elders almost never hide them, they are handed over straight away. They also have the least amount of marked representatives. But they are represented across the full range of demi-fey.”