“I did do that, didn’t I? Not the kind of thing a friend does. Hmm…” She paused for a moment. “I guess I can make it up to you?”

“Well, you do have a lot of explaining to do.”

“I do.” She paused, as if thinking, then she burst out, “I have to ask, how was it?”

“Huh? How was what?”

“Fucking a dungeon core, of course! I mean, I don’t want to know all the gory details, just most of them. Was it like using a fleshlight or something? Did she even have a, you know, a pussy? What was that like?”

I couldn’t help but laugh under my breath. Selena definitely didn’t hedge her words.

“About that—there’s something I know there that you don’t,” I said.

“What is it?” Selena asked, intrigued. She loved keeping secrets of her own, but she hated someone else having a secret that she didn’t know.

“Get down to the mansion and you can see for yourself.” I was betting she’d be as surprised as Belinda and Astrid had been to meet the real Kyrine.

“Already on my way. I’ll be there in like half an hour.”

I heard the sound of her car revving and I ended the call.

The dusk had turned to full dark now, and I could see some stars up above as I stood and turned back to the mansion.

I was about to start heading back to the mansion when I realized the Flora Whelp had disappeared. Had its summoning time expired? Did that happen? I didn’t want to leave it out here in case it escaped from the mansion—I wasn’t even sure if that was possible but I didn’t want to leave it to chance.

There was no sign of the Whelp in the little hedged-in area near the pond, so I focused on the strand of psychic connection that joined me to the creature. I could have ordered it to return to me, but I got the feeling that it wanted me to come to it. This was a strange feeling, this communication from my summoned creature, but I would go with it.

The strand of connection led me back the way I had come, through the maze of shrubs that now loomed up darkly around me in the gloom of the night. After a while, I came out of the dense trees, and found myself being drawn to one of the little patches of abandoned flowerbed which I’d passed earlier.

Except it was no longer overgrown and abandoned.

“What the hell?” I said out loud, in surprise and amazement.