“We will share it,” Faunus decreed. “Though, Teddy, it is not that I do not believe you believe what it is you saw. But we will just describe it rather than saying the Beast has risen. It is not outside the realm of what we know of this Rising to do whatever they will to get what they want. To call forth a creature. Create one. You said yourself a Rising priest was with the thing when it emerged from the earth. Perhaps they did something with dark magic, using those women as sacrifices, that they can no longer control. Whatever it is, Mars must know. They all must know. Yes?”

Teddy nodded. Relieved.

It was the Beast, he knew it to his bones.

But even if they didn’t think that true, they were still going to send their warnings.

“Because of this, it is unnecessary to go to the Thicket as True is not there,” Faunus declared. “You must talk to your women. Get them to allow us to escort them home so that we can make our way back to ours.”

Teddy shook his head. “We still must go there.”

“Why?” Saturn asked.

Teddy looked to his friend and dipped his voice low when he told him, “Because they slaughtered all those women. We must go to Crittich Keep. We must report what was done, so if those girls’ bodies have not yet been found, they will be, and they can be given their pyres and their families can know. Knowing will bring great sorrow. And I do not know, I can only assume, but my assumption is, not knowing would be worse.”

Saturn nodded.

Teddy looked to Faunus and he nodded.

“And if the others that ran away are still out there, they must be caught. They must pay for what they did to those women.”

He did not receive nods from either man to that, but the intensity of their stares communicated they were in hearty agreement.

So, Teddy finished it.

“And if we’re in the Thicket, if we’re at the Keep, which is the administrative base of all constabularies around Wodell, not just a prison, my girls might feel safe enough for me to leave them.”

“You have done well by them,” Faunus said quietly.

“I have done nothing no other man would do.”

“You are wrong.”

Teddy pressed his lips together.

Faunus held his gaze.

Teddy fought squirming under the warmth of pride and affection Faunus was giving him through his look.

“It is time for me to find my pallet,” Saturn muttered.

Teddy broke from Faunus’s hold and looked to his friend.

He was up and grinning down at Teddy. “I am glad we found you and you are well. I imagined many things when we found you, too many of them not good. Though, discovering you with a harem was not amongst them.”

Teddy chuckled.