“Thank you.” I grinned, then I remembered why she wasn’t here and my stomach turned. But I didn’t want to ask yet. Instead, I glanced to our Hierophant’s right arm still in a sling with a gnarly shoulder wound from the Land of the Lore. “How’s the shoulder?”

He sat on the ledge beside Squishy and ran his other hand through the flames on his fur, which caused orange lightning bolts to cover his forearm. “Sadly, I’ve had worse.”

“Sorry to hear that.” I smirked and then that reminded me of something I’d wanted to know. “Hey, Tenn?”

He looked over and arched one eyebrow. “Yeah?”

“Why Archibald? Like, why that name?”

“Oh.” He chuckled. “From our friend in Issale. His real name is Archibald, and it just was too good to not get attention. You’ll meet him eventually, but he goes by the name Foster.”

“Issale is shifter home country, right?”

He nodded. “Foster is the alpha of the wolf pack. His soulmate, Inez, is a witch halfling, also a wolf.”

“Cool.” I smiled but then my gaze landed on Tegan still leaning against his bare chest. Her skin looked paler than usual, like sickly pale and a little clammy. I scowled. I lifted my hands off Albert and signed, ‘is she okay?’

He closed his eyes and rested his chin on top of her head. “I don’t know,” he said telepathically into my mind.

Movement in the corner of my eye caught my attention. When I looked, I found Willow sitting beside me with wide brown eyes. The flickering orange flames of the fire reflected in the brown of her eyes and gave them an almost caramel look. It was quite pretty.

“What?” Willow said a little louder than I expected, so I flinched. She grimaced and lowered her voice to a whisper, “Sorry.”

I shook my head and put my hand on her arm. “I was thinking your eyes looked pretty with the firelight.” I pointed to the flames behind us, then to my own eyes.

“Thank you.” She blushed and tucked her strawberry-blonde curls behind her ears. The blood stains were gone but there seemed to be a dark shadow of black lines running out of her ears.

I tapped on my left ear. “Fixed?”

Her face fell. “No. They can’t fix it. They don’t know. You know sign language?”

“Yeah, I can teach you?”

“Lily and Easton also know sign language,” Tenn said into our minds. “Along with Seamus and Ava, of course.”

Willow’s eyes glistened as she nodded. “Thanks,” she said softly.

The door to downstairs opened, and at first I saw only Kessler filling the doorway, but then he stepped forward literally dragging Hunter by the arm. “My brother, Devon will be pissed off if you miss every meeting and aren’t in the fight.”

Hunter growled.