We met in the house's communication room within the hour. Rose and Cecilia came straight from the guild offices, Cecilia still in her coat. Two holograms flickered up over the table: Rachel from a field camp in the North, with mud on her sleeves and a purification circle glowing behind her, and Reika from the study of her half-built manor.
"This had better be urgent," Rachel said, though her eyes had already gone to Seraphina's face. "I'm in the middle of a contamination that's been fighting me for two days."
"It is," Seraphina said. Her voice was clipped short. "Ren has been missing for three days."
The room changed. Ren wasn't just a friend from our academy years. He was the heir of the Kagu family—stripped of its seat among the Seven Superpowers when Selene fell into her coma, but still the second strongest house in the East. If the Kagu heir could vanish, a lot of people would start asking who else could.
"Tell us everything," Rose said.
