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“A fox?”Caden blinked.“Oh, she loved anime and kitsunes were her favorite.”

“Yes.”Mei nodded.“That makes sense.Foxes are quiet, curious and intelligent.It is a choice that shows imagination unlike the rest of these people. Werewolf.Werewolf.Tiger.Lion.Panther.Tcha!That is not how this works.Not at all.I cannot believe they thought this would work!”

Caden looked at the wall.“Do you think they believed that if they were in front of the wall when the Behemoth opened the door between the realms that they’d be joined with a Spirit?Did they think the Spirits would just come through and… and join with them, but this happened instead?”

“That might be what they believed,” Valerius said.“But if they did, clearly, they were wrong.”

Valerius came up behind Caden, but the gentle touch of his mind alerted Caden to his presence before he put his hands on Caden’s waist.Caden leaned back into him.Esme stood to Caden’s right with a leather-bound journal in her hand.It looked old and worn as if it had been held by many people over the years.

“This journal has been passed down for generations of seekers to the answer of where the Spirits come from, how they join with humans, and which kind.”Esme held up the journal like it was an exhibit.“At least, that is what I can tell from a very brief perusal.”

“Jasper’s family had this?”Caden asked, his brow furrowing.

But Esme shook her head.“I do not think so.This is a person of the Faith.Not Jasper Hawes.”

“Mei, we need to see who Jasper was communicating with,” Valerius requested of the Red Dragon Queen.

She nodded.“I haven’t gone into his emails yet. There is so much alone on this drive.It will take time to go through everything.”She shut the computer and stood up before picking the computer up and tucking it under her arm.“And I would rather be doing that with a glass of wine.”

Esme turned some of the journal’s pages.“I rather agree, dear.There are clues who the person, or rather persons, behind this are in these pages as well.I think it will require some time to parse it all out.”

“What are we going to do about this wall?”Illarion gestured to the wall.“If it is some door into the Spirit Realm that the Behemoth can access, I think we should destroy it.”

“No!”Caden cried.“We don’t know if those people are… are truly gone! What if the Behemoth returns and they’re transformed?”

Valerius tightened his hands on his waist.“Destroying the wall is not an option.Not right now.”

Caden looked up at him gratefully, but the “now” part of it worried him.

What are you thinking, Valerius?Caden asked over their bond.

That only if we can locate all of the walls and destroy all of them except the one or ones we want it to use, the Behemoth will be forced to come to us,Valerius answered.

Illarion scoffed, “You want to have a backdoor that your enemy can use?”

“You’re assuming this is the only wall in my territory,” Valerius told him.“I highly doubt that actually.The Behemoth is too big for this cavern.”

“You think it couldn’t crack open your little mountain range here, if it chose?”Illarion shook his head and crossed his arms over his chest.

“I am certain it could, but that would take time and that would give us an edge on it,” Valerius answered.“So I imagine that there is another wall somewhere more… optimal.”

“We defeated it before,” Esme pointed out.“It ended up with mass destruction, but the Behemoth was conquered… for a time.I don’t think it wants that again.”

“No, but we don’t want that either,” Caden said with a grimace.

“We will have this place monitored 24/7,” Valerius said grimly.“If the Behemoth comes back here, we will know.And perhaps… Perhaps these people can be saved if they are not lost forever.”

Caden did look at Landry then.Was she conscious? Frozen in there?He didn’t know what he hoped.

“I still think you’re insane for leaving this, Valerius,” Illarion growled.

“Noted.I think we should all head back to High Reach for now,” Valerius said.“There’s nothing more we can do here.”

“There likely are walls just like this one all over the world.In our territories.And we are here,” Mei murmured.

“So we all go back to our territories and frantically hunt for blank walls?”Esme shook her head.“That is a fool’s errand.We need to understand more about them to know how to locate them and how to destroy them.That’s best donetogether.We figure this out and we make a plan.”

“Esme is right,” Valerius said.“We need to stay together.”