Jake Addams May 16th,20XX

The female fairy returned with a stormy expression and a heavy gait. The indulgent smile on Cai’s face dropped in response to her appearance and he flew toward her instead of waiting for her to arrive by his side. She heaved a heavy sigh and spoke in an even heavier tone.

“I used the trace of magic you gathered and the name but I couldn’t find them. That means they’re either dead, or they aren’t in the Queendom.”

The word fluctuated in my ears, like a translation mishap and I could barely make out the meaning. Queendom? Like a kingdom but with a queen?

They weren’t familiar words, but their meaning managed to come through.

At the suggestion that Sparrow might be dead, Cai’s worried expression crashed into one of anger, but he quickly restrained it and took a moment to calm down before he started to barrage Mei with questions.

“Did you manage to get any other clues?”

Again, Mei raised an eyebrow at his apparent concern but chose not to pursue it this time. It looked like she decided not to antagonize Cai while he was so distraught.

I couldn’t blame her for being curious though and wondered what sort of relationship Cai had with Sparrow. It probably wasn’t romantic, seeing how whipped he was for Mei, and I hadn’t heard anything from Sparrow about a lover. Then again it would have been weirder if I had. I refocused on the situation and took my mind off Sparrow’s romantic affairs. It wasn’t any of my business anyway.

“The goblin empire is a candidate for the kidnapping but I think that the witches are a stronger prospect.”

He nodded absentmindedly as if a theory of his had been confirmed.

“The goblin kingdom is out of the mix, they wouldn’t dare cross me like that.”

Ignoring the fact that he had just confirmed that there were Goblins and Witches in this world I wondered how he could be so confident.

Mei as well seemed to be curious but she didn’t ask any questions and resumed brainstorming with him.

“It’s unlikely they would call you over in such a roundabout way. And they wouldn’t want to interact with you unless you had already awakened.”

“Which I haven’t.”

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Her eyes flashed upwards to the band wrapped around his forehead and down to his eyes as he swiftly replied to her unasked question. The tensioned atmosphere remained so thick that I nearly choked on it.

“Mei, do you mind if I go look at something? I’ll be right back.”

Mei nodded and floated to the side to get out of his way, but I quickly yelled to stop him.

“Wait!, why would either the Goblins or the Witches want to kidnap her? What does Sparrow have to do with any of them?”

Cai stiffened, as if he’d forgotten I was still here but instead of turning toward me to give me an answer he instead faced away and quickly beat an escape. Mei looked me over one more time, still unsure of how to deal with me and began to answer my question.

“All we have for now are assumptions but the evidence speaks for itself. The Witches have grown more and more aggressive after Cai’s return and if they wanted to lure him into a trap, the most efficient way would be to take something that Cai valued.”

“But why wouldn’t they take another fairy? Why a human?”

Her eyes suddenly narrowed with suspicion once more and she began to look at me like I might be a threat.

“Cai hasn’t been here for long and naturally has more people he cares about in the human world. But wouldn’t you know this if you knew Cai in the human world?”

My first instinct was to deny knowing the guy, but something told me that doing so might put me in danger so I just skirted around the question.

“Why would they want to get at Cai? Did he do anything to them?”

She snorted out a laugh but it was empty of mirth. Her disdain for the people we talked about showed clearly through her eyes and tone.

“What else has he done but exist? Their old ruler decided to curse an unborn child and they now fear that he’ll come to get revenge. Load of cowards they are.”

I was hearing her perfectly fine, but somehow I still couldn’t understand her.

“Why would-”

Cai cluttered back into the pavilion with a mountain of materials behind him and another anxious-looking fairy flying behind him. Mei frowned at the sight of the other fairy and flew towards them. She made no secret of her displeasure of the other fairy’s presence but didn’t even suggest getting rid of him. The imaginary power dynamics in my mind shifted a bit.

“Why is Linus here?”

“Just ignore him. I needed him for something.”

Cai and the other male fairy flew to the middle of the room and began to set up a large sheet of fabric on a frame that had materialized out of seemingly nowhere. Images suddenly materialized on its surface and showed me what I now realized was a map.

“Right now, we know that Sparrow is in the witch’s land.”

Cai pointed to a section on the map and prepared to put his plan forward but was swiftly interrupted by Mei, who as asked, had ignored the other fairy.

“We don’t know that for sure. The goblins are still a viable option, as are the arenas.”

He shook his head in response and with a look to the other fairy, waited for him to maneuver the map to zoom into the place he had pointed to with his wand before.

“As I said before, the goblins don’t do things like that. And I now know that it wasn’t a kidnapping. Sparrow is with the witches.”

Mei looked at him oddly, as did I.

Even though I knew that the witches had a grudge against him, there was no more reason they would have gone all the way to the human world to kidnap a friend. If they could go to the human world so easily then it would have made more sense for them to ambush him.

“What makes you say that?”

Cai heaved a heavy sigh once again and with a regretful tone announced,

“It makes the most sense since… Sparrow is a witch.”