I sigh, if I am back in New Eden, it is unlikely I will leave again for a long time. The elders believe the world too dangerous for someone as young as me, and the ship running experiments on our people will only confirm that belief.

We walk through the interior door of the airlock, and are met with under-pressurized air. To balance the pressure, the air in New Eden is usually thick and inert with little to no oxygen and lots of nitrogen. Vampires don't need to breath, after all. Damian did point out in the tour that corridor Alpha could maintain see level like pressure and oxygenation for a couple weeks at a time before needing to replenish oxygen for the oxygen breathing guests.

There are people running around preparing rooms for guests, and those with medical training have nursing stations set up all along the corridor. Someone has painted the runes for fairy circles on the floor every 3 meters along the corridor. There are deep black x's painted on the floor half way between each fairy circle.

I add 'the runic circle for fairy circles' to my mental list of things I need to learn how to do, probably sooner rather than later.

Elder Isis has pulled her helmet off and is barking orders and checking statuses the way only a seasoned leader can.

Next to every fairy circle and x stands no fewer than three people. Their job is to take the injured and move them to one of the beds along the hallway or in rooms, and triage them as they do so. Those in rooms are the less serious cases, and those along the hall are the more serious. I would have thought it would be the other way around, but the doctors are in the hall, and the rooms in this corridor would become too crowded if surgery equipment, patients, and doctors were all crammed in.

In contrast, the hallway here was designed to be relatively spacious. They are three and a half meters wide, and very long. This section was always meant to be a lifeboat for others in an emergency, and it shows.

We are there for less than two minutes before Belenus shows up with the first evacuee. Three more phoenixes arrive moments behind him. They are there for just a moment, their flames arriving and receding, leaving a severely injured person behind. Many would have fallen if the people standing next to each teleport location were not there to catch them.

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Then fairy circles start opening. I jump in to help. Most of the people coming through the fairy circles can walk and are coherent. They are almost all led to the rooms. A younger doctor moves from room to room bandaging limbs and assessing patients while the older doctors perform literal surgery in the halls to save who they can.

In less than five minutes, the fey holding the fairy circles open were starting to walk through. One of the phenoxis clappsed on their teleport and were pulled away. Soon, everyone was in the hall—everyone except Damian, Remus, and Belenus.

Once everyone was in and settled, we turned into gofors for the doctors and nurses who would just yell out orders, expecting the closest person to provide what they needed.

"I need more bandages over here."

"Can I get another three blankets to room 7?"

"I'm out of antiseptic, get me iodine."

I almost drop the blankets I'm bringing to room seven when I see them. I rush over to the young woman holding two smaller forms. "Rue? What are you doing here?"

One of the children looks up from his mom's shoulder "Aunt Ali?" He reaches for me and I drop the blankets on the bed before picking him up, wrapping him in a tight hug, and rocking him.

I can't process this. Why are they here? "I thought… aren't you… human? Where is Abi? Are you okay? Is my sister okay?" It all comes out in a rush. If I could still cry, I would be sobbing.

Rue looks at me broken, tears streaming down her face. "I'm a djinn. You sister and I fell in love, and I just… I wanted to stay with her forever. Until they came, she didn't know what I was. She wished so hard for kids that were ours. I altered her memories so she would think it was a sperm donation from my brother. Really, her wish was so strong, I was able to grant it without revealing who I was. I think she figured it out at one point, though she never said. She was always one for letting people have their secrets."

Was. I may not need the air, but that doesn't prevent me from hyperventilating on the verge of a panic attack. "Where is my sister?"

"She tried…she tried to protect us. They killed her, and we were caught anyways. It… it happened at dinner the night after you left."

I slide to the floor, holding my nephew. Dead. My sister is dead. I just got her back, and now she is gone. The kids are sobbing. Rue has silent tears flowing down her cheeks while she tries to comfort her kids.

I can't cry for her. But I will sear every one of these tears into my memory for eternity. I will never forgive what the humans did here. I will never forgive what they caused. And I will never forget.

The humans don't deserve a chance.

Let them all burn.