"Kalona sent 'em. They were supposed to tell Rephaim that his daddy will take him back as soon as he admits he made a mistake choosing me and the Goddess." Stevie Rae shook her head. "Sometimes I think Kalona's just plain dumb."

"What do you mean?" Z asked.

"Heck, Rephaim hasn't even been my official boyfriend for a month. You'd think his daddy'd at least give us a chance to have our first fight before he was all 'oooh, you've made a mistake.'"

"What exactly was Rephaim's response?" Darius asked.

"Well, what do you think it was? Jeeze Louise, he's still here." Stevie Rae felt her anger build. "He told them to tell Kalona that he hadn't made a mistake and he wasn't comin' back. Period. The end."

"Yeah, but is it?" Aphrodite said.

"Is it what?" she asked.

"Is it the end? Isn't Kalona going to keep hanging around, trying to get Rephaim to see the light or whatever?"

"So what if he does? Rephaim isn't on his team anymore. He hasn't been for a long time."

"So you say."

"So he says!" Stevie Rae felt like she was going to explode. "So his dad says. So his brothers say. So even Nyx says! The dang Goddess herself showed up and forgave him. What the hell does Rephaim have to do to prove to you guys he's changed?"

"Hey, no one's saying Rephaim has to prove anything," Zoey said, sending Aphrodite a you're not helping look. "But we do need to know if something is up with Kalona and the Raven Mockers."

"Z, nothin's up with them. Well, except that it really hurt Rephaim that that dang bull kid killed one of 'em. Seriously, guys, his brothers weren't doin' anything except talkin' to him. Dragon showed up, pissed of course, but we all get that because of Anastasia. Still, the Raven Mockers were just defendin' themselves. Aurox is the one we should be askin' questions about."

"Yeah, except that we don't have Aurox answers here-and we should have Rephaim answers," Aphrodite said.

"I gave you his answers." Even as weak and tired as she felt because it was past sunrise, Stevie Rae automatically began pulling power from the earth. Not that she'd really hurt Aphrodite, but the girl definitely needed a good smack.

"Hey, you're glowing green," Z said.

"Well, I'm pissed!" Stevie Rae saw Darius move closer to Aphrodite, which really annoyed her. "You know what, Darius, you need to check yourself. We're all on the same side here, but that doesn't mean we can't get pissed at each other once in a while."

"I think we can all understand that. Isn't that right, Darius?" Damien said in his calmest, most soothing voice.

"Yes, of course," Darius said.

Aphrodite snorted.

"So, basically, Rephaim said no to Kalona and the Raven Mockers were just the messengers," Z said. "Right?"

"Totally right," Stevie Rae said.

"Okay, let's move on to True Sight." Zoey looked at Damien. "Want to summarize what you've found out?"

"Yeah, but it's not much. There's only a short reference to it in the advanced handbook. Basically, it's rare and it hasn't happened for a long time.

Like as in more than a couple hundred years. It's frustrating because there isn't a lot of documentation about it, but from what I could find it seems that a fledgling or vampyre gifted with True Sight-and they're usually vampyres, by the way-has the ability to see the truth about people."

"That's a handy little gift," Aphrodite said.

"You'd think so, but the problem is that the 'seeing' is only as accurate as the person with the gift," Damien said.

"Huh?" Zoey said.

"Okay, it's like this: Shaylin has to be good at using her gift. She has to understand what she's seeing and interpret it accurately," Damien said.

"And if she doesn't, it's just a bunch of colors?" Zoey said.

"Worse," Damien said. "Because with True Sight it's never just a bunch of colors. We all know she's seeing inside someone's soul." He shook his head. "In the handbook there were excerpts of stories about how True Sight has been misunderstood and misused. It can be bad, really bad."

"How about guidelines or rules or whatnot?" Z asked.

"None. It's different for everyone who has the Sight," Damien said.

"So we're just shootin' in the dark," Stevie Rae said, feeling totally overwhelmed. "Again."