The palace was waiting for us.

  The gate opened as soon as we got close, eliminating the need for Kara to stop.

  The marble building was more extravagant than Tres’ palace. Instead of it looking like a mostly glass building, Klix’s palace had a lot more accents to it. There were columns ordaining the crescent moon shaped front of the two story main building, with two smaller towers on either end of the building I could see with a large central tower standing above everything else. Each of the columns had designs carved into it, and I had a feeling those designs were meant to hide the magic that they inevitably hid.

  There was a water fountain in front of the palace that was a six-pointed star on the base. At the tip of each point, there was a different monster sculpture that was spitting water towards a raised center disc that was draining in almost like a mist back into the main base.

  The walls around the palace had a walkway around them, and I saw some of the red-armored Scarlets making patrols. There wasn’t much in the way of trees in the front yard, though there were a few flowerbeds scattered along the drive as well as around the main building.

  Two Scarlets were waiting for us, flanking either side of the pink haired woman my age dressed in jeans and a black t-shirt. She was thin and her red eyes and ivory skin had her looking a lot like Ether and Kara minus her hair. The bored and excited expression she wore gave me the impression she would rather be running up to greet us instead of standing in between the two guards.

  Klix was nowhere to be seen, though I had doubted that she would have been here to receive us. The last few weeks, I’d barely seen the Goddess, spending most of my time around Harror instead. When she’d needed me, she’d been around, otherwise, the dangerous Goddess had spent most of her time hunting down the rifts and closing the dungeon breaks.

  Kara looked nervous as she parked the bus in front of the trio. I’d been hoping that Ether’s sister would be the one to help us navigate the meeting since Trent was out of commission. While I was trying to figure out what to do, Gesai got off the bus.

  “Welcome to the Marble Palace!” The pink-haired woman gave an exaggerated bow. “We’ve been expecting you!”

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  “Thank you for receiving us, miss..?” The redheaded teacher slowly straightened.

  “Pixie, though everyone around here calls me Pix!” The younger woman smiled and motioned towards the palace. “The Scarlets can get everyone settled while we bring in your teacher!” She craned her neck as she tried to look in the bus. “Where is he?”

  “Have you been told about..?”

  “Of course!” Pix smiled as she cut off Gesai, then put her hand over her mouth. “I interrupted you. I’m sorry.” She took the older woman’s hands. “I do want to talk to you and…” She began pointing at the people who were watching her from the windows. “You!” She pointed at me. “And HER! Is she really..?”

  “Okay!” Gesai clapped her hands as soon as she saw that Pix was talking about Rix. “Everyone off the bus!”

  I grabbed Rix’s arm as she moved to get behind me. I was aware that every one of the people wearing red armor were the Goddess’ descendants and the way the pink-haired woman had been talking, she had almost told everyone that our former bandit was a hunter. At least that’s what the Gods and Goddess called the hero class. If this woman knew, then I had a feeling all of the Scarlets knew, which wouldn’t give Rix a lot of latitude to explore like she usually did.

  “Come on.” I guided her in front of me. I lowered my voice. “Please don’t go invisible.”

  The golden woman just nodded as Ether fell in behind us. We were the last three students on the bus and when we got close to the front, Kara got out of her seat, blocking us from getting off.

  “Pixie is…”

  I could see the older woman struggling as she tried to find words to use. The sweat on her forehead let me know that there was some type of compulsion in place that was keeping her from saying anything.

  Kara shook her head as she couldn’t find the words and got off the bus. One of the Scarlets was leading the rest of my classmates towards the palace, while the other one was staying behind with Gesai.

  “You must be Ether!” Pix slipped past me to grab the other woman by the arms.

  Rix tensed and I put my hand on her shoulder. The look in her eyes told me everything that I needed to know about the pink-haired woman. She was a Goddess.

  Both Kara and the other Scarlet tensed as well, with the Scarlet going so far as to draw their weapon out of their CB, though they stopped short of pointing the red blade at our hunter.

  “Please…” Pix clicked her tongue as she motioned for everyone to back up. “It’s fine.” She nodded at the Scarlet, “Why don’t you help get the rest of the team settled?”

  “Ma’am…”

  “I’ll be fine.” The Goddess threw her arm around me and pulled me into a very awkward, at least for me, side hug. “My brother would never let the hunter hurt me.”

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