Dragon Witch ✔️

46 - Test

I shouldn't have mentioned Kyton. What if they decided to kill him, just to show that I couldn't hone in on their territory?

"We don't have a problem, I just-"

"Where are you keeping this sprite?" Scalene asked.

Should I lie and send them after some other sprite? No, even if I knew another sprite, it wouldn't be right. That left either standing up to the monsters or running away. Neither option sounded like it would end with me in one piece. But I couldn't put Kyton in danger because of my mistake.

"He's my fairy." I crossed my arms. "I'm not going to tell you where he is. You'll kill him."

Scalene put his hands on the crystal ball. "Neither I, nor Yufens, nor anyone in this office will kill the fairy you consider to be yours."

The ball turned green, which I assumed meant he was telling the truth.

"What about someone outside the office? Or a student? Or what if you don't kill him, you just tie him up in the basement and drain him?" Dang it, I was sounding too concerned. I needed to sound tougher. "He's my fairy, and I won't allow you or anyone else to drink his blood."

Yufens jiggled, waving his pincers around. No one wants to drink your fairy's blood. We only want to assure that he's safe and unharmed.

I couldn't tell whether he was telling the truth or not, so I turned to Scalene. "Is that true?"

"Yes." The ball turned green.

Okay, so he was telling the truth about that. They had to have some other plan for Kyton. Didn't they?

"Why do you care if he's safe?"

Scalene sighed. "Lilly, I know this is hard for you to understand, but try to bear with me. At the MMC, we value all sentient life, no matter what they eat. No parasitical student or faculty member hunts other sentient creatures. We are especially interested in keeping our students safe."

The ball stayed green. That boded well for Eva and me. 

"If you don't eat the students, then what do you eat?"

"On campus, there is a cafeteria designed specifically for magical parasites. It's part of OPSA, officially known as The Office of Parasitical Student Affairs. It offers a variety of ethically sourced magical bloods from willing donors, as well as synthetic meats grown in a lab on campus. For students whose hunting instinct is too strong to ignore, there are livestock animals that have been fed a magic-rich diet. Unlike true magical animals, they have the low intelligence of normal livestock."

The ball stayed green. Either he was telling the truth, or the ball was broken.

"Let me try that." I put my hands on the ball. "My name is Lillith Hemlock."

It turned green.

"I love spinach."

It turned red, but that was an easy one. Even if the ball was some kind of trick, someone could be operating it and just guessing that no one liked spinach.

"I love drawing."

It turned yellow. Apparently, the ball couldn't decide whether I was lying or not. That kind of made sense, even if the ball was real. I liked drawing, but I wasn't good enough to really love it.

"I have a car."

The ball turned red. As far as I was concerned, the ball worked. Scalene had been telling the truth about not hunting people. They were like me. They were monsters, but they were like me. Well, not exactly like me; I was pretty sure I didn't resemble a giant worm--but still, this was amazing.