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Bedlam once again gripped the room.

“How did that just happen?” Julius roared to no one in particular.

“Humans can go invisible?” Daven sounded outraged. “No one told me that! Someone should have told me that! Everybody saw he was invisible, right?”

Mannus grunted. “You can’t see invisible. But yeah, the human was invisible.”

“Not a human.” Tharsis reiterated loudly. “Humans don’t vanish and then reappear. And they don’t team up with Vandal. And they sure don’t jump through realms.”

Kahn staggered to his feet. “I have to get Randa back.” All the other questions could wait. She was all he could focus on. Without Randa, nothing else mattered. “She has a phone. I can track that.”

“You put a tracker on her phone?” Sullivan moved beside Kahn, switching into his police mode. “That’s disturbing and illegal without a court order.”

“I told you cops tracked phones.” Cross muttered to Gion.

“She has a stalker! Of course I’m going to put a tracker on her, in case of this exact fucking situation!” Kahn yelled at Sullivan.

“We have so many trackers on you, Sully.” Djinn patted his arm, like Sullivan was a perpetually lost dog. “So many.”

Teja nodded.

Sullivan gave up. “So, can you find Randa?” He asked Kahn impatiently.

Kahn tried to think through the technical aspects of locating his Match. He hadn’t been this terrified since the Fall. It was hard to use logic when your newly beating heart had just been ripped from your chest. “It’ll be tricky to follow the signal into the Elemental realm, but I can figure it out.”

“We don’t even know if she’s in the Elemental realm.” Isaacs barreled into the conversation, looking pissed. “Who is Ben? What is he? How can we find him, if we’re not sure of his species?”

Whatever Ben was and wherever he took Randa, the Light House would track him down. …And then Kahn would kill that motherfucker, all over again.

Julius pulled his sword free in agreement, reading Kahn’s intentions. Daven and Mannus were clearly on board, too. The Light Phases all wanted her back, and they were prepared to flatten kingdoms to make that happen.

“Randa belongs to Sullivan. And Sullivan belongs to us. Which means Randa belongs to the Fire House.” Pele extrapolated out with a thoughtful frown. “Better let us handle this.”

Every single Fire Phase nodded.

Every single Light Phase glowered at them.

The Fire House and the Light House weren’t enemies, but they sure weren’t friends. They both bred warriors, so violent clashes were sometimes inevitable.

“Randa is mine.” Kahn hissed.

“We claimed her first.” Teja insisted. “She works for Sully. That makes her ours.”

Sullivan sighed, like he knew what was coming.

“You’re trying to steal Randa from us?” Mannus shouted at Sullivan.

“No, of course not…”

Daven cut him off. “You assholes can’t have Randa. She’s a Light Phase, now. She’s Kahn’s Match!”

“Technically, that makes him a Stone Phase. We’re a matrilineal society.” Alder, Pele and Djinn’s son, pointed out in a superior tone.

“Even more technically… since Kahn belongs to Randa, and Randa belongs to Sully, and Sully belongs to us… Kahn’s now a Fire Phase.” Pele worked it all out on her fingers. “He has to do what we say.”

Daven and Mannus gasped in indignation.

“That is not how that works!” Julius protested. “And Randa will never agree to leave our House. She loves being a Light Phase.”