Darren grumbled while reading through one of his spell books Jesse sent over to him. All the events that were going on distracted him from his training. He felt frustrated in staying here, but where else could they go? Mara was working hard to keep them safe, helping them to avoid being caught by either the Rise of Light and Outsider authorities.

The mage was not only worried about the group, but mostly his family and friends back in the Outsider society. A bunch of worried questions ran in his head: "What was happening to Linda? His aunt, Michelle?" The only person who he could not give a damn about is Sung-Hyun, the traitor who sold them out! The only solution to all this was that all of them needed to have a plan, a next step to fix all this.

Darren knew needed to get stronger and smarter. This was all because of their curiosity that everyone was in this mess. Rubbing his somewhat healed broken arm, he jumped when he felt an icy presence over his shoulder. Turning around, Darren saw Marieum, his magic teacher, who had somehow sneaked into his room. This vampire always has a habit of sneaking in, surprising people. Darren watched Marieum revealing a mischievous smirk on her face, when she freaked him out for a moment.

Putting his book down, he paid attention to Mariuem, who stretched her bat wings. The mage was getting used to seeing the vampire’s habits before they started their usual training ritual.

“Before we start, I am going to give you some news. I know you don’t like talking about your father, but he is getting close to finding your mother.” Mariuem said in a calm tone; which made him tensed up.

“My mom?” Darren pulled out one drawer, digging to get his wand out. The mage hated how the vampire brought up this situation in the worse time. On the plus side, he knew Mariuem tried to be sensitive talking about his parents. After all, Darren learned she did not have a good relationship with her biological parents either. At least, that is one thing that the mage and the vampire have in common.

“Only thing he told me is that you do not, under any circumstances, try to find her,” Marieum warned.

The mage rolled his eyes, grabbing his wand and answered, “Why would I? I can’t really go anywhere outside this place. Plus, as much as I wonder what has happened to my mother, I’m going to let my father deal with that.”

Darren did not want to put too many things on his plate at once. All he knew from his father was that his mother had been hiding away from his uncle. For whatever reason, that was. The mage knew that this would be something that his father could handle. While he still was indifferent towards his father, he had to trust the fact that he can take care of that other situation. In the meantime, Darren has to work on his training and convince the Grand Commission of Magic Education to let him take his magic evaluation trials again.

“I have talked to your powerless human friend back at Clare Point View. That boy said he made some contact with that human girl Linda," Marieum said, sitting down in a chair close to his bed.

“By powerless human, you mean my friend Jesse, right? He finally got in touch with Linda?”

Marieum nodded and responded, “Yes, but the situation is not pretty…”

The mage listened to the vampire’s updates about all his friends. He found out that Trenton had moved back home to his parents. Jesse was planning to go to community college. As for Linda, she still contacts his best friend erratically. Then, Mariuem got into the gritty details about Linda's “relationship” with Mark, including how his messed up brother would occasionally experiment his poison magic on her whenever she fought back. Darren’s anger rises with every story that Marieum recanted from his friend about the abuse. With that, Darren got off his bed and went through the items that were delivered to him.

Shifting through the box, he picked out a small suitcase that had the label. ‘Darren’s emergency potion kit.’ Putting the suitcase on a desk in the corner, the mage opens it up and pulls out glasses and bottles of potions. Frantically finding the right bottle, the mage holds up a bottle of yellow liquid then hands it to Marieum. She raises her brow at Darren, curious about why he has given this to her.

“This’ll be of no use to me,” Mariuem scoffed at the mage, almost dismissing him.

“It isn’t for you, it’s for Linda. Listen, I don’t know if you have sources near wherever Linda is now, but…” Darren told her, until the vampire hushed him.

“One of my sources travels frequently to Eterni, which is the Supernatural Western Sector near the Los Angeles, California area. They are giving us as much information as possible about the wellbeing of Linda and Raleigh. So, we have to be careful when delivering something like this,” Mariuem warned.

“Look, Mark has another magic type where he uses poison magic on other people. I know what type of magic spells he uses because I was a guinea pig for his amusement. Please, just give this antidote to your source, so Linda can have it in hand when that bastard does it to her again.”

He knew better than to yell at the vampire, since he learned her reaction would be to, at least, yell back or, at the worst, attack. There was a knock on the door when Darren was about to speak with Marieumm again. He gets up to open it to see it was Chantel and Daniel in the room. The mage tilted his head, feeling confused when he remembered the last time his friend came to him with this man. Chantel and Daniel literally fought each other verbally for over an hour, which drove Darren nuts. Looking at the two of them not shouting, he felt relieved that the two of them were not at each other's throats for once.

“D, we have to go out to find that Marco guy later," Chantel told him in a firm tone.

Darren blinked when his friend reminded him about a task that the two of them needed to do: finding the former member of Midnight Force, Marco. Since the ghosts of the other former band members of the group refused to talk to them about the dangers of their label, Crimson Crown Group and Nico. After his training with Mariuem, Darren headed over to meet Chantel and Daniel in the living room. The group left the room in their disguises for the public. Ready to find Marco in order to find more on how to bring down Nico and his gangsters.