“Wait, you need my help to find Rose?” Darren asked Leticia while he was kneeling on the ground near a garden to pick out some plants, preparing for another potion brewing.

The mage loved the little garden which the Midnight Retreat had in the backyard. Getting almost every magical plant here saved him a lot of time to find potion ingredients. Before, Darren had to ask Toby or Amelia to go find them. The mage often went to the garden to get what he needed with permission from Mara, of course. He picked up a bunch of rainbow roses, then put them in his pouch where all the other plants were. Seeing the former guitarist tapping her feet impatiently, Darren got up and signaled her to follow him back inside the building.

Arriving inside, the two of them headed back into Darren’s room, where he shut the door to give them more privacy. The mage went right to getting out his portable black cauldron and other tools from his potion-making kit to brew another potion batch for Linda. He had to make more because Marieum warned the mage that Linda was running out of the current batch that he had previously made. However, Darren needed to be quick, considering Marieum’s sources, told him that Mark’s torture was getting worse by the day. The young mage turned to see Leticia leaning against the wall in his bedroom.

Normally, seeing the former guitarist would annoy Darren, but since their time together, he tolerated her. Before answering her, he puts another magical plant that he got from the garden into his potion mixture and stirring it.

“Why would you need my help for that?” The mage questioned, still focused on making the potion.

He went back to refer to his potion book, checking to see if he was following the right instructions.

“Because Marieum would still see her sister at times. Marieum is the best bet to find Rose and she might have the information to take these assholes down,” the former guitarist explained.

“Even so, Leticia, but can we trust her after what she did?” Darren hesitated at the idea of bothering his teacher.

“Look, I don’t trust her either, but she is the best we have right now.”

 “Marieum and Rose can’t even stand each other!” Darren exclaimed, slamming his stirring spoon on the desk table.

“How do you know that?” The mage watched Leticia responded by crossing her arms.

“Why don’t you ask her that? The vampire sometimes quietly complains about it to me whenever we are training,” Darren hushed the former guitarist.

It was not a good idea to air out Marieum’s family business, because Darren knew the vampire was the type of person who was not open to talking about her personal issues. She mostly focused on Darren doing magic training. On top of this, he needed to convince the magic council to allow him to keep his magic a little longer. At least, the mage had to make an argument about why he should keep his magic. With all these thoughts running through his mind, he did not notice that Marieum was knocking on his window to let her in.

“Speak of the devil…” Leticia muttered when Darren opened the bedroom window to chat with the vampire.

“Hey, um… Marieum. What’s up?” The mage greeted.

“I heard that, Leticia!” Marieum snapped at the former guitarist, then turned her attention to Darren. “I also heard you two talking about my sister,” the vampire said, climbing through the window and sat down on the edge.

“Um… Marieum, we just want to know if Rose is around; Leticia kinda’ wants to see her,” the mage asked about the former Apple Queens' manager's whereabouts.

Watching Marieum lick her lips, Darren's spine chilled once again, fearing that she might be hungry for blood. Soon the vampire answered, “The last I heard from my sister was that she wanted to meet me up in Melicona, secretly, for my feeding. My sister is one of the few people I drink blood from. So, I will take you two to meet her, granted that she doesn’t get herself into her usual trouble again…”

“What kind of trouble does she get into?” The mage was still monitoring the potion that he was brewing.

“The wrong kind… We’ll be here all day talking about all the trouble my sister got into if we don’t get moving,” the vampire added, crossing her arms and rolling her red eyes in a huff.

So with that answer, Marieum told the two everything that they needed to know about her sister, Rose. Sitting at his desk and finishing making the potion batch, Darren listened to the story of when Marieum’s sister first died and how the use of forbidden magic brought her back. He wondered how two sisters knew how to wield forbidden magic until Marieum pointed out that their family had mixed heritage of different Supernaturals races with their mother being an Outsider. It was also revealed that Rose was also a Magic User, besides being a Bio-Kinetic. Darren watched Leticia, waving her hand in the air, clearly confused by this knowledge about her.

“Okay, by that logic, you’re telling me that Rose was a ghost before coming back to life like… This doesn't make sense at all!” The former guitarist trailed off as the mage himself was getting even more confused by this story, too.

"Why is the life of the former manager of the Apple Queens such a mess?" He thought to himself.

“You will have to ask her more later, Leticia. Right now, Darren, we need to start your training regimen,” Marieum crossed her arms, then glared at the mage sharply.

Just before Darren could turn his attention to cleaning up his potion area, Chantel ran into the room unannounced. The mage just looked at his friend, who grabbed his arm, almost dragging him away from the group. Darren stopped in place, then calmed down his friend by putting his hand on her shoulder.

“J-ia, what’s wrong?” Darren asked.

“You need to watch the TV! Both you and Leticia…. Leticia, you need to see this the most,” Chantel answered.

“Well, then why didn’t you just say that instead of running into the room like a madwoman?!” Leticia exclaimed.

Darren had to tell Marieum to hold on, then turned off the fire from the potion cauldron before leaving the room with the two women. Entering the common room, the mage saw a human Luca, who had his feet on the table, watching the TV. It was not every day to see The Hexes leader, Nick’s werewolf boyfriend, lounging around doing nothing. Ignoring the man, the group went to focus on the show on TV. When Darren had his eyes on the screen, he saw a talk show with two familiar looking people on there.

He noticed a blond-haired girl sitting in a love seat near a young man, who also had blond hair, but was dirtier than the girl’s. That mage noticed that the young man was clasping her hand, while he was doing most of the talking. Focusing on the girl closely, her eyes stood out to Darren more than the woman’s bright red short, tight dress.

“Raleigh?” Both Darren and Leticia said at the same time.

“What the hell? What is that sicko doing?!” the former guitarist shouted.

The mage stared at the TV to see the audience swooning over the couple. He needed to watch more of this, so he sat down on the couch with Leticia and Chantel. Examining Raleigh’s body language, every part of her interaction with Jason felt so robotic, despite the girl talking about their relationship. Then, there was a part of the talk show segment where the host talked about the Apple Queens' disbandment. When the question about Leticia brought up, Darren noticed Raleigh's dark green eyes flickered back slightly to her normal shade of green.

The mage can only conclude that the former rhythm guitarist was fighting her control that was put on her. However, the small light faded away and her green eyes went back to being dark again. Darren felt sick because those goons may have forced a lot of that awful Devil Enigma potion on Raleigh.

“All I can say is that I hope Leticia turns herself in,” the former rhythm guitarist answered while he watched her.

Her voice and tone sounded so robotic and strained, as if the woman did not want to sell her former band leader out. The mage watched Raleigh briefly pull her hand away from Jason, only for him to grab her hand again. Throughout the entire segment, the former Apple Queens member’s eyes often switched from her normal green eyes to dark ones. It was painful to watch Raleigh constantly moving her hand away from Jason’s. The man was even hugging her. While the woman tried to show a happy smiling face, she twitched her lip a little and shuddering her hands. It was clear the former rhythm guitarist was uncomfortable throughout all this.

All the people in the audience and show host could talk about is “how cute this couple is being” and swooning over them. Jason was a famous singer and songwriter, so, of course, this creep would still have loving fans completely blind to his gross behavior. All this “love” interaction made the mage’s stomach turn, remembering the times Jason often preyed on his friend Chantel. As Darren focused on Raleigh, he noticed each time her hand moved away from Jason, she was making a hand shape secretly every chance that she got while the host was asking them questions about their “relationship.” It took a while to learn that Raleigh was indeed signing a message to them.

Unfortunately, Darren only knew a little sign language and could only make out half of the message. However, Leticia seems to have more knowledge, considering that she knew how her band mate worked.

“Is this thing on record, Chantel?” The former guitarist asked as she turned her head to look at his friend.

“Yeah.” The petite girl nodded to Leticia in response.

“Good. Turn off the TV. We need to look back to see what message Ray was trying to give to us. This motherfucker is pissing me off with how disgusting he is towards Ray,” Leticia’s tone sounded more infuriated by the minute.

It was not surprising that the former guitarist was on the edge even more. Chantel, holding the control in her hand, flipped the button to turn off the TV. Darren saw Luca clearly confused about what was going on, but understood he needed to leave the room for the three of them to decode the message in English. Getting out a pen and paper nearby, Darren wrote whatever Chantel and Leticia had tried to make out in Raleigh’s message to them. All three of them could decode some messages such as “W-A-R-E-H-O-U-S-E-S”, “Shutdown D-R-U-G R-I-N-G”, and last, “H-U-R-R-Y .”

Darren knew Raleigh was fingerspelling some of her messages. None of them were fully fluent in sign language, so the messages were tough to make out with only half of it. The mage shook his head and said, “I don’t get it. What does this mean?”

“D, her message talked about warehouses! I think Raleigh and Linda are seeing more things going on there. She must have seen more places that the Rise of Light are holding the Devil Enigma potions at,” Chantel was tapping her pen on the coffee table at the couch they were sitting on.

“I’m going to talk to Cho again soon, anyway. Raleigh and her were close to the deaf community in our area. Maybe Cho can go find someone there to help her decipher the full message. Other than that, I know Ray is still in there and trying to help us, even when under Nico’s watchful eye," Leticia added as she was getting out of her seat.

The mage watched the former guitarist leave the room, still angry about the whole TV segment. Darren sighed in stress once again, exiting in the room as well. When he met up with Marieum, he saw all of his potions bottled up and organized in a box. Observing what she did for him, it surprised Darren to learn that Marieum had done all that stuff for him. The vampire stopped and turned around to see he was there.

He nodded and told her, “Okay, Marieum. I’m ready. Let’s kick this training up to high gear!” Darren saw the way Marieum grinned, flashing her fangs, as was her way when she was excited, and Darren wondered if he was going to survive the hard core training.