Ainsley and Xia met at her dorm.

"Where's Calypsa?"

"She's not responding to my texts, and she blocked me from breaking into her room."

"I don't blame her," earning a pinch cheek. "At least someone in your family has a heart."

"He didn't mean it."

Ainsley's glare was imminent. "Tell me you don't?"

"Of course not, it's just," sighing. "Did you mean all of that?"

"Not entirely. But now I'm curious. Sehki disappears for eight years, but the Void attacks are just as frequent. I'd rather work on my art, but we don't know how anyone figured out why those things were under the Shakuheld's house. If he is a threat, I want to get this over with."

Ainsley got a call.

"Do you think you deserve to call yourself a prince, you hack artist? No wonder you're the weakest of the four."

Ainsley slammed the end button, ditching Xia to go to House Erebus, spotting Sehki exercising and Calypsa teasing him every second.

Just like we used to be, seeing the six of them playing together as children. Our lives were simpler back then, covering their mouths to hide their coughing.

Was she told to train him - or is she choosing to?

A vector of light tapped them, catching their attention.

Cluster, silently creeping over to confront them.

"Getting cold feet?"

"I want answers."

"Ask away."

"How could he attract the Voids if he wasn't on campus at the time?"

The enigmatic figure said nothing. "Perhaps he has allies covering his behavior. There are loyalists to the former rulers of Umbra who assume there was something behind there."

"Then they can be controlled after all, even the wild ones. Then how did they work with the king and queen to create an army?"

"You ask trivial questions. If you don't want to get your hands dirty, I have means to ensure you get the credit."

"Do what you want," Ainsley said, walking away while Cluster laughed.

"How amusing."

They returned, casually watching Sehki training when Calypsa caught them.

"Why are you training him," they whispered. "Aren't you worried about our parents finding out?"

"Your parents run the school, Delta gave me permission to. And if someone spills," dropping her casual demeanor, "I'm sure he'll be fine."

"You don't believe he's responsible for the Voids?"

"Ainsley, my opinions don't matter. I was just their guest and your friend. If you don't think he is, do something about it. I just want to bully him now that he's back," patting them on the back.

"Fine, I won't say anything, but," whispering something to her.

"Hmm, fine with me."

The same day, Calypsa gave Sehki a break for them to check out the Venuscilin Haven, where all of their Inner Heirs were together.

Instead, this turned out to be an excuse for me to watch people be terrible to one another for another, too annoyed to be bothered with her sitting on his lap. At least she was trying to be funny flirting with him, trying to introduce himself to the others.

The lady their age who had her mouth and back being spit roasted by Taylor and Rigal while developing a toucan's mouth around the water heir's manhood, slurping it up with joy.

Every time Rigal got more excited when she spit out her house leader's mouth to ask him to ram his, urgh, I don't want to say it, thing more and more. That's when he counted there were thirteen people in the room.

"How come we, well all the heirs have an inner circle," spotting Taylor using his magic to remove forehead sweat while his hands were still holding her mouth.

"Each king has three advisors for them. Usually a spouse and two childhood aides work as their advisors. Most monarchs with only Zodiac would have the Fixed, Cardinal, and Mutable Zodiacs associated with their element to give the mastery of all three."

"And the Voids?"

"To power the field that separates Terra from Void breaches. Most monarchs spend the majority of their time or magic power powering those so they're left vulnerable without either breaks or sleep."

"Geez, that sounds rough."

"Mhmm, harder, harder!"

"Oh yeah, so who are they?"

Calypsa didn't have to introduce Ainsley's inner circle. Taylor's consisted of Kayla Keyser, the light skinned girl having her mouth and privates filled up, Delphin Alexandria kissing him, and the briefcase girl with tan skin, Lorena Sanchez. They had black hair, blonde and blue eyed, and light red spiky hair respectively.

The two guys she put her briefcase to block from kissing her and calling her a buzzkill were a light skinned dark man wearing the Sky n Fly Alpha Male Podcast shirt and a slightly darker semi-bald man wearing shades and a loose top: both he recalled from Rigal's livestream: Minus Bane and Mandrew Drake.

Annoyed, she stretched her mouth to sink, swallowing just as much water as Kayla did meat. She spat out the water, forming hands of earth around her arms, and unzipped their pants to take care of them.

Meanwhile, Ainsley's inner circle had prepared for them to use the trio as art sculpture, only for them to do whatever they wanted. That led to Sven and Bodin playing tag team ping pong against Vital and Vena while Sehki took notice of Candy choosing to build an icy corvus with her powers.

"Nothing's wrong, so is this your rage boner, or something else," a frisky Calypsa asked.

"Ask your friend," gaining a headache from Xia's fist of flames near his face. "Please get a hobby." Only then he realized the sweat from his face was floating above his head, having enough focus to move it and douse her arm.

Meanwhile, Ainsley's paint brush broke. They stepped out to get another one from the supply closet when a woman with long hair and a sinister aura approached them.

"Professor Gorgon? What are you doing here?"

"I've had a conversation with your parents. They prefer you take some more adjustments to your personality," as ethereal snakes spiraled and sunk fangs into their body.

Sehki and Calypsa went to the place where they heard his screams, but they were nowhere to be found.