The girl was chatting with the man over a cup of good tea. She had been here for two weeks and was fascinated by the new surroundings. She had received orders to come to Italy from Sweden, where she usually spent her days. Suddenly, someone barged in. The group consisted of six people.

"What happened?" man got up from the table and approached the unexpected guests.

"Sophie. She needs help!" Lok said, holding the unconscious girl in his arms.

At that moment, the second person got up from the table and headed their way.

"Put her here." she pointed at the leather sofa.

She shifted a stool and began to examine injured Casterwill. In the meantime, she asked Lok what had happened. Swede put on nitrile gloves. She started to examine Sophie's injured hand. The wound around it had turned purple. She embraced her hand with hers and began to heal it. The green energy seemed stable and brought relief to Casterwill girl.

"She'll be okay." Cathy said and put her hand on her brother's shoulder.

Since Huntik team managed to escape from the underground of the cathedral, Lok hadn't uttered a word. Along the way, team got lost on the way to Foundation's hideout. If not for that fact, Sophie would look better. At this moment, she was white as a sheet.

"Wound isn't deep. Did it cause such a state?" brown-haired girl thought.

She got up from the chair and scanned Sophie's body through with a mysterious, blue spell.

"What these Spiral people won't come up with..." she sighed quietly.

"What's wrong with her?" Lambert asked.

He was so stressed that even the slightest rustle was clearly audible. Words of the suspicious girl only escalated boy's worries.

"Give me my bag." girl ignored the question and asked her colleague.

It was promptly handed over to her. She rummaged the book from it and quickly flipped through the pages until she reached where she wanted. She scanned each line with urgency. She found something. She placed a book in a visible spot.

"Are you going to say something?" Lok asked, slightly annoyed.

"Matt, take them to another room." Swede asked her colleague.

"No way. I'm staying here whether you like it or not!" Lok said firmly.

Medic extended her left hand toward team leader. Their made eye contact with each other.

"Kindlestrike" she aimed at Lok, then boy accidentaly pushed Den who was standing behind him.

"One more word!" she looked threateningly at Lok.

"Hey! What are you doing?!" older Fears asked.

"Follow me. You shouldn't disturb her." Matt said.

"Matt is right. Let's not complicate her work. It's important now that Sophie recovers from this" Vale stated.

"Even you, Dante?" Lok sighed.

"We have to trust her, Lok." Lambert's mentor answered.

Concerned friends glanced one last time at their companion and disappeared behind the door.

"Finally. I don't have to hold back." the brunette remarked and rolled up her sleeves.

Team was in the hallway with the living room. There was a green sofa, a coffee table with a glass vase containing a bouquet of blue flowers. There couldn't be a lack of a chair by the window. Windows were already covered with red blinds. There was a shoe cabinet by the exit door with coat hooks above it.

There was a slightly nervous atmosphere. Lok was nervous and extremely pissed off with a girl he and his friends had just met. Cathy was worried about her brother. She never would have thought Lok would argue with Dante. And all happened in less than a minute. Young team leader yelled at his mentor for trusting strangers too much. Man, however, argued (or rather tried to) that they had appeared in the right place and at the right time. After a while, a seeker from the quarters brought everyone a cup of tea to warm up a bit on this not very pleasant evening.

"Is she always let her get away with when she attacks someone?" Lambert asked.

"I don't know about that. But I can vouch for her. Malia doesn't do anything without a reason." Matt replied, leaning against the wall with a cup in his hand.

Harrison, upon hearing this name, looked like he had some memories associated with the person bearing it.

"Everything okay?" Den asked, looking at his brother.

"I recollected something, but it's nothing important." he replied.

Young Lambert didn't look too good. He nervously paced around the room. Who wouldn't do it in his place, right?

Den wanted to comfort his friend, but he didn't really know how. He himself had never had a girlfriend, so he could only guess how he might feel at that moment. Fears remembered the feelings that tormented him after parting with his younger brother.

Whether this aligned with Lok's true feelings? No one knows.

Cathy came up with an idea to momentarily cheer up her brother and distract him from the current situation. However, she didn't have the thing she thought about.

"Matt, can I have a word with you in private?" she decided to ask.

The two stepped outside. After a moment, they returned. Matt went upstairs while the short-haired girl sat next to Harrison as if nothing had happened. Fears brothers looked at her with questioning eyes.

"Why are you looking at me like that? I wasn't hitting on him or anything" she replied to avoid an uncomfortable silence.

Lok stopped pacing and sat by the window. Time seemed to drag on mercilessly. He leaned against the backrest and stared blankly at a spot on the floor.

"Lok, I've got something for you" Matt came downstairs with a wooden puzzle.

Boy glanced briefly at him, then looked back down again.

"I'm not in the mood nor interested" he replied gloomily.

"Don't be so reluctant" Matt insisted.

Cathy stood up, took the item from Matt, and stood in front of her brother.

"Why can't you consider that your Sophie is in good hands?" she started rearranging the blocks in the puzzle.

"Someone who claims to be a medical seeker and attacks people because they refuse to answer a simple question? Do you even hear yourself?" he said indignantly.

"Maybe help me solve this instead" she ignored his words.

Blondie didn't want to get into a discussion. Lok had every right to be upset. In her mind, Cathy hoped Swede would apologize to him when she finished her work.

Lok simply watched as his sister struggled with the puzzle, rearranging the wooden blocks in a random order. Eventually, she started rearranging the same combination again, as she couldn't remember all the moves she had made.

"Give it to me." he asked.

It took him a moment to get to know with the mechanics. He examined the puzzle elements from all sides. Seeing what his sister had done, he took a slightly different approach to solving the puzzle. After a moment, it was solved.

"Take it." he gave an item into her hands.

"I feel like I've seen something similar to this before. Do you know created it?" Lok looked at Matt.

"It seems that one of the seekers brought this to us from a mission a few years ago. Another seeker was supposed to pick it up, who was supposed to be here on a delegation, but for some reason, it was never handed over to him." man answered.

Cathy had a lightbulb moment. She had a view of some puzzles on the dresser in her father's office.

"Did you think the same thing as me?" siblings asked simultaneously.

It was quite likely that the person in question could have been Eathon Lambert, their father.

Suddenly, bright orange light flashed from under the door. Next came the sound of a stool being moved, and a second later, a loud thud on the floor.

"What's going on?" Dante, who had been reading the newspaper until then, flinched.

Matt opened the door to the room. He found his colleague on the floor. He tried to revive her.

"Hey, are you here?" he shook her.

"She's just exhausted, she'll be fine" Vale remarked, following him inside.

Sophie still lay unconscious. It had to be admitted that she looked better than she did a few minutes ago. Whatever that unknown seeker was doing behind closed doors, she must have done a good job. Matt checked to see if Malia had hit her head. She seemed to be okay. Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed something on her hand. It was the same purple wound that had been on the Casterwill girl's hand earlier.

How did this happen?

They could speculate for answers until Swede woke up and explained it to them.

"It seems like she transferred the poison onto herself" Den said.

"Crazy idea. The worst part is that none of us know how to stop it" Matt replied.

Seeker from hideout picked up the girl and seated her in the chair. He took out the holotome from the cabinet and started tapping on it. He called the nearest medical unit, located in Venice. He only received the message that someone might show up early tomorrow morning. He didn't even have the energy to argue with them. He closed the device and put it back in place.

"It's a pig of these people" Matt muttered.

"No wonder. Usually, people are asleep in the middle of the night. For now, we just have to stay positive." Cherit spoke up, breaking his silence.

"Cherit's right, it's all we've got left." Dante supported.

A few minutes later, Casterwill girl opened her eyes.

"Sophie?" Lok rose from his stool to lean in her.

"What happened? Where are we?" she responded groggily.

"We're in a safe place" Cherit assured her.

"I remember everything vaguely" she said weakly.

"Don't worry. You didn't miss any part of the show. You collapsed right at the end" older Fears chimed in.

"You have no idea how worried you made us, especially Lok" Cathy added.

"I'm sorry for worrying you, Lok. I didn't do it on purpose" she said, massaging her boyfriend's hand with her thumb.

"The most important thing is that you're back with us" he hugged her.

"Now we need to figure out what's happening with Malia" Harrison pointed to the girl in the chair.

"Did she save me?" she struggled to sit up to see her healer's face.

Girl had long, brown hair tied in a braid. She was wearing a white shirt and blue jeans. Around her neck hung an amulet with a pink stone. It had to be admitted that Malia looked very young, which meant she could be their peer.

"I recognize her, but I don't know from where" Casterwill stated after a moment.

"She used to watch over me when I was on 'resocialisation'" Harrison made air quotes with his fingers at the last word.

"Was she the one who read books in American headquarter?" Den directed the question to his brother.

Harrison just nodded in agreement. When the younger Fears officially became a member of Huntik Foundation, almost every evening he was telling his brother about more or less interesting people and stories involving them. One of them was about her.

About a year ago
Huntik Foundation International Headquarters, New York, USA

Harrison Fears and other members of the Spiral entered the library to sort books under the supervision of their caretaker. That day, they were to be watched over by a charming brunette with a braid. The girl exchanged a few words with a colleague before he left somewhere.

"We meet again" Malia remarked, looking at group.

"We'll meet many times more, miss." replied the boy with blue hair.

"Not for long." she folded her arms and took a few steps. "You're doing the same thing as last time. Our researchers made quite a mess. It's a shame they don't know how to properly put books on shelves." she sighed.

"We're better at it than them." Harrison spoke up.

"I have to agree. Get down to work." she clapped her hands.

After that, the "resocialised" seekers started working. Girl sat down in her corner and continued reading a thick book she had started before the group arrived.

After a while, three out of ten seekers grew bored of tidying up and decided to play a prank on their caretaker. They quickly devised a plan. One of them was to arrange a conversation about a book, the second was to surreptitiously tie her legs or leg with a rope, and the last one was to swiftly pull her as a signal from the first.

"Hey baby!" Nicolas approached, the boy with blue hair.

"Did you say 'hey baby'? You're so rude." she took her eyes off the text.

"You're too cute." he replied cheerfully.

"Okay, stop that. Why are you interrupting my reading?" she looked suspiciously at ex-member of the Blood Spiral.

"You know... I don't know where this book should be." he held a book titled "Legends and Tales of Maritime Pirates" in his hand.

"The section is upstairs, third shelf from the left." she replied without hesitation.

"Are you sure?" he asked to give his friend, who hadn't finished tying the knot yet, some time.

"Rarely am I wrong when it comes to sections and shelves." she scoffed and returned to her reading.

A former Spiral member left and signaled to his friend upstairs that he could start. The blond boy pulled the rope so tightly that he stumbled. It turned out Malia was smarter than their plan.

"When did she do that?" the blond pondered quietly.

"I'm more curious where you got the rope from. You almost made it." she said after jumping onto the railing.

Boy began to explain:

"It's not like that. We didn't mean to harm you. It was supposed to be just a joke."

"Just a joke? Is sorting books not entertaining enough for you? Bad luck!" she said in a theatrical style.

Malia whistled to call the whole group in. She explained to the remaining seven seekers what they would be doing as a break. Namely, they would be pulling on ropes attached to the legs of the three would-be pranksters. The seven divided into two pairs and one trio. After a few minutes, the former Spiral members had ropes tied to their legs. The others stood in various parts of the balcony. From below, Malia threw ropes up to them.

"You have five minutes starting now. I wish our trio a splendid and unforgettable time." she said.

She began to move to the corner of the room where she could have a view of everyone. Mocking remarks and jokes directed at the former Spiral members on the ropes seemed endless. It was evident that the seekers were lacking a bit of entertainment.

For some of these people, it was important to wash away memories and crimes committed as members of the Blood Spiral.

There were also those who still tried to annoy Huntik Foundation seekers. What was their aim? Surely to end up in the Foundation's prison. There was no other way in such a situation.

Just a moment of inattention from the caretaker was enough for one of the hanging figures to aim Raypulse towards her. Harrison quickly reacted, jumped down, and at the last moment shielded her with Armorbrand.

"Have you lost your mind?" Fears aggressively asked his friend.

It took a moment for Malia to grasp what had just happened.

"Why did you do that?" she addressed the boy.

"I just had a whim." he replied.

"Maybe you do have something of your brother in you after all." she said, so that only he could hear it.

Girl bypassed him and turned to the blue-haired one. She ordered to release the rope. As her would-be assailant began to fall, she aimed Touchram at him at the right moment. He crashed into a column and fell unconscious to the ground. With such force of the attack, the structure of the column was slightly damaged.

"Oh, I'm sorry. I think I overdid it." she approached him and crouched beside him.

Others merely observed the action. Malia stood up.

"Break's over. Come back to work." she said loudly.

"Could you please take him to the door? I don't think he'll be useful today." she addressed the boy.

"Sure." he replied, hoisting the blue-haired boy onto his back like a sack of potatoes and carrying him to the designated spot.

She thanked him with a warm smile. Harrison, not knowing how to react, blushed slightly. Malia returned to her reading corner.

***

Team decided to get some rest in the guest room, which was located upstairs.

Sophie was feeling better already. She decided to stay downstairs with Matt to keep an eye on her rescuer's condition. Between the two watchful individuals, there was an awkward silence or occasional exchanges of words.

They slowly warmed up to small talk. At first, Matt thought that the Casterwill girl was similar to Lucas, with whom, as it turned out, he had the pleasure of working during the flight to the Spiral base on the longest night of the year.

The better thing was that Matt had guided Lok and Sophie's class around Florence when they were in their senior year.

Suddenly, Casterwill collapsed.

*^*^*^*^*^*

Hellow dear readers. I just wanted to tell you that I decided to publish one chapter per week. Expect new chapter next Tuesday! Have a nice day or night!~