Damon – my bff – how I've missed you, Mark thought, a tear rolling down his cheek in his mind, please don't leave me alone for so long, I might die.

Mark got up to go hug his bestie – but abruptly stopped, two things making his tail go between his legs.

The first was Jun, a foot away, watching him. There was nothing disapproving, angry, or negative at all in the way Jun was looking at him right now. But there was an intensity to his gaze, a slight widening of his eyes that made Mark feel like a prey animal. No one else in the room would be able to sense anything hostile from him, that's how subtle it was. And yet...Mark felt like he should keep his hugs brief, or face the consequences.

See. Fucking scary.

The second thing was that he suddenly remembered that Damon was carrying a little sprout, which wouldn't normally be scary, except that Mark was always kind of weird interacting with pregnant people. Not as bad as he was at interacting with kids, but still.

He wasn't sure how to describe it himself. Mark knew that pregnant people were not made of glass, and yet he still ended up walking on eggshells around them. Like if he even breathed too loudly they would suddenly go into labor.

But this was still Mark's best friend, so he swallowed hard, gave him a side hug, and then quickly took two steps back. Damon, who knew Mark better than anyone, just rolled his eyes. That was fair.

"What are you guys doing here?" Mark asked. "Does it have something to do with the witches?"

Damon pursed his lips. "It does. Come to the market with me, we have to talk."

Mark bounced on his heels. A trip! How nice.

Except that Jun made a funny face, turning to Damon, confused. Damon ignored this look for all of two seconds before giving in and looking back at him.

"I'll explain to Mark. You explain to Jess and Jay. We'll only be a little while, and the market is close by."

Jun continued to stare unblinkingly at Damon, who sighed.

"Don't be a baby. Come on, Mark." And with that, Damon wrestled his hand out of Jun's grip, steadfastly avoiding looking at his honey's betrayed, sad puppy-dog expression. Mark followed him outside, grateful that Jun hadn't yet developed laser eyes, or else Mark would be full of holes right now.

Once outside, Damon sagged a bit. "Did he look really sad? I couldn't bear to look at him. I feel so bad."

Yeah, he was sad, but also murderous – towards me! Have a little compassion for your best friend, Mark thought.

"A little bit," Mark said instead. "But why do we have to go all the way to the market?"

Damon blushed slightly, a bit sheepish. "I needed an excuse to get Jun a birthday present. But mostly we have to talk about Elizabeth."

"Elizabeth? What about her?" Mark asked.

"We think she was kidnapped. Ava called me last night, freaking out. She couldn't find her anywhere, and she didn't tell Ava that she was leaving. No one knows what happened, but Ava suspects Malachi was involved."

Mark hadn't known Elizabeth very well. They'd only seen each other in passing when Mark visited Ava before he fled Ganymede pack (which he may or may not still be a part of. He was unclear on that), but she was cool. He only knew she was Jun's fiancé later.

Malachi was a snake, plain and simple. But Mark couldn't see any reason why he would want to kidnap Elizabeth. Maybe Mark's confusion was written all over his face, because Damon quickly cleared it up. At this point, they had entered the market, which was as bustling as ever, and Damon eyed the stalls as they passed, keeping his voice low.

"That's where the witches come in. Elizabeth is half witch apparently. Her grandmother is the head of the coven."

Oh. Well alright then. Unexpected, but it weirdly made a lot of sense. Mark remembered going to Ava's house once while Elizabeth was there and seeing a plant that had been dead for weeks suddenly vibrant and full of life. He hadn't thought much of it at the time. He only remembered it because he thought the flowers were pretty.

"So what do we do?" Mark asked. "What's the next step, how do we find her?"

Damon shook his head. "We wait. Silas knows, so he and Elizabeth's grandmother are figuring out how to organize a search party."

Mark frowned, a sense of unease overtaking him. Something about all this didn't make sense. "Elizabeth's witch grandmother...can't find her granddaughter? I don't know much about witches and what they can do, but I'm pretty sure that if they want to find someone, they can snap their fingers and find them. I mean, if they can curse an entire pack – shouldn't they be able to do something that simple?"

Damon actually stopped in his tracks at this, letting people brush past him like the ocean's current around a rock. "That's an excellent point," he said slowly, lost in thought.

"Elizabeth's grandmother didn't mention anything about it? Not even that she tried to find her and couldn't for some reason?"

Based on Damon's expression, the answer to that was no, but Mark couldn't fathom what kind of conclusions he was reaching in his head. Mark wasn't the type to overanalyze things, so he doubted that he understood the full implications of this.

But if he had to guess, there were two reasons why no one had brought this up before now. Either Elizabeth's grandmother had already tried to locate her magically, and couldn't for some reason, or she hadn't tried to find her.

Both were perplexing, for different reasons, and Mark didn't have enough information to figure it out.

"So what are you going to do now?" Mark asked, head beginning to ache.

"I'm going to find a present for Jun. And then I think Aila and I need to talk."