By the time Damien arrived back at the mansion, it was past two in the morning but that didn't stop his butler in giving him out a letter that had arrived close to midnight. He opened the letter, reading what was written and went to his room to close the door, and at the same moment, he vanished from Quinn's mansion to head towards Lord Bonelake's house.

He knocked on the door, the metal on the door hitting hard on the wood before he let go of it. In time he heard the footsteps arrive from the other side of the door that was opened by the butler.

"Mr. Quinn, Lord Nicholas has been expecting you."

"'Course he was," Damien muttered under his breath, "Where is the girl. The one with the blonde hair," his meeting with Lord Nicholas could wait as he had other things to attend to, the one and the only main thing which was to find if Penny was in a good state.

The old butler paused his footsteps and then changed the direction of his walk, taking Damien to the room where Penny was fast asleep.

Damien noticed how she was wearing another set of clothes and not the ones that they had got her tailored. Walking around the bed, he took a seat next to her on the bed to see her sleeping. Brushing her hair gently he heard from the door,

"I thought I would find you here," it was Lord Nicholas himself who had appeared at the door, "Let her sleep. She must be exhausted with the practical exam," he could tell that Lord Nicholas wanted to talk to him and away from Penny so that she could get the rest she needed.

Damien gave a curt nod, getting up from the bed, he walked out of the room.

"What happened?" Damien asked. It wasn't that Damien had not expected anything to happen during the time of the exam because the second exams were often rough and hard to handle, and hard meant in holding on to their lives as many died in them.

When he had sent Penny to do the exam, he knew she would survive, she was one of the fated stars who was tied to him by the soul. Maybe it was his confidence that let Damien allow her to participate in the exam and seeing her alive put his heart in ease.

"You sent her to the council exam…Why?" Lord Nicholas appeared slightly confused as he didn't understand why Damien Quinn would risk the life of his woman.

The man would know at one point in time and as they were on the same side, he answered, "She is a white witch," Lord Nicholas raised his brows, "What happened to the other candidates? There were forty of them," Damien furrowed his brows when he heard the Lord reply,

"There were only two of them who were alive in the entire forest. Lady Penelope is in there and the other who I believe must be her companion, she has three broken ribs, sprain in her hand and her muscle in the leg has been torn quite badly. I thought it would be right to call you here before the whole of the council decided to snoop around," said the man, as they walked down the corridor letting the girl rest in her room.

If there was one thing a person could count on when it came to Lord Nicholas, it was that the man could read the situations that jump into things. The last time when they had met, it was before councilman Creed's death and it made him smile. Damien didn't have to ask to confirm that it was Nicholas who had killed the corrupt councilman.

Damien then asked, "Did Reuben speak to you about it?"

Nicholas nodded his head, "He did. But I wasn't aware of the participants who were taking part in the exam. It was quite a surprise when I reached the site," receiving a question from Damien, the man continued to say, "One of the local men was fixing the tower bell when he caught fire in the forest. He went to the magistrate right away and when the magistrate arrived he found the scene and came to look for me. Did you know there was a ritual there?" hearing this Damien's eyes narrowed itself considerably.

"We sent a couple of witches to be able to get one of the black witches who were involved," at least that was why they had sent so that they could get some answer from the black witches but right now Damien didn't care about not having a black witch in hand and was instead glad to have Penelope safe.

"Yes, so I heard from Rueben. How many ever people have gone there yesterday to the forest, all of them are dead. At least that is what I know. We will get the complete report about it tomorrow once a team is assigned to survey the forest. There was a human who was tied on a pole along with a vampire," Lord Nicholas waved his hand for Damien to take a seat, "Would you like something to drink?" he asked.

"Blood tea," Damien wasn't a man to shy from refreshments in another person's house.

The butler who had followed them bowed his head and left the room to prepare blood tea.

Damien then said, "There was a recent break in the Creed's mansion. Two witches who came searching for the parchment of design and the next few steps that are required to unbind the magic."

Nicholas could only guess that if Damien knew about it, he had already dealt the matter in hand. To answer the question which was not asked, Damien said, "The parchment was burnt recently."

The Lord nodded his head, "I have asked one of my men to get the list of people who entered the exam. He should get it from the department in a few hours. That way we can go through the people and trace back where and how they appeared at the exam."

"We will need to wait for them to wake up," Damien said because it was Penelope and the other witch who knew what went down there. For now, they needed rest.

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