It was a weary collection of humans and gargoyles that re-entered the great hall.
"Does anyone know what that thing is?" Brooklyn burst out to the room at large. "It can't be fae or Owen would have sensed it, right?"
"No," Owen said, as monotonous as always. He pushed his glasses farther up on his nose before continuing. "In this form, I do not always sense the fae unless they actively use their powers. That," he gestured in the direction of the courtyard, "Is not fae, however. I would have sensed a fae that was using that much constant energy to keep up a glamour spell to change their appearance."
"We have seen something like this once before," Goliath admitted. Having finally witnessed the speed and ease of the changing of forms. "On New Olympus."
"Proteus?" Angela gasped. "But how could he be here, in Manhattan? He would have had to get out of his prison, and past Taurus and the others?"
"I do not know," Goliath said, tapping his chin with a talon. "I do not even know how to contact those on New Olympus to find out."
"Maybe Owen…" Angela said, swinging her gaze to him hopefully.
He was already shaking his head. "I am sorry, Miss Angela," he said with a grimace. "While the Olympians are descended from Fae, they have a great distrust of us. For good reason," he admitted with a shrug. "But there is more than one reason that they have surrounded their home with that magical shield. It keeps them hidden from the outside world, and makes it impossible for fae magic to reach inside of its borders."
"But we only caught Proteus because of Olympian technology," Angela said. "How are we going to catch someone who can transform into a ten foot tall cyclops?"
"Good question, Lass," Hudson said.
"Descended from the fae," Xanatos mused. "Would iron work against them the same way?"
"No," Owen said. "They are descended from, but it has been long enough that the reactions to iron are mostly gone."
"Of course," Xanatos said with a sigh.
"That would have been too easy," Brooklyn said with a humorless laugh. He put one arm across Skyler's shoulders and gave her a small supportive squeeze. "And that's not how things work here."
Skyler's shoulders rose and fell on a sigh. "Well," she said softly. "I'm not going to be of much use here. I'd better get back to the kids."
At the mention of the children, multiple sets of eyes began looking around the room.
"Who is with the young ones now?" Goliath asked, just realizing that their main caregiver was standing in front of him.
Skyler looked around uneasily. "Well, I…"
Brooklyn looked uneasy. "Fox was with them," he said. "And Demona."
"What?" Goliath said, his face setting in a scowl.
"That's a little bit like trusting Lizzie Borden," Xanatos said, turning swiftly towards the hall that would lead him to the playrooms. "Perhaps not the best of ideas."
Goliath had no idea who this "Lizzie Borden" was, but was assuming that she was not a nice person, and hurried to join Xanatos.