Rarely did Rin's blood run chill, but when it did, he felt it in every atom. Being so hot all the time made the shift seem even more extreme, and the cold dread that flooded his body at Shura's words was too visceral a reaction to ignore. He actually shivered.

"She should be in class," he said. "She teaches English poetry first hour."

Shura shook her head. "She didn't show."

The chill got worse. "Shit."

"Do you want—"

He ignored Shura, pulling out his phone and calling Daphne immediately. The line rang, and rang. Rin tapped his foot, willing her to pick up, chewing the inside of his bottom lip. When the line connected, it was her voicemail, so Rin hung up and called her again. Shura carefully walked up to him.

"Yukio didn't sound worried about it, he just wanted me to pass on the info…" She raised an eyebrow at the impatient way Rin started to pace tiny circles. "He was annoyed more than anything—stop it, would you?" She grabbed Rin's shoulder and pulled him to a halt. "What is going on?"

Daphne's recorded message sounded for a second time on the other end of the line. Rin hung up. "I need to go find her, Shura. Are you all right here?"

Shura's eyes went flat. "Let's not forget who trained you, huh?"

"Call me if the forensic team says anything," he said, already walking away. Shura called something after him, but he didn't hear. Once he was clear of the fence around the lot, he broke into a run. He had to get to True Cross as quickly as possible.

As he ran, he dug through his pockets for his keys, keeping an eye on all the passing buildings to find a decent door. Maybe he was overreacting. Shura had said Yukio was annoyed, not worried. He'd probably only mentioned Daphne's absence in a passing complaint. It had been a while since class had started. Maybe she'd been late and nobody had checked her classroom since then. That would explain why she wasn't answering her phone.

There was a front office at the building lot just up ahead. Rin made a beeline for it.

No. No, something was wrong. He could feel it. But even that might have just been a leftover reaction to their weekend on Miyajima.

He slammed into the door, shoved his key into the lock, turned the handle and opened it, slipping through into the cram school and hoping there hadn't been anyone in the office to hear him crashing against the door like a bird against a window. The cram school hallways were empty, and he made his way through without interruption. He got out his phone and called Daphne again.

"Pick up, pick up," he growled, heading toward her classroom.

"…You have reached—"

He hung up. Dialed again. There was a substitute at the front of her class that he could see through the window. So where was Daphne?

"Hi."

Rin practically collapsed at the sound of her voice over the phone, and he did trip, managing to catch his balance at least and keep moving forward.

"Daph! Thank god. Where are you? What's going on?"

"Sorry, my phone was on silent," she replied. "I'm in the girl's locker room on the top floor of the gym building."

The response was so incongruous, Rin actually stopped dead in his tracks. "What? Why?"

"Are you free? Can you come up here?"
"Are you all right?"

Her voice sounded strange, distant. Maybe a little bit shaken. She was quiet for a second and Rin could hear her breathing, sharp and ragged breaths like she'd been exercising or something. He could also hear what sounded like running water. Then she said, "I'm fine. Will you come up here, please?"

"I'm on my way…"

He was about to ask her to stay on the line, but she hung up, so he picked up the pace, running all the way to the gym building and up the stairs to the top floor. The layout was identical to some of the lower levels, and girl's locker room was next to the boy's, thankfully, otherwise he wouldn't have known where to look. Rin pushed open the door and a tremendous waft of steam burst out. He coughed, shielding his face. The inside of the locker room was like a super wet greenhouse-sauna. Daphne was sitting in the middle of it, soaked, in front of one of the in-ground tubs. Every single shower in the room was on.

Daphne turned around when he came in. "That was fast."

"Daph." His mouth fell open and he stumbled forward, nearly tripping over a lip and into another tub that was full of water. "What—what the hell?"

"Come over here," she said, so he made his way across the slippery tile. The floor was wet, places where the tiles weren't perfectly flat pooled with water. Now that the door out was closed, the room started to fill with steam again. "Look," Daphne said when he'd reached her, pointing at the tub.

Rin followed her finger, but he didn't know what he was supposed to be looking at. The tub was draining, the water swirling toward the plug like—

"Holy shit."

His reaction surprised Daphne, like she hadn't expected him to find it interesting yet. She stood up, grabbed his hand, and dragged him over to the line of showers. Again, she pointed, and again Rin looked, and the water was swirling into the drains in the showers in the same counterclockwise pattern as the water in the tub. The same counterclockwise pattern the goblins had been moving in before they'd exploded. One in the shape of a five-pointed star.

"Daph, Shura and I got called down to a manifestation of some goblins that were acting weird," he said, his eyes glued to the drains. "They were moving like this—they—they were making this same pattern."

"What?"

"I swear to god."

They looked at each other, equally astonished. Daphne was a wreck—her hair damp and unable to dry in the humid air aside from the single strands that frizzed up, her clothes sopping and somewhat transparent where the fabric was light. She didn't have shoes on. Her coat and bag were in a puddle next to one of the tubs.

"What were you doing up here?" Rin asked.

She shook her head. "I don't know. Trying to draw out that demon, I think." Rin's heart stopped, but Daphne kept talking like she hadn't just said something crazy. "I just sort of found myself here, and I guess I filled up one of the tubs and got in. I made contact with it. It tried to kill me, I think. It held me under the water, but I made it out. When I went to drain the tub, the water flowed like this, so I filled it again and I've been checking every drain since."

"Hold on… Did you say it tried to kill you?"

Looking up at him, Daphne nodded. He went pale. She said, "Well, it might not have been trying to kill me, but it did push me under the water."

"Daphne!"

"I made it out."

"That's not the point! You could have died. You can't do stuff like this by yourself."

"You wouldn't let me do it at home."

"You were sleep-deprived!"

She hadn't slept well at the ryokan or at their hotel in Hiroshima after they'd found the bodies of the exorcists. He knew it for a fact. Rin was a notorious heavy sleeper, but even the slightest sound from Daphne would wake him up. She'd been restless, awake, or having a nightmare every night for the past week. Falling silent, Daphne turned her face toward the tile.

"You're right," she said, shaking her head. "I shouldn't have done it… It was like—I don't know—like I was in a trance. I couldn't stop myself."

Rin reached out and took hold of her arm. "I'm glad you're all right." She looked at him and shivered in spite of the humid heat. "You said you made contact?"

Daphne nodded. "I'm certain it's a new demon," she said. "It seems cautious. Curious, maybe. It sort of…sniffed around a bit before it attacked. I don't think it really knows what it's doing."

"And after it left, the water started draining like this?"

"It could have drained like this before, but that seems unlikely."

"And it's definitely the same demon from Miyajima?"

Again, Daphne nodded, but it was grimmer somehow. "Definitely."

They were quiet for a moment. The sounds of the water from the showers hitting the tile and going down the drains filled the silence. Behind them, the tub finished draining and echoed with the last of the water going down the pipe. Rin didn't know what to make of it.

"We should talk to Mephisto," he said.

Daphne nodded. "I want to look at those reports again." She splashed through the puddles to retrieve her bag and coat. "I have a feeling somehow that this is all connected."