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Snorting at myself for having been caught off-guard, I tucked the scrying tool out of sight again and fished my phone out to call for a ride. Before I could do that, I saw a text from Mulan.

I see you finally found me.I’m staying at the Shinto Temple. Visiting hours are from seven to eight. Be respectful to the people here. They are helping me. Do not bring High Demon with you.

“That’s interesting.” She wanted me come alone and not to bring Conn.

Was I surprised by that command? Not really. But this was turning out to be the strangest day I’d had since we broke into Jack’s mad scientist lab to take down his monsters.

* * *

“Dad wantsto have dinner with me. I told him I had plans with you.”

“Ya can’t keep lying to yer father, Fiona.”

“Please, Mom. I caved and turned on my location finder app since he’s been paying for my phone.”

“So let me understand this. If ya go with me, Jack will know where I go too.”

My daughter shook her head. “No, there’s a way around that. I’ll turn it off when we get outside of Salem and turn it back on when we return to the city limits. I’ll play dumb about what happened between those times.”

Her strategy didn’t sit well with me because Fiona could be lying to me, and I’d never know any different. “Ya’re encouraging yer father to be controlling by giving up yer privacy.”

“I know, but it’s temporary. I have a plan to ween him off tracking me,” Fiona said. “So can I go or not? If I had a boyfriend, I’d call him instead of bothering you.”

My irritation deflated. That happened a lot with my daughter. I hoped my guilt about being a terrible mother wouldn’t last for her entire lifetime as well as mine.

Seeing how easily Fiona could finagle me made me doubly glad I let Ma off the hook for not being honest about Jack. Mothering could cost ya the love of yer offspring if ya made a wrong decision. After all I’d suffered, I didn’t begrudge Ma for protecting me from Jack with some careful lies that kept me cautious.

I looked at my child, grateful that there was mostly truth between us. “Ya’re not bothering me, Fiona. I enjoy yer company. It’s just that I never know what I’m getting into with Mulan. The Wu Shaman is predictably unpredictable, but maybe ya need to see her strangeness in action since ya’re determined to train with her.”

“I can certainly see why the two of you are such good friends,” Fiona said.

“It’s not like we’re besties or anything,” I said.

“You are totally besties, Mom. Why else would you be tracking her down?”

When I stopped the car at a light, I turned to face her as I answered. “I’m tracking her down to see if she can shed any light on Conn’s refusal to shift into human form.”

“Why not just ask him?”

“Do ya think so poorly of my common sense, daughter? I already asked him a dozen times or more. Sure, I could order him to shift to human and talk to me, but that would make me seem like an arse in this situation. I refuse to abuse my Dagda-given powers for something as silly as a tiff between him and the overly sensitive shaman.”

Fiona laughed. “You sound so much like Gigi when you say things like that. Don’t you think something big must have happened between Conn and Mulan?”

“Yes, I think that’s a fact. Mulan’s gone into seclusion at some temple and Conn’s staying in dog form. At least he’s a small dog this time. I can carry bags of food for the smaller ones into the house.”

“That car you bought gets terrible mileage.”

I was offended on behalf of the older Chevy I’d purchased. It had turned out to be better than I hoped. I preferred paying for rides across town, but that was too challenging for grocery shopping, especially when unplanned pet feeding was involved.

Conn had rolled his eyes when I came home with the well-driven Chevy. If he had his way, I would be driving some expensive gas guzzler instead.

“That fancy Jeep yer father bought ya may look nicer, but it’s as fuel inefficient as my car and cost a lot more.”

“How did you get me talking about cars?”

I snorted. “Ya insulted my new one so I had to defend it.”

“Your car is not new,” Fiona said in a scathing tone.