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Morning frost blanketed the grass of Sylvan Serenity Housing when I walked out of my apartment carrying a sword and a backpack full of rope, tools, snacks, and other items that might be useful in staging a rescue. I felt like Frodo heading off to Mordor with the One Ring on a quest to save the world. Except I was off to a lavender field to save a werewolf.

“Almost the same.”

I strode toward my truck, glad the tenants who’d started staking out the parking lot in search of ghosts weren’t there with their paranormal-monitoring equipment. On the way, I passed Duncan’s Roadtrek van.

The night we’d confronted my cousins, he’d driven it to Lake Sammamish. It hadn’t been until a few days later, when I’d gone to seek sign of him, that I’d found it parked on a side street near a dock, with his jeans, phone, and keys inside. When he’d slipped into the water carrying his demolitions, he must have assumed he would end up changing forms. I’d driven the van back and parked it here, hoping he would return for it of his own accord. He hadn’t yet. That was why I had to rescue him .

When I reached my truck, an SUV rolled into the lot with my son Austin in the passenger seat. I was relieved to see him, even though I had determinedly not worried about him when he hadn’t come home the night before, and I hadn’t called to check on him. Okay, I hadn’t called more than once . He was eighteen, in the Air Force, and visiting for the holidays. Tracking his every movement wasn’t my duty anymore.

Fortunately, Austin didn’t appear drunk or stoned when he hopped out of his friend’s SUV, waving a thanks for the ride. Given that he hadn’t likely slept, he looked quite alert, but he eyed me warily when our gazes met.

A year ago, I would have read him the riot act for staying out all night, but a year ago, he’d lived with me and had a curfew. Now… I didn’t want to be an overbearing mother lest he not visit anymore. Like his older brother, Cameron.

“There are eggs and bacon on a plate on the counter.” I pointed toward the apartment.

“Oh, good. I’m starving.” Austin started in that direction but paused. “Uhm, I need to ask you something.”

“Go ahead.”

He didn’t usually hesitate, but he did now. Was something wrong? Did he need money? A confidante? A kidney?

No, they wouldn’t have allowed him into the military if he had an organ deficiency. I was less certain about the rest.

“Did you like the chocolate-covered crickets?” Austin asked. “Do you want me to get more?”

I squinted at him, certain this wasn’t the real question he wanted answered. “The chocolate is waxy and is desperately in need of sea salt.”

“I saw the canister in your truck.” Austin arched his eyebrows. “If you’re taking them on the road, that means you’re eating them. They can’t be that bad. ”

“I wouldn’t say they’re good .”

“I looked in the container yesterday. They’re half gone.”

“Because they came in a handy travel tin.”

“So their appeal is that they’re…”

“Convenient,” I said firmly, refusing to classify them as palatable. “Like bags of chips by the checkout counter.”

“Convenience crickets.”

“Exactly. What’s your real question, my son?”

Austin smiled ruefully. “I was wondering if I can spend a few days at Mount Baker.”

“What? Now?” I waved at the outdoor Christmas tree I’d put up near the leasing office. The holiday was quickly approaching.

“Yeah. For skiing. Snowboarding, actually. We wouldn’t technically be staying at Baker, but Oakley won a week at an Airbnb on a lake in Maple Falls, so it’s really close. You can drive right up to the mountain in the mornings. He has the cabin over Christmas.”

Over… Christmas?

I wanted to blurt no , that Austin was only in town for a couple of weeks before returning to finish his Air Force training and being assigned to his first duty station who knew where. On the other side of the world, probably. More, he’d spent so much time with his friends since he’d come home that I’d barely gotten to talk to him.

“He’s never won anything,” Austin continued. “I haven’t either. A couple of my friends are home from school and going too. It’ll be really epic.”

Trying not to let my disappointment show, I groped for something to say. Something that was in line with my attempts to be a mature, and certainly not overbearing, mother who acknowledged that her sons had grown up and could now live their own lives.

“I think the law dictates that I can’t forbid you from doing anything anymore, but know you’ll be abandoning your lonely, divorced mom on the biggest holiday of the year.” That hadn’t come out as maturely not-overbearing as I’d intended.

“You could come up to visit on Christmas morning. It’s not that far of a drive.”

“Oh, sure. I’d love to spend Christmas morning with a bunch of hungover frat boys.”

“Nobody’s going to be hungover, Mom. We’re not twenty-one.”

Like that would matter.

“Besides, we’re going to snowboard, not get smashed.”

“You don’t know how to snowboard.” I knew that for a fact. We’d never had enough money to engage in expensive winter sports.

“I’ve been once, remember? Jae-jin’s mom took us up to Steven’s Pass a couple winters ago.”

“From what I heard, you spent the day on the Daisy run.”

“ All beginners start on Daisy. I’m going to take lessons at Baker. They’ve got a beginner package that includes equipment rental and doesn’t cost much.”

I attempted to rein in my disappointment. If anything, this was a blessing. Rescuing Duncan would be simpler if Austin wasn’t home. I had spent the boys’ entire lives taking an alchemical potion to sublimate my werewolf magic, but these past few weeks, I’d stopped, and the magic had come roaring back. Now, when my emotions got the best of me, I turned furry and fanged—whether I wanted to or not.

Further, members of my pack, in addition to numerous other troubles, had started showing up regularly at the apartment complex. If I wanted to keep my secret identity from my normal human children… this trip would be for the best.

“Mount Baker is supposed to be a great place to learn,” Austin added in a cajoling tone. Maybe he hadn’t realized that he could do whatever he wanted, no matter what I said. “It’s known for its great powder, steeps, trees, chutes, and cliffs. ”

I didn’t know what steeps or chutes were but waved away the brochure description. “It’s fine. You can go. I appreciate you asking my permission, like my opinion still matters.”

Austin smiled in relief. “Your opinion does matter.”

“But you were still going to go if I said no, right?”

“Of course. Snowboarding is a life skill that I need to learn.”

“Uh-huh. For the record, trees and cliffs are things you want to avoid while careening down a mountain.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.” Austin saluted me before jogging up the walkway toward my apartment in the back of the sprawling complex.

Surrounded by acres of grassy lawns, paths, and manicured trees and shrubs, Sylvan Serenity hadn’t been a bad place to raise the kids. Other than the increased crime in Shoreline lately and the nearby freeway traffic audible through the greenbelt, it was a pleasant place to live. As the property manager, I ensured it was.

Before getting into my truck, I looked wistfully at it all, hoping that after I found Duncan, I could figure out a way to keep the owners from selling the complex.

“A problem for another day.” I put the truck into gear.

While backing out of my spot, I had to brake abruptly as a kid on a bicycle wheeled past. My beat-up truck lacked modern amenities like rear cameras. Something clunked around under the passenger seat. Curious, I paused to pull out an unexpected item. It was wrapped in the colorful comics section of a Sunday paper, a red ribbon holding it closed.

A gift?

It had some heft, which gave me an immediate inkling about what it was.

Untying the ribbon and unwrapping the paper revealed a substantial cylinder-shaped magnet with a coil of twine attached to an eyelet. A slip of paper read :

To help you with your future endeavors.

~ Duncan

My first thought was that Duncan had escaped from imprisonment and left it for me during the night. But wouldn’t he have knocked on my door if he were free to do so?

I rubbed the comic pages he’d used to wrap the gift. They lacked the crinkle of a fresh edition. Instead, they were limp and damp, like they’d been out in the truck in Seattle’s damp winter air for a few days.

“He must have left this before we stormed Augustus’s mansion,” I reasoned.

Maybe he’d had an inkling that he would lose the battle to Lord Abrams’s control device and end up abandoning me.

How a magnet would help me deal with my problems, I didn’t know, but moisture welled in my eyes as I set it on the seat and pulled out. Duncan was a good guy. I needed to rescue him.

“Easier said than done.”

My nerves fluttered in my belly as I merged onto the freeway and headed north. Though it had only been a couple of weeks since I’d escaped from the lavender farm and potion-making facility where I believed Duncan was held prisoner, so much had happened since then that it felt like ages had passed. Before long, the full moon would return. I needed Duncan back so I would have someone to hunt with.

“Sure, that’s the only reason.”

I shook my head at my sarcasm, admitting that Duncan made me smile. He was good company, and we had things in common, more than a love for dark chocolate. I wasn’t always sure I could trust him—or that his creator wouldn’t magically compel him to attack me—but I liked having him in my life. I wished we’d gotten an opportunity to be together physically too. We’d been heading in that direction… until my seventy-year-old mother had shown up and started talking about how Duncan would be a good mate and that I should have babies with him. As if that was an interest of mine at forty-five with two grown sons.

Having a companion, however, was of interest. I’d only recently come to realize that.

Traffic wasn’t bad, and it didn’t take as long as expected to reach the Arlington exit. The last time I’d come this way, the self-driving car of one of our enemy’s minions had been handling the navigation. But I remembered the route. Despite recent development around Arlington, it was still more rural than suburban out here, and there weren’t many roads to choose from.

Even so, I doubted myself when I headed down the street toward TBL Luxury Perfumes and Potions. It had been nighttime when we’d come before. By daylight, the lavender fields I’d expected were visible, but a sign staked by the long stone-paver driveway hadn’t been there before. Momentarily, I wondered if I’d gotten the wrong lavender fields. But, no. The Southwestern-style mansion that didn’t fit in with typical Pacific Northwest architecture was distinctive. This was the right place. But no cars were visible up the long driveway, nor did I see any indications of activity.

I pulled to a stop in front of the sign. FOR SALE, it read and included the name and number of a real estate agent.

Unease crept into me. I drove slowly up the long driveway, halfway expecting the sign to be a ruse, that I would sense werewolves and security guards amped up on strength-enhancing potions. And what about the werewolf boy who had howled at us from the fields? The clone brother Duncan had only recently learned he had. The residents and workers couldn’t all be gone, could they ?

Not only did I not sense any magical beings inside the compound, but I didn’t pick up the slighter magic of the potions that had been brewing in the factory. I climbed out of the truck and peered in a few windows. The gift shop was empty. So was what I could see of the mansion.

I slumped against the front door. Duncan wasn’t here. Nobody was.