Page 10

10

T he reception after the test was as awkward as I’d feared. The bosses of each of the region’s eight guilds attended. All save the Yard Rats and the Leapers sniffed for signs of weakness in my loyalty to the Towpath. The Rats shared more similarities with mundane street gangs than a guild of magicals, and its leader, Rye Gandry, had apparently decided recruiting me would be a waste of time. Kids pouring off the C&O Canal trail, the trains at the CSX hub, and the Great Alleghany Passage were his speed. I didn’t begrudge him or the Rats the petty crime that kept those kids fed, but I was in my early twenties, well past my juvenile delinquent sell-by date. Rye took care of runaways rejected by their families and a society that had never given a crap about young magicals, but despite my fresh, if grudging entry into the magical community, I was too old to be anything except a source of trouble to him.

The Leapers were an umbrella org governing area witch covens based in the Narrows and the infamous Lovers Leap cliffs skirting the valley bottleneck. My dad had cultivated and collected a wide assortment of ingredients to sell to them back in the day. They’d been his best customers. After Teddy’s murder, other vendors had moved in, but no one was more capable of procuring rare and exotic plant, herb, and flower inventories than a druid. The Leaper guild boss cornered me only to find out if I intended to resume the family business once I’d sorted matters with my demon.

The lone bright spot of the interminable reception was that I didn’t have to worry Jae might dismember anyone who annoyed him. Why? Because the Dyers couldn’t get out of this shindig, either, not after the oldest, Andrew, tested as a level ten sorcerer. Sucked to be him. The guild bosses descended on him like crows on carrion. Unlike me, he hadn’t joined a guild yet, and all the bosses scrambled to deliver their pitches.

Happily, the diversion of another level ten bought me some relief, but unable to cope with the attention, the youngest Dyer had crawled under the buffet table laden with pastries. He took turns chomping his way through the takeout bag of bad Mexican, alternating with sweets Jae filched from the table above them. I wasn’t sure how the demon squeezed under the table with the kid. Jae was short, but stocky, thick with muscle. Even with his wings magicked away, out of sight and Jae’s way when not in flight, he shouldn’t have fit. That’s where Henry was, though, and I was learning, wherever the kid was, my demon wouldn’t be far.

“Everybody falls in love with Henry. It’s his super power.”

I glanced over my coffee at the Dyer girl, who smiled at me over a plate of assorted fruit. We’d been introduced after testing, but damned if I could remember her name. “Grace?”

She shook her head. “Ivy.” She selected a blackberry as big as the tip of my thumb and popped it into her mouth.

“You wait tables at Denny’s.”

She chewed the fruit, swallowed. “I’m saving for a car to go to school.”

“That’s right. You tested as mundane.”

“Yes.” Her smile didn’t reach her eyes. “Can’t go to college as a magical.”

“I did.”

“You weren’t a druid then.”

“He only has a semester left. I won’t let him quit.” Megan snaked an arm around my waist. “Don’t let today scare you off higher education if you want it.”

She rolled her eyes, a warm chestnut brown like the kid’s. “Anyway, I just wanted to tell you that you have nothing to be concerned about with the demon and my little brother. Everybody loves Henry. He has that effect on people.” She grinned and her sincere mirth lit her up like a Roman candle, taking her average features to breathtaking. “He has that effect on magical creatures, too, I reckon.”

I gulped my coffee. “I hear he tested as magical.”

“Too ambiguous to pin his power down or gauge it,” Megan said, with a frown at the group of guild bosses surrounding Andrew. “He’ll test again in a year.”

Ivy snorted. “Good luck.”

Megan arched an eyebrow. “He’ll be thirteen then, normal testing age. You don’t think he’ll get a designation or level?”

“Henry’s special. Ain’t nobody like him and you magic folk won’t put a label on him unless he decides he wants you to. Excuse me,” she said, turning to leave us.

I watched her go, the faint trail of her smothered power crawling over my skin like warm velvet. “The kid isn’t the only strange one in that family.”

Megan flashed a glance my way, then studied the Dyer girl’s retreat too. “You think?”

“Federal law mandates only families with strong magicals may live near any active nexus.” I drank my coffee. “Lucky the older brother tested so high. If the Western Maryland nexus is waking, they could’ve lost their farm.”

Megan bit her bottom lip. “You don’t believe the nexus reawakening stirred power in just the Dyer boys.”

I believed the whole damn family was dripping in power, always had been, and they were as eager to shout that knowledge to the world as I’d ever been. “Tests can be manipulated.”

“A topic ripe for extensive discussion,” Griffith said, “but not here. You ready?”

I’d been good to leave the moment I’d spotted a bloodied lump of demon dying in the middle of the dryad sacred circle in the Grove, but Skip had mentioned an afterparty at the Towpath so…More of the same. Still, I owed my new guildmates for saving my bacon on the trek to the community center, and curiosity about the few I remembered from the guild when I was a boy prodded me. “What about him?” I tipped my chin toward my demon, bent in avid attention to Henry’s cheerful chatter between messy bites of taco.

“Wherever you go, he’ll follow.” Griffith shrugged.

Maybe. Jae liked the kid. He, meanwhile, only tolerated me. “Hunter teams still circling outside?”

“Some from outlying territories. They traveled a long way to murder you and Jae both, won’t give up this easy.” Griffith smirked. “Demons from this part of the east coast are backing off, though. Locals aren’t as willing to make enemies of the Towpath now that you’ve retested and are officially on our books as a member.”

“Now that I have my magical classification, I’m a member. Me.” I pressed my mouth into a hard line. “Not Jae. Demons don’t join guilds. And we are miles from being bound, if that ever happens at all.” I had my doubts.

My brow furrowed.

I had my hopes . I meant hopes…didn’t I?

“The connection between you has progressed enough for us to customize our wards to allow him to portal into the cafe. No other demon. Just him.” Griffith grabbed my arm to lead me away. “C’mon. To hide you from the remaining demons, Bea is transfiguring the lot of us into mice for the sprint from the center to the Towpath. It’ll be fun.”

Ma appeared with a bulging paper bag with her catering service logo splashed across it. “Here.” She shoved the bag at me. “Because I know you didn’t eat.”

I accepted the food only because I wasn’t so much of a dick that I would’ve let the bag drop to the floor. I didn’t hate my mother. Tried not to, anyway. I had once, in my teens, when I was mad at everyone and everything, but all that ugly will eat you up inside. In the years since, I’d learned to let the roiling animosity at the world go.

“Rosie, you set up a dessert table at the Towpath not three hours ago,” Griffith said with a sigh. “You know we’ll feed him.”

She brushed imaginary lint from the collar of my T-shirt. “I’ve only just gotten him back.”

I didn’t flinch, but it was a near thing.

“You should drop in. Plenty of the old gang would love to see you.”

I did glare at Griffith for that, though. “Excuse me?”

“You too, of course, Dr. Knox. Can’t abandon David’s friend to this room of vipers.” Griffith turned to loop his other arm through Megan’s. “You’ll love being a mouse, trust me, even if it’s only the couple of minutes it takes to race down the block to the cafe.”

“Forgot about the transfiguration.” Ma snatched the bag out of my arms. “I can’t leave, but I’ll send one of the servers.” She glared at Griffith. “Don’t rodent him.”

“Obviously.” Griffith snickered. “Plus, no need. If he’s in uniform, he’ll blend right in with mundane support staff.”

My ears popped, the sudden pressurization catching me by surprise. When my gaze darted to the pastries table, both my demon and Henry were gone. The surrounding crowd murmured in abrupt displeasure, but Griffith just patted my side. “Nothing to be concerned about. Henry probably wanted to return home to his video games. I’m amazed the child lasted this long, and Jae would’ve offered to escort he and the whole family.”

I swiveled my head to gawp at the guild boss. “My demon portaled the Dyers to the nexus? What about the drain on Jae’s power? Or being intercepted and traced?”

“Don’t be a dope. Feds moved in to shield the whole damn nexus days ago,” Megan said, leaning across the barrel of Griffith’s chest. “He took them to the Dyer farm.”

“No one would’ve expected that so they wouldn’t have been prepared to follow him and his return will be into the Towpath, which is heavily warded. No worries,” the guild boss said. “Your demon can also borrow power from you if he needs it.”

Griffith’s nonchalance grated. Maybe the fight to reach the community center hadn’t included demon magic, but the icy confrontation with the water mage and her demon, then testing, had burned through a substantial amount of mine. Portaling spent loads of magic, so much that few magicals mastered that skill. Jae hadn’t fully recovered his power, either. Portaling when we had yet to reach safety ourselves was reckless. My demon could bitch about how dumb I was for days—and had---but this? Was stupid.

Ma gave me a comforting pat. “He’ll be back any second. Well. If I know little boys and I do, Henry will show off his games, his pets, and, I don’t know, his weird feather collection. Whatever.” Ma’s shoulders slumped when an alarm resounded from the kitchen. “That’s my call. Gotta run.”

Fortunately, Griffith had captured one of my arms, so when Ma leaned forward to give me a brief hug, my lack of response didn’t appear too…rejecting?

And then she was gone, scampering to set to rights whatever had gone wrong in the kitchen.

I turned to Griffith. “She knows none of the trouble I’m in fixes the shit she put me through, right?”

“She just wants a chance to end your estrangement and make the relationship better, David,” Megan said.

I jerked to a halt and stared at her.

“What?” Megan pursed her lips in a moue of annoyance. “Queen City Catering handles events at the gardens all the time.”

“First I’ve heard of it,” I said through gritted teeth.

“She made herself scarce whenever you were on shift. After unloading, she even parked their delivery vans where you wouldn’t see them.” Megan patted my arm. “Rosie tried to respect your boundaries and cause you as little discomfort as she could.”

Griffith guided us forward to the hallway that would spill us out to the atrium. “Another topic for later discussion. Not here.”

Not where other guilds, their predatory bosses, council members, and human partners of demons hunting mine…Okay, I could see his point. As strongly as I wanted to argue my mother’s so-called deference to my boundaries after choosing her abusive lover over her son a thousand years ago, thereby leaving me as homeless and rejected as any magical tween ever was, my dirty family laundry was nobody else’s business. I just didn’t want to leave the gathering of magicals with a false impression that a reconciliation was in the offing. “Nothing to discuss. Ma burned her bridges. That’s on her.”

Griffith turned to beam a bright smile. “Shut the fuck up. Please.”

Skip bounced up to the three of us as soon as we cleared the hallway, the atrium behind him packed with black hoodied guildies that had trawled the streets for me earlier. “I aspired to be a cockroach, but turns out roaches are super difficult to transfigure in large numbers, so we have to be mice.” He grinned. “You do, at least. Bea says the transfiguration spell won’t work on me because the great and powerful Goddess already transfigured me to this.” He swept his arms to his human form. “And who would want to disturb the perfection of this mortal body?”

“You’re a scrawny geek with a cowlick, Skip.”

“Exactly.” He nodded with a wide grin. “Nobody ever suspected me, including you. I did good, yeah?”

“You’re sneaking through the back?” Griffith asked him as he threaded us through the milling crowd, then wrinkled his nose at me. “Protesters have picketed the entrance of the Towpath since Saturday.”

My heart fell. “Which religious nutbag extremists is it this time?”

“Oh, it’s not mundanes. When demons are flying overhead? Eager to snap up their righteous selves, should they annoy too exceedingly? Hardly.” Skip trilled a laugh. “The Oureans are perturbed.”

When Griffith released my arm to consult with his Towpath second-in-command, Bea Hocking, I shifted on my feet to face my familiar. “The who?”

“Worshippers of the God of the mountains.” Megan gave me a fond pat. “They usually stay in Garrett County to give their offerings at the highest peaks. Their priestess added to the recruiting contingent dispersed through Cumberland when word got out another deity had an emissary in the cult’s territory, though.”

I groaned, the ache of a migraine splintering to life behind my eyes. “We’ve launched a war with clerics too, then. Awesome.”

Skip hooted joyfully. “Isn’t it, though?”

I blew out a weary sigh, pinching the nascent throb at the bridge of my nose. “How are you reaching the Towpath? The back door you said?”

“Delivery van via Merchants Alley.” He waved at the uniform smock I hadn’t noticed him wearing. “Your mother isn’t so bad. You could do worse than Rosie. A lot worse.”

“Just—” My shoulders slumped. “Start nothing with the mountain cult, okay? One fight at a time.”

“Life doesn’t come at us with crises in neat sequential order.” Megan chuckled. “I thought you knew that.”

Unfortunately, I did.

The Towpath started as a no-name pub George Washington probably patroned, briefly retrofitted into a speakeasy masquerading as a meat shop during Prohibition, then became Cumberland’s grittiest magical bar under the leadership of Griffith’s grandfather until 1973. His dad was even worse, but Griffith wrested control of the guild from the thug who’d fathered him and Rye Grandry both before I was born. By the time Teddy and Rosie Mace settled in western Maryland in the late 1990s, Griffith and his half-brother had split the guild between them. Rye took over the criminal element whereas Griffith worked his ass to the bone to turn the business into a respectable cafe raking in enough profits to fund the rescue of runaways ill-suited to petty theft and black-market trade in which his half-brother Rye and the Yard Rats excelled.

Instead of going to the not inconsiderable expense of redecorating the centuries-old pub to make the cafe palatable for tourists, Griffith had opted to double down on the place’s history. The bar was the same oak behemoth that had served watered down whiskey and beer to assassins, pimps, and drug-runners. The beer taps were gone, though, replaced with espresso machines and a thoroughly stocked beverage station that offered a wide variety of fancy coffee, teas, juice refreshers, and bubble teas to thirsty patrons walking the downtown mall’s historic district. Griffith had wedged bistro tables next to the leather booths, but otherwise, the place looked the same as I remembered, from the polished rough plank floor to the old pictures and local artwork adorning the walls. Beyond the bar, tables offered restaurant seating where a dance floor had once been and wide stairs led to extra customer service space on the balcony above.

Because Griffith had been wildly successful at transitioning the business from a criminal hub to a popular eatery for tourists and locals alike, the place was always packed. I hadn’t been inside it since I was a boy, but I’d been by it often, as had every nature lover hitting the trailhead access points nearby. Hard to miss customers standing in patient lines or the press of crowded tables through the wide picture windows out front.

Today, people packed the Towpath despite the Closed sign dangling at an angle from a chain at the door. While I suspected Griffith would’ve suspended business operations for the safety of customers during the demon battle that morning, that the demons were coming for me made that decision easy. Federal mandate required guilds to host monthly meetings in which leaders in the magical community reinforced the strict laws governing mages, witches, sorcerers, alchemists, druids, necromancers, and every other flavor of magical power. For members, attendance was mandatory for ten of the twelve meetings lecturing us on our legal obligations every year. New guildies must attend all guild meetings, however, no absences accepted for a minimum of three years.

Griffith had arranged this guild meeting to ensure I met the requirement to attend my first meeting without forcing me to make another dangerous trek into town. I’d have a month before I needed to repeat the gauntlet and by then, the demons hunting Jae would have returned home.

But Griffith was Griffith, so it was also a party.

Once the flood of transfigured mice had streaked through the glass doors, we spread throughout the dining area so that when the guild’s sorcerers changed us back to our human forms, we didn’t stack on top of each other in a nude tangle of arms and legs. Cheers resounded as the bar instantly filled. Music blared from the cafe’s stereo system. Those of us who’d made the run from the community center as rodents scrambled for neat piles of shorts and Towpath T-shirts Griffith employed his youngest guildies to silk screen in bulk to sell to tourists in the gift shop next door.

My parents had raised me inside a guild until age ten, so popping into my first formal gathering bare-ass naked didn’t bother me. Nudity didn’t faze most of us. Many enchantments benefited from practitioners opting to go skyclad, as the witches preferred to call it. Few magicals shied at exposing the skin we were born in, least of all me.

It was one of the many, many reasons mundanes hated us.

Not all of them judged us and our so-called loose morals, though. Megan threw her head back and laughed as she too yanked a Towpath shirt over her head, her long blonde hair fuzzing out because of residual static electricity from the double transfiguration. “That was fantastic!” She beamed at me, unbothered at the need to tug shorts up her bare legs. She just yanked up the hem of her shirt to cinch the drawstring waist of her shorts. “You ever been a mouse before, David?”

I shook my head. “Yard Rats transfigured my entire scout den into bats as a prank once,” I said, raising my voice over loud hip hop blaring from hidden speakers. “Ma was pissed.”

Naked as a jay, Griffith impeded my rush to pull on my own clothes by hugging my neck. “I remember that. All ten of you soared off like you were shot from a cannon, took me and Teddy hours to round you up again to change you back.” He sniggered. “Best Samhain ever.”

I grinned. “Dad cornered me and Ty Higson in the Bell Tower, but we’d flown clear to Founders Square before transfiguring us back to little boys took hold.”

“We spent half the night chasing you and the other half coaxing you both to climb down from the library roof.” Griffith guffawed. “Ty joined the Towpath when his time came.” He darted his glance over the crowded cafe. “He worked nonstop all weekend to charge dozens of power-deadening bracelets for this morning. Most of our alchemists are snoring the magical drain off in the dorms upstairs, but Ty should be around. Said he wouldn’t miss this party for the world.”

It hadn’t all been bad, my childhood. I’d made friends, had adventures, played little league ball, and shared dreams of who we wanted to become once our power emerged. My heart melted, glad at least one hope of my old pals had come true. Ty had been born into a family of water mage farmers, but he’d sworn as a kid that the gene skipped generations sometimes, that he’d one day be the best alchemist in the tri-state. Said he could feel in his bones that he was fated for something besides pumpkins and corn. “I’d love to see him. Ty and Rick both.”

“Earth mage. Joined the Rebels and enlisted the nanosecond he came of age. Ask Ty, though. I think Rick showed up a couple years ago when he had leave.” Griffith’s brow furrowed. “I vaguely remember bailing the pair of them out, anyway. Drunk and disorderly, I think.” His vague frown vanished, replaced by a wide smile. “Whatever. Grab some of your mother’s grub before we devour it like locusts. I need to find Bea to get the boring part of this shindig started.”

Floors above us, a unified shriek pierced the crowd animal roar of conversation and music. “That’ll probably be Jae,” I said, heart lifting now that I knew my demon had safely reached the temporary haven of the Towpath.

“Ya think?” Megan snorted. “Go fetch him. All this magic nonsense burns a lot of calories.” She pointed at a platter of assorted desserts on the bar. “I require cheesecake.”

I threaded my way through the crush of guildies, all of whom congratulated me, patted my back, laid joyous kisses on my mouth and cheek, and otherwise made my gauntlet run short hours ago seem like a warmup. Dear God. Granted, the lack of death on the way to the community center was appreciated, no more so than by me, but I was no conquering hero. I finally made it to the stairs, though, and once I left the cafe’s restaurant space behind me for the guild business floors above, the crush of people lessened. I nodded brief acknowledgment to several magicals still working in third-floor offices, winding my way to a separate stairwell that was the only dedicated access to dorms, classrooms, and training areas that was the beating heart of the Towpath in the building’s upper levels.

Thank the Goddess I’d been exploring the maze that was the Towpath since I’d learned to crawl because my familiarity with the layout helped only a little. While Griffith had maintained the customer area of the cafe almost exactly as I remembered it, the guild-only floors had changed. I remembered a floor-wide dorm, no walls, just line after line of bunk beds homeless kids could call their own until the Towpath paired them with a mentor to apprentice with at fourteen. In the years since I’d visited Rick, now an elite earth mage soldier, at his bunk and the stingy trunk in which he’d kept his few possessions, the fourth floor had been renovated into a warren of private rooms. I stumbled from hallway to hallway, glancing into one open door. Ah. Griffith had kept the bunk beds, so the kids slept two to a room, but the trunks were gone, upgraded to dressers and a pair of utilitarian desks. I wondered how Griffith had sacrificed the space while still serving the needs of the increasing number of kids who hopped trains and hit trails that dumped them into Cumberland…until I found and climbed the stairs to the fifth floor.

More rooms for the kids.

The classrooms and training areas I remembered playing in as a child? Poof! Gone.

“We bought the building next door last year.”

I whipped around, my pulse racing in sudden fear.

Bea Hocking, the second-in-command Griffith had chosen to help him manage guild operations, smiled at me over the glow of her laptop from a nest of couches that defined a lounge area. “The extra space allowed us to expand our square footage for education and training there while giving our kids a desperately needed quality of life boost here.” She closed the laptop. “You lost or just need a few minutes alone?”

I shuddered, but I was a Mace, a powerful level ten druid. One weak sorceress wouldn’t shake me, even if the weird glint in her eyes made my testicles want to crawl up to hide inside my body. “Looking for my demon.”

“Ah, yes. The demon.” A crash vibrated the ceiling above us, followed by the tinkle of water dripping and loud squeals. Bea’s brows lifted in feigned surprise. “I suspect he portaled into the gym. It’s the biggest unobstructed area in the Towpath, after all.” She jerked her jaw to the right. “Through there.”

Noticing the red exit sign over a door, I marched toward it. “Thanks.”

I didn’t breathe easily again until I fled into still another stairwell. Eager to follow the flimsy thread connecting me to Jae, I took the steps at a fast clip. I didn’t like to think of myself as a clingy sort. Though I was currently at loose ends, I’d had my fair share of boyfriends and occasional hookups. Friends had moved in and out of my life, too. I didn’t hang onto people. Life had taught me better. While I acknowledged I might have a tiny bit of an abandonment complex, the bald truth was nobody stayed. Parents died and failed their kids. Friends and lovers betrayed each other daily. Look at my roomies. Skip had turned out to be an undercover familiar and Finnegan a fricking spy. Jae would leave me, too. Because everyone left. Hell, I wanted my demon to leave, return to the daemonica realm where he belonged. Bad enough to be revealed as a level ten druid. Simple fact was I’d live longer without binding a demon.

That didn’t mean I liked Jae out of my sight, though.

And yeah, spoiler alert, I wasn’t comfortable with my supposed buddy Finnegan reporting my damned clothing sizes to the Towpath, but I hadn’t encased him in a dome thick with poison ivy over it, either.

I hit the push bar of the stairwell door at a run, bursting into this last upper floor of the Towpath building…and damn near tripped over my feet as, shock flooding me, I stumbled to a clumsy halt.

What. the. FUCK.

A trio of teenage girls gathered on a gym mat upon which they’d unfurled a trainer scroll of a rudimentary magic array. Unlike the intricate and overlapping design in Teddy’s grimoire, this array was starter magic, the novice stuff that volunteers taught kids like the girls in their first years as magicals. I’d hidden my power and amputated myself from that community, but my parents had raised me in it until murder and danger drove me away. I knew what sort of mischief new magicals and apprentices got up to, had reveled in the same trouble more than once as a little boy.

What made the scene before me so stunning wasn’t the teenage prank.

The enormous tangle of my demon’s hair anchoring one point of the array did and Jae’s guilty glare as I gaped at the explosion of wild geranium, morning glory, Shasta daisies, and every other flower I could think of native to Allegany County filling the gym, not to mention wet mist dousing the flowers—and us—from the magicked haze hugging the ceiling.

“So…uhm.” One girl, a redhead still wearing the black hoodie and jeans from earlier in the morning, jutted a determined chin. “You aren’t the only druid in the Towpath.”

Because of course I wasn’t.

Druids weren’t as rare as necromancers, but in a population size of the Cumberland metro, even without a juggernaut family like the Chicago Maces from which my dad had sprung spiking our numbers, there would be a solid company of maybe a dozen druids. Best case. I’d invested the last ten years trying to avoid all things magical and even I knew about old Jack Stewart, a strong level 8 who lived like a cantankerous hobbit on Dans Mountain. There must be other, weaker druids attached to local farms no doubt, but he was the cream of the mountain highlands druid crop.

Not that he would have anything to do with the magical community, a defiance I had secretly applauded. Mandatory attendance at monthly guild meetings? Old Jack had told the council to fuck off since before I was born and gotten away with it because he hated magicals and mundanes alike, refused to be around anybody. Good for him.

That had left a void of mentors that youth with nascent druid power could apprentice to, though. I eyed the girl up and down. She stood several inches taller than her co-conspirators, voluminous curves where the other two had only begun to fill out. The redhead’s cheeks had lost their baby fat and where her friends had inexpertly applied their makeup, the immature druid’s smoky eye was absolute perfection.

And the flowers surrounding us? Perhaps not a prank, the conclusion I’d leaped to at first glance. Further study brought filler greenery to my attention: ferns, eucalyptus, and a non-native variety of Ruscus that struggled despite the power she’d poured into the array.

Shit.

“How old are you? Seventeen? Eighteen?” I waved at the plants she’d magicked into bloom. “Farmers market tomorrow.”

“We sell fresh bouquets. I’ve almost saved enough for a car to get the hell out of this screwed up town.” The teen glared at me. “And I don’t need you.”

I side-eyed Jae. “You helped her.”

“I like younglings.” My demon sniffed his disdain. “They are not as stupid.”

Funneling power to create a marketable product to raise money for buying a piece of shit Toyota that would carry her and her friends to another town with the same damn problems was smart? I pinched the bridge of my nose and tried to release the stress with a slow exhale. “Okay. This is a tomorrow problem.” I glowered at Jae. “Stop adopting kids.”

Jae crossed his arms over his chest and planted his belligerent feet wide among the riotous flowers that had overtaken the gym floor. “Stop throwing them away.”

“I’m twenty-one years old, at most three years older than Miss Flower Toyota,” I said, jerking my head at the redhead, “ and I am one hundred percent gay. The chances I’ve fathered a child are less than zero.”

“Why have none of our young portaled to this realm?” My demon stared at me. “Do you know? Of course you do not grasp this. Because humans are savages.” His knuckles shone white as he gripped his arms, his muscles tense. “We care for and nurture our younglings as precious gifts. I have never lain with a female, but protecting our young is no less my privilege and sacred duty.” His arms jerked out to wave in angry outrage. “You treated yours like trash. Unwanted. Discarded. Unwelcome.”

He wasn’t wrong. Not completely off-base, anyway. “Your experiences, so far, have been limited and prejudicial. Runaways and rejected kids are the ones most heavily involved in guild life and who I’m most likely to know, having come from a dysfunctional, broken home myself. You have seen none of the magical families, really, most of which are intact, supportive, and thriving.” I shrugged. “You met the Dyers. They’re together, a cohesive family unit.”

“No sire. No life-giver.” My demon sneered. “The Andrew is a protector, but also youngling.”

I furrowed my brow. “I’m a year older than that guy. Just one year.”

“Never a child. You hatched as a short adult, not the same.” Jae snorted. “Yet, humans left that group of orphaned younglings to fend for themselves. They do well, but the Andrew and the females are no proper guardian of the youngling oracle.”

Wait. What?

Henry was an oracle? A child oracle.

And I’d thought my life was fucked?

The redhead’s gasp echoed in my ears. My stomach roiled, panic and sick dread churning. I pivoted to face the teen girls I’d found Jae with. “Not one word. Not so much as a stingy clue or hint. If I hear you’ve repeated—”

“I’ll keep your secrets, but it’ll cost you.” The oldest girl, Flower Toyota, was the first to recover and while I respected her opportunistic seizure of the advantage to best improve her—their?—survival, my gut also clenched at how abundantly we proved in real time that Jae’s low opinion of humans and our cavalier cold-bloodedness toward our young was on point.

I sighed. “What do you want?”

“Ten thousand bucks. To start.”

The girl wasn’t dumb. I’d give her that. Mundanes accepted the illusion I’d created as a poor college student. My truck was almost as old as I was. I shared a shitty rental across the blue bridge, where housing prices weren’t as steep and my diet consisted of instant noodles and peanut butter straight from the jar.

The magical community, on the other hand, damn well knew my dad had come from a super wealthy family. The Maces had shunned him for marrying a non-magical, yes, but Teddy had already inherited a fortune from a malcontent grandmother, enough money to set him and Rosie up when they’d fled Chicago for Cumberland. An obscene amount of those assets remained untapped. Teddy had carved out a hefty chunk for Ma in his will, but most of his wealth had come to me and was under my direct control once I reached legal independence at eighteen.

I wasn’t rich. I was filthy, astonishingly wealthy.

Ten grand was no big deal. “Done,” I said before the redhead could change her mind and up her demands. “But you can’t use it to fuck off in the Toyota to New York or Florida or who the hell knows where.”

“What is it with you and Toyotas?” Her too-old eyes narrowed on me. “I want a Prius.”

“Then ten grand will buy you a hub cap. Good luck.”

The girl waved to her two friends. “We’ve had a table at the farmer’s market for three years. We have some money.”

“Okay. Two hubcaps.” I rubbed my throbbing temple. “Okay. Fine. I’ll buy the car, front the total cost. New car, fresh off the lot, and you can keep every penny of your savings.” I stared at her, unblinking. “But all three of you stay here, right here.” I pointed an insistent finger at the floor. “In. this. building.” Where Griffith could monitor them, keep the girls out of bigger trouble. The redhead looked old enough to be aging out of the guild system, find gainful employment and get her own apartment, but the Towpath had a reputation for not following traditional fostering norms. Griffith wouldn’t kick her out the nanosecond the law said he could. “And you keep your yaps shut about the Dyer kid.”

“Agreed.”

“I’m not done yet.” I gauged the teenage girls with an assessing eye. The redhead was the oldest, close to legal age if not over it, but as a young druid, placing her in an apprenticeship would’ve been monumentally difficult. The other two weren’t fresh-faced new magicals either. The girl to the redhead’s left looked a year younger at most and the other…maybe fifteen? Well past the age both teens should’ve been apprenticed with a mentor to train them in their magical specialty.

Which meant, like the redhead, the power they’d drawn must be uncommon too, if not exotic. I trusted Griffith as far as I could throw him and Bea, his second-in-command, even less so, but I had unshakeable confidence in the Towpath’s commitment to nurturing the area’s magical youth to best secure success as power-wielding adults. These girls hadn’t lingered as residents in the Towpath because of neglect. They still lived downtown, no apprenticeship, because they’d been a challenge to place.

I blew out a weary breath. “I’ll find mentors for you,” I said, a promise I only hoped I could keep. I waved at Jae, who regarded me with icy suspicion. Asshole. “Even if I ultimately don’t bind the demon, doors will open for me. I’ll meet and mix with other powerful magicals outside the mountain highlands, too. Whatever your level and categorization, I will arrange an appropriate apprenticeship for each of you.” I tapped my chin. “Not right away. Let’s say within a year.”

“But I’m—Nobody in the whole tri-state—” the youngest of the three girls stammered.

“What’s the catch?” the redhead said, her stare almost as skeptical as my demon’s.

The truth was I really, truly, genuinely didn’t want a posse of teenage girls screwing up the Dyers’ lives any more than just surviving already had. My mother was alive, yeah, and Rosie had extended irritating overtures to make amends, but I knew what it felt like to be orphaned. To be odd, even among other magicals. I had over a decade’s bitter experience hiding who I was and what I could do, for the desperate hope I’d live a little longer. More than anybody, I understood the danger that twelve-year-old boy was in.

And, Jae’s low opinion of humans raising kids be damned, I didn’t want the Dyer kid to grow into adulthood as I had. Alone. Always pretending to be what I was not. Forever with a cloud of impending doom affixed overhead.

My head told me Henry had his brother. Two sisters. He wouldn’t face his peril without love and support. He wouldn’t grow up cold, closed off, with distrust and paranoia constant companions. But my heart recognized the Dyers lacked the resources I’d taken for granted my whole life. If the kid was an oracle, they didn’t stand a solitary chance of holding their own against the tsunami of fuckery looming ahead.

Maybe, just maybe, I could help.

Not just the Dyers, either.

“You keep your noses clean until I recruit your mentors.” I swept the riot of flowers with a glance. “You can continue the side gig. Earning your own way is a valuable life skill.” Griffith was right to encourage the independence…to a point. “But I want you to knuckle down on as much training as the Towpath can give you.” I pinned the redhead with my stare. “Don’t think because you are a druid, that’s all you can and should be. Learn herbalism. Basic witchcraft is no obstacle for most magicals, regardless of power categorization. Anyone can do beginner alchemy if they have the smarts and desire to study it.” I scowled at her. “The Goddess gave you a brain. Use it for something other than escapist fantasies.”

“We already know how to—”

The redhead elbowed her friend to silence. “A plan is not a fantasy.”

“Lack of opportunity isn’t a plan.” I stiffened my spine. “If you practice your shut up about Henry and I’m still alive in thirty days, I’ll talk to Griffith. Get the process started for you three.” I raised an open palm. “No promises. I haven’t released my Kraken, in a manner of speaking, but I haven’t been able to practice since I was younger than the Dyer kid, either.”

“He is extraordinarily stupid.” Beside me, Jae nodded. “But teachable.”

Shooting him a glare, I honed my pitch. “If you truly want to leave, strike out on your own somewhere else, wouldn’t mastering your magic first make sticking that landing easier?”

The redhead bit her slickly painted lip. “You’ll help Darla and Stacy?”

I nodded.

She shifted her attention to Jae. “Would you take this deal? If you were me.”

My demon frowned at me, but told her, “Issa.”

“Okay.” She huffed out a breath. “But when all this is over, I have to go back to Philly for my baby brother. Necromancer.” She flashed an evil smile. “And you’ll help me get him out.”

I was so dead.

But I said, “Done.”