Page 9

9

A fter the fucked-up race to the community center, my test was bald performance art. I’d demonstrated my druid magic in propagating the wisteria and forcing the growth of trees that currently cut off a block and a half of Mechanic Street with new forest. Some could argue against a level ten classification since no one could tell how long the acorns I’d sprouted had lain dormant and that I’d turned to basic tools to achieve my goal of reaching safety rather than the advanced skills of a level ten. I was a Mace, though, Teddy’s son. A few wanted to put me through my paces, but they entertained no genuine concerns about what I could do.

The ceremonial posturing beforehand was the bigger challenge.

As healers worked to mend my ribs, Jae towered over me, though how that was possible considering how short my demon stood was a mystery to me. I stretched out on a cot, naked save for a paper sheet draped over my groin while a pair of healers bent over my chest and another tended my knee in a sparse ER on the ground floor of the community center.

The healers frowned, eyes sparking with irritation. I didn’t blame them. For injuries like mine, magicals went to urgent care, just like mundanes. The medical help at the center was for magical wounds mundane doctors couldn’t cope with. Poisoning—accidental or otherwise. Curses and damage caused by bespelled weapons. Involuntary transfiguration, in whole or part. I supposed the community center board could argue an attack by multiple demons qualified as magic-related injuries, but none of the demons, including Jae, had drawn up power in the fight. Clara, the human magical who had bound the demon Menolac, had used her water mage power, sure, but ineffectively. Short of spraining my LCL on her ice, I was fine.

Still, not having to tape my ribs to wait for them to heal was an unexpected perk. The warmth permeating the muscle of my chest helped stave off the last of the chill lingering from my brush with hypothermia, too.

“Drink this,” a healer said, passing me a plastic cup.

My demon snatched it before I could get a grip. “Hey!”

Growling in my direction, Jae lifted the cup to sniff the contents. “Spadeleaf, nettle, horsetail.” He grimaced. “Why are you feeding him weeds?”

“And a comfrey poultice for the knee,” a healer said with a smirk. “Would you rather drain your magic to heal him and leave him more vulnerable while his danger is so extreme? Didn’t think so.” She grabbed the cup back and shoved it at me. “Drink up. Every drop.”

My nose wrinkled as I stared at the chunky green brew inside the cup. My dad had been a druid and a fair herbalist. This was not my first medicinal tea rodeo, but many years had passed since anyone had shoved a lumpy concoction of plants clogging whatever elixir had been chosen for the base at me. “Did you add honey?”

“Do you want a sucker and a sticker, too?” The healer snorted. “Drink.” She shrugged. “Or don’t and suffer. Your choice.”

Inhaling a deep breath, I lifted the cup and gulped the vile brew, cringing only a little at shredded and pulverized leaves coating my throat. Gross. Proving she wasn’t a complete asshole, the healer handed me another cup of cool, clear water to wash the mess down. “Sean will be here shortly with a tea to take with you that should boost your bone marrow production.” She smiled. “You’ll be right as rain by nightfall.”

Considering my experience with dad’s druid-enhanced herbalism, I had no reason to question the healer’s assessment. “What about the knee?”

“Your LCL is tricky.” The other healer grunted. “The sprain is minor. Usually, I’d recommend a brace for extra support, just give it time to heal naturally, but given the likelihood of additional stress on the joint—”

Jae nudged her aside. “I’ll take care of him.”

Once the healers left the cubicle and my demon had focused his power to quicken the repair of my injured knee, Ma came in with clean clothes for me. “Jeans, t-shirt, jockeys, socks, sneakers.” Her nose wrinkled at Jae. “You need to hose off, too.”

Jae shook his head. “Blood makes humans uncomfortable.” He smiled, showing sharp white teeth.

“My boots?” I asked.

“Unless you are as fond of blood as he is, ruined.”

“They’re bloody?” I blinked at her. “When could I have gotten blood on them?”

She passed the clothes to me. “Don’t ask me. You’re the one who fought five demons.”

“Three.” I yanked on my underwear under the cover of the paper sheet. “And he was fighting, not me.”

“I fought five.” Jae sniffed. “Two more joined the attack when I drew the first three across the river away from you.”

The potential of flashing my junk at my mother hadn’t scared her off, so I quietly and efficiently dressed in the clothing she’d brought. None of it was mine, but nevertheless fit, which puzzled me, considering I’d shot up three inches and packed on at least twenty pounds since I’d last seen Ma in my gangly high school years. “Thanks for the clothes.”

She tapped her knuckles on the outer door, which pushed open. “That was Griffith,” she said.

“No, that was me.” Finnegan slid through the narrow gap. “Left to John, you’d test in whatever clinic scrubs the staff scrounged up.”

“You know my sizes.” I scowled at him as I cinched the laces of my sneakers tight. “Creepy.”

“My job.” He scrutinized me up and down. “Everything okay?”

When I leaned to put my weight on the knee, the joint held without so much as a twinge of pain and when I sucked in a deep breath, my ribs didn’t protest. “I’m okay.”

“John wants you in his office. C’mon.”

I didn’t make it upstairs, where the center crammed in guild offices, though. I barely made it out the clinic doors.

The atrium of the Greater Cumberland Magical Community Center was normally busy. I hadn’t been inside since my dad died, but it had changed little. Slate still protected the floor from incautious claws. Barring the glass doors to the clinic, windows surrounded us and tall spears of greenery I identified as ornamental trees, plants, and flowers noted for soothing energies punctuated the space. The wide front desk, which had once been walnut, was now a clean, crisp mahogany etched in runes, some defensive, but others also calming. Unobstructed views and the cathedral ceiling gave the lobby a bigger appearance than it genuinely boasted. The bulk of the first floor was through the hallways flanking an elevator.

When this building had been a Shriners Club, the space beyond had been a ballroom, but council had opted for movable dividers to section the room into training classrooms, a test site that was scheduled most mornings, and a lounge abutting a kitchen for occasional brunches, teas, and dinners. Magicals entered the building to join the crowd waiting for the reception doors to open.

Ma darted through the right-side doors by the elevator. I frowned as she vanished. The center had hired her to cater the reception. That ordeal wouldn’t begin until the council had put me through testing, but that wouldn’t be not long now. She must have a million and one jobs to do to prepare for the reception. Why had she taken the time to bring me clothes?

“David Mace.” I startled when a tall man in faded jeans and an FSU T-shirt emerged from the conversation group closest to the front desk. He shoved a hand forward. “Quentin Manderlay, Guild Boss of the Whiskey Rebels.”

I ignored the offered hand. “I know who you are.”

The blond stood as tall as me, tan, fit. He’d assumed leadership of the guild that fed battle mages into the military and law enforcement a few years ago, after Homeland Security had recruited his predecessor. “I’m not interested.”

“I’m sure you aren’t.” Quentin grinned, withdrawing from the handshake I’d rejected by resting that hand on his hip. “Your father was tight with the Towpath before he passed. No reason to believe you wouldn’t choose them as well.”

“Griffith’s my godfather.”

“Exactly.” He nodded. “You were young then, but I bet you remember some Towpath guildies, too.”

“Uh huh,” I said, although I hadn’t yet seen anyone from the Towpath except Griffith, my lying spy of a roommate, and the guildies who had led us through town. “So…?”

The other man chuckled. “Just introducing myself. Being friendly.”

I squinted at him. “You aren’t getting my demon, either.”

He winged up an eyebrow. “Prickly much?”

“He’s smart.” I jumped again when a brunette in a navy blazer over a white sundress nudged Manderlay aside. “Vivian Doherty, president of the QQs.” She scowled at the other guild boss. “You had your own life before your demon upended it and there are literally no obstacles to resuming that life, no matter what his sort tries to tell you.”

“Actually, there is.” The other guild boss’s mouth tightened. “Section III, paragraph 20, line items seven and eight of the Amended Commercial Code specifically exclude magicals from employment in any laboratories in which research is pursued.”

“Only labs that receive federal funding.” Vivian glared at him. “Congress limited regulatory intrusion inside the for-profit sector, especially the pharmaceutical industry, when funding is outside federal oversight.” Her body tensed, muscles as stiff as concrete. “Orion Medical Group is a leader in employing magicals to develop targeted cancer therapies and thanks to magical interventions, their labs also have many promising new drugs in clinical trials for immune disorders.”

Her vicious smile scared ten years off my life. “Would you deny advances in mundane medical treatments to do…what? Stir up more political violence in the Middle East?”

Alarm zinged through me, I pivoted to the new guild boss delivering her sales pitch. “I’m not joining a sleeper guild, either.”

“Technically, I don’t think she’s suggesting you reject your magic as sleeper guilds like hers require.” Manderlay frowned at Doherty. “She’s right, though, Big Pharma regularly pays druids buckets of money. Training and lab experience, too?” He whistled his appreciation. “Not sure they’d be happy with a demon as your ride-along, but the QQs would cash a hefty recruitment bonus check, regardless.”

“David!”

I whipped around to find the source of that familiar bellow. “Megan?” But sure enough, my boss at the botanical garden elbowed through the growing crowd to reach me. Her dismissive glance swept the pair of guild bosses before she focused on me. “What are you doing here?” I asked, my tone both surprised and pleased.

“Griffith invited me, said you’d probably like to see a friendly face. Well, you and the Dyers both probably would.” She pushed her blond ponytail over her shoulder and then gave my biceps a chiding slap. “Why didn’t you call? You could’ve been dead!” Then she smiled—no, she beamed up at me before tossing her arms around my waist to pull me into a fierce hug. “Oh my God, we were so worried.”

“I’m okay.” I hugged her back. “Griffith policed up our phones so no one could track us electronically. I told him to contact you guys.” I stiffened. “Wait. Who are the Dyers?”

“The family with the homestead just beyond the Grove?” She grinned up at me. “The older son, Andrew, fixed the plumbing in the Visitors Center last summer.” She snorted a laugh when I just squinted at her. “You can’t afford to be this oblivious anymore. Okay, if not Andrew, you have to remember Henry Dyer. Youngest of the lot. He’s always pestering us and hanging around the exhibits, which wouldn’t be a problem except he keeps climbing the glass partitions to handle samples in the non-interactive displays.”

My eyes rounded. “The autistic kid?”

“Neurodivergent, though that’s not my field or yours,” she said, jerking her jaw over her left shoulder. “I don’t think the family has ever allowed a doctor to diagnose him, but I think he’s fine. Just a little…strange.”

When I glanced at the front desk, I only saw Jae crouching low and then I sucked in a breath when I realized my demon had bent to talk to a child who’d crawled into a shallow recessed area at the bottom of the desk.

Yep, I remembered this kid. Brown mop of unruly hair that fell to his shoulders, flannel shirt passed down from his brother that the kid hadn’t grown into yet, knobby knees sticking out from his stoop under the overhang of the front desk and battered sneakers that were probably also hand-me-downs from a sibling. The Dyers were poor, but a proud bunch. The father had taught at FSU and, upon his death, had bequeathed his entire taxidermy collection to the college, which had formed the kernel of the Natural History Museum. I vaguely recalled that the mother had died of some sort of cancer a few years ago as well, leaving her oldest child as guardian to the rest of the brood at barely eighteen to keep his younger siblings out of foster care.

“What’s he doing?” I asked, although I wasn’t sure I meant Jae or the troubled kid who regularly made a nuisance of himself all over the Frostburg campus.

“Just talking to the poor kid. Henry had on noise-canceling headphones earlier, but he must have lost them.” Megan shrugged. “Anyway, the Dyers live next to the nexus your demon portaled through and with such a clear indicator the nexus is awakening, everyone nearby had to be retested.”

I gaped at my demon bending low. Even over the loud talking of the crowd, I could make out the soothing timbre of Jae’s voice, if not the words he spoke to the kid. “Henry’s too young to be tested, though.”

Megan released me from her hug, but hung onto my hand, clasped firmly in hers. “Just turned twelve, and the family objected ferociously to the mandatory testing, but. You know.” She waggled her free hand. “It’s the fed. They do whatever they want.”

Irritation bloomed. “The results won’t be clear. We test at thirteen because most magical ability doesn’t develop enough to be reliably measured before then.” I walked toward my weirdly nurturing demon and his charge. “The Dyers…All mundane, correct?”

When I glanced behind me, Megan had arched a slim eyebrow. “They tested as mundane as you did, chief.”

I wrinkled my nose in distaste. “Not funny.”

“I’m not laughing.”

I’d reached Jae, though, and dropped to a crouch beside him to peer under the overhang of the desk. “Heya, kid.” I spotted the noise-canceling headphones clutched in his white-knuckled grip. “Wouldn’t those work better if you wore them?”

The kid’s lips pressed together, his gaze flitting from the slate floor to Jae, lighting on my shoes, then over my left shoulder.

“The youngling requires Taco Bell,” Jae said. He turned a quizzical, though affectionate, smile on me. “I like him very much. Tell me true. What is a gordita crunch?”

“A blasphemy against genuine Mexican cuisine,” I said, studying the kid who squirmed, “but a delicious blasphemy. The reception will start once we go into testing, but I’m sure Ma can scare up something to tide you over. Did your family give you breakfast, or were you too nervous to eat?”

Henry’s attention finally focused on me, the disconcerting wisdom in the wide brown eyes of such a young boy catching my breath. “You won’t be happy until you fully accept who you are and who you were born to be, David Benjamin Mace.”

What the fuck?

The blood drained from my face in a dizzying rush, and the bottom dropped out of my stomach. “Megan, Spooky Yoda Boy needs a run for the border. Stat.”

My boss crouched beside me. “He can’t leave and neither can you. The doors to testing will open any second now.”

My heart seized when the weird kid’s mouth opened to say more of the Goddess only knew what strangeness. “For fuck’s sake, someone fetch him some nachos.”

Jae squared his shoulders and thrust out his chest. “I will fulfill this noble quest.”

“Not you.” I grabbed his arm before he could rise to his feet. “The other demons are circling and the restaurant is too far. You won’t make it.”

Huffing out an irritated breath, Megan fished an energy bar out of her back pocket. “Chocolate chip cookie dough.” She wagged the snack in front of Henry. “Best I can do. Going once, twice—”

The kid released his death grip on the noise-canceling headphones to snatch it. Packaging crinkled in his clenched fist. “Thank you, Dr. Knox.”

“You’re welcome, Henry.” Megan smiled. “Let’s find your brother, shall we?”

He grinned. “Okay.”

We all moved back, and once he squirmed from beneath the recessed area of the front desk, he clasped Megan’s hand.

“Henry!” someone called from the group lingering by the elevator.

“That’s Andrew. He has to be a sorcerer now so we don’t lose the house,” the child prattled, still clutching his snack. “Everybody is upset.”

“You aren’t,” I said, noting the enamored expression on Jae’s face as he stared at the boy with growing alarm. “Did you charm my demon?”

Jae sniffed in disdain. “He smells nice.” Like home.

Get out of my head. I glared. “Okay, everyone needs to stop being weird.”

“So says the guy who turned Mechanic Street into an oak forest.” Megan snorted. “Whatever.” She lifted the hand she gripped with Henry’s. “Back in a sec.”

“David, Jae,” Griffith said in greeting as he took Megan’s place when she walked the kid to his family. “Sorry, I meant to bring you up to the office to avoid all this.” He spread his hands to indicate the gawkers who’d arrived early to watch the spectacle.

“Yeah, Quiet Quislings and Whiskey Rebels have already had a crack at me.” I rolled my eyes. “Just the Yard Rats, the Leapers, Brass Hats, and West Enders to go to complete the set.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“I know.” And I did know. I wasn’t certain of much, but Griffith was by no means worried I’d fuck off to another guild. After my dad’s murder, Ma had cut me off from the magical community. Despite the pain and trauma of my teen years, I’d always owe her for that, but the Towpath had been as much a home to me as our house in the woods outside town. I’d missed my friends, the sense of belonging. I blew out a long breath. “Sorry. Just a little overwhelmed.”

“Completely understandable.”

The double doors to the left of the elevators pushed open and the chairwoman of the center board stepped into the atrium in a neat yellow pantsuit that matched her sunny blonde hair. “Bring the novitiates forward.”

The entire crowd went silent.

My heart stopped.

“You’ll be terrific.” Griffith patted my back. “Finnegan?”

But that wasn’t the roommate who appeared over Griffith’s shoulder. “Finalizing arrangements for the afterparty at the cafe,” Skip said, both hands full of canapes he must have stolen from Ma. “Lead on, for your Horatio has arrived bearing gifts.”

Griffith smiled. “Go. I’ll meet you when it’s done.”

“Testing is stupid.” Jae snorted his contempt. “Humans are annoying.”

“I. want. tacos!” Henry shrieked above the crowd’s steadily rebuilding murmurs and whispers.

The demon’s head whipped in the direction of that childish protest. “Not all humans are so vexing. Some are wonderful.” He glared at me. “Not you.”

Fuck my life. “Fine. Let’s do this.”

The test itself was anticlimactic. As I surmised, the council pushed me through the preliminary stages with cursory negligence. A test administrator guided me into one of the first phase cubicles dominated by a table with items magicked to draw power from anyone in that item’s vicinity, should each power exist. Like a vacuum. The simple taper candle did not ignite—I was no fire mage. I had no effect on a fist-sized rock with the hairline fracture through it, a cup of water, or wisps of smoke drifting from smoldering incense. Neither the miniature cauldron nor the beaker perched above a Bunson burner bubbled to life and when the test administrator directed me to copy a set of runes with a ballpoint pen, the scratches I made on the scrap paper didn’t light up. Heat from the pen burned my hand a little, but I kept my face frozen in banal disinterest, so the witch administering the test didn’t notice. He gave no sign of excitement or curiosity when he lifted a containment box shielding other items—a dead caterpillar on a fresh green leaf and a crystal ball that remained unclouded by me. My power was primarily druidic, though I’d learned other skills from my father before his murder, including some alchemy which had singed that pen in my fingers, but thank the Goddess, divination had never numbered among my abilities. Teddy had been precog, not me.

I needn’t have worried. Everyone knew I was a druid. I’d shown unmistakable signs of that magical affinity and, to their foolishness, a display of that power was exactly—and only—what the council had designed this farce to elicit. A pot shoved into the far corner of the table sprouted a seedling as soon as I’d entered the cubicle and before the witch had sprinted me through the other items, that seedling had matured into a miniature lemon tree already producing fruit.

“Lovely. Just lovely,” the witch said with a pleased hum. “Druid, naturally.”

“Of course,” I said, though my reply was wooden, forced.

Outside the cubicle, Jae grunted. “Are you done yet?”

“Stop glaring at the humans. You’re scaring them,” Skip said, voice ringing out above the cubicle dividers.

The features of the witch’s face pinched with disapproval. “Your familiar must not disrupt testing. If you cannot control him, he will be removed.”

“I’d love to see you try.” I pitched up on my toes to glare at Jae and Skip both over the divider, though. “Cool it. Or I’ll kick you out.”

“Intimidation is bullying and bullying is wrong.” Skip jutted his chin. “Besides, he’s already binding with you. Adopting a second human would be selfish.”

I blinked at him, then at Jae. “I beg your pardon?”

“The youngling.” My demon pointed to Henry, whose dirty sneakers peeked from the bottom edge of some drapes. “His guardian is unacceptable.”

Another voice called out from the cubicle next to mine. “His guardian is taking the test of the dumbs while these idiots watch my brother so he doesn’t set the place on fire.”

“Not a fire mage,” the skinny bulge in the drapes said. “Burritos. You promised. ”

“Skip, get the kid a burrito.”

“I will—”

“Not you, Jae. Stay.”

The witch harrumphed. “As soon as we’ve finished, you are required by law to file a license for your familiar and pay all appropriate taxes and associated fees.”

I peered over the divider. “Be fast,” I told Skip.

“On it.”

When Skip scooted toward the door, I turned to face the witch. “My demon’s bored. Can we get this over with?”

The next phase of testing involved measuring the strength of the magic identified in the preliminary screening. Before Dad had died, magical friends from the Towpath who were a few years older than me had yammered on about the testing process, so I was taken aback when the witch didn’t lead me to another cubicle set up for assessing druid levels. Instead, he dragged a chest from under the table. “Can you tell what’s inside?”

When I concentrated, my magic zinged so fiercely my fingers tingled. “Reindeer moss, some seeds, an iris bulb, and a pine cone,” I said. “White fir.”

The witch nodded. “And the seeds?”

“Watermelon, marigold, basil, and habanero pepper.”

“Grow the watermelon, please.”

I glanced around the cubicle. “You sure?”

“Yes.”

“To maturity. You want the plant to fruit. Correct?”

“We do.”

I shrugged. “Your funeral.”

This level of difficulty was more of a challenge. I had to focus my power, bypassing the moss, flower bulb, pinecone, and other seeds, to germinate only the watermelon and feed it my energy, which flagged from the gauntlet run to the community center. Luckily, the building was a focus of magical intensity rivaling the land my father had invested his adult years enriching, so drawing power from the earth deep beneath concrete and asphalt was no obstacle. Not for me, anyway. The watermelon plant—and only that plant—pushed up the hinged top of the chest within a few moments. “I recommend you step back,” I said, retreating toward the opening of the cubicle as well.

Proving the test administrator maybe wasn’t as stupid as would soon be revealed, he followed my retreat.

“Hey, Dyer,” I said, remembering the oldest of that family in the cubicle next to mine. “You might want to—”

Too late.

The plant grew explosively, vines creeping out and pushing at whatever blocked its path. Fat tendrils scaled the dividers as wide leaves flourished and green buds plumped from kernels of fruit to ever embiggening orbs. Because my magic was nothing if not overachieving, the plant produced four engorged watermelons, each the size of a small chest cooler, but the vines were the problem, heavy and cumbersome as each stretched to grow. The weight of them pulled the divider separating me from the oldest Dyer, who had backed into the narrow hallway between cubicle rows, but his test administrator hadn’t been as smart. She didn’t yell. She bellowed. “Your Goddess-damned novitiate’s power drained our water!”

The older Dryer brother arched an eyebrow at me. “No worries. I’m not a mage.”

Down the line of cubicles, the chorus erupted. “Mine’s gone too.”

“And mine.”

The loud complaints were nothing compared to my mother’s screech, though. “David Benjamin Mace!”

I winced at whatever she’d been cooking that my power had stolen the gallons of water from to funnel into the watermelon plant. “Not my fault, Ma,” I yelled. Hopelessly.

“If it matters, my sisters aren’t mages, either. Their tests would have finished at phase one.” The oldest Dyer snickered as the decibel of my mother’s protests skyrocketed to ear-splitting mad. “Better you than me, pal.”

The plant had stopped spreading, at least. I cringed when I felt a tug at my shirt, though.

Emerged from his hiding place in the drapes, Henry pointed to the nearest fruit. “Can I have one?”

“Sorry. Henry is in a growth spurt.” The elder Dyer boy stooped to swing his brother up and into his arms, no mean feat. The kid wasn’t tiny. The oldest Dyer was simply that enormous, a mountain of a guy, thick with muscle. “His stomach is a bottomless pit.”

Jae stepped through the debris field of my test plant and snapped off two watermelons for the boy with his claws. “The youngling may have all the fruit,” he said, presenting the first watermelon to the boy.

The older Dyer side-eyed my demon. “What’s with him?”

Henry accepted the watermelon with a beauteous smile. “He’s my friend.”

I winced again because demons didn’t make friends, not in this dimension anyway. Humans were prey. I felt the tug of Jae binding to me, a constant pull urging me closer to the lethal predator whose instincts compelled him to woo a magical partner. But my demon didn’t even like me. To Jae, I was just the biggest dog in the kennel, with power to complement his own.

“Friend, huh?” The older brother pinned my demon with a steely glare. “Mess with my brother and I’ll wear your guts for garters.”

Jae’s growling grin bared his teeth. “You aren’t as stupid as he is,” he said with a nod at me.

“Really? Right now. You have to do this in the middle of the fucking test. In front of God and everybody.” I glared at Jae. “Not cool.”

“I’m not his Chosen, Andrew. The other guy is.” Juggling the watermelon, Henry shrugged. “Jae looks mean, but he’s super nice.”

Dyer and I both gaped at Henry and then, in unison, turned to gawp at my demon, too.

Nice?

“I wiped the Bell out of—what the hells happened?” Skip skidded to a halt next to me, arms ladened with takeout bags. He pivoted to glare at me. “You showed off without me?”

Jae stood upright, muscles bulging at the weight of the remaining three watermelons he’d harvested. “Gordita crunch?”

My familiar nodded and Henry let out an eager, “Hooray!”

Skip passed the fast-food bags to the kid and then stared at my test administrator. “He hasn’t crossbred species for you yet. I’d know.”

“No, we aren’t finished. The last row of cubicles is undamaged, so we’ll use those.” The witch pointed to Henry. “He hasn’t tested yet, either.”

Andrew grunted, struggling to keep his hold on his squirming brother. “You won’t get anything out of him until he eats, I can promise you that.”

The witch pointed at me and crooked his finger. “You first.”

“I’m coming, too.” Skip scowled at the mess the watermelon plant had created. “This wouldn’t have happened if I’d been here to help contain and direct his magic.”

Andrew titled his head to study Skip. “And you are?”

Skip’s spine shot straight, shoulders squaring. He practically clicked his heels as he bent his head to acknowledge the older Dyer brother. “Skip Stone, servant of the supreme and generous Goddess of the Earth, Anand.” He flicked a negligent finger at me. “And his familiar.”

The brother turned to Henry, who said, “He’s okay.” The kid chortled, hands diving into the takeout bags. “You’re going to sex him.”

My familiar squawked in protest. “I would never—”

“Enough,” my mother said on a shout, hands at her hips in the divider opening leading to the reception area. “You’ve already ruined the ice sculpture. I’ll be damned if I’ll let you wreck the quiche Florentine.” She snapped her fingers. “No more dilly dallying. Wrap this up. Chop, chop.”

“I’m doing fine, Ma. Thanks for asking,” I said.

Her eyes narrowed. “Are you sassing me?”

Mine widened. “No, ma’am.”

“Good.” She nodded, then waved me toward the watermelon debris. “You get ten minutes and not one second more.”

The test administrator watched my mother’s huffed return to the reception area. “Can you cross a pair of roses in ten minutes?”

“Roses?” Skip snorted. “Sure.”

I glowered at the confidence of my familiar. While I hadn’t planned on lying outright about my druid powers this time, I wasn’t eager to give other magicals a genuine sense of what I could do during my second test, either. “I’ll try.”