The mage clans are many things. Powerful, expansive, mysterious, terrifying, morally questionable. And today, I’ll be damned if they weren’t fast.

Cornelius and Dalton arrived at Cagel’s house a little over a half hour after I found the ward.

Blair had whipped out her phone, and a few calls later, the mages were on the way.

Cagel rushed them inside, and we barely exchanged nods before I led them to the ward.

Cornelius was a tall man in his fifties, right around six foot, with an athletic build, pale skin, and a neatly trimmed black beard with streaks of grey at the sides and a sharp haircut.

He wore jeans and, of all things, a thick yellow raincoat that went past his knees. The kind you’d expect a fisherman with a drinking problem to wear.

His apprentice was somewhere between sixteen and eighteen, average height and slimly built with dark skin and short black hair.

He had a handsome face and wore a brown jacket and dark jeans.

I looked between the master and apprentice a few times. I wanted to ask. I really wanted to ask.

But I shouldn’t.

Lilly walked over, her feet phasing through the floor a little with each step. The moment she saw Cornelius, she snorted. “Why the hell is he wearing a raincoat?”

I broke. “Why the raincoat?”

Dalton immediately turned to Cornelius and gave him a look.

Cornelius eyed his apprentice before shrugging. “I like it.”

I pursed my lips and inclined my head. Fair enough.

“The ward, please,” Cagel said, her tone even.

I nodded and waved toward the wall.

Cornelius frowned, and his aura shifted.

I stepped back. Seeing a mage's aura was deeply unsettling. It was like- like…I didn’t have anything to compare it to. The only mage auras I was used to seeing, I was very used to seeing. The same old hedge mages and third-string talents I’d seen my whole life.

Despite the cat being out of the bag, seeing an unfamiliar mage aura made my brain scream at me to run, that I would be found out, that it was over.

I slowed my breathing before my heart could really start pumping, but Blair and Laurel stilled and looked my way.

Damn werewolves and their damn senses.

Blair shifted forward a few steps, subtly placing herself between me and the mages.

Cornelius’s aura was a deep grey with tinges of blue at the edges.

That was how the man’s aura looked, but how it felt? Stability incarnate. This was no diffuse hedge mages aura. This was a mage, and from what little I had heard a strong one.

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He definitely felt the part.

Cornelius focused on the wall, his expression stilling.

After a minute, he waved over his shoulder. “Dalton, scan this from a distance. Be careful. I’ve shut off their ability to hear through this, but their sense for magic should still work fine.”

Dalton extended his aura. It was closer to white than grey and tinged with a bit of yellow and red at the edges. It felt much much weaker than Cornelius’s, like a sapling compared to a towering pine.

He felt about it with tentative touches, and after a minute, Cornelius spoke up.

“What do you feel?”

Dalton hummed. “It’s…cool, but not like water or ice. It’s like…” his eyes flicked to me for a beat before returning to the ward.

“It’s spirit magic, right?” He paused again. “But it feels off somehow.”

Cornelius nodded, seemingly satisfied. “The word you're looking for is rotten, warped.”

His expression hardened.

“Necromancy is soul magic twisted into something dark and awful. It is an evil thing unless used on soulless corpses donated to the cause, and even then, it’s still dubious. And these necromancers have been spying on Alpha Cagel.”

Dalton frowned. “Why?”

Laurel spoke up. “It lets them get a sense for who's in the house, assuming it gives them that information. They can plan an attack. Easiest way to find another werewolf alone.”

Cagel’s knuckles popped. Lilly walked to her alpha and hugged the woman.

Cagel shivered but leaned closer to the woman. I had explained what the sensation meant to her.

“Why now?” I didn’t even realize I’d asked the question until Cornelius turned to me.

I held back a shudder. I had no problem with the man personally. From what the others had said, he helped them against George, but he was a clan mage.

“Well,” Cornelius said. “It could be a move by the Burrow King. Sending some necromancers to harass us and stir up chaos. Or it could be rouge necromancers deciding to set up camp. We don’t know enough yet to really say.”

I frowned as I inspected the ward closer.

Cagel frowned and looked at Cornelius. “I should have had you do a sweep of our homes.”

Cornelius shook his head. “If anyone should have suggested that it was me. But I didn’t think they were capable of doing something like this. Wards are hard. Unless someone specializes in them, it’s unusual to see a mage use them unless they’re past a hundred or extremely skilled.”

“For a necromancer to use them…” Cornelius frowned. “That’s a bad sign. The average necromancer is a magical thug. They have a few good tricks they’ve picked up, but aside from that, they're as subtle as a brick through glass.”

I shuddered, an old old memory trying to surface.

A lush countryside covered in flowers, the reds and blues mixing to create a beautiful tapestry. As if God himself had reached down with a brush.

That same countryside, the flowers gone, but just as red. More than red, there wasn’t a speck of blue. It had been scrubbed clean, drowned. The dirt stirred, and-

I jerked my thoughts away before my emotions could get going. Blair was looking at me, but the others were focused on Cornelius.

Yeah. I had no interest in dealing with a skilled necromancer.

“My earlier advice still stands, but I suggest we search every Packhouse for more of these.” Cagel nodded, and Cornelius turned to me.

Another bolt of panic started up, and I squashed it. “Alder, could you give me a hand? This was well hidden, and I’d have trouble finding this if I didn’t have someone pointing it out to me.”

Going anywhere with a clan mage was like a childhood nightmare come to life. I looked to Cagel and the woman standing behind her, the walls of this home visible through her skin.

I swallowed. “Glad to help.”