The next few days were odd, to say the least. Not only did I have rotating roommates, but the town itself was changing.

Spooks kept flooding in, houses that had been vacant for years suddenly had new occupants, and quiet understandings to not talk about certain things were being pushed.

Like, for example, how the Grave Keeper was banishing fiends every month. I hadn’t gone and done that yet, which was a problem on its own. People were going to start grumbling about the little spirits, and it wouldn’t take long for a passing mage to put two and two together.

One of the reasons the local hedge mages hadn’t questioned my use of spirit magic was that they weren’t all the most educated in what was normal or not.

It wasn’t that uncommon for a magically homeschooled hedge mage to do a difficult piece of magic because they didn’t realize it was supposed to be hard.

Magic was weird like that.

The other reason was that the hedge mages here mostly minded their own business and expected others to do the same.

I was taking care of the fiend problem, and no one had felt the need to look deeper than that. The mage clans were far less likely to have such a laissez-faire approach.

So I needed to find a way to explain how I took care of fiends fast.

So, two days after we got back, I was sitting in my living room trying to carve an explanation for my fiend banishing.

My werewolf guards rotated. The first day, it was Blair and Laurel. Blair, predictably, came prepared with her own mattress and bedding. Laurel had just opted for the couch and a blanket. However, Blair had offered her the bed.

Tonight it was Bobby and Simon. Ben was also here, absently reading a comic book in the corner.

I turned the crude carving over in my hands. It was supposed to be a cat, but right now, it was more of a lumpy mass with cat ears.

“What are you trying to make?” Simon asked. I waved the carving at him with a groan. “A cat. It’s supposed to be a cat. But…”

He pursed his lips. “It’s like a blob with cat ears.” I smiled. The guy was soft-spoken, but that didn’t hide his sense of humor.

“May I?”

I shrugged and handed it and the carving knife over.

“Simon’s a wizard with the intricate stuff,” Bobby said. The man was currently sprawled upside down in my armchair, looking over his phone.

“Though he usually uses those gifts for explosives.”

I blinked. “What?”

Bobby nodded. “Yep. That’s most sane people's reaction.”

Simon frowned. “It’s not that weird for werewolves,” he mumbled. “If I blow off a few fingers, they’ll just grow back.” The words were so softly mumbled that I almost didn’t catch them.

“I’m sorry, blow your fingers off?” I turned to Bobby. “Is this normal for werewolves?”

He waggled a hand. “Not fearing injury as much as humans? Yes. Playing with explosives and blowing one’s fingers off? No.”

I looked between the two. “I didn’t even realize you guys could regrow fingers.”

“Fingers, yes,” Simon said. “But if you lose a limb that won’t grow back unless you're older than a hundred, minimum. Though they are easier to reattach.”

“Which, to be fair,” Bobby cut in. “Is why Simon wears protective gear when he’s mad scientisting it up.”

“Scientisitng isn’t a word, is it?” They shrugged.

I glanced over at the carving and almost did a double-take. The pile of shavings in the trash had doubled, and Simon was nearly done.

The crude outline of a cat had already formed, and the man was now working on the finer details.

“Holy crap, you work fast!”

Simon gave a small smile but didn’t say anything.

The inspiration for the carving lay on Bobby's chest, purring softly. Jack had settled into life at the Graveyard immediately and was over the moon at having the werewolves over.

The little guy was the friendliest cat I’d ever seen, which was remarkable. Black cats didn’t survive as strays for long here. Either killed by the superstitious or scooped up as a familiar.

As if he could sense my gaze, Jack opened his luminous green eyes and stared at me. “Meow?”

I snorted. “Go back to sleep. I was just thinking.” He blinked at me a few times, then burrowed against Bobby’s chest. The werewolf gave the cat a few absent-minded strokes.

“Is this finished enough?”

I glanced at Simon and whistled long and low. I could whistle with the best of them. Or at least, old man Ron could.

The carving now resembled Jack sitting on his haunches, one paw raised as if in greeting.

“That’ll more than do, thank you, Simon. This is incredible.”

He blushed slightly and ducked his head.

“Why a cat,” Bobby asked as he examined the carving.

“Because the ancient Egyptians believed cats could scare away spirits.”

Ben glanced up from his comic. “Really?”

I shrugged. “No clue, but it sounds believable, and that’s what counts.”

Ben tilted his head. “Eh, it does sound believable.”

Simon shifted on the couch, tucking his feet under him. “So, what now.”

“I…” They knew I was a Telss. Blair had told me they discussed it before we left for the Pass. But it still felt instinctively wrong to talk about my magic.

If she were going to betray you, she would have done it before ever leaving for the Pass.

I sighed. I knew that. But I couldn’t shake a lifetime of habit in a week.

With an effort of will, I continued. “I’m going to make a ward.” Bobby stiffened. “Isn’t wardcraft supposed to be incredibly dangerous?”

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I nodded. “It is.”

Simon cut in before I could explain further. He spoke with far more confidence than before, though still softly. “Telss are different. Wards are dangerous because the mage has to be in a specific Shift for long periods, which comes with a litany of risks. You can stop and take a break with weak wards, but anything remotely potent has to be done in one go. Telss though…”

Bobby nodded. “Only one Shift. So they don’t have the same risks of going insane or blowing a building up.”

Simon hesitated. “Going insane? No. Blowing the building up? Depends on their magic and skill. Sloppy work can still be explosive.”

Bobby eyed me.

I held up my hands. “I can’t really comment on my skill, but my magic is about as explosive as a lake.”

Bobby shrugged, jostling Jack slightly. “Good enough for me.”

He grabbed the cat and then spun till he was upright again. “Let’s see some magic!”

Simon nodded, and even Ben set down his comic book.

“You’ve seen me do magic plenty of times, Ben!”

“Yeah, but that’s usually while you're about to die, so I can’t appreciate it.”

Well, I couldn’t argue with that. My aura was only ever unveiled for however long it took to complete the task at hand. Training with it or doing anything that wasn’t strictly necessary was a stupid risk.

I couldn’t afford to draw the attention of a passing predator.

Now, though, I absolutely could since anything that felt my magic would have to deal with two werewolves first, which wasn’t worth it to most wandering predators.

With a thought, I unveiled my aura.

It rolled out around me, but I contained it to my house.

“I haven’t made many wards since making them leaves a magical footprint, but I didn’t have an option now.”

I glanced at Bobby and saw his eyes flicking over my aura. “You can see magic?”

He nodded. “My grandma was a mage.”

I sat back and stared. “So you got some of her Talent? Can a werewolf-“ he shook his head.

“We can’t become full mages. Werewolf magic is all mixed up in our bodies and spirits so tightly that it doesn’t leave much room for anything else. But a few tricks can slip in.”

I ran a hand over the carving, then paused as a thought struck me. “Do you have Sight or True-Sight?”

Bobby laughed. “Sight. I doubt I would still be talking to you if I had True-Sight.”

I nodded. “Yeah, its drawbacks aren’t my favorites.”

He stared at me, his blue eyes suddenly serious. “You have it?”

“Yeah, all mages and Telss do, as far as I’m aware.” I shrugged. “They rarely use it, though. Some don’t even learn how.”

“Isn’t there a good reason for that?”

A rotting pit gouged into the world, its bottom out of view. Strokes of black and yellow swirling together as a putrid hand reached out towards me.

“Very good reasons. But mages have more tools than me. Sometimes you just have to work with what you have.”

I put my hand on the carving’s paw and focused.

My aura constructed, bunching up until it was just a few feet around the carving and me.

Bobby’s eyes flicked to the swirling cloud of purple and green.

Simon reached out and poked at the ripples that started to appear as I packed more magic in.

Ben threw a tennis ball at it. It passed through my aura without doing anything, of course.

I glared at him. “Where did you even get that?”

He shrugged.

“Don’t do that once I get going. It’s like smacking someone’s hand while performing surgery.”

The old ghost nodded, and I turned back to the carving.

I needed to clear my mind for this. Even if I didn’t have to worry about my aura shifting aspects, it still required very clear intent.

Even with only a single aspect, there were still several wards I could make.

Wardcraft was all about focus and intent. You needed to know what you wanted the ward to do, then let that fill your mind completely. Once you had it, you would imbue that focus into the ward, along with a whole lot of magic.

I cleared my mind, years of practice using spirit calling, making the process fast.

What did I want?

Fiends. I imagined a greed fiend, a bright yellow blob with cartoonish eyes and a rictus grin. It held a coin clutched tightly to its chest as it whipped about.

Keeping the fiend in mind, I started to compress my magic, funneling it into the cat's paw.

Instead of passing through the wood like usual, my magic flowed in and stuck.

Without losing the image of the first fiend, I added a second—an anger fiend. Bright red, its body rippled like an open flame, and its snarl seemed to pop and sizzle.

More magic into the carving, spreading through the whole thing this time instead of just the paw.

I pictured more fiends, sadness, fear, lust, all of them crowded into my mind's eye until it was a strain to keep it all together.

Then I really started to pump some magic. It flooded out of me and into the cat with enough force to actually brighten the room, purple and green ripples appearing in the air to the naked eye.

The carving glowed green and purple, and a symbol started to take place on its paw.

More magic! This needs to look like it could have been passed down for generations.

I poured over half my aura into the carving before I felt something shift into place.

I gasped and sat back.

The carving as a whole didn’t glow anymore, but its paw was like a beacon. It pulsed with deep green light, and the symbol had taken shape. It was a wailing ghost, the kind that looked like a bedsheet with holes cut out.

Bobby clapped furiously. “Bravo!” Clap, clap, clap! “That was cool!”

He paused to pet Jack, who was staring with distrust at the carving.

“…so what does it do?”

I laughed. Ben gave me the side-eye. “Really though, what does it do?”

“It banishes fiends. Anyone can use it too. You just will it to activate while holding it, and the ghost on its paw will glow brighter. I think. This is the second time I’ve ever made a ward.”

Simon gestured to the carving, which was looking like some kind of pagan idol now. I handed it over. “So now you can say you found this in the graveyard or something to explain the fiend banishing.” He poked at the symbol on the paw. “What was the other ward?”

“The other time, I was just making a repealing ward in a house a ghost was stalking. This was way harder and used a lot more magic.”

Bobby snorted. “I could tell. Your aura just doesn’t seem to run dry.”

I laughed. “Oh, it does. But I won’t pretend I don’t have a lot.” I sagged back on the couch, a wave of weariness crashing over me. Holding complete focus for that long really took it out of me.

“I don’t have many reasons to use my magic, much less my shroud. And I’ve lived in this magic-rich environment my whole life. Those two things together mean I have a lot of raw magic.”

Simon handed Bobby the ward. The blond werewolf showed Jack the carving. “Look! It’s you.”

In the most catlike thing I had seen from him yet, Jack turned his head up at the carving, giving it a disdain-filled look before turning away to clean his paw.

“Don’t worry,” Bobby said before offering the ward to Ben. “You're still the better cat, even if this one does glow.”

“Meow.”

Ben floated over and gave the cat a few scratches. He poked the ward a few times, then shook out his hand. “Feels weird. Not like it’s going to hurt me, but it’s tingly.”

He poked the ward a few more times, then turned until he lay flat on his back in mid-air.

“I’m bored.”

“Thanks for sharing.”

He flipped me off.

“We should rectify my boredom. Anyone up for some cards?”

Bobby shrugged. “Guarding Alder is our job today, so playing cards is not only acceptable but a diligent effort to fulfill our mission.”

Simon eyed the other werewolf. “…So, yes. But with more words?”

He nodded. “Pretty much, but that had more flair than a simple yes.”

I laughed and hauled myself up with a grunt. My body was still sore from the Pass, and my neck ringed with ugly bruises, but a few days of rest had certainly done me good.

“I have to go clear fiends later,” I said as I snatched a pack of cards from the counter.

“But I’m up for a few rounds.”

We all gathered around the coffee table, scooting seats closer as needed, or in Ben’s case, sinking into the floor until he was at the right level.

Then I started to deal.