“Her parents are what you might call overprotective.”

Andrea and Raphael? Overprotective? Raphael gave Baby B a dagger for her second birthday and then laughed when she tried to stab him with it.

“When Bea doesn’t return to her Clan House on time or when she forgets to tell them where she’s going, they send Ascanio to fetch her. And since we’re usually together, he takes it upon himself to fetch us as well.”

“For which your parents are deeply grateful,” Christopher said.

“That’s beside the point, Father. The point is, he isn’t my babysitter, or Conlan’s, or Mahon’s and Ricardo’s. He isn’t in a position of authority over me. He simply decided to be insufferable.”

“The tea is exquisite,” Christopher said.

“I’m glad you like it,” I told him.

Sophia took a sip. Marten got a hold of the honey jar and was busily spooning honey into her cup. At this rate, she’d end up with honey tea syrup.

“You’ll have to drink some of the tea to make space,” I told her.

“For example,” Sophia said. “One time we went to play in the sewers.”

Marten stopped with her spoon in midair. “The Impala Worm is in the sewer.”

“We were being very quiet. It was perfectly safe until Ascanio found us and yelled at us, and of course, the Impala Worm showed up. He didn’t have to fight it for half an hour, and he didn’t have to almost drown. He created this situation and then chose to be dramatic about it.”

I stared at her. “How old were you?”

“Nine.”

Conlan would have been six. Mahon and Ricardo would have been five. Oh my gods.

“Then there was another time we wanted to go to Savannah for the pirate festival. We would have been back by morning. And all of us could swim. The boat was sinking very slowly, so there was no reason to panic.”

“I feel like you skipped a part. How did you get on a boat?” I asked.

“We took a ley line to Savannah, but it doesn’t go straight to the city.”

Ley lines were persistent magic currents. They lasted even during tech, although they lost a lot of their speed. The ley line was like a train track with a continuous train running at high speed.

To travel on a ley line you had to have some kind of platform, a raft of metal, plastic, or wood. I’d ridden ley lines on old doors and one time in a very large Styrofoam cooler. Anything worked as long as it separated you from the current. The magic of ley lines sheared anything living, and walking into one would leave you without your legs. That’s why the government put up billboards with graphic pictures of bodies cut into pieces by ley points.

The points were another fun ley line feature. The current wasn’t continuous. It had breaks called ley points, and when you reached one, the current ended abruptly and jettisoned you out. You had no choice about it.

“I know that ley point,” I said. “It dumps you in a salt marsh.”

Which was why most people shipped goods from Atlanta to Savannah by cart or car. The ley line that led from Savannah to Atlanta was just fine, but that was the post-Shift world for you.

“We didn’t know that bit,” Sophia said.

“So, it dumped you in the middle of the marsh. Was it dark?”

“There was some light.”

“Was it moonlight?”

“Possibly.”

Christopher smiled into his tea.

“We were fine until the tide started coming in.”

I stared at her.

She shrugged. “There were no signs telling us where to go and the scent trails were confusing. We found a boat. It was leaking only a little bit, so we were completely fine. It was fun. We were going to paddle to the coast. Except Ascanio showed up and made us go back.”

“Then there was the minotaur,” Christopher said quietly.

Sophia sighed.

“I don’t understand how the kids keep escaping,” I said. “Was nobody watching them?”

“Shapeshifter children come with unique challenges,” Christopher said. “A certain degree of independence is highly encouraged.”

It made sense to some degree. An average shapeshifter toddler was stronger and faster than most human adults, and their regeneration kept them relatively intact. But they were still kids.

“Unfortunately,” Christopher continued, “when these six get together, they seem to develop an unshakeable confidence in their own abilities to handle things regardless of the reality of the situation.”

Sophia glanced at him. “Five, Father. JJ is too young. We don’t always invite him.”

JJ? “Tell me about the minotaur.”

“It wasn’t an actual minotaur, which was a huge letdown,” Sophia volunteered.

“No, it was worse,” her father said. “Most minotaurs are calm until they’re provoked. This was a buffalo shapeshifter gone loup. He’d taken off into the North Forest after massacring his entire family. The Pack’s herd leader was away at the time, and the decision was made to wait until Eduardo returned to avoid unnecessary loss of life.”

Dad would have gone in there by himself and killed it. I opened my mouth to ask why he didn’t and caught myself. Oops. Eh… “Why didn’t the Beast Lord take care of it?”

“His predecessor would have. However, Shrapshire is not that hands-on. The Pack has developed procedures and protocols to handle a variety of situations, like this one, and he doesn’t get involved until all other avenues have been exhausted.”

Interesting. That was always the problem with the Pack and Dad. He’d made the Pack, or rather it accreted around him, and he was the answer to all their problems. It wore him down. There were days when all he did was run around putting out Pack fires. It looked like Jim had installed a structure that had been missing. And this type of incident could get ugly fast. If the wolves or the cats killed a bovine shapeshifter, even one gone loup, it could open a big can of worms.

“One of my friends wanted to hunt the minotaur,” Sophia said.

I choked on my tea. I knew exactly which friend that was.

“When was this?”

“A year ago.”

Damn it, Conlan. “Sophia, how old were you? You should have known better.”

“It was perfectly safe.”

Clearly, that was her battle cry. Everything was on fire, and sharks and dragons were circling us, but it was perfectly safe. “How?”