Bria shook her finger at Daisy. “Yes! Big words, or good research. Way to hit the books, kid.” She turned back to me. “The kid has a solid point. Plus, learning how to murder in stealth—”

“I am not going to learn how to murder in stealth,” I barked.

“You have to ease her into things like that,” Daisy whispered out of the side of her mouth. “Gradually. We’ll get there.”

“I can hear you.” I shook my head as the sound of a mini-explosion, like a series of pop guns, invaded the kitchen. “What was—”

From somewhere in the house, Mordecai let out a high-pitched yell, followed by a guttural bellow of frustrated rage. A grin slowly worked across Daisy’s lips.

“Daisy, what did you do?” I demanded.

“Daisy!” Loud thumping preceded Mordecai stomping into the archway between the kitchen and the formal dining room, his chest bare and splotched in what looked like blue ink. His beige slacks were splattered as well. His white shoes probably ruined. Blue drips ran down his face. “This has gotten out of hand!” he hollered.

I pointed at the partial tracks of blue following him to his current location. “You better not have gotten ink or whatever that is all over this house, young man, or I will kick you around the front yard.”

His mouth dropped open and he pointed at Daisy. “She did this!”

“Where’s your proof?” Daisy asked, crossing her arms.

He pulled his hand back so he could point again, a splotch of blue flinging onto the floor. “Your smug smile is the proof! The way you’re always doing this to me is the proof! You… It… I don’t need proof!”

I sighed and angled Mordecai around so he wouldn’t get ink all over my fabulous cream dress. The partial tracks led to the sitting room, where four upright rectangles of clear plastic, like walls, enclosed a puddle of blue ink at their center, the floor also covered in plastic. It looked like a tent with no roof.

“Well…why did you go in there?” I asked Mordecai in confusion.

“I didn’t go in there.” His volume was still too high, but I couldn’t really blame him. “I was just walking through, like I always do, and the sides sprang up around me.”

“How?” Bria asked, working her way around the plastic sides.

“I rigged it like a mine field,” Daisy said, delighted. “When he stepped on the trigger, the mechanical boxes”—she gestured at the nearest small, mostly flat box, painted nearly the same color as the carpet, and from which a pole and two cords, connected to a pole on top, was strung the plastic—“basically launched the pole up and dragged the cords with it. The plastic is attached to the cords. They are so fast that I knew he would just stop and assess for a moment, trapping himself inside. That’s what he always does—thinks before he acts. Easy.”

“I think because I have a brain and should not be ruled by my animal,” Mordecai yelled. The ink was now drying on his person.

“Right. And until you get to the lessons where you actually think and react at the same time, I guess we’re at an impasse.”

“Daisy,” I scolded, “just because you and he are being trained differently doesn’t mean you should take advantage of it.”

“Why?” She blinked those luminous eyes at me, and given he was magical and she wasn’t, and he was a shifter boy with enhanced strength and she was normal teen girl fighting to grow stronger, and given he had an enormous upper hand…

Well, I just let it go. Fair was fair, after all.

“Mordecai, get those footprints cleaned up,” I said.

“Why me?” he whined. “It was Daisy’s fault!”

“Because you should’ve known better than to track ink all over the house. And Daisy—”

“I got it, I got it.” She jogged off to the downstairs bathroom and returned with a couple of large plastic bags. “Jesus, Mordecai, light a match.”

“I came down here so no one would be bothered!” He was back to hollering. “Next time I’ll just do it in your bathroom.”

Daisy snickered. “Go ahead. See what happens.”

Mordecai’s face looked like a thundercloud.

I shook my head, my mood soured, and turned back the way I’d come.

“Where are you going?” Bria asked.

“To change. I really hope this spirit actually wants to train me, because I’m clearly not very good at forcing people to do as they’re told.”

“Hurry up, kids,” Bria said with a determined ring to her voice. “We might need all the help we can get.”

5

Alexis

“Demigod Kieran was pretty sure we’d get some good news from Demigod Nancy on the tutoring front,” Boman said an hour later, standing with Bria and me in the backyard as the sun melted into the horizon.

“Was that before or after he released you and Jack from his office to give them a little alone time?” I blurted, then gritted my teeth and wished I could reel the words back in.

“It wasn’t like that, Alexis,” said Jack, who’d pulled a chair to the side of the yard where the grass met the trees and brought out his book. He was technically off-duty and hated all things spirit, but he’d chosen to hang around lest I do something stupid and get myself killed. Daisy and Mordecai sat next to him, knowing this was a big deal and wanting to be here for it. “Well, I mean, for him. She is mad for him, but he’s playing her for a fool. She’s not the brightest crayon in the box. Kieran is all but certain someone is pulling her strings.”