Chapter six

Stiles had expected Master Chen’s second apprentice to be Amatia’s age or younger, so he was surprised to be introduced to Dafydd Evans, a lean, redheaded Welshman well into adulthood.

“Are you really an apprentice?” Stiles blurted out. “How long does magic school last, anyway?”

Dafydd laughed. “Although I’m Master Chen’s apprentice, I’m not technically an apprentice, not anymore. I became a journeyman nine years ago and am currently working towards a mastery. But Master Chen will always be my master, and when he said that I would find the situation here interesting, I volunteered.”

Peter narrowed his eyes. “I’m not sure that a journeyman assistant is strictly within the letter of our agreement, Master Chen.”

Master Chen met Peter’s gaze with imperturbable calm. “Mr Evans is working towards a mastery of natural magical nodes, something none living possesses. Not only will his knowledge be invaluable to you, the chance to study and heal a damaged nemeton will be invaluable to him. All benefit.”

Laura made an almost inaudible clicking sound, and Peter sat back. Laura leaned forward, pulling the attention to her. “Ah yes, the nemeton. It came up last night in conversation, and we agreed we needed to tell you about it.”

Master Chen grimaced. “It was a good thought, but I hardly needed to be told of its presence. What I wish to know is how it came to be in the state I found it in. It was in your territory, was it not? Were the Hales the guardians? What happened?”

Laura took a deep breath and lifted her chin. “Mr Deaton, in his role as Emissary and advisor to my mother, Alpha Talia Hale, convinced her that the nemeton was a danger to her territory that needed to be cut down.”

Master Chen clenched his jaw, reaching out to put a hand on the shoulder of his recently introduced apprentice. “Steady, Dafydd.”

Dafydd’s eyes were almost glowing with anger. “It was the guardian who cut it down? No wonder it’s still in shock! I want this Deaton’s entrails on a barbeque fork!” His burning gaze settled on Laura. “And you, heir of this…monstrosity, what have you done to rectify the wrong your line has done?”

As he spoke, Laura drew herself to her full height. Peter and Derek moved to stand slightly behind her, Peter on the left and Derek on the right. This placed them in front of Stiles and Noah; Stiles doubted it was a coincidence.

“Dafydd!” Master Chen’s voice was commanding. “You cannot convict this pack based on the actions of a single forebear! If the Hale pack had been substandard guardians, then the territory would be in far worse shape than we found! You cannot blame a child kept in ignorance for lack of knowledge; it is their parents we must look to, and they have already passed beyond judgment!”

Dafydd took several deep breaths, and slowly, the ire in his eyes faded. “Fine. For now, I’ll proceed under the assumption that no one here is culpable for this atrocity. Should I find otherwise…” He let the sentence trail off ominously.

“If you attack my clients while I’m under their employ, I will be forced to defend them,” Master Chen said coldly. “Mr Evans, I will not have you electing yourself judge, jury, and executioner, not when you are here at my discretion!”

With one part of his brain, Stiles idly reflected on how amazingly quickly someone could go from looking friendly and cheerful to a homicidal nutjob. The rest of him was tensing for a fight, wondering what he could do to help. It was a pity he’d left his baseball bat upstairs; it might be a good idea to start keeping it within reach.

“Master Chen,” said Laura, slowly and deliberately, her eyes snapping with anger barely evident in her voice. “We hired you to help us track down and eliminate a magical threat to our pack and territory. I fail to see how introducing a new magical threat gives us value for the very high price you charge.”

“Mr Evans,” Amatia said, speaking for the first time since her arrival that morning, “has Master Chen related the incident that led to my apprenticeship?”

Dafydd’s attention swung towards her. “Yes, he has. No private details, but the general situation—as it’s publicly known—and how you handled it.” He gave her a brief smile. “He said he’d never seen a sensor with so much potential.”

“Thank you,” she said. “Then you will understand the significance when I say that, since the ritual of assimilation, all five members of the Hale pack have clear, unstained qi.”

Dafydd stared at her through narrowed eyes before finally letting some of the tension in his stance fade. “I suppose that’s that, then.” He turned to Laura. “Fine. I accept that you and your pack aren’t to blame. Just know that nemeta are important and rare; the guardianship of one is both an honour and a great responsibility. I will not leave this place until you convince me that you and your pack are committed to the task.”

Laura let the moment drag for several moments before answering. “I’m willing to learn. My pack will naturally take whatever action is appropriate to ensure the long-term stability and prosperity of all in our territory.”

Stiles leaned out from behind her. “We’re going to want more than just your word that what you say is true,” he warned. “The Hale pack has already been led into rash action on the words of a single source, and we’re not going to fall into that trap again. Find us some sources we can consult—ones not authored by you—and we’ll do the appropriate research.”

Laura’s nostrils flared, but she didn’t refute his demand. “With that resolved, can we get back to the original subject? The sooner we take care of the threat to our territory, the sooner we can move on to other matters.”

Dafyyd’s nod was short and sharp. “Agreed. First things first, this Deaton fellow. Is he a self-taught mage, or has he received training?”

Laura shrugged, looking at Peter for his input.

“I believe Talia once told me he’s a druid,” Peter said. “But I’ve never seen any proof of it or heard him claim it personally. Talia certainly believed it to be true, though.”

“And it makes sense that she would take a druid’s advice about problematic trees,” Stiles added. “Isn’t druidism all about being one with nature?”

Dafydd’s smile was faintly sharkish. “If he’s been properly trained, then he has no excuse. Whether he puts up a fight or it goes to Council, he’ll pay the price.”

Master Chen sighed. “Before you run off to wreak vengeance, we need to do some reconnaissance and make a plan.”

Stiles hmphed in annoyance. “Oh, fine. Now that someone else has decided that Deaton’s the evil dude, let’s all get on board and go after him. It’s not like we have any more evidence against him than when I was the one telling everyone that he was evil or anything.”

“Does that mean you don’t want us to prioritise him?” asked Laura, confused.

“No, I still think he did it. I’m just annoyed that once again, my instincts were ignored, and again, I was right.”

“To be precise, we still don’t know you’re right,” Peter pointed out.

Stiles rolled his eyes. “Not for sure, no, but who else could it be?”

“Practically anyone living in this town?”

Master Chen cleared his throat. “Perhaps now is the time to inform you that I have already asked a trusted colleague about Mr Deaton…after obtaining an assurance of privacy and confidentiality, of course. What I learned was…intriguing.”

“Oh?” asked Stiles. “What did your contact say?”

Master Chen steepled his fingers beneath his chin. “The man calling himself Dr Deaton has been officially investigated once, several decades ago as a young man. He was unofficially investigated following the tragedy of the Hale Pack—it was passed off as a random audit and was therefore limited in scope. As Ms Hale pointed out, Dr Deaton had emerged from the debacle that annihilated his sworn pack—a large and successful multi-generational pack—without so much as a scratch or singed hair.” 

“How would anyone know?” Stiles wondered. “He doesn’t have any hair.”

Master Chen ignored him. “The report was troubling. None of the inspectors could find anything specifically wrong with him, but every single one added a private comment that they found him off-putting and, if given a choice, wouldn’t trust him with anything important.”

“It’s not just me then,” said Stiles, feeling vindicated.

“Indeed not.” Master Chen confirmed. “Magic users—the more successful ones, anyway—pay attention to their instincts. For so many to find him distasteful…it is worrying. Unfortunately, without a specific reason to delve deeper, the Council can’t do anything more. All investigators agree that Mr Deaton’s aura is free of the staining that results from using his magic to harm others, and thus he is officially cleared of wrongdoing.”

“That’s the second time you’ve used the word ‘officially,’” Noah noted. “Is that significant?”

“The Council cannot pursue a member without due cause. There are rules put into place to prevent those with more power from using the Council as a tool for harassment. Members of the Council are also forbidden from forming external circles with one another. For instance, no two members can be from the same coven.”

“That’s understandable,” said Peter. “For werewolf convocations, voting members have to be from completely different packs and of lineage no closer than four removes.”

“It started out as no family ties at all,” added Laura, “but then as human populations grew and packs were forced into closer proximity, it became harder and harder to find enough qualified members for a quorum. That’s when the European Convocation lobbied for a rule change.”

“This is fascinating,” said Stiles. “I intend to sit down with you later and get the whole history, but—and I can’t believe I’m the one saying this—we’ve strayed off topic.”

Noah poked him. “I’ll mark it in my diary, shall I? The day Stiles cut into someone else’s tangent.”

“You were saying that members of the Council can’t have connections with each other outside of their Council duties,” Laura reminded Master Chen, mercifully putting a stop to Noah’s teasing. “I imagine there are other ways to express concern that don’t impinge on the regulations.”

“There are,” said Master Chen. “While nothing can be done officially, and investigators can’t consult with each other about other members without due cause, there is nothing in the rules which prevents members from conducting their own investigations outside Council auspices—providing they don’t use Council resources to do so, that is.”

Stiles wrinkled his nose. “I don’t how that’s any less harassment, just by another name.”

“But not organised harassment,” Noah disagreed. “There’s a difference.”

“What have the unofficial investigations turned up?” asked Peter.

The corner of Master Chen’s mouth twitched in something like a smile. “Nothing.”

Derek’s frown deepened. “Does that mean he’s not who we’re looking for then?”

Stiles scowled back. “It means that he’s better at hiding his true nature than they are at investigating. If he’s pinging on everyone’s radar, that has to mean something.” He narrowed his eyes, daring them to argue with him.

“I agree,” said Master Chen, to Stiles’ surprise. “What’s more, I called in a minor favour and asked a specialist to perform some rather esoteric divinations. Deaton has undoubtedly placed protections to cloud himself from direct sight, but the Hale pack has not. Therefore, we focused on them. If Mr Deaton is removed from the picture, the Hale pack has a seventy-nine per cent chance of being around in a decade. If Mr Deaton remains in play…”

“The Hale pack’s chances of survival drop to eighteen per cent,” finished Amatia, arms folded to hide her clenched fists. “Which makes no sense. The man’s aura is unstained, only somewhat cloudy. He may not be a pillar of perfection, but I saw nothing that points to the kind of evil that would be visible if he’d attacked a nemeton!”

“He didn’t attack the nemeton, though,” said Stiles. “He gave someone bad advice, and she attacked the nemeton. Does giving someone bad advice stain an aura?”

Amatia blinked. “I don’t…I’m unsure.” She turned to Master Chen.

Master Chen studied Stiles’ face for a moment. “I believe Mr Stilinski’s observation may be apt. Perhaps relating to more than that one instance.”

“You mean he’s keeping his own hands clean and getting other people to do his dirty work?” asked Noah. “How would that even work? How does a magic user find someone to commit crimes for them for years without being found out or betrayed?”

“That’s a good point,” agreed Dafydd. “There are ways to enforce one’s will on others, but if he’d been performing those spells, they would show in his aura, defeating the purpose.”

“Remember that whoever we’re looking for had blood spells on us,” Laura said. “Surely those would show up in someone’s aura?”

“Wait,” said Stiles, holding up his hand in a stop gesture. “Everyone, stop for a second. If we’re going to base our conclusions on Deaton’s aura, I want a detailed explanation of how and why auras change. Not the cliff notes version; I want it as in-depth as I can understand.”

“To go into such detail would require time we do not have,” replied Master Chen. “However, I believe I comprehend the spirit of your request. Thus, I will give you a summary, but will be as specific as possible.”

Stiles sighed. “Fine. Hit me.”

Master Chen paused for a moment, folding his hands in front of himself as he took a slow, measured breath. “All beings with magic have an aura, which is sometimes also known as qi. Since most living organisms—and some non-living ones—have magic, those who can see auras see them everywhere they look. Even people generally considered mundane, or non-magical, have a small amount of magic, and thus an aura.

“The aura is an outward expression of the holder’s magic, and only magic can affect it. If someone were to—without using magic at any stage—abduct a child off the street, hold them in captivity, do unspeakable things to them and ultimately kill them, unless the child manifested magic at some point, it would not show anywhere in the perpetrator’s aura. However, someone hurting and killing a child that manifested magic in their own defence would be marked indelibly, even if the child had done it unintentionally.

“Alternatively, if someone were to use their magic to perform the same crime, then their aura would be stained whether the child had a magical response or not.”

Stiles had been listening carefully. “So, using magic to harm someone affects the aura. What about in self-defence?”

Master Chen blinked. “No. Self-defence would trigger…the short answer is no.”

Stiles nodded. There was something niggling at the back of his brain, but it was eluding him right at that moment. Hoping that it would come to him soon, he moved on. “Regardless of the state of his aura, you already said that the Council investigated him. If he’s connected enough that the Council is overseeing him, then surely he’s educated enough to know that his advice to cut down the nemeton was bogus? And therefore it’s worth pursuing him for that alone?”

Master Chen and Dafydd exchanged a long glance.

“There is merit to your logic,” Master Chen admitted. “However, the nemeton issue is of long-standing and thus not urgent; the well-being of the Hale pack—your pack—is urgent.”

“Well, if Deaton’s been in the area for years and was the Emissary, surely he’d know of any other magic users around, or even who might have had access to Hale blood?”

“Laura,” Peter interrupted before anyone could answer him, “don’t think about what’s the logical next step; think with your instincts. Focus on the pack bonds and your ties to the territory, and then say what feels best. What should we be doing? Who should we target?”

Laura nodded and closed her eyes, breathing deeply.

Stiles moved closer, thinking that maybe proximity to her pack would help. Noah, Derek and Peter did the same, clustering around Laura, their gazes fixed on her face as she delved deep into her alpha power.

When she opened her eyes, they were glowing red, brighter yet deeper than when she’d been flashing them around the day before. “Deaton,” she said, a growly reverberation to her voice that sounded like nothing Stiles had ever heard from a werewolf’s mouth before. “We should take care of Deaton.”

That appeared to be that.

v^v^v

Of course, knowing who to act against was only the first step.

“We can’t just attack him; we want information from him,” Peter insisted. “What was his purpose; was anyone else involved?” He turned to look out of the window, presenting his back to the group. “What was done at his instigation, and what guilt does my sister—and therefore my niblings and I as her inheritors—have to bear?”

“And is there anything we should be on the watch for,” agreed Noah. “Are there any plans already set that will come to fruition without further input? Will his absence trigger anything?”

“Is there some sort of truth serum we can use?” asked Stiles, making a note of those points so he could be sure they were covered before they took action. “Because Deaton is a shady SOB even on his best days, and there’s no way he’s going to volunteer anything.”

“There is a tincture that has been known to loosen the inhibitions and gain truth from someone who might normally hold their tongue,” said Master Chen thoughtfully. “I doubt it would be useful in this case, as it requires the drinker to be in a relaxed state.”

Stiles made a note of it anyway.

“We could always use Morton’s philtre,” Dafydd suggested. “We will only be guaranteed yes or no answers, but that’s better than nothing.”

Peter frowned. “We’d have to word the questions very carefully. Do you have any documentation on the use of this drug, such as how long it lasts and possible side effects?”

“I can email you the standard textbook,” Dafydd said. “What’s your email address?”

“Send it to my alpha; I don’t currently have much of an identity.”

“You could send it to me,” Stiles pointed out. “I can look into it too.”

“It’s a waste of resources having two people researching the same thing,” Noah said, patting him on the shoulder. “Let Peter deal with this and with planning the questioning. There’ll be another task for you.”

That didn’t make Stiles any less annoyed. Sure, Peter was smart and driven and would probably do fine; it was just that Stiles liked to know what was going on. Okay, so he might have trust issues, but given the shit show he’d been living through since Scott was bitten, who could blame him?

“Fine,” he said grumpily. “What can I do, then?”

Noah smiled. “What you best, of course: think outside the box. What are we missing? What else would help?”

Stiles rolled his eyes but allowed himself to be placated. “I don’t know what you think I can come up with that the rest of them can’t. It’s not like I have access to the Hale vault or anything.”

“Of course!” Laura exclaimed. “The vault! Peter, get Derek and me into the vault before you get too involved in what you’re doing; we’ll look around and see if there’s anything there that will help.”

“And again, I have nothing to do,” Stiles muttered sotto voce.

He was ignored.

“Mr Evans will go with you to shield you,” Master Chen instructed her, ignoring Stiles. “Amatia, observe and compare Mr Evans’ technique with the one I have been teaching you. I shall remain here with the sheriff and his son. There are matters we must discuss.”

Laura hesitated on her way out of the door, Derek at her heels as he had been all morning, a silent support. “Don’t sign any contracts until I get back,” she instructed, staring Stiles in the eye.

Stiles nodded in agreement, diverted from his irritation by the promise of something interesting.

Once they’d gone, Master Chen sat down with Stiles and his father at the dining room table.

“Before we begin, I would like to emphasise that, while I will be directing my words at you, Mr Stilinski, I remain aware that you, Sheriff Stilinski, will be a pivotal part in any transactions that we agree to undertake. I mean no lack of respect by directing myself to your son.”

“I’m not concerned,” Noah replied. “Stiles is the one with the magical power; it’s his future you’ll no doubt be discussing. I’ll chime in if I feel the need or if either of you wants my opinion, but other than that, pretend I’m not here. In fact, does anyone want a coffee?”

“Yes, please,” said Stiles, as Master Chen gracefully declined. “So what exactly did you want to say to me that you didn’t want an audience for?”

“You stopped your packmate from arranging an apprenticeship with me,” said Master Chen. “Why is that? The real reason, not the excuses you trotted out yesterday.”

Stiles shrugged, eyes dropping to the table. “I don’t know; it just…seemed like it would be the wrong thing to do.”

Master Chen sat back, apparently satisfied with that weak-ass answer. “You rely heavily on your instincts, yes?”

“Sometimes. Other times, I let logic or other people’s opinions override my first impulse, but when it comes to life and death decisions, yes.”

“And when you find yourself backed into a corner, at a serious disadvantage, you…?”

Stiles looked up at Master Chen’s calm, smooth face with narrowed eyes. “I try to undermine my opponent with words. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t.” He thought of Chris and Gerard Argent and how differently each had reacted to him.

“When it comes to the conscious use of magic, you mentioned that you’d worked with mountain ash powder, that you’d used your magic to extend the range of your supplies, and formed a working barrier. That’s impressive, a sign of strong magic. What other magic have you done?”

“Uh…” Stiles blinked, trying to remember if he’d set out to do magic on another occasion. “I think that’s all? There were a couple of other occasions where I managed to do things I don’t think I actually have the capability for, but there’s no moment of magic use I can point my finger at. And you were the one who told me that standing up to alpha werewolves counts as magic. I did that a bunch of times, but again, it wasn’t what I would call a purposeful use of magic.”

Master Chen reached into his pocket and removed a small, grey, smooth, perfectly round stone about the size of a whopper marble. “This can be used as a measuring device; if it glows, it can tell me much. Take it in your dominant hand.”

Stiles closed his hand over it. It felt heavier than a marble, although, without a scale, he couldn’t be sure if that was just an impression.

Master Chen watched him closely for a moment before continuing. “I want you to imagine your magic travelling through your hand and infusing the sphere.”

Stiles did as instructed. The stone started to radiate a gentle glow and then got steadily brighter until Stiles had to squint to look at it.

“That’s enough,” Master Chen said. “You can let it fade now.” It might have been Stiles’ imagination, but his voice sounded slightly weird. He extended an expectant hand, and Stiles gave the sphere back. The moment Stiles stopped touching it, the already-fading light drained away until it was back to plain grey. Master Chen tucked it back into his pocket.

“What did that tell you?” Noah asked, eyes wide.

“It confirmed my suspicions,” Master Chen replied. “Mr Stilinski, I believe you were wise not to commit yourself yesterday. Magic such as yours is rare; it requires careful handling. Without proper training, you could become a danger to yourself and those around you.

“I know of only one teacher who could do you justice, but she lives in almost complete isolation. To gain full mastery of your power, you will need to spend anywhere between one full year and two, away from all you love.”

Stiles frowned, glancing at Noah to see what he thought.

Noah shrugged. “Two years sounds like an eternity at your age, but it’s really not that long. If this training is what you need, then that’s that.”

Stiles tapped the tips of his fingers against the table. “How would learning from this hermit lady differ from joining whatever Hogwarts-type school Amatia has been going to?”

“Amatia, Mr Evans, and I all studied at Baleari, the premier magical school in the world. There are three other schools: in Wales, India, and China, each with its benefits, but none are quite as comprehensive as Baleari. To study magic at any of these locations takes a minimum of four years—generally more—but those are like any other school year, with holiday periods, etc.”

“But Amatia is an apprentice,” Stiles pointed out. “And Dafydd said he was your apprentice, too. How does that fit in?”

“A Master may take a particularly promising student from their field under their wing for extra tutelage,” Master Chen explained. “That relationship continues after graduation until the Master is satisfied that their pupil has learned enough to be a credit to them. Some apprenticeships last a year or two after graduation, some up to ten years. Each situation is different.”

Stiles leaned back. “So, the options you’re presenting are: 1) to not take education and maybe blow myself and my loved ones up, 2) to take education at one of the schools, which will take at least four years, most likely longer—but where I will have regular vacations— or, 3) take my education with some hermit for one to two years during which I will be completely cut off from home. Yes?”

“Essentially,” Master Chen agreed. “Although, you might learn to use your magic to communicate with those at home, so it’s not certain you will be out of contact for that entire time, but otherwise, yes.”

Stiles folded his arms. “My alpha doesn’t want me to make any firm decisions until she returns.”

“Nor should you. I only wished to speak of this in private so that you could examine your own reactions to the offers without considering the reactions of others. I believe your instincts will help steer you in the right direction.”

Stiles nodded slowly, turning the information over in his mind. While the thought of leaving his dad was unpalatable at best, the exercise with the power measurer had shown that he did have magic. It would be irresponsible not to train it, especially when he knew that if it was left untrained, it might hurt people.

So the choices were either a long, slow education with plenty of breaks or a short, fast one with none. Relatively short, anyway.

He’d already received an extra year of time; what better way to spend it?

“If I chose the third option, the one with the hermit, would I be able to start right away?” Stiles asked. “What about regular studies; would I be able to continue them by correspondence?”

“Continuing formal education would be unlikely, since Anahera doesn’t bother with mail and, last I heard, lives in a dead zone for cellular activity.”

“You’ve already lived through the coming year’s curriculum,” Noah pointed out. “You’re also already taking AP classes. I know you work ahead as a rule; what if you just took everything you need to study for a year away with you? When you return, you can take placement tests to determine which areas need more work.”

“I suppose that could work,” Stiles said slowly. “If I started straight away.” He looked at Master Chen. “Will she even want to train me?”

The corners of Master Chen’s mouth twitched up in a smile. “I contacted Anahera last night. She agreed that, if my suspicions were correct, she would be the best one to undertake your training. She has agreed to assess you herself in two weeks.”

“I haven’t agreed yet.”

“You have decided, though. And those such as you are challenging to dissuade from a course once set.”

“Tell me about it,” said Noah feelingly. He patted Stiles on the shoulder. “I love you, son, but you can be the most stubborn person I’ve ever met.”

“Only when I’m right,” argued Stiles, stung. “I’m always open to being proved wrong; it’s just not often that I am.”

Noah raised his eyebrows sceptically but didn’t verbalise disagreement.

“I try to be open to being proved wrong,” Stiles admitted. “It’s a work in progress, alright?”

“Acknowledging a problem is the first step to solving it,” Noah consoled him. “Now, if you’re going to be leaving for two years in a couple of weeks, I’d better arrange time off work. It’s not like I don’t have plenty on the books.”

“Really?” Stiles immediately felt better. He could count the number of vacations his father had taken since his mother died using the fingers of one hand; the idea that he would take two whole weeks just to spend time with him sent a warm thrum of joy through him.

“Really really,” Noah confirmed. “If you’ll both excuse me, I’ll get onto that right now. Firstly, I have to adjust the duty rosters.” He went into his office, closing the door gently behind him.

Stiles got up, his excitement making sitting down difficult. “You do that; I’ll make some lunch.” He turned to Master Chen. “Are there any special requirements I should know about for you and your apprentices? Anything you can’t or won’t eat or drink?”

“I am a vegetarian, and Mr Evans cannot eat shellfish,” Master Chen replied. “Please do not feel you must feed us; that was not part of my agreement with your alpha.”

Stiles shrugged. “If I’m making enough for the Hales, increasing the amounts for you won’t take much effort.” He frowned. “Except that I was going to pressure cook a chicken, and you’re vegetarian. What about pea soup? Would that do for you? It’s quick and easy and only takes fifteen minutes.”

Master Chen’s eyebrows lifted. “Indeed, pea soup would be most welcome.”

“Was there anything else you wanted to talk about while the others are gone?” Stiles asked, getting everything he’d need out so that it would be easily accessible when he wanted it. “I’m a multitasking master; I can do this and have a conversation at the same time.”

“Not specifically,” Master Chen replied. “Although, I would prefer if you didn’t mention any part of our discussion this morning directly to either of my apprentices, at least until you and Anahera have met and come to terms. She dislikes gossip and will likely wish to keep her involvement under wraps until it ends so that others might not influence you.”

Stiles looked up from the garlic he was peeling. “Is that why you sent Amatia and Dafydd with the Hales?”

Master Chen smiled. “It was one reason, yes. I did not wish their reactions to sway your choice one way or another. It might not have been necessary, but you have yet to learn how to keep your qi distinct from others.”

Stiles went back to his garlic. “But what should I say when they want to know what we discussed?”

“It is none of their business,” Master Chen said firmly. “Just as I would not discuss Amatia’s learning with Mr Evans or Mr Evans’ time as my apprentice with Amatia, our discussions about your magic will remain between us. What you choose to tell them after your meeting with Anahera is up to you.”

Stiles nodded. “I’ll tell Laura I want privacy before discussing it with her.”

Master Chen inclined his head. “My thanks. Do you have any questions I can answer for you?”

“So many questions,” said Stiles, flashing a grin at him. “I am an endless fount, if my dad is to be believed. Here’s one that occurred to me earlier: why do you call Amatia by her first name when everyone else gets called by their last name? Is it because she’s your apprentice? Or is there another, more complicated reason?”

Master Chen smiled. “Not at all. The truth is that my apprentice has a family name that is rather well-known in certain circles. She prefers to be accepted for her own merits yet is not prepared to build her magical career on an untruth, nor does she wish to disown her family. Thus, the simplest answer is to go only by her given name.”

That was very logical and much less concerning than what Stiles had imagined about how magical societies treated women versus men. Of course, now he badly wanted to know what Amatia’s last name was, and what her family was famous for. Stiles tried to put it out of his mind. She’d done nothing to make him think she might be an enemy; he’d try to give her the privacy she so clearly wished for.

At least until their business together was concluded.

“Thanks,” said Stiles. “I appreciate the answer. Is there anything you wanted to ask me?” Tit for tat was only fair, after all.

“Only one thing at present,” Master Chen replied. “I am no cook, but I must ask: why are you peeling a whole bulb of garlic?”

Stiles put the mystery of Amatia’s last name to one side and prepared to discuss the wonders of garlic both in soup and to flavour chicken.

Chapter seven

As Stiles had expected, lunch was demolished within short order. Peter, in particular, seemed ravenous.

While they ate, Laura talked about what they’d found in the vault.

“Most of it looked like keepsakes I don’t recognise,” she said. “Dafydd said that some of them were magical artefacts, but they weren’t labelled, so we have no idea what they do.”

“How interesting,” said Master Chen. “Let me know if you want them investigated; I’d give you a good price for repeat work.”

Laura’s smile was wolfish. “You’ll have to provide a quote; Dafydd also offered to help identify them.”

Master Chen frowned at Dafydd, who just shrugged. “What can I say? There’s a lot of work, and maybe I can bargain access to the nemeton in return.”

Master Chen sniffed in disapproval and went back to eating his soup.

“Just artefacts, then?” Stiles asked, wondering if he’d get a chance to examine them before heading off to magic school.

“No, there was something that looked like an old apothecary and a strange area with a collection of swords and other old weapons, which surprised me because since when do werewolves use weapons? But the piece-de-resistance is down another set of stairs. There’s a library of sorts down there, lots of old books in strange languages.”

Master Chen’s eyebrows lifted, and he looked enquiringly at Dafydd.

Dafydd shook his head. “I couldn’t enter the vault, and it seemed unwise to move old books precipitously. Alpha Hale took some photographs—she can show you later—and it was nothing I recognised.”

“Did you find anything useful?” Noah asked. “What’s in the boxes you brought back with you?”

“They’re the yearbooks for the last hundred years,” Peter explained. “Unfortunately, Laura is the only one who can read them. They’re magically locked to all but a Hale alpha.”

“Never mind,” Stiles said with a fake smile. “You have your own research project, remember?”

Peter flashed his eyes and raised a lip to show some teeth. When Stiles ignored him—compared to how terrifying Peter had been as the alpha, his posturing lacked intensity—he laughed. “Okay then, Little Red, if you’re so determined, you can help me.”

“No, no,” Stiles waved a dismissive hand. “I wouldn’t want to intrude where I’m not wanted.

“Little Red?” asked Noah with a raised eyebrow.

Peter shrugged. “If the shoe fits.” He gestured at Stiles, who only then realised that he was wearing his red hoodie. That’s what came of throwing clothes on in a hurry. 

Not that he minded being all wry and referential; he just preferred to know when he was doing it.

“If Stiles is Red Riding Hood, then who’s the woodcutter?” asked Noah. “Come to think of it, who’s the wolf? We have three wolves here, but none are the bad guys. I think this fairy tale needs some serious re-working to be at all applicable.”

“Most fairy tales show wolves as bad,” muttered Derek. When everyone turned to look at him, he blushed. “I did some research, once. Cora was angry about it, and I wanted to prove her wrong.” He shrugged. “She was mostly right.”

“I wonder if hunters have been pushing the negative image of wolves at all,” mused Stiles. “Propaganda is a powerful weapon; if you can get people thinking the way you want, you can stack the deck in your favour. It’s beneficial for them for people to automatically distrust wolves, to think of them as chaos bringers and harmers of livestock. That way, if we’re all somehow outed, they gain automatic sympathy points right off the bat.”

“You didn’t automatically hate werewolves,” Laura pointed out.

“No, but then I was dealing with someone who’d been my best friend for years, not a stranger. I was hella suspicious of Derek, straight-off though.”

“That was more than just his werewolfiness. There was the attack on Scott where you were looking for a perpetrator, and why wouldn’t you suspect the only other werewolf around?”

Stiles didn’t argue further, although he wasn’t sure he agreed. With the benefit of hindsight—and without the weird pro-Scott goggles he’d been wearing—he could see that he’d given Derek much more grief than he’d deserved. Sure, Derek hadn’t exactly been Mr Friendly and Engaging, and his stalking tendencies seemed almost calculated to be seen as worrying as possible rather than the product of concern that they had almost undoubtedly been. Still, Stiles had known about the fire, and then Derek’s sister was dead, he could have given Derek a bit of a break.

“This probably isn’t important,” Noah said, interrupting Stiles’ self-flagellation. “Why don’t we get on with the task at hand?”

“How much longer will we have to lay low?” asked Laura. “I don’t know how the Stilinskis feel about it, but werewolves don’t do well when we’re cooped up like this.”

Master Chen sighed. “Is everyone convinced that Mr Deaton is the culprit, then? Once we make a move, you Hales will be visible to anyone watching. If that’s what you want to do, then I will assist you to the best of my ability—within the constraints of our contract, that is. However, my advice is to spend more time on research and investigation.”

Laura drummed her fingernails against the table. She swept her gaze around her gathered pack members. “Do any of you have a preference one way or another? Or is there anything to say that hasn’t already been discussed? Sheriff?”

Noah shook his head. “Something was clouding my mind, making me focus on a kid other than my son. I’m still angry about that and want to ensure that whoever did it doesn’t do it again. I acknowledge that mundane methods of investigation aren’t going to suffice, and that supernatural crimes call for supernatural solutions.

“That being said, I’m worried that we might be too close to the situation to be able to look at it objectively. So I’m okay moving forward, so long as we agree—as a pack—to listen to our unbiased allies when determining guilt or innocence. There are three of them; a simple majority of two will do. Oh, and maybe my pack members should call me Noah. This is way outside my jurisdiction.”

Laura nodded with a half smile. “I can agree to both of those requests. Peter?”

“I’m in favour of action,” said Peter with a crooked smile. “But then Talia always accused me of being precipitous. I see Noah’s point, and agree that we might be too biased to decide guilt. If guilt isn’t crystal clear, I’ll take the majority opinion. Stiles?”

Everyone looked at Stiles.

Stiles took a deep breath and tried to tap the instinct that Master Chen had been talking about earlier. Mostly, he wanted to dig into Deaton’s brain and find out what he knew, if he’d been the one to cast spells on them, and if so, why.

“I’m so convinced it’s Deaton that I’m starting to doubt my own conviction,” he said. “But I’ve tried to be open to having my mind changed, and nothing anyone has said has made me less certain. But I think that we should question him carefully under this truth potion ASAP. That should at least tell us if he’s an enemy or not. If the answers are inconclusive, I’ll go with the majority, too. I guess that leaves you, Derek.”

“What if questioning him against his will creates an enemy?” Derek asked, arms folded across his chest. It struck Stiles again just how much younger Derek looked without the stubble. Sure, he was still built—it was a werewolf standard—but now he didn’t look all that much older than Jackson, or at least the Jackson that Stiles last saw.

Also, he was hot like burning, but that wasn’t anything new and going back in time a year hadn’t done anything to change it—still the kind of gorgeous that people like Stiles could only admire from afar.

Stiles did his best to put that aside and answer his question. “To be honest. I think that his abject failure as Emissary entitles Laura, as Talia’s successor, to ask questions about his loyalty. Anyone reasonable would agree. So, we’re covered under that as long as we don’t physically hurt him and don’t ask questions beyond his intentions as Emissary until we get confirmation that he’s our bad guy. And if he’s not our nemesis and takes offence…well, we’re not losing much since he never was much help anyway.”

“That makes sense.” Derek nodded slowly, “Okay then. I agree; both to taking action and to accepting a majority consensus.”

Laura looked at her brother searchingly. “Are you sure? If your instincts are against it, we can—”

“My instincts are crap, and we all know it,” Derek interrupted her. “Besides, it’s not my instincts asking the question; it’s logic. Mom always said it was never a good idea to piss off a magic user. But, in this case, I don’t know we have a choice.”

Laura ran her hand down his arm reassuringly. “Okay then. So, we’re all agreed: we move forward against Deaton using capture followed by interrogation by truth drug about his actions and intentions while acting as my mother’s Emissary. If the answers are inconclusive as to his guilt or innocence, we’ll look to Master Chen, Mr Evans, and Amatia to make the call.”

Peter clapped his hands together. “Okay then, looks like I need to get a move on. Little Red, sure you don’t want to pile in?”

Stiles gave a theatrical sigh. “Very well, since you asked so nicely.” As tempting as it was to refuse again, he knew it would be cutting his nose off to spite his face. He took the chair next to Peter and handed him his laptop, along with a post-it with his passwords. He could always change them again later.

“While you’re all doing that, I need to take a trip to the station,” Noah announced. “There are a few things I brought home with me yesterday that I need to take back, and I want to talk to a couple of my deputies in person. Am I okay to go alone, or will I need a babysitter?”

Laura turned to Master Chen. “He should be fine, right? You said that the spell weaver would either be unaware that his spells had broken or suffering under backlash. Either way, it’s unlikely they’d be out cruising the streets, hoping to run across Noah to magic him up again.”

“Wait,” said Derek, face settling into a glare that made Stiles feel all nostalgic. “If we think whoever is behind this isn’t a threat, why did we have to be escorted this morning?”

Peter raised an eyebrow. “We were escorted so that the presence of the Hale family back in Beacon Hills wouldn’t get around. If someone mentions to our enemy that they’d seen Noah driving around in his cruiser, I doubt it would trigger any alarm. Someone sharing the news that Hales were back…that might be a different matter altogether.”

“Does that mean I can stop at the store?” asked Noah. “Because our cupboards are starting to look a little bare.”

Slight understatement. Feeding three werewolves, on top of Stiles’ teenage appetite, had dug deeply into their reserves of rice and pasta. The shop Noah had done on Friday, which would typically have lasted a week, had already been devoured.

“It should be fine,” said Master Chen. “It remains a risk, but a negligible one.”

“I’ll make you a list,” said Stiles to his dad. “Don’t go thinking that this is an excuse to eat nothing but red meat and bacon. There will be vegetables on this list, and you will buy them!”

“They have the weirdest father-son dynamic that I have ever seen,” Peter muttered to Derek while opening the laptop Stiles had loaned him and entering the password.

Derek shrugged. “We’re werewolves; I don’t think we have much room to throw stones.”

“You’re mixing metaphors,” said Laura. “Noah, we will be reimbursing you.”

“Am I part of the pack, or not?” Noah asked. “Surely I’m allowed to help support us as much as you are.”

“I’m the alpha,” Laura said, brow furrowed and mouth tight. “I’ve been doing a piss-poor job of it so far; let me at least have this?” There was the slightest of hitches to her voice.

Peter glanced up at her curiously before shaking his head and going back to the document he’d opened. Derek raised his eyebrows and then turned away from Noah towards Stiles. He looked like he was trying to hide a smile.

Noah narrowed his eyes at her. “Are you trying to play me, Alpha Hale?”

Laura sighed, her face smoothing out. “A little? It does grind on my instincts to have someone else being the provider, even if you are an elder of the pack.”

“Elder?” Noah said incredulously. “I’m not even fifty yet!”

“It’s not about age,” said Peter soothingly, not even looking up from his reading. “It’s more to do with life experience and how much weight the alpha will give your advice.”

“So you could be an elder, too?”

“Not for Laura,” Peter replied. “I wasn’t much older than she is now when our pack was attacked, and it’s not like I’ve had the opportunity to gain life experience since then.”

“So, you’ve always been this manipulative and sneaky?” asked Stiles, interested. Maybe it was just because Peter was Derek’s uncle, but Stiles had always thought Peter was older than that. But logically, if he’d been Laura’s age before the fire, then he was mentally Laura’s age now, which was what, twenty-four? Twenty-three? But with the face of a thirty-year-old.

What a complete cluster.

Peter shrugged. “It’s a gift.” He glanced up and winked at Stiles. “One you share.”

“I’m not manipulative!” At least, he didn’t think so. He sometimes manoeuvred people a little, but it was for their own good, not because he was on a power trip or anything.

Peter made a see-saw motion with one hand. “You might not recognise it as manipulation, but you definitely do it.”

“Dad, what do you think?” Stiles turned to Noah, only to find him avoiding his eyes. “You totally think I am.”

“Not in a bad way,” Noah said hurriedly, as if that would make it better.

Stiles folded his arms across his chest. “How can it be good? No offence, Peter.”

“Some offence taken,” replied Peter, tone mild. “There’s nothing wrong with a little manipulation; it’s like any talent. So long as you don’t use it for evil, it’s fine. Anyone who uses diplomacy or does negotiation, even debate students are all skilled manipulators. Now, are you going to help me with this research or not?”

“Fine. Just one thing; how are we going to get Deaton to drink this potion?” asked Stiles, letting himself be distracted since Peter’s explanation made him realise he might have defined the word ‘manipulation’ wrong all his life, and that was embarrassing. “There’s not much point in doing all that research if we can’t get him to drink it.”

Master Chen smiled thinly. “I will present myself as a Council investigator and ask him to answer some questions. Since I’m known to have done work for the Council, he’s unlikely to suspect me of ulterior motives. Even if he does, it’s in his interests to comply, since refusal would lead to increased scrutiny.”

“But won’t you get in trouble for pretending to be on official business?” Stiles blurted. “I mean, obviously, you know what you can and can’t do, but…why would taking a contract make you do something you’d get in trouble for?”

Master Chen observed him briefly through narrowed eyes before letting his gaze sweep over everyone present, finally landing on Amatia, where it lingered longest. “It is not your place to question my choice in this matter. If I say I will do something, then the repercussions are mine to consider. The only one here with the right to question me is my bonded apprentice.” He directed his following words specifically to her. “Do you wish to do so?”

Amatia swallowed, her eyes wide and face paling as her hands clenched tightly at her sides. “I would never think to question you, Master.”

Dafydd winced and looked away.

Master Chen sighed; for a few moments, he looked older. “Then I have greatly erred in my teaching.” He took a slow breath in, then breathed out, the tension leaving him as if he was exhaling it. “Alpha Hale, my apologies; this must be seen to at once. Please excuse us for the evening; Dafydd, I would appreciate it if you could stay and assist my clients in my place. We will return in the morning.”

Dafydd inclined his head in acknowledgement. Stiles and Laura saw them to the door, and they both watched as Master Chen and Amatia walked away, fading to nothing as they went.

“I really want to know how they do that,” said Stiles, as he returned to the dining room. “Still, that’s something for another day. Since I won’t get my questions answered, I suppose we need to get down to it.

“I’ll be here if you have any related questions,” said Dafydd.

Laura looked at Derek. “I guess that means you and I have to find something to occupy ourselves with.”

“Bye, Dad,” said Stiles, leaning in so he could read over Peter’s shoulder. He felt a familiar pat on his shoulder but was already too caught up in the text to respond.

v^v^v

Stiles lost track of time passing as he and Peter went through the information they’d been given. After that, he commandeered the laptop, and it was Peter’s turn to watch over his shoulder as he used his Google-fu. That resulted in an internet research spiral that yielded limited results but was better than none at all.

When Stiles and Peter emerged from their research session, they discovered that Noah was back, the groceries had been unpacked, and dinner was almost prepared, courtesy of Dafydd.

“It seemed like a good idea,” said Dafydd when Stiles asked him why. “Alpha Hale was going to do it, but her descriptions of meals she’s made didn’t inspire me. I think she and her brother must have lived on takeout for the last six years.”

“Gotta love that werewolf metabolism,” said Stiles. He frowned. “Is it just me, or does this kitchen look different? I can’t quite put my finger on what it is.”

“It received a werewolf scrubbing,” explained Dafydd. “It was instructive and almost disturbing. It took the two of them two hours, but every single surface and item in here has been cleaned. If we wanted to, we could literally eat our dinner off the floor—at least, over in that corner where no one has walked since they were done, anyway.”

Stiles blinked, and swept his gaze around the room. It really was clean; he couldn’t see a speck of dirt anywhere. He wasn’t sure how to feel about that.

“I’m not sure how I feel about that,” he said. “I mean, yay, clean kitchen. But I honestly didn’t think it was that dirty to start with.”

“Neither did I,” Dafydd assured him. “Apparently, werewolf supersenses notice things we don’t. Laura said it wasn’t any dirtier than any other mundane house, and that they only did it because they needed something to do. Now, help me dish up.”

As dinner was winding down, Stiles tried to thank Laura and Derek for their hard work, but his awkward thanks were brushed aside.

“It’s really no bother,” Laura insisted. “It was beneficial to you, and it helps us relax.”

“You find cleaning relieves stress? Or the dirt was bugging you that much?” Stiles considered the carpet and how dirty it must seem to werewolves. “Did your house only have hard floors like wood, tiles, or linoleum?”

Laura squinted at him. “Yes, how did you…never mind. And no, the dirt wasn’t bothering us, it’s just that…” she looked at Derek as if she expected him to give her inspiration.

“It didn’t smell enough like us,” Derek supplied, having methodically worked through everything on his plate. “Peter’s scent is embedded in the couch, and the whole house smells like Stilinski. Now the kitchen smells like me and Laura.”

Laura nodded. “Yes, that’s it.”

Stiles decided to let it go.

After dinner, they all gathered in the lounge. Noah sat in his special dad chair, with Stiles and Derek on the short couch and Laura, Peter and Dafydd on the long one. Maybe it was the talk about scents that they’d just had, but Stiles found himself very aware of Derek sitting next to him. It wasn’t like he was smelly or anything; Stiles could just…smell him. It was an odd mixture of comforting and exciting.

Stiles did his best to put it out of his mind and concentrate on the conversation. Now was not the time to start crushing on Derek Hale.

“Hit us with the cliff notes,” Laura commanded.

“So, here is my understanding of how the potion works,” said Peter. “I would be grateful if my magical friend here would correct me if I appear mistaken. Stiles has an alternate interpretation on one or two areas, but on the whole, agrees with me.

“The potion—or tincture or infusion or philtre or whatever you want to call it—will need to be administered either orally or—” he screwed up his face, “—by way of suppository. By the way, I move we go for oral, in this instance.” His expression smoothed out again. “Subject reactivity to this potion is varied; we have no way of knowing beforehand how strong the reaction will be, or how long the reaction will last. The effects of a single dose have been known to last anywhere from half an hour to three hours; I suggest we err on the side of caution and aim to finish our questioning as soon as possible.

“Upon ingestion, the potion’s effects will begin. At first, as only a mild compulsion but with increasing intensity over the next fifteen to twenty. In those initial stages, a strong-minded person can resist the effects. However, while the potion is fully active, it cannot be overcome.

“Signs the potion is fully active will be: a rise in standard heart rate without a corresponding increase in breath or skin flushing, an inability to lie, an inability to not answer a question. We need to be aware, though, that just because someone can’t lie and has to answer a question, it doesn’t mean they can’t be misleading. Thorough questioning can take time, and with a strong-minded subject can be very frustrating.

“The potion does have poisonous ingredients, and therefore, there is a resulting toxicity factor that we have to be aware of. Dosage is calculated by height and weight, and only one dose can be administered in a twenty-four-hour period, which might be inconvenient. On the other hand, there is no evidence that mithridatism works, so we don’t have to worry that he will have built an immunity to it.”

“That’s one of the parts I disagree with,” said Stiles. “I don’t think there has been enough anecdotal evidence one way or another on the mithridatism issue; at least, not where I can find it—certainly no scientific studies. We have to acknowledge that he might be immune—or partly immune—and subsequently be trying to play us. That’s where having werewolves on hand will be invaluable.”

Peter rolled his eyes. “I thought I was paranoid; Stiles really takes it to another level.”

“It’s not paranoia if they’re really out to get you,” Stiles shot back.

“It absolutely is,” Peter disagreed. “It’s just justified paranoia.”

“Better unjustified paranoia than to disregard something that might prove important,” said Noah, with a supportive pat on Stiles’ shoulder.

“Thanks,” Stiles said, flashing his father a quick smile. “I also think we need to ensure one of our lovely werewolf assistants is on listening duty out of sight, both for lies and heart rate. We need to know as soon as the heart rate starts dropping or it skips around in a lie. If we do it right, we can continue asking questions that he’ll lie to, and he’ll think he’s fooled us.”

“I don’t think that level of subterfuge is necessary,” put in Peter. “We should just hold onto him and dose him again the next day to get the answers we need.”

Noah winced.

Laura shook her head. “If it’s decided that he’s not the culprit, then we don’t really have an excuse to hold him and keep dosing him.”

“Don’t we?” Peter responded harshly, eyes flashing blue for the briefest of seconds. “Can we not ask for even a single day of his time on behalf of each of our pack members that he failed? How about his lack of action where I’m concerned? I was right here, in Beacon Hills, under a blood geas. Did he never stop by? Whether he’s the architect or not, he’s complicit in my suffering, and I will have my answers.”

“That isn’t what we agreed.”

“Yeah, well, since then, it occurred to me that even if he’s innocent, he’s guilty. I think I’m owed an explanation at the very least.”

Put like that, Stiles kinda agreed. But then, Peter was good at coming up with very rational explanations as to why his revenge should be allowed. In fact, it was a bit weird that he hadn’t said anything about going after those responsible for the fire, especially now that all the research had handily been done for him.

Was Noah’s assurance that it would be investigated and the perps brought to justice worth that much? Would the Peter who’d woken from his coma back before Stiles’ time travel still have killed his niece if the perpetrators had been imprisoned in the meantime?

Did whoever was flinging blood spells about have any part in that horror? Stiles was still sure it was Deaton, but since it hadn’t happened yet, it wasn’t like he’d ever get answers.

Time travel: a mixed blessing.

Although maybe more weighted on the positive than the negative side. The abrupt change in how he felt about Scott, for instance… perhaps it wasn’t fair to Scott, since it was doubtful it could be his fault, but knowing that his feelings had been fabricated made him so angry, it was almost a relief that Scott was dead. At least now he wouldn’t have to work out how to treat him going forward.

Maybe when he’d had time to process all of this, he could grieve for Scott the way he should. On the other hand, he wasn’t going to force it.

“I need caffeine,” Noah said, rising to his feet. “Anyone else want anything?”

“Not for me,” Stiles replied, still thinking about the spell issue. He was vaguely aware of his dad disappearing into the kitchen and Dafydd getting up to use the bathroom.

Stiles couldn’t help wondering whether any of his other feelings had been manipulated, or even other people’s feelings towards him.

The whole thing was an anxiety spiral waiting to happen, and he didn’t have the time or energy to spare right now, not if he wanted to make sure it didn’t happen again. The new blood they were all rocking would only protect them until someone got their hands on some fresh stuff, and Stiles had historical evidence that running around in the supernatural world tended to involve regular bleeding.

Noah and Dafydd returned from the kitchen, finishing the low-voiced conversation they’d been having and passing out the drinks.

Once everyone was sorted, Noah took control of the conversation. “We need a strategy.”

Laura nodded. “Noah, you have the most experience in these matters. Would it be better to go straight for gold, or lead up to it, trying to give him a false sense of security?”

Noah narrowed his eyes and pursed his lips in thought. “From what Stiles has said, Deaton likes control of what’s happening and information. With the right questions, we could rattle his cage while not revealing the depth of our knowledge. Maybe something obscure that can’t actually hurt him, followed by more general questioning.”

“We know that the birthday on his documentation is false,” Stiles volunteered. “That information could hurt him, but not supernaturally. Dafydd, theoretically, if he just dropped everything and left town, taking a new identity elsewhere, would the Council sanction him?”

“The Council doesn’t concern itself with mundane laws,” Dafydd replied. “So long as he didn’t use magic to commit those crimes, they wouldn’t care. Many supernatural beings live much longer lives than mundanes would, so identity shifting is common.”

Stiles followed that statement to the logical conclusion and blurted, “You guys have a whole system for making new identities?”

Laura frowned at him. “That was quite a leap.”

“No, it makes sense,” said Peter. “If the purpose of the Council is to hide the supernatural, then they’d need to provide ID services for those supernaturals who don’t age normally.”

“But even the most thoroughly forged ID doesn’t hold up under the kind of scrutiny offered by modern technology,” Noah said, nodding slowly.

“Technically, the purpose of the Council isn’t specifically to hide the supernatural,” Dafydd pointed out. “There’s no Statue of Secrecy, like in Harry Potter. It’s more about protection and integration, along with dispute resolution.”

“Does that also cover hunters?” asked Peter, eyes narrowed.

“Theoretically,” Dafydd shrugged. “It can be difficult to prosecute hunters, because the bad ones that deserve prosecution tend to go for scorched earth. If there are any survivors, it often comes down to he said, she said, and hunters ensure they’re backed up by local law enforcement. Some of us suspect the use of bribery or blackmail, but the Council isn’t equipped to detect coercion that isn’t magical.”

“So hunters get away with murder, literally,” said Peter sourly.

Dafydd shook his head. “I know it’s not ideal, but the Council doesn’t have unlimited funds. The amount of investigation each zone can expect is directly related to how much funding is provided. Many European packs and magical communities donate yearly, but in the United States…”

“The USA is the wealthiest country in the world,” Noah objected. He glanced between Laura and Peter. “Did you know about this? You said that your family has a lot of money; were they donating?”

Peter pursed his lips. “I think we used to, but I remember hearing my sister argue about it with our mother. Ultimately, Talia decided that donating to a fund we never used was an unwise use of our resources.”

Laura winced. “I can see the logic, but if everyone thinks that way, then…”

“The Council operates based on the support it receives, and North America isn’t providing any,” finished Stiles, “that means North America, including us, is screwed.”

“Not all of North America,” corrected Dafydd. “Canada contributes its share.”

“By the sounds of it, the Hales contributed for some time and only stopped doing so recently,” Noah pointed out. “Does their history not entitle them to some consideration?”

Dafydd nodded slowly. “Perhaps. The best way to find out is to lodge a complaint and see what happens.”

“Wait a minute,” said Stiles. “I thought Master Chen said that Deaton had been investigated? How did that happen, then, if there’s no budget for investigation for the States and none of the Hales complained?”

Dafydd shrugged. “There are several possibilities. Various entities could be keeping their eye on Deaton for some reason and used the Hale attack as an excuse to trigger an investigation while subsidising Council costs. Perhaps Deaton was already the subject of an ongoing investigation into something else, which is being kept confidential.”

“Everyone does seem to find him shady,” Derek reminded Stiles. He looked at Dafydd. “What if we lodged a formal complaint and agreed to pay the investigation costs? With specific questions to ask, could we get him taken care of legally?”

“It might work,” Dafydd said. “No guarantees, though. Offering to pay for your own investigation might spark discussion about buying results. On the other hand, even if they did agree to that, there’s no guarantee they’d consider a truth drug warranted. To be honest, you’re probably better off seeing to it yourselves.”

“Here’s a concern,” said Stiles, frowning, “what if the Council decides to investigate us? We are essentially kidnapping and drugging someone.”

“If Deaton—or someone acting on his behalf—wants to lodge a complaint, then that’s a possibility,” replied Dafydd. “But then, I don’t think an unbiased panel would blame you for wanting answers, especially if the questioning reveals he is guilty.”

“But it is a possibility,” asked Stiles insistently.

Dafydd rolled his eyes but agreed.

“Hey, don’t mock me for wanting to be aware of all possible outcomes,” said Stiles sharply.

“We’re straying off topic again,” Noah said. “We need to get our strategy worked out.”

“We should have one person as interrogator,” suggested Stiles. “The rest of us can observe, out of sight and earshot of Deaton, but where the interrogator can see us. Then, if we think the interrogator needs to ask questions that aren’t on the list, or if one of the werewolves detects he’s lying, or something, I can hold up cards to tell them.” He paused. “You.”

“That progressed quickly from ‘an interrogator’ to you volunteering me for the interrogating,” said Noah dryly.

“You’ve been trained for it,” said Stiles. “Also, it will keep Deaton guessing. If we manage to take him without exposing our Hales, then we might be able to keep him guessing as to who we’re working with. He won’t know how to tailor his answers—for a while, at least.”

“Our questioning is going to give away the Hales right away,” Noah disagreed. “It’s better not to seem like we’re trying to hide it. We’re secure in our actions; the Hales are owed answers, and we’re getting them. I agree that it would be better to question him one-on-one, though. We can set up an observation room and position Deaton so he can’t see it, but I can. That way, you’ll all be able to watch and write down any questions you realise we need answers to.”

“Even better,” said Peter, leaning forward and resting his forearms on his knees. “A small group can observe, while the rest of us can split into teams. We can ask if he keeps hidden records, and then have a team search for them based on his answers.”

“Yes!” agreed Stiles enthusiastically. “We can ask if he has a hidden grimoire! I’ve always wanted to see a real one.”

“We should ask him if he knows of a better method of getting answers out of someone,” suggested Derek. When everyone turned to look at him, he squared his shoulders. “Why are you looking at me like that? What if he knows a better way? Then, if the dose we’re using runs out, we might have an alternative that doesn’t involve keeping him captive for a day.”

“No, you’re right; that’s a good idea,” said Stiles. “Wait here, I’ll grab some notebooks. We should all have one that we can write down questions as they occur to us. Then, I’ll collate them, and we can work out the best order.”

“We’re going to be up all night,” Laura predicted.

Peter nodded. “Guess we better get comfortable then.”

Chapter eight

Master Chen and Amatia were at the door at 9:00 am on the dot. Master Chen was the same as ever, but Amatia seemed to be holding herself less tightly. She was no longer attempting an expressionless mask all the time, allowing herself to react to the conversation around her. She still didn’t speak much, but when called on to offer an opinion, it sounded like hers and not something she thought her Master would like her to say.

“Do you have your strategy worked out?” Master Chen asked once the morning greetings were complete.

“As much as we can at this point,” replied Laura, handing him her copy of the plan. “Stiles reminded us that no plan survives engagement, so we went broad strokes rather than detailed. Initially, we want to find out if he was working against my mother’s pack, and depending on the answers we get to those questions, we will go one of two ways.”

“I see.” Master Chen looked over the notes, eyes lingering at the bottom of the page. “It is a good idea to look for his records. If you like, I will join you, Alpha Hale. Amatia—the best of us at aura reading—can stay with the interrogation group, and if you send out a second seeking group, Dafydd can go with them.”

“That will be me,” Peter said before Derek could speak up. He and Dafydd nodded to each other.

It took them a couple of hours to get the building they’d previously used for the transformation ritual set up correctly for their requirements. It took until just after lunch before everything was completed to Noah and Stiles’ exacting specifications.

“We’re ready,” Noah reported after reviewing everything with Stiles one last time. Stiles, who’d had the most contact with Deaton and was the only one with first-hand knowledge of what the future had been like, was going to direct the operation.

“Does anyone have any questions?” Laura asked. When no one spoke, she squared her shoulders. “Very well, let’s get to this.”

Stiles threw his keys to her and got into the cruiser with Noah, Derek, Amatia, and Peter. Dafydd and Master Chen were making their own way to the Vet clinic, and Laura was going to meet them there and take the drugged and restrained Deaton to the space that they’d prepared.

Then, it would be time to begin.

v^v^v

“Recording begins at two-oh-five pm.

“This is the questioning of the man known as Alan Deaton, allegedly sworn to the Hale Pack of Beacon Hills, California, United States of America, from at least the late 1990s until most of Alpha Talia Hale’s pack were wiped out in an unsanctioned hunter attack in January 2005.

“Given that the attack included the use of a magical substance commonly used by hunters against werewolves, and that this man suffered no injury or even hardship at the time, the surviving members of the Hale pack—including Alpha Talia Hale’s handpicked successor, her eldest daughter, Alpha Laura Hale—have invoked their right to question this man about his dealings with the aforementioned Hale pack.”

“This is illegal detainment,” Deaton said calmly, eyes on Noah. “You swore to uphold the law of the land, Sheriff. Do you forswear yourself so readily? If you can fall to corruption this easily, are you really deserving of the office you hold?”

Stiles barely managed to hold himself back. It was only Derek’s hands physically restraining him that stopped him from going into the room to tell Deaton just what he thought of his shitty psychological attack.

He took several deep breaths and forced himself into a facsimile of calm.

Noah’s expression remained blank, not reacting to Deaton’s comments. “Are you the person who has been known as Alan Deaton to the residents of Beacon Hills for the last decade or more?”

Deaton inclined his head in a nod, giving the impression that he was humouring Noah rather than held prisoner for interrogation. “Yes.”

“Were you born on the 1st of March, 1970?”

Deaton’s neck tensed slightly. There was a slight pause before he answered, and the shake of his head was somewhat less condescending. “No.”

“Were you born before 1970?”

“Yes.”

“Were you born before 1960?”

“Yes.”

“Were you born before 1950?”

“Yes.” 

“Were you born before 1940?”

“No.”

“Were you born in 1949?”

“No.”

“Were you born in 1948?”

“Yes.” Deaton’s neck had relaxed again. The clock was ticking; every moment brought them closer to the point where the potion would be working at full strength.

“Do you have any living biological siblings?”

That neck tensed up again. “Yes.”

“Do you have more than one living biological sibling?”

“Yes.”

“Do you have more than two living biological siblings?”

“No.”

“Do you have any living biological sisters?”

“Yes.”

“Do you have any living biological brothers?”

“No.”

The neck relaxed again.

Peter opened his eyes. “His heart rate just sped up; it’s above the threshold.”

Stiles glanced at Derek, who shrugged. The cant of his eyebrows asked why Stiles was bothering to ask when they’d already told him Peter had better hearing. Stiles turned to the left. “Amatia?”

“His magic is inactive; if it was working against the potion, it would be visible in his aura.”

Stiles held up the card that said, ‘Go’ where Noah could see it,

So far, the information they’d gained could be found by someone skilled at research or with ties to the Council. Time to see if this truth potion actually worked.

Noah tapped a finger against his arm to show his acknowledgement.

“Did you take any actions or direct any conversations that you believe contributed to the Beacon Hills Hale fire of 2005?”

“Yes.”

“Did you, before the fact, expect that one or more members of the Hale family would be harmed or killed as a result of the aforementioned actions and/or conversations?”

There was a moment where Stiles could see Deaton struggling not to answer. Sweat began to bead his brow, but he eventually gasped out, “Yes,” before sagging slightly in his chair.

Despite the previous party line of ‘it might not be Deaton,’ no one on this side of the glass looked in the slightest bit surprised.

Stiles wasn’t even glad to be vindicated; it was hard to rejoice over being proved right—again—when Derek’s and Peter’s blank expressions reminded him of just what they’d forced Deaton to admit to doing.

“Did you, at any time during the years Talia Hale considered you to be her Emissary, make a plan that you hoped would result in the deaths of one or more Hales?”

“Yes.” It was practically growled out, but not with resistance as the previous question had been.

Peter smiled, a vicious killer smile that made Stiles glad they were on the same side. “I’ve heard enough. He’s mine.”

No one seemed inclined to argue with him.

With confirmation that Deaton had been acting against the Hales, they no longer had to worry about making an enemy. Noah shifted his questioning.

“Do you own a receptacle that most mages would call a grimoire?”

“Yes.”

“Is the aforementioned grimoire hidden?”

“Yes.” Deaton’s neck relaxed again. No doubt he considered this prolonged method of questioning would stymie the truth potion.

“Do you know a better method of extracting a true confession than the potion we fed you?”

Deaton’s eyes opened wide in alarm before he could stop them. “Yes.”

“Is the better truth method written down?”

“Yes.”

“Is the better truth method hidden?”

“Yes.”

“Is the better truth method hidden on the same premises that you, the person known as Alan Deaton, Veterinary Doctor of Beacon Hills, California, has listed as primary residence?”

“No.”

“Is the better truth method hidden on the same premises that you, the person known as Alan Deaton, Veterinary Doctor of Beacon Hills, California, have listed as our Veterinary Practice?”

“Yes.” Deaton was sweating now.

“We’re heading there now,” Laura reported as the familiar sound of the jeep’s starter motor turning over came across the line.

Stiles gave his dad a thumbs up, then made a rolling gesture.

Noah continued, as bland and unemotional as ever. “Is the better truth method hidden in the private rooms of the aforementioned Beacon Hills Veterinary Practice?”

“No.”

“Is the better truth method hidden in the public rooms of the aforementioned Beacon Hills Veterinary Practice?”

“Yes.”

That was a surprise to Stiles. He would have laid money on Deaton having a secret door into a hidden cellar, or something.

“Is the better truth method hidden in the entryway of the Beacon Hills Veterinary Practice?”

“Yes.”

“Is the better truth method hidden in a floor?”

“No.”

“Is the better truth method hidden in a ceiling?”

“No.”

“Is the better truth method hidden in a wall?”

“Yes.”

“Is the better truth method hidden with magic?”

“No.”

“Is the better truth method protected with magic?”

“Yes.”

“Are there traps protecting the better truth method?”

“No.”

The sweating had increased. The sound of the Jeep’s engine cut off, and there was the sound of doors opening and closing.

“Entryway walls,” Stiles reminded them. “Protected with magic. No traps, but there may be other traps there that aren’t technically to protect it, so watch out.”

“I can see three areas of magical concentration in this room,” said Master Chen, “located behind the animal paintings.”

Almost before he’d finished the sentence, Stiles was scrawling over the cards they’d left blank for this purpose. As soon as he finished one, he handed it to Derek and started the next.

Derek must have held it so Noah could see it, because Stiles heard his dad ask, “Is the better truth method hidden behind the painting of the poodle?”

“No.”

“Is the better truth method hidden behind the painting of the cat?”

“Yes.”

Stiles abandoned the card he was writing about the cockatiel painting and waited with bated breath for Laura and Master Chen to update them.

Noah kept asking questions. “Does the better truth method require components that a competent magical practitioner will have difficulty finding?”

‘No.” Deaton was finally getting angry, that ‘no’ was filled with venom.

“Is the better truth method in your grimoire?”

“Yes.”

“Found something!” came Laura’s triumphant voice. “Master Chen is scanning it now.”

“This isn’t a traditional grimoire,” said Master Chen immediately. “It’s a recipe book without instructions. The grimoire with the rest must be somewhere else.”

Stiles scribbled the question on a card; Derek held it up.

Noah’s face remained as blank as ever. “Is your grimoire hidden behind the painting of the cat?”

“No.”

“Is your grimoire hidden at the aforementioned veterinary practice?”

“No.”

“We’ve just found a magically hidden door in one of the examination rooms,” Laura reported. “Master Chen said we can’t break the protections on it without blowing up the room behind it, but the wall isn’t spelled, so I’m going to break it down. I want to see what’s back there.”

Noah continued questioning Deaton. “Is your grimoire hidden at Alan Deaton’s aforementioned registered residence?”

“No.”

Stiles had an idea. It was ridiculous, but Deaton was just arrogant enough to make it worth checking. He scribbled it on a card and held it up.

“Is your grimoire hidden in the Hale Preserve?”

“Yes.”

Peter growled, eyes flashing blue. “If that bastard used our house as a hiding place, I’m going to rip him apart slowly over the next year.”

Noah didn’t need to be instructed to ask that question. “Is your grimoire hidden in or around the ruin of the Hale house?”

“No.”

Stiles frowned, wondering how they would narrow it down from there.

Derek’s face lit with comprehension. “Ask if it’s in a cellar underneath a huge tree stump.”

Stiles wrote the message, and Noah obediently asked the question.

“Yes.”

Peter had relaxed slightly on hearing that Deaton hadn’t desecrated the Hale house, but tensed up again. “Shit. Laura, did you catch that?”

“I did,” Laura responded. “If that’s the nemeton, I don’t know how to get there. Master Chen, can you find it?”

“Not without expending a good deal of energy,” Master Chen replied. “Its exact location is currently veiled, either for self-protection, or by Mr Deaton for his own ends.”

“Stay where you are and finish checking out the vet clinic; Dafydd and I will take the Preserve,” said Peter, getting to his feet. He turned to Derek. “Hopefully, there won’t be a problem retrieving it. If we’re somehow incapacitated, or you suspect for even a second that Deaton isn’t safely contained, kill him.”

Derek nodded shortly, watching Deaton with the intentness of a hunting predator. “Run fast.”

“Keep an eye on the heart rate,” Stiles reminded Derek. “When it slows down again, the potion is wearing off.”

“I will,” said Derek. “Now shut up; I need to listen.”

In the other room, Noah continued his questioning. “Have you, at any time, laid one or more blood-based spells on Laura Hale?”

“Yes.”

“Have you, at any time, laid one or more blood-based spells on Peter Hale?”

“Yes.” 

“Have you, at any time, laid one or more blood-based spells on Derek Hale.”

Deaton managed to pause for a moment before his “No,” was forced out of him.

Noah ignored the unexpected response and went on questioning. “Have you, at any time, laid one or more blood-based spells on Talia Hale?”

“Yes.”

“Have you, at any time, laid one or more blood-based spells on Noah Stilinski?

“Yes.”

“Have you, at any time, laid one or more blood-based spells on the person known in Beacon Hills as Stiles Stilinski?”

“Yes.”

“Have you, at any time, laid one or more blood-based spells on Scott McCall.”

“Yes.”

“Have you, at any time, laid one or more blood-based spells on Melissa McCall, nee Delgado?”

“Yes.”

“Have you, at any time, laid one or more blood-based spells on any of Beacon Hill’s teachers?”

“Yes.”

Deaton’s neck tensed up again, just as Derek signalled the fall of his heart rate. Stiles showed his father the card with ‘Worn Off’ written on it, then slumped in his chair, checking his watch to see how much time had passed since the dosing.

Wow. Either Deaton was particularly resistant, or their information about mithridatism was off, because that was well under the minimum expected time frame. Good thing they’d already got most of the essential questions out of the way. It was a pity they hadn’t yet asked him about any accomplices in town, but that could wait until their questioning session tomorrow.

Noah tapped his finger against his arm and continued asking questions. Even though they couldn’t trust anything he said from now, they would be screwing with Deaton’s mind. The thought of him trying desperately to play word games to convince them to abandon the leads he’d already given them was perhaps a little cruel, but Stiles couldn’t bring himself to care.

He pulled the headset off and dropped his face into his hands, wondering if he was on the road to villainhood.

“I don’t understand,” said Amatia, sounding baffled. “If he’s been casting maliciously on people, his aura should show it. It doesn’t seem possible for him to have done all this.”

Stiles turned to stare at her. “His aura is still only cloudy? Okay, tell me what kind of magic normally results in a cloudy aura.”

“Self-serving magic, mostly,” Amatia replied. “Not things that harm others, but things that only really benefit you. For instance, if you were in a store and it was selling out of an item you wanted, you could cast a spell to make everyone around you need the bathroom rather urgently. They would leave; you would get the item. It’s not harmful magic, and you didn’t intend harm on them, but it’s not good magic either.”

Derek raised his eyebrows. “There’s a spell to make people need the toilet?”

Amatia nodded. “It’s most often used by healers. It doesn’t just trigger the desire to void the bladder or bowels; it also helps…ease the way, if there are blockages. It’s considered a beneficial spell.”

“You don’t know that it’s not harmful in the long term, though,” said Stiles thoughtfully. “Sometimes, it’s all about context. What if I did magic on someone, using a spell normally considered beneficial, but for malicious reasons?”

“A good spell done for evil purposes is still evil,” said Amatia, sounding confident. “You would have a stained aura.”

Stiles sighed. “Damn. I thought I had it there for a moment.”

“Okay,” said Laura’s voice from the headset. Stiles hurriedly put it on again, only to hear her say, “I’m going to go dark while we load some of these boxes into the jeep. We’ll see you soon.”

Laura and Master Chen arrived at the old bank with their spoils just as the outside of the expected potion effectiveness time wore out. 

Stiles signalled his father to wind things up and left Derek and Amatia to keep watch while he went to help Laura and Master Chen unload the jeep.

He was only expecting a few boxes, so his offer of help was more about nosiness than any thought that his help would be necessary. Also, watching Deaton being questioned had made him antsy. He wanted to go in and demand answers, both to the things Deaton had already admitted to and to events that would probably never happen now.

To his surprise, Laura and Master Chen had crammed the Jeep full.

“What is all this stuff?” Stiles asked, opening the lid of a box to peer inside.

“It looks like a series of journals,” said Laura. “All from that hidden room we found. Master Chen said it looked more like a storage area than a workroom, though, so we looked around some more. There’s a hidden trapdoor in his office, but it’s too well-warded to break into. We could probably get to it if we tried to come up from underneath, but that would be kind of obvious.”

“And would take too long,” agreed Stiles, picking up the box and hurrying it inside so he could dive into the contents.

He was disappointed when the text inside looked like gibberish, not even a recognisable foreign language. He sighed and went back out to help. With Laura taking all the heavy stuff, they soon had the jeep empty again.

All in all, it was quite a haul. Stiles’ bad mood of earlier had miraculously disappeared. “We should probably wait for Peter and Dafydd to get back before cracking these open,” he said without truly intending to wait.

“I’m worried that we haven’t heard from them yet,” said Laura, folding her arms and leaning against the door frame. “Should we go into the Preserve after them?”

“They might have just hit a dead zone,” Stiles said. “Or maybe the nemeton restricts electrical signals or something.”

“I believe I’ve already told you that this isn’t Harry Potter, Mr Stilinski,” said Master Chen. “Magic only affects electronics if you specifically desire it to.”

“But what if there’s something on or around the nemeton that does desire it to?” asked Stiles, sending a quick grin to Noah as he joined them.

Master Chen nodded. “You have a point. Very well, I recommend we give Mr Hale and Mr Evans another half an hour. If they’re still out of contact, then Alpha Hale and I will go after them.”

“In the meantime, we need to do something with Deaton,” said Noah. “My vote is to use the stasis option Dafydd told us about. Since we’ll soon have this other truth thing, we don’t have to worry about giving the old one time to leave his system.”

“Probably,” said Stiles. “We’re going to have to research this other thing before we go giving it to him. It would be bad if something in it reacted to something in the one we just used, and he died in agony instead of giving us our answers.”

Laura made a face. “I don’t know, I think I’d cope.”

Stiles rolled his eyes. “As much as I understand wanting revenge, torture isn’t the answer. It doesn’t just hurt the victim, you know.”

“Maybe that’s true for humans,” said Laura. “Werewolves are less affected by violence.”

Stiles shook his head. He wasn’t so sure about that, but it wasn’t like he had anything to back that feeling up. “Being okay with violence and being okay with torture are different things. But I acknowledge that werewolves have different thresholds than humans.”

“Regardless,” Noah interrupted. “I think I would be happier if we removed Deaton from the board for the time being. I didn’t like how confident he remained, even while restrained and being questioned under truth potion.”

Master Chen looked to Laura, who nodded. “Very well,” he said. “I will use a rune circle to place Mr Deaton in stasis. Mr Stilinski, I ask that you don’t poke around in these boxes until I’m done.” He followed Noah back towards the interrogation area, leaving Laura and Stiles to their own devices.

With nothing better to do, Stiles wandered over to the small kitchenette in what had been a staff break room when the bank was operational and began preparing the coffee machine that Peter had insisted on. Unfortunately, his dad had bought the same brand of coffee used at the station, so the end result was guaranteed to be a less-than-pleasant experience for those who hadn’t had their taste buds ruined by years of abuse.

“Here,” said Laura, placing his keys on the counter beside him. “Thank you for the loan. Now that Deaton’s off the playing field, I can finally look at getting some other transportation. Maybe even get my car shipped from New York; I’ve missed it.”

“The camaro?” asked Stiles. “Yeah, I can see why. It’ll be weird to see someone other than Derek driving it.” He pressed the button to start the machine before pocketing his keys, leaning back against the counter while he waited.

Laura shook her head, her smile at odds with the sadness in her eyes. “I never asked him what kind of car he thought we should get, and he’s never driven it. Those years in New York…they’re like a long bad dream. One of those ones where you know you’re headed towards something terrible, but nothing you do to stop it matters, and you can’t wake up.”

Stiles shuddered. “I hate dreams like that. I used to have this one about an alien invasion. It always came in three parts, and as soon as I had the first one, I knew that the other two were inevitable, whether I liked it or not. It always started differently, but there would come a point where I’d be walking down a certain road with a specific person, and I’d know what was going to happen. From then on, it was a nightmare, literally. Even if what was happening in the moment wasn’t nightmarish, the knowledge of what was coming…”

“You don’t get those dreams anymore?”

“I still get the first one,” Stiles replied. “But there was this book I read where this character opens her eyes, and then opens her eyes again. I don’t know what it was about that description, but since then, I’ve kind of done that. Whenever I get to that point in that first dream where I realise what’s coming, I stop and tell the person I’m with, in my dream, that this is actually a dream and I’m going to wake up now. Then I close my eyes, think very hard about waking up, open my eyes, and then open my eyes again. And I wake up. Not easily—my eyes always feel like they’re full of sand, and I have to almost drag myself away from sleep—but it works.”

“That must have been a relief,” Laura said. “And you don’t just dream it next time you sleep?”

“So long as I don’t go straight back to sleep after making myself wake up—I have to actually get up, turn the light on, and read something for at least an hour—I find I’ve disrupted the cycle enough that I don’t start it again for months, even years. And let me tell you, knowing that I can wake up if I want makes the whole thing a lot less scary.”

“I wish that worked with memories,” said Laura. “On the other hand, I recognise that I should remember. I did those things, after all, and the least I can do is regret them.”

“It wasn’t of your own free will, though.”

“Wasn’t it?” asked Laura. “It certainly felt like it was at the time.”

“Bringing things back to Harry Potter again, you were basically under the Imperius Curse.”

Laura considered that. “No, that doesn’t fit. Maybe a compulsion charm.”

Stiles blinked. “Compulsion charms are fanon…Laura Hale, do you read Harry Potter fanfic?”

Laura shrugged. “Why wouldn’t I? There’s some excellent stuff out there.”

“My mind has been blown,” Stiles said, dramatically putting a hand over his heart. “We are going to have so many discussions about this, you don’t even know. Movies or books?”

“Books,” said Laura decidedly, already looking happier than earlier. “Some of the casting was so off I didn’t bother watching the movies.”

“Good answer,” Stiles praised. “Ginny or Hermione?”

Laura wrinkled her nose. “Depends on what you mean. Although, I’m not sure I’d pick Ginny for anything in particular; she wasn’t very engaging as a character. But if you mean as a love interest for Harry? Neither. Not if Harry’s happiness is the object, anyway.”

“You’ve put a lot more thought into it than most of the people I’ve asked,” commented Stiles, serving himself a coffee. He took a sip, wincing at the taste. Ah well, some lessons required reinforcement, and this was a reminder of the reason he usually took care of the shopping himself.

“It’s not been that long since I was at school,” Laura pointed out. “Harry Potter was kind of a big thing for a while there, and everyone had an opinion.”

“I had you pegged as a jock, not a nerd.”

Laura shook her head. “Stiles, Stiles, Stiles. Such prejudiced generalisations are beneath you. When you’re as awesome as I am, you get to be part of any group you want.”

Stiles raised his brows. “You mean, when they tried to beat you up, you used your werewolf strength to show them the errors of their ways, and they decided to pick on someone less capable.”

“Not where I could see,” said Laura. “I wasn’t a vigilante about it or anything, but I didn’t put up with bullying in my general presence. Once that got around, I had a cluster of people with me whenever I was on school grounds.”

Stiles could imagine it, badass Laura strutting around Beacon Hills High like Lydia did, only with a trail of geeky ducklings travelling in her wake rather than besotted teens.

Come to think of it, there might have been besotted teens as well. Hale genetics seemed to result in amazingly hot people, at least as far as Stiles could see. This made him curious about what Talia and Max Hale looked like.

Stiles didn’t know if he would have been one of those geeky ducklings basking in the safety of her presence or a besotted follower. Or maybe he would still have done what he actually did, attached himself to Scott and been the fighter for them both.

Not that Stiles and Scott had dealt with a lot of bullying; there were advantages to being the sheriff’s son. Older kids were leery of getting a record, and the jocks in Stiles’ year had learned long ago that picking on him might feel good in the moment, but there would eventually be repercussions. 

Jackson was the only one who didn’t care about those, and his close association with Lydia had been his protection. Stiles hadn’t wanted to do anything that might harm or embarrass Lydia, so Jackson got away with more than anyone else would have.

The sound of footsteps approaching roused him from his thoughts. The rest of the little group came in, with Noah making a beeline for the coffee pot. 

“Ah, sweet nectar,” Noah murmured, enjoying his first sip.

“Otherwise known as gut-rot of the highest order,” Stiles explained to the rest of them. “Werewolves should survive it, but the rest of you might find it a bit of a struggle to digest. Feel free to help yourselves, but don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

Laura and Derek wrinkled their noses in a charming display of family resemblance, and Amatia politely declined. Master Chen informed them that he tried to avoid stimulants.

“Lightweights,” Noah muttered. “Never mind, more for me.”

“I doubt watered-down road tar was what Peter had in mind when he insisted on a coffee machine,” said Derek. “He’s a bit of a coffee snob. If we don’t want to deal with him being passive-aggressive, I think I should take charge of ordering the coffee from now on.”

“And you will have everyone’s thanks,” said Stiles. At a grumble from his father, he amended his comment. “Nearly everyone’s thanks.” He drained his cup and went to the sink to rinse it out. “I take it our guest has been put to sleep for a while?”

Master Chen nodded. “He should remain in stasis for as long as the circle he was placed in remains undisturbed. Given the strength of the room and the number of locks on the door, that should mean until we let him out.”

“Are we going to look through these boxes now?” asked Stiles.

“Do we know how long Mr Hale and Mr Evans will be?” countered Master Chen.

“They’ve been out of range since just after they entered the Preserve,” said Amatia. “Dafydd warned me that it might happen; something about the nemeton being able to warp reality. He wasn’t sure if the damage it sustained would affect that or not.”

Stiles could see why it might be a good idea to wait. That didn’t help with his curiosity, though. “Fine, fine, we can wait. Can’t we at least open the boxes and sort the contents? You know, do some categorising?”

Noah raised an eyebrow. “Are you going to be able to resist, or is a book going to accidentally ‘fall open’ while you’re moving it.”

“I can’t believe my own father doesn’t trust me,” Stiles said, folding his arms across his chest.

“I can’t believe my own son would try to fool me,” Noah retorted. He emptied his cup and refilled it again.

Laura nudged Stiles’ arm. “I think you might have been worried about the wrong thing. Is that much caffeine normal for him?”

“It’s a bit on the high side, but not staggeringly outside his usual habits. I decided to focus on the immediate threat; also, it’s easier to regulate his food than his caffeine.” Stiles wasn’t going to mention their unspoken agreement; so long as Noah stayed off the hard alcohol and limited his beers to two a night, Stiles would try not to micromanage anything other than the diet.

Stiles’ headset crackled.

“We’re on our way back,” said Peter, his tone lacking the smug satisfaction that Stiles had expected. “We’ll be there in fifteen minutes.”

“It wasn’t there?” he asked, jumping straight to the point. “Or was it too magically protected to get to?”

Peter laughed humourlessly. “I suppose you could make an argument for both of those being correct. It would be more accurate to say that we couldn’t find the damn tree at all. Dafydd says that it’s hiding from us.”

Chapter nine

Well, that explained why Stiles had never heard of the nemeton before his jaunt back in time.

“Could Deaton be hiding it from us?” he asked. “Do we need to take him out of stasis and ask him how to find it?”

“I don’t know,” Peter replied. “We can talk about it when we get there. Hopefully, Laura had better luck.”

“They brought back a carload of stuff,” said Stiles. “We’re waiting for you to get back before we dive into it.”

There was silence for a moment. “That’s…good,” said Peter finally, voice sounding a bit funny. “Actually, I just had an idea. We’ll be a bit longer than expected.”

“What?” said Stiles. “Why are you going to be later? Peter?” There was no reply. Either Peter had turned his communicator off, or he was ignoring him.

Peter and Dafydd arrived half an hour later, and when he saw what they were carrying with them, Stiles forgave him instantly.

“You stopped by Josie’s Bakehaven!” Noah was equally as enthusiastic. “Did they have any raspberry cupcakes?”

“She had a sign out saying that she would be closing early, so I bought everything she still had in stock at a discount,” said Peter, that smug satisfaction Stiles had been expecting earlier in full view. “It was win, win. She didn’t feel like she was wasting good food and could leave early with a clear conscience; we got a lot of amazing baked goods at a premium price.”

“Did you pick up some coffee while you were there?” asked Derek.

“I didn’t think I had to,” said Peter. He sent a narrow-eyed glare at the machine, which still held approximately a cup of the coffee Noah had supplied. “If I’d known someone was going to commit sacrilege, I would have.”

“It won’t kill you to go without your frilly coffee for another day,” said Laura bracingly as she poked through the various bags Peter and Dafydd had brought in. She handed Noah a raspberry cupcake before taking a blueberry muffin.

“Thank you, Peter, for providing us with this delightful repast,” said Peter pointedly, opening a bag he’d kept back.

“Thank you, Peter,” Stiles began, mouth full of chocolate brownie, when he saw what Peter was pulling out of the last bag. “Cream puffs? There were cream puffs? I didn’t see any cream puffs.”

“Well, no,” Peter admitted, savouring the fresh cream with a smirk. “That would be because I kept them for myself. There have to be some perks to being the errand boy, you know.”

“You weren’t an errand boy,” Stiles objected. “You chose to stop off and get goodies of your own accord.”

“Tomayto, tomahto,” said Peter, unconcerned.

Stiles couldn’t be bothered arguing the point. “So, what do we do about the missing nemeton? Are we going to wake Deaton?”

Dafydd shook his head. “I think that should be a last resort option. Dosing him again will be harder and would involve someone getting close enough that he could try to escape.”

“You didn’t seem worried about that before,” Noah remarked. “At one point, the plan was to dose him every twenty-four hours.”

“And each time we did so, we would be risking an escape attempt. Better not to take the risk if we don’t have to.”

Noah sighed. “Fine. So, what other options do we have? What are the possible reasons for the nemeton to have disappeared?”

“Could it just not be there anymore?” asked Stiles. “We know it was cut down; what if it died?”

“Impossible,” Dafydd replied. “The tree form is just a physical aspect of a magical and metaphysical phenomenon. It exists in more planes than this one, and although the aspects are connected, damage to a single plane won’t have irrevocable consequences. Think of it like a five-legged table; if one of the legs is damaged, even destroyed, it can still function, albeit with less stability.”

“The power required to completely destroy a nemeton…it would leave signs that even a mundane would notice,” said Master Chen gravely.

“Could Deaton have hidden it?” asked Peter. “Done the same sort of magic that you did on us?”

“Nemeta can be hidden by magic users,” Dafydd acknowledged, “but generally, they require a direct connection. The nemeton in this territory was bonded to the Hales; it would take a Hale formally ceding control of the territory and everything in it to Deaton for him to gain that sort of access. And if he had it, he would be able to draw on far more power than he’s so far displayed. That sort of power is impossible to disguise, at least when someone knows what to look for. He doesn’t have it.”

“Nemeta are capable of hiding themselves, aren’t they?” asked Amatia. “Could that be it?”

“It could be,” Dafydd admitted. “If that’s the case, then Laura, as the Hale alpha, should be able to locate it. But then any Hale should. Peter’s inability to find it is concerning, and I worry that Laura may have the same problem. For it to hide from any Hale is unusual, but given the history…perhaps, after the previous alpha chopped down the tree aspect, it has become wary. Have any of you had contact with it since then?”

Derek shifted uncomfortably. “I did.”

“What happened?” asked Dafydd. “Why were you there? Tell me all the details; you never know what might be important.”

Derek glanced almost furtively around at them all before staring at the ground. “My girlfriend, Paige, was bitten by a visiting alpha, and she rejected the bite…I tried to take her to safety, and we ended up by the tree stump.” He took a deep breath, letting it out slowly, eyes still on the ground. “She was in so much pain; when she asked me to make it quick, I did.”

“That was when your eyes changed colour,” Laura said with dawning understanding. “Oh, Der-bear, why didn’t you say?” She approached him like you might a frightened animal, drawing him into an embrace when he didn’t reject her offer of comfort.

Peter watched; his mouth twisted in a way Stiles couldn’t read.

“It was my fault in the first place,” said Derek miserably. “I was the one who told Ennis—”

“Wait, Ennis?” said Peter, spine going straight and eyes flashing blue. “Ennis Madden? I thought you were going to ask my sister. Why did you go to Ennis?”

“I-I don’t know,” said Derek. “I never got to ask her. He was there, and he seemed to know all about it, and then Paige was… I thought you’d arranged it.”

Peter stared at him. “And you still spoke with me afterwards?” He frowned. “But if Talia wasn’t part of it, when did she find out? When you arrived back at the house, blood on your claws and blue eyes?”

Derek nodded. “I told her everything, and she explained that because of my status, I wouldn’t be allowed to watch over the young ones, and I should make myself scarce for a time.”

“I thought you’d got in a fight and forgotten your strength,” said Laura, voice muffled into Derek’s shoulder. “I was waiting for you to want to talk about it; I never dreamed Mom told you to stay away from us.”

“What a cluster,” said Peter heavily.

Stiles looked away, trying to give them what privacy he could. His gaze landed on Dafydd, who seemed rather excited, almost like he was holding himself back from interrupting.

Nice of him to give the Hales some time, although it looked like it was a close call.

“So, what Derek told you is significant then?” Stiles asked Dafydd, hoping to distract him a little.

“It’s hard to know for sure,” Dafydd replied, “not until we find it, anyway. But I think there’s a solid chance that if Derek leads us in the search, we’ll have better luck.”

“You think that the nemeton would have looked on the girl’s death as a sacrifice?” asked Amatia, eyebrows high.

“I wouldn’t bet the house on it, but it feels right.”

“We’ll do that then,” said Laura, having released Derek and composed herself. “Should we all go, or just us Hales?”

Dafydd shrugged. “I don’t think it matters.”

“Stiles and I won’t be wandering around the Preserve at night unless it’s necessary,” said Noah firmly. When Stiles opened his mouth to object, he lifted a hand. “No, Stiles. There’s no sense in it. We should let the Hales go looking tonight, and then if they find it, we can go see it tomorrow when it’s light.”

“That’s a good plan,” said Master Chen. “Alpha Hale, if you find it—when you find it—don’t attempt to enter the basement. Wait until we can all be there.”

“I take it this means we don’t have to hide our presence in town anymore,” Laura asked.

“There’s still a nominal risk, but since Deaton has revealed himself to be the one with the blood spells on you, I believe you are safe enough.”

Laura turned to Noah. “In that case, rather than return to your place when we’re finished in the Preserve for the night, we’ll probably get a motel room.”

“If you’re sure,” said Noah. “You’re always welcome if you change your mind. Stiles, why don’t you give her your key? You can pick up the spare one when we get home.”

Laura smiled, accepting Stiles’ key and adding it to her keyring. “I’ll keep that in mind. To tell you the truth, we might take the opportunity to do a full territory survey, in which case we might not finish until near daybreak anyway.”

Noah raised his eyebrows. “Won’t that make you rather tired tomorrow?”

“We can handle a day or two without sleep before it becomes detrimental to our mental capabilities,” explained Peter, almost twitching with eagerness. “In fact, a good run will do more to relax me than a full night’s sleep.”

“Don’t push yourself too hard,” warned Stiles. “Remember that you’ve been stuck in that hospital for years. As willing as the spirit is, your body might not be ready for a full-on werewolf run.”

“I’ll be fine,” said Peter unconcernedly.

“Remember how you met him just a few days ago?” Noah reminded Stiles. “He was already running around at night on the full moon. If he’s been doing that all this time, I’m sure he won’t have any issues.”

“Besides,” said Laura, “we’ll be there to help him if he needs it.”

They all seemed convinced, so Stiles decided not to pursue the matter further. He looked at all of Deaton’s stuff that was still stacked up against the wall. “Should we take steps to secure this stuff? Just in case?”

“I don’t want to have it all in the house,” said Noah immediately. “If Deaton has set any kind of booby trap on his things, I don’t want our house to be exploded, or whatever.”

“I’ll place everything in a protective sphere,” Master Chen assured them. “It’s not something I can hold up indefinitely, but twenty-four hours oughtn’t to be any trouble.”

They arranged a time and place to meet again the next morning and then split up, the Hales to go werewolfing in the Preserve, the mages to go wherever it was they went, and Stiles and Noah back to a house that suddenly felt empty. It was similar to how it had felt just after Claudia’s death, only without the emotional agony component.

Stiles half expected his dad to take some food and disappear into his office, as had often been the routine over the last few years. Instead, Noah set up his laptop on the dining room table and worked through some of his paperwork while Stiles did a thorough inventory of their food stores.

He probably didn’t need to create a planogram that cross-referenced a spreadsheet for it, but about ten minutes into the project, he decided to completely rearrange where everything was kept for higher efficiency, and having everything documented was beneficial.

Thanks to Derek and Laura’s efforts the previous day, Stiles didn’t get distracted by the need to clean things. After he’d noted all their supplies, he managed to move everything to the new locations in only a couple of hours.

Noah didn’t even comment on his weird need to reorganise; he just asked him to print out an index and a copy of the planogram and stick them to the fridge so that he’d be able to find everything.

Stiles went upstairs that night feeling like he’d accomplished something.

v^v^v

Because of the planned early start, Stiles decided to get an early night. Given his lack of shut-eye over the last couple of days, he half expected to fall right asleep. Unfortunately, that wasn’t to be.

He was still wide awake, staring up at the ceiling with his mind whirling over everything that had happened since that fateful night he’d heard about half a dead body being found in the Preserve, when he heard Noah approaching. Stiles waited for him to open the door and poke his head in, but his father just stood outside for several long moments.

“Did you want something?” Stiles called, leaning up on his elbow. “Come on in; I’m not asleep yet.”

Light from the hallway spilled into the room as Noah opened the door. “I thought maybe we should talk,” he said, coming in and sitting on the edge of the bed.

Stiles shuffled over to make room for him. “Was there anything specific on your mind?’

Noah sighed. “I didn’t want to bring it up while we were sharing the house with werewolves who could hear everything we said, but how are you coping with Scott’s death?”

Stiles collapsed back against the pillows. “Ugh. I’ve been doing my best not to think about it.”

“Really?” Noah’s scepticism was evident in his voice. “That doesn’t sound like you.”

“I’ve been thinking around it,” Stiles explained. “I mean, I know it happened, but it’s like I partitioned my feelings about it away. I can feel them agitating away, but they’re not so intrusive that I have to deal with them to get stuff done.”

“That doesn’t sound healthy.”

“It probably isn’t. The thing is that I’m a bit worried about how badly I don’t feel. Whether or not my focus on him was manufactured, I’ve spent a lot of the last few years with him. We were fixtures in each other’s lives; we shared everything.” He remembered Scott’s obsession with Allison and amended, “Well, almost everything. Even if my need to be around him was imposed from outside, shouldn’t I care more?”

“I know what you mean,” said Noah. “I went from feeling like I needed to take care of him like he was my own son, to amazed at how fake it seemed in retrospect. And now, I’m ashamed about how little I cared for how it must have made you feel those times I gave him the attention you deserved. I know it’s not his fault, but I resent him for it anyway.”

Stiles felt some of his tension leave his body at hearing that he wasn’t the only one feeling that disconnect. “When I told you everything that had happened to me before I woke up in that fairy circle, I thought I was giving you a relatively unbiased account. That’s what I was trying to do, anyway. I wanted to make up for all the lies by not making myself sound better than I had been, you know?”

“I know.”

“But thinking about it now, even when I was being brutally honest about my own mistakes, I kept excusing Scott’s. You know, like how it wasn’t his fault he lost control on the lacrosse field because he never chose to be bitten, when in reality Derek had warned him, and he’d ignored that advice because he cared more about being a star than the possibility he might hurt people.”

“Hindsight is always 20/20,” Noah pointed out. “We have to remember that he is—was—an impulsive teenage boy, and we can’t expect measured adult decisions from him.”

“Maybe not,” replied Stiles, “but even at the time, I thought Derek had a point. I just didn’t think badly of Scott for disregarding it. And some of the other stuff he did…I told you about the thing with Gerard, right?”

“Which one?”

“The bit where he conspired with him to immobilise Derek and—”

“Yeah, you told me. But you also said that was one of Deaton’s plans, so can you really be sure Scott was doing that of his own free will? Maybe it was part of the spells Deaton was putting on him?”

“Is it bad that I hope so?” Stiles sighed. “How insane is it that I find myself hoping that a person—who I would have called my brother last week—had his autonomy stolen from him? How screwed up is this situation? And do you know the worst thing about it?”

“What?”

“I’m never going to find out if that awful act was something that Scott chose to do of his own free will, or not. I can’t ask Deaton because, for him, it hasn’t happened. And Scott’s dead, so I can’t even watch him to see what kind of person he turns out to be without Deaton’s influence.”

They were both silent for several long moments.

“Master Chen said you should listen to your instincts,” Noah reminded him. “What do they say about it?”

Stiles made a face. “I normally only rely on them like that when there’s a crisis. My first thought is that Scott was making his own decisions, albeit influenced by his obsession with Allison and his respect for Deaton. But I don’t know if that’s just the petty side of me that’s pissed off with him and so thinks the worst. I mean, did I tell you about how he kissed Lydia?”

“No…that didn’t come up.”

“I didn’t think it was relevant. But he did, and it pissed me off so much that I chained him up and threw lacrosse balls at his head in the name of ‘training.’ And that was when I was under a spell to like him.”

Noah chuckled. “Looks like that spell had to work overtime, then.”

“Or maybe it needed regular reinforcement or something. There were definitely times when I let my anger at Scott get to me more than others.”

There was another long silence. Stiles could tell his father had something else he wanted to say, but he wasn’t in a hurry to send him away. It was nice having this quiet talk in the dark, just the two of them. It reminded him of how things had been, back before…before his mom had started her headaches. 

Noah used to check on Stiles before turning in, and since Stiles had always had weird sleep patterns, sometimes he’d be awake, and they’d talk.

“Melissa called earlier,” said Noah finally. “Scott’s funeral is going to be on Thursday. She wanted to know if you wanted to give a speech or something.”

Stiles had forgotten that there would be a funeral. He’d been so switched off to the whole thing that he hadn’t even asked for details of the crash. “What actually happened? All I know is that Mr Lahey was drinking and ran a red, there was a crash, and Scott died. Was anyone else hurt? Is Isaac okay?”

“It was an eighteen-wheeler; everyone in the car died. Scott, Isaac and his father, and another kid they’d been playing laser tag with by the name of Greenburg.”

Stiles thought of Issac, how the bite had changed him and given him confidence. How he, Erica, and Boyd had gelled together as betas in their small pack. The thought that he wouldn’t get that now, that he’d never know what it was like to not be afraid of his father…it was awful.

And Greenburg! Not that Stiles knew him very well, but he’d always been there. A bit thick, but not mean or anything.

Now they were gone, all because Stiles decided to push Scott and Isaac together, like some sort of chess master, like someone with a Dumbledore complex. Peter was right; Stiles was manipulative, and his manipulations got people killed.

Except, it wasn’t like he could have predicted an eighteen-wheeler crashing into the car they were in. He’d been trying to do a good thing, to give Scott and Isaac a chance to become friends outside all the werewolf business, without hunters around to scare the shit out of everyone.

As callous as it sounded, having Scott out of the way permanently would make life easier since he no longer wanted to spend all his free time with him. The only problem Stiles had with it was that he didn’t want to be the kind of person who could just write off someone’s life like that.

“Is that a no on the funeral?” asked Noah.

Stiles blinked. He’d forgotten about the question. “I’m not going to give a speech,” he decided, “but I will go to the funeral. I’ll go to all of the funerals…except Mr Lahey’s, if it’s separate from Isaacs.”

Noah patted him on the shoulder. “I’ll call Melissa and let her know. Do you want to tell Laura we’ll be busy on Thursday at about eleven, or do you want me to do it?”

“I can do it,” said Stiles, reaching for his phone. “Thanks, Dad.”

“I’ll see you in the morning,” said Noah, getting up. He closed the door on the way out, leaving Stiles in the darkness.

Deciding against a phone call, Stiles sent Laura a quick text letting her know and then stuck his phone back on the charger.

Lying back again, he found that his thoughts were easier than they had been. While he still felt guilty about Scott, Isaac, and Greenberg, it wasn’t so much a lurking presence as an acknowledgement. Maybe he should ask Master Chen if he knew any supernaturally aware shrinks so he could get some therapy. This time around, he might even give it a real go rather than how he’d acted after his mom had died.

He rolled over, yawning, as he thought about the various questions he wanted to ask before meeting Anahera. He also needed to talk to the Hales about his plans to take off for a year or two. As the alpha, Laura should probably know, and Peter might know more about this Anahera person. Derek…well, Stiles would be lying if he said he didn’t find this quieter, more reflective version of Derek attractive.

More attractive than just his physical appearance, that was. Derek had always been almost supernaturally hot, but without the anger, fear and overwhelming grief that Stiles now knew he’d been carrying back in the past future, Stiles was starting to think he might be attracted to Derek as a person, too.

Derek still didn’t say much, but when he did talk, it tended to be pertinent. He’d yet to roll his eyes or openly ignore Stiles when he started babbling or went off on tangents, which was an ego boost for sure.

To be fair, neither Laura nor Peter had rolled their eyes at him or ignored him, but even as gorgeous as they both were—clearly the Hales had some excellent genes swimming around in their pool—Stiles didn’t find himself attracted to them much.

Which was nuts. Not so much Peter, who had been terrifying, but Laura was incredibly fit and beautiful. Yet Stiles didn’t find himself watching her surreptitiously from the corner of his eye like he did with Derek.

Stiles drifted off to sleep, still trying to figure out what it was about Derek that he found so fascinating.

v^v^v

Stiles woke to a hand on his shoulder, shaking him awake. His room was still dark, but there was a greyish tinge to the darkness that spoke of approaching dawn. “I’m awake,” he mumbled, throwing the covers off so he could swing his legs out. He sat up, yawning. “Times’it?”

“Just gone six,” said Noah. “Get dressed. I’ll have coffee ready when you come down.”

Downstairs, he discovered that the Hales were already there.

“I thought we were going to meet you at the entrance to the Preserve?” he asked, accepting the hot drink from his father.

“When we were done running the borders, we felt like we should come back here rather than go to a motel,” said Laura from her place stretched out on the couch. “We decided to take up Noah’s offer to crash here instead.”

Stiles glanced over to where his father’s lips were quirked faintly upwards. He remembered how empty the house had seemed to him the previous night and felt like he knew what his dad was feeling. “You guys are always welcome,” he said, knowing they would be able to tell that he meant it. He took a sip from his cup and raised his eyebrows. “In fact, if you bring coffee like this with you, I’ll practically beg you to move in!”

Peter’s smirk lacked the hard edge Stiles might once have expected. “Nice to know our good qualities are appreciated.” He lifted his own cup in a toast.

Derek was on the other couch, to all appearances, fast asleep. Stiles didn’t think he’d ever seen him off his guard enough—or maybe that was trusting enough—to sleep deeply enough to ignore someone looking at him. He hadn’t even woken when Stiles came in! It was such a contrast to the angry, growly man who’d rebuffed Stiles’ lame attempts at alliance even while they’d both been in danger of drowning that Stiles stopped to savour the moment for what it represented.

“Did you find the nemeton?” he asked, turning back to Laura.

She nodded, eyes closed. “We wandered around aimlessly for a bit without any sign of it, so we decided to run the borders first. Once we’d done that, it was like things clicked into place. We knew where we had to go.”

Stiles took a longer sip, turning that over in his mind. “You think maybe the nemeton wanted you to show some kind of sign that you’re going to resume your duties to the territory before allowing itself to be found?”

“How should I know?” asked Laura. “I’m not the expert on nemetons. It sort of makes sense, although I’m not sure how I feel about a tree with that much sapience at the centre of our territory.”

“Think of how the tree feels,” Stiles replied. “At least you have the option of packing up and leaving if you find the situation not to your liking. What choices does the tree have?”

Laura opened her eyes and looked at him consideringly. “You have a point,” she said after several moments had elapsed. “It would make for an anxious bargaining position.”

“Especially since our pack has already defaulted on the previous bargain,” Peter murmured, his expression serious. “We should be prepared to make concessions.”

Laura frowned but didn’t respond.

“The same way you’d want the Argents to make concessions if they showed up wanting to renew the treaty,” Stiles said, “with maybe an acknowledgement of fault.”

Peter snorted. “The Argents would never agree to reduce their power or to officially recognise that they did anything wrong. We’d be lucky to get them to admit they were involved at all.”

“Exactly the point my son was making,” said Noah softly. “We do want to be better than them, right?”

Laura sighed but nodded. “It goes against the grain to admit to being at fault, especially to a tree. But our honour is more important than our pride.”

“Or maybe honour is something to be proud of,” Noah suggested. “Only a deluded fool thinks no one makes mistakes; true strength is being able to admit them and then moving on.”

“Plus, if it comes down to a pack negotiation, we can argue mitigating circumstances,” Peter reminded her. “Both the unauthorised hunter attack and whatever Deaton was doing are serious threats. Dealing with even one would be tough, but we had them both simultaneously! And we prevailed. Although our pack was sorely tested, we did survive.” His expression softened. “This might be the toughest storm in our history, but I’d defy any other pack to weather it better.”

Derek spoke up from his couch, having woken at some point while Peter spoke. “I know you feel like everything since the fire is on you, but it’s not. It wasn’t you who chose to give a shady druid access to our blood; it wasn’t you who allowed your fear to influence your choices and maybe doom our pack.”

Laura rolled her eyes, but she was smiling. “Enough of the pep talk already. I said that I’ll be appropriately repentant when it comes to negotiations, didn’t I?”

Derek snorted, breaking the solemn mood. “Maybe, but I’ve seen your attempts at contrition. Remember how you told Dad you were sorry for crashing his car?”

Laura sat up so that she could put her hands on her hips. “It wasn’t my fault! It was like that deer was committing suicide!”

Peter put on a puzzled expression, rubbing his chin. “I’m sorry, are we remembering the same incident? The one where you ignored Max telling you that you weren’t ready to drive without an instructor, took his keys while he was working on Cora’s treehouse and essentially stole his car?”

“And when he insisted on an apology, you said something about how it was his own fault for not letting you have the car when you wanted it, that it would have resulted in you travelling down that road at a different time, and thus there wouldn’t have been an accident.”

Laura glared at her brother. “So? It was true! And I did say I was sorry.”

“‘I’m sorry, but…’ doesn’t actually make you sound sorry at all,” Peter pointed out. “It’s almost as bad as something like, ‘I’m sorry you were upset at your car being totalled,’ which isn’t an apology at all.”

“Okay, okay, I get it. I’ll do better when I apologise to the magic tree.” Laura got to her feet and straightened her clothes. “Come on, we should make tracks if we want to meet Master Chen and the others on time.”

Chapter ten

It was weird, traipsing through the Preserve in such a large group. The closest thing Stiles had to a comparison was when a bunch of them got together to kill Peter Hale and Kate Argent. Even then, they didn’t arrive together, and they certainly didn’t leave together.

Stiles idly wondered where Kate Argent was, what she was doing. Was she, right at that moment, doing to another blameless pack what she’d done to the Hales? Back when he’d realised just what she’d done, he’d started researching her movements since leaving Beacon Hills, hoping to find something that might be actionable in a mundane court, but once she died, he’d put that aside in favour of other, more immediately necessary tasks. He’d always meant to pick it up again, but there had always been more urgent, immediate concerns, and he’d never got around to it.

It was all very well for Noah to plan a prosecution; the Argents were exceptionally slippery fish, or they wouldn’t still be operating all these years into the information era. Either someone was greasing their way, or they were more adept at staying under the radar than their actions in Beacon Hills had indicated.

Stiles knew which one he’d put money on.

“What are you focused so intently on?” Noah asked, moving up to walk beside him.

There wasn’t any reason to prevaricate, so Stiles told him.

Noah sighed. “I haven’t heard back from Hepler yet. Normally, she gets back to me within a day or two. I feel like this much longer wait will mean we’re either inundated with information, or there won’t be any at all.”

“If the Hales can trigger Council involvement, then maybe your investigation won’t be needed.”

“Won’t stop me doing it. You’ve convinced me that the Argents don’t restrict their crimes solely to the supernatural members of society; there’ll be purely mundane laws they’ll have broken, too.”

Stiles nodded in agreement. “Yeah, none of them seemed particularly law-abiding. Which…” He sighed. “I’m not so hypocritical that I won’t acknowledge I tend to be more concerned with getting things done than the letter of the law. I just feel like it’s less bad when I do it because I’m not going out intending to hurt or kill people.” He made a face. “Except that one time with Peter.”

“Sometimes I lose sight of the crazy stuff you’ve been through,” said Noah ruefully. “I start thinking I’m doing this all wrong, and I shouldn’t let you be part of this madness. Then you come out with comments like that, and I’m reminded all over again.”

“It’s a bit weird for me to have you along,” Stiles admitted. “I spent so much of my time and energy ensuring you never found out. I sometimes catch sight of you standing near Derek, and I have to stop myself from panicking.”

“We’re a right pair, aren’t we?”

“Wouldn’t want to be anyone else,” said Stiles. A strange feeling, like an itch behind his eyes, caught his attention for a moment, but when he tried to concentrate on it, it faded.

“Not much further,” said Derek from his place out front.

They all quickened their steps and soon arrived in a clearing with a massive tree stump at its centre.

“It really was a massive tree,” Stiles observed. “I wonder how tall it was?”

“It was wide, rather than tall,” said Peter, frowning. “The size of the clearing gives you an indication of its girth; the canopy was complete.”

“Where’s the basement entrance?” asked Noah.

“It’s around here,” Derek indicated a spot on the other side. “It’s concealed well by the roots, and we cleared some loose dirt and stuff off it earlier.”

Dafydd ignored them, his whole attention on the remains of the tree. He even reached out as if to touch it before drawing his hand back. “There’s something wrong with her,” he murmured, closing his eyes. His brow furrowed as he tilted his head, as though listening to something only he could hear. “She can’t heal; something is draining her.”

“Let us not linger, then,” said Master Chen briskly. “Alpha Hale, would you do the honours?”

But the doors wouldn’t open for her.

“Maybe this is another thing only Derek is allowed to do,” said Laura, standing back and gesturing for Derek to take a turn.

Sure enough, Derek was able to open it with no trouble.

“I think we all know who the nemeton’s pet is,” said Laura, more amused than annoyed. “You’d better lead the way inside then.”

Noah stepped back. “I’ll leave this to the experts.” He pulled his phone out of his pocket and opened the messenger app, starting to poke out a message with a stabbing index finger.

As much as he wanted to see what was down there, Stiles felt like it would be rude to poke into the Hale’s private space like that. Amatia seemed to have the same idea; she joined him in watching Dafydd’s attempts at communication with a tree stump.

“You know, not all that long ago, I would have dismissed him as crazy for acting like that,” he said to her, not really expecting an answer. Amatia had been reticent since they’d met and typically ignored his conversational overtures.

“You would have been in good company,” she replied, surprising him. “Even for mages, Dafydd is considered odd.”

“Oh?” Stiles hoped she’d extrapolate, give him some inside information that might come in handy when he found himself immersed in yet another closed society as a Johnny-come-lately.

Unfortunately, Amatia didn’t seem inclined to make things easy for him and just smiled.

“Is it the talking to trees thing, or something else?” Stiles prompted.

Amatia shrugged. “I’m not sure. The senior masters watch him, though, when he’s nearby.”

“He is quite good-looking,” Stiles pointed out.

“Thank you,” said Dafydd, giving Stiles a start. He’d thought the man was wholly engrossed in whatever he was doing.

“No need to thank me,” he replied, wishing he didn’t blush so easily. “You can hardly be held responsible for an accident of birth.” At least he was less obnoxious about it than Jackson, but then that wasn’t hard.

“To answer the question you’re no doubt dying to ask, my mastery submission made some waves. The Council wasn’t sure whether they should elevate me to their ranks or imprison me. The voting details are confidential, but I have been reliably informed that it could have gone either way. My saving grace was that I’d ensured several of the sitting members were well enough informed about the scope and structure of my project that there would be something to counter the fear-mongers amongst them.”

“What was your project on?” Stiles asked, dying to know.

Dafydd smirked. “Classified. The Council has commissioned deeper study before they allow me to release my findings to a wider audience. That’s when I’ll find out if my application was successful.”

Stiles narrowed his eyes. “You did that on purpose.”

Dafydd’s smirk deepened. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“I don’t even need to be a werewolf with freaky lie detector powers to know that you’re lying out your ass.”

“I doubt you can prove it, though.”

“Stiles,” Noah said warningly, still poking at his phone. “Let’s remember our manners, shall we?”

Stiles rolled his eyes but didn’t argue. 

“What are you looking at?” Derek asked from behind him.

Stiles turned, surprised that they would be finished so soon. The four who’d entered the cellar looked physically fine but were visibly rattled by something.

Master Chen held a dusty glass jar as if he feared it might explode.

“What’s with the jar?” Noah asked, even as Stiles opened his mouth to ask the same question.

“Something that complicates matters,” said Master Chen mysteriously. He directed his following comment at Dafydd. “Someone had improperly stored a chaos entity in the cellar, using the nemeton as a suppressor without performing any of the required rituals.”

Dafydd’s eyes glowed, and his hair stood on end, ruining the casually tousled look he’d been wearing. “What kind of chaos entity?”

“I can’t tell without opening the jar, which would free it,” said Master Chen. “As it is, I had to reinforce the glass before picking it up; much longer, and it might have broken free on its own.”

“Was this another failure of the Hale pack?” asked Dafydd, back rigid with tension.

“I doubt it,” said Master Chen. “Alpha Hale, what do you know about using your pack magic against malevolent beings?”

Laura frowned, exchanging a glance with Peter. “My education was interrupted,” she replied cautiously. “I never learned everything I should have. From what I remember, invoking the power of the pack and the territory requires either a bite or using the alpha’s claws, depending on the situation. If the threat is non-corporeal, it can be temporarily contained in one of several wooden containers we have specifically for that purpose; I saw two still in the vault. In that case, the alpha has to draw a specific symbol on the outside of the container with her claws before hiring a disposal expert.”

Dafydd nodded, his posture softening. “So, someone outside the pack took advantage of the nemeton’s proximity. Either they were a trusted ally, or maybe…” His eyes grew glazed and distant. Combined with his new hairstyle, he looked well and truly crazy.

Stiles looked sideways at Amatia. Their eyes met, and then they were both trying to stifle laughter.

Noah sighed but didn’t say anything.

Master Chen ignored them. “Mr Evans, would an improperly contained chaos entity be enough of a drain on the nemeton to account for the damage you’ve observed?”

“What?” Dafydd blinked, his expression sharpening. Yes, it might. Possibly not all of it, but with the nemeton in a suboptimal state, it would be easier to…huh. Perhaps Alpha Hale could feel a sense of wrongness. It might have been a contributing factor to her decision to cut down the physical aspect.”

“It’s something to look into,” said Laura.

“Did you find what you went down there for?” asked Stiles since he couldn’t see them carrying anything like a book.

“No,” said Derek grumpily. “It wasn’t there. Master Chen said someone else might have moved it, or maybe we asked the wrong question. There were other books, just not that one.”

“I don’t know how someone could have moved it,” said Stiles. “The nemeton was hiding. As far as we know, the last time anyone was down here was before the fire. Does that mean Deaton has been coping without his grimoire all this time? Or would he have two copies? And what was that about the wrong questions?”

“Beats me,” said Derek. “I’m not the expert on grimoires, and the questions seemed airtight to me. I don’t know how much interpretation there is to ‘Is your grimoire stashed underneath the stump of a magical tree.’”

“I guess we made a mistake, although I’m unsure how. Maybe Master Chen will have some idea.” Stiles raised his voice and repeated the questions to the leader of their little group of mages.

“It’s possible,” admitted Master Chen. “It’s unusual for a magic user to keep their most prized spells in more than one volume; the increased chances of it being found and misused are more than most mages are prepared to face. On the other hand, if he’d prepared for being questioned about its location in advance, it would have been easy enough to compile any number of tomes containing moderately rare and useful spells, name them grimoires, and hide them in various places so that he could give honest but misleading answers.”

“If that’s the case, I don’t know whether to be annoyed or impressed with his levels of paranoia,” Stiles muttered.

“Why not both?” Derek answered. He raised his voice slightly. “I have a suggestion. Maybe we should stop telling Stiles that he’s over-preparing; if he’d been allowed to ask all the clarifying questions he’d wanted to, we might not have found ourselves in this situation.”

Stiles felt his face heat with a sort of pleased embarrassment. As much as he wanted to be taken seriously and have his instincts respected, the fact that it was Derek who was advocating on his behalf made getting that recognition so much better.

Derek, whose trust had been so hard to win, who’d been so determined to keep everyone at a distance that he’d slapped Stiles down every time it looked like working together might be the best way forward.

Derek, who’d spent so much time focusing on Scott that Stiles had felt nearly invisible beside him.

Sure, he knew that this was a different situation. Although this Derek had been through some hard stuff, he hadn’t quite been through the blender as much as that other Derek had been. It still felt like a triumph, though, like he’d won a prize in a competition he’d forgotten he even entered.

Feeling brave, Stiles fell in beside Derek on their way out of the Preserve, engaging him in a conversation about whether or not Gandalf could have just asked the eagles to fly Frodo to Mordor.

The vehicles were in sight when Master Chen stopped in his tracks.

Stiles was instantly alert, letting his gaze sweep the area around them for a possible threat, even as he stepped closer to his father.

“What is it?” asked Laura sharply.

“My wards were broken,” said Master Chen, eyes gleaming. “Good, that means someone has taken the bait.”

Bait? Stiles felt off balance. He didn’t know that there was going to be bait. For what? For whom?

“What bait?” Laura asked, with a growling subvocalisation under the words that Stiles remembered from the day they’d met.

Master Chen met her eyes square on without any signs of trepidation or remorse. “Why, Mr Deaton, of course.”

Peter’s growl was less subvocal, more extremely vocal. “He’s escaped?”

Stiles exchanged glances with Derek. It was the most this Peter had sounded like the old Peter that Stiles had helped catch on fire, which worried him slightly.

On the other hand, the thought of Deaton on the loose and with a grudge against them wasn’t a happy thought. Master Chen’s lack of surprise was telling, and his appearance of satisfaction could have several possible interpretations, none of which Stiles liked.

“That would depend on your interpretation of the word,” Master Chen told Peter. “It would be more accurate to say that he is no longer where we put him yesterday.”

“You don’t sound particularly worried,” said Noah, saying what Stiles was thinking.

Master Chen’s smile was enigmatic. “Let us say that I left what might have looked like an exploitable opening in the prison we created yesterday, hoping to flush out any accomplices he might have in the area. Don’t be concerned; they won’t get far.”

“I’m concerned that you took these steps without consulting me, your employer,” said Laura, eyes hard. “Is the agreement we signed worth the paper it’s written on? Are you even still working for us?”

“The situation with Mr Deaton falls under one of the sub-clauses in the contract, allowing me to take independent action without notifying you, so long as it doesn’t directly conflict with your stated goals.”

“That sub-clause only activates when you receive official instructions from the Council,” said Peter, blue eyes and fangs on show. “I thought you said their hands were tied.”

“They were,” said Dafydd, also looking at Master Chen with suspicion. “The presence of an unshackled chaos entity so close to a damaged nemeton would be grounds for an exception, but we didn’t know about that until today. The nemeton was hiding, so the only way you could know it was here would be if you already knew, perhaps if you’d been here before. But that doesn’t make sense; if the Council knew about this, surely something would have been done years ago.”

Master Chen shook his head. “I had no knowledge of this place prior to being contacted by Alpha Laura Hale last week. The little knowledge I arrived here with resulted from the usual research undertaken before sitting down to work out a contract.”

“So where does the Council come in?” Dafydd persisted. “How could they make a ruling before you even gave your report? And they must have contacted you several days ago, at least.

Master Chen nodded imperturbably. “Come now, Mr Evans. You are familiar enough with Council guidelines to remember the acknowledged exceptions.”

Dafydd rolled his eyes. “Of course. Should the Council be presented with compelling evidence of a stage five or above threat, all strictures and regulations surrounding requirements for intervention are relaxed until the crisis is over or at least contained. I agree that the situation here might qualify, but as I already said, we didn’t know that until today. Which means at the time of action, you were acting outside your remit with no logical reason.”

“Unless the Oracle spoke,” blurted Amatia, eyes wide. “But that hasn’t happened since the nineteen forties.”

“I can neither confirm nor deny,” Master Chen replied with an amused twitch of his lips. “As a Council operative, I am under confidentiality constraints.”

“Wait a minute,” said Stiles, raising a hand. “I just came back in time a year, and nothing like this happened last time. If Deaton is a part of whatever apocalyptic event this Oracle foresaw, then why wasn’t he taken care of in the other timeline?”

“Come on, Stiles, you know better than this,” said Noah before Master Chen could reply. “Timelines aren’t static, and you’ve made several changes. Even a small change could have impactful consequences, and unless you’re hiding a connection to an omnipotent being, we have no way to know the full repercussions.”

“It could be as simple as a council member confiding in the wrong kind of person,” noted Master Chen. “You said it yourself; in the previous timeline, this situation didn’t come to the Council’s attention. It could even be directly related to the chaos entity itself.”

Stiles sighed. “Yeah, I suppose you’re right. I can’t help but feel that this is another thing that’s my fault.”

“Assigning blame in such a fashion is both unhelpful and inaccurate,” said Master Chen. “If you slip and fall on an ice-covered road, breaking your ankle, do you blame Adolf Hitler for his invasion of Poland? It could be argued that without the Second World War, your forebears may not have immigrated. Therefore, you would not have been at the specific location to slip and injure yourself at that time.”

“I know. I can understand the logic, but my feelings don’t care squat for logic.”

“That will come with time, so long as you don’t try to wallow in semi-narcissistic guilt.”

Stiles was offended. Trying to take responsibility for his choices wasn’t narcissistic, was it?

“Come on,” said Laura, patting him on the back as she walked past on her way to the Jeep, Peter at her side. “We can discuss how we’ll deal with Deaton when we get back home.”

“Your part in apprehending Alan Deaton is over,” Master Chen disagreed, stopping her in her tracks. “As much as you wish him to answer to pack justice, the Council has jurisdiction. Until he has been caught and any accomplices rounded up, his fate is out of your hands.”

“You mean we might never find out just what he did to us?” asked Peter, scowling. He’d stopped with Laura, turned on his heel, and stepped back in a blatantly protective manner.

“As it was your action that brought this matter to light, justice for your pack will be secondary only to the Council’s need to safeguard our domain. If any other malfeasance is discovered in the course of this investigation, those affected will have to wait until you have wrung what you need from him before getting their own damages or redress.”

“I want to take another look at that contract,” Peter said to Laura, frown still firmly in place. “I can’t remember the exact wording, and we may be due a refund. If the Council wants to take over the hunt we already paid for, let them foot the bill.”

“Just make sure that asking for a refund doesn’t invalidate our rights to Deaton once he’s caught,” suggested Stiles. “Hey, maybe we should look on it as a good thing. We won’t have to take any more risks, and now we can concentrate on ensuring the Argents get what’s coming to them.”

Peter’s dark scowl morphed into a sinister smirk. “Yes. There is that.”

“With the chaos entity removed from the territory, you’ll be able to reconnect with the nemeton and start building proper protections again,” noted Dafydd. “I would be willing to offer the use of my expertise in exchange for an opportunity to perform some location-specific research on the situation.”

Laura pursed her lips. “Thank you for your offer; my pack and I need to talk it over. Do you have a copy of the kind of contract you had in mind? I think we’d all like to review it before making any decisions.”

“Naturally. I’ll get a copy to you ASAP.”

Laura nodded. “Alright then. Master Chen, do you still consider yourself under contract to us at all?”

Master Chen tilted his head slightly as he considered that. “It could be argued that, with the nemeton problem solved and the Council taking care of Alan Deaton and any accomplices, my obligations to you are at an end. However, in light of how the situation with the Council soured matters, I would be willing to offer my assistance—in a limited manner—when you make your move on the Argents. Providing defensive measures, rather than offensive ones.”

“You’re that sure that Deaton or his cronies won’t find a way to attack us before the Council gets hold of them.” Peter didn’t sound convinced.

Stiles felt dubious about it himself. In his recent experience, just expecting the best outcome was a good way to wind up in the shit.

Master Chen sighed. “Would you accept Mr Evans’ presence as a substitute, at least until they are in official custody?” Stiles couldn’t help but notice that he didn’t even look at Dafydd to check if he was okay with that.

Stiles was starting to wonder if taking Master Chen’s advice about his upcoming training was a good idea.

As if he could hear Stiles’ thoughts, Master Chen turned to him. “As for you, Mr Stilinski, the meeting I arranged for you a week from Friday will still go ahead. I will arrive at your door at 4:30 am to transport you and any two companions you would like to bring.”

Laura frowned. Before she could say anything, Stiles hurried to explain. “I haven’t made a contract yet; this meeting is an interview for a prospective stint as an apprentice. Dad will come with me, and I thought you or Peter could join us for negotiations. Your choice. I wasn’t keeping it a secret; I just thought it would be better to get this,” he made a sweeping gesture that he hoped conveyed an impression of the crap they’d been dealing with over the last few days, ‘sorted out first.”

Laura nodded. “We can talk about it later.” She pursed her lips. “We should get back to the bank. Did Deaton manage to take the stuff we’d taken from him back?”

“That protection spell is intact,” Master Chen assured her. “I chose a sphere for its lack of weak points, and I have remained connected to it since I cast it.” He paused. “You may also be pleased to hear that Council representatives moved in overnight to secure Mr Deaton’s listed residence and the vet clinic. Although his magical items will be removed, once they have been inspected and all contraband confiscated, they will be returned to you, or your nominated representative.” His glance at Stiles wasn’t subtle.

Laura still didn’t look happy. “Let’s just get back there. We should move everything from the bank; maybe it would be a good idea to store everything in the vault until we have time to deal with it.” She glanced around. “Derek, you and Amatia should travel with Noah and Stiles. Peter and I will go with Master Chen and Dafydd.”

Stiles winced. That was going to be a bit of a squeeze, but he didn’t want to be the one to argue with her. He let Amatia sit up front with his dad and got into the back with Derek.

When they got to the bank, everything was as Master Chen had said it would be. At Laura’s insistence, they didn’t waste any time packing the jeep back up again. This time, Laura took only Peter with her, leaving the rest of them to wait at the bank.

“She’s really pissed off with you,” Stiles said to Master Chen once they’d gone. “I can’t say I blame her, either.”

“We all have our leashes, Mr Stilinski,” Master Chen replied. “Some of us have more than others. I don’t have many oaths that bind me, but those that do bind me fast.”

“What can you tell us about this Oracle?” asked Noah. “I’m a bit confused at how quickly everything changed just on their word.”

“The Oracle is an ancient artefact,” Dafydd explained, lounging carelessly in one of the folding chairs. “There are a lot of theories surrounding its provenance, but the truth is no one knows for sure which one is right, if any of them are. Or maybe someone does, but there’s no proof favouring one theory over another.”

“It doesn’t speak often,” said Amatia. “When it does, it’s always a warning. There have only been a few known instances of the Council ignoring a warning from the Oracle, and they all resulted in huge numbers of deaths, destruction of magically rich locations, or both.”

“The Black Death,” Dafydd said gravely. “Before that, the loss of Pompeii. For the Oracle to speak about the situation here means it was significant.”

“We don’t know for sure it did,” Stiles reminded them. “I know Master Chen let the subtext speak for him, but he never actually said anything. It could just be a clever bluff to get us to stop asking questions he didn’t want to answer.”

They sat in silence for a minute or two.

“Does anyone else feel like that was a bit anticlimactic?” Stiles asked when the silence started grating on him. “I feel like any minute now, the other shoe is going to drop. Could it be that easy? Are the magical police going to make him go away? Without a big showdown where everyone makes grand, self-important speeches or has life-altering epiphanies? What if the Council turns out to be like the Argents? They were all full of promises of how they were going to keep everyone safe, but the reality was quite the opposite.”

“The Council isn’t generally known for its swift movement,” Dafydd replied. “Complaints about the Council tend to revolve around their inaction rather than them throwing their weight around. Probably because most mages that reach their mastery care more about magic than being a glorified school monitor. Seeing them move this fast is quite astonishing, and that’s why I think Amatia was right when she suggested it was the Oracle that prompted them.”

“Do you really think the Council can’t be trusted?” Derek asked seriously.

“No,” Stiles replied, “at least it’s not a gut feeling, if that’s what you mean.” He sighed. “I suppose we can at least pat ourselves on the back that our plan would have worked if Master Chen hadn’t been sidelining for the Council.”

“I am still here,” Master Chen pointed out.

“Yes, but you’re not answering our questions,” Stiles replied. He stretched and got to his feet. “Come on, we should get this place cleared up since it seems like we won’t be using it anymore.”

“It’s a good, solid building,” said Dafydd reflectively. “Useful. It might be a good idea to keep it as a backup location.”

“I think we need a home base before we can assign a backup,” said Stiles. “Come on, Sourwolf, help me with this coffee machine. I personally don’t want to face Peter’s wrath if we damage it in the move.”

It didn’t take long to load everything they’d bought with them into the cruiser. They left the folding chairs for last, since they wanted something to sit on while they waited. Then, after checking with Master Chen to ensure it was okay, Stiles went back and unpacked the vinegar and the scrubbing brush and set to cleaning up the circle Deaton had escaped from.

Derek watched him doing it for three whole minutes before offering to do it for him. Once Stiles was persuaded to hand over the scrubbing brush, it went much faster.

“This was a side of werewolves I didn’t know about until recently,” Stiles said to Noah as he admired Derek’s swift, economical motions.

Derek was finishing up when Laura and Peter arrived back.

“It looks like we’re all done here, then,” said Peter, having checked they’d packed up properly. “Good work.”

Master Chen inclined his head. “Then it might be time for us to take our leave. Was there something you wished to say, Alpha Hale?”

Laura got straight to the point. “I’m worried about your ongoing connection with Stiles. I feel like you haven’t dealt with us honestly, Master Chen, so I’m struggling to see why I should continue to entrust any members of my pack to your guidance.”

“That’s your prerogative,” Master Chen said evenly. “You have my contact details. If you decide to cancel the interview I’ve arranged, please let me know within a week. Amatia, Mr Evans, are you ready to depart?”

Amatia rose to her feet and gave Laura a half bow. “It was good to meet you, Alpha Hale, I wish you and your pack the best.”

Laura nodded back. “Thank you, Apprentice Amatia. Best wishes for your studies.”

Dafydd stayed where he was. “You can go on without me, old man. I have my own arrangements to make.”

“As you wish.”

Dafydd waited until they’d gone before getting out of his chair. “Alpha Hale, I just wanted to clarify that while Master Chen is a respected mentor and colleague, I no longer answer to him. Please don’t disregard my offer of services in a desire to remove his influence from your territory. If you desired it, I would swear a binding oath not to discuss anything related to your pack or territory with him.”

“Thank you,” said Laura. “I’ll keep that in mind when I make my decisions. Could you give us a few hours to discuss things as a pack? I’ll get back to you later today.”

Dafydd agreed and took his leave, leaving the Hale pack alone.

Stiles took a deep breath. It seemed like a lot had happened since they’d left the house, yet it wasn’t even midday.

Laura glanced around, touching gazes with all her pack members. “Now that we have some privacy, there are some things to be decided. We need to prioritise getting a new pack house, something with enough room for all of us and far enough away from neighbours that we don’t have to be on edge trying to be normal all the time. Preferably with some outbuildings we can set protections around; that way, we can store anything volatile away from the house. 

“Noah, Stiles, I’d like you to research what’s available. Derek, you know the sort of thing we need; I’d like you to stay and help them.”

“And me?” asked Peter, eyebrow raised.

“I want you to come with me to New York. I’ll talk to Dafydd about getting a rush job on an updated ID for you; he must know who the Council uses for that. Hopefully, we can get that done today.”

Both of Peter’s eyebrows went high on his forehead. “Why, exactly, do you need me in New York?”

“Because that’s where our lawyers and accountants are,” said Laura grimly. “Now that I’m thinking clearly, I know we’ve got some problems. You were always the best at dealing with that sort of thing.” She paused. “Unless you’d prefer to stay back here. I won’t take you to New York if you really don’t want to go.”

“No, no, I’d be delighted,” said Peter. “Are we leaving Derek here because he’s the nemeton’s favourite, or for another reason?”

Laura nodded. “Yes.” She smirked. “It’s not nearly as much fun when someone does it to you, is it? But yes, both of those reasons.” She raised an eyebrow at Derek. “Unless you want to go back?”

Derek instantly shook his head.

“I didn’t think so.” Once, Laura clapped her hands together, a percussive statement that the conversation was over. “Let’s all get some lunch. Is the all-you-can-eat pizza buffet still open on Main Street?”

“They went under a year ago,” said Noah, with a guilty glance at Stiles. “There’s an all-you-can-eat burger joint on Pine that isn’t bad.”

“Then let’s go,” said Laura. She threw Stiles’ keys back at him. “You know, I’m getting quite fond of your jeep.”

“She’s a valiant lady,” said Stiles, folding his chair and carrying it with him. “She’s always done me proud.”

“Then we’ll take care of her,” Laura promised, resting her hand on his shoulder. “That’s what we do with pack.”

As they locked the door behind them, Stiles finally allowed himself to hope that things really were going to be better.