“Why?” I asked, my voice turning sharp at the mention of Mason.
“Well… His pack often meets on the top floor of the library, and he should know. Just in case anything happens, you know?”
“What exactly do you think he’ll do?”
June frowned, laughing. “What’llMasondo? Bryce he’s a good guy. He literally saves lives for a living.”
Yet he wrecked mine.
I winced, knowing I couldn’t get defensive at everybody’s opinion of him when I had never told anyone the full, true story. Still, my knowledge of him was seven years old, but I stubbornly refused to relearn him and had actively avoided him for the last day.
“I doubt he’s changed a lot,” I muttered.
“He has,” June said. “He’s a lot different than when we were younger.” She fixed me with a raised brow, atold-you-solook that I chose to ignore.
“It’s whatever. I’m over him. I don’t care if he’s a good guy or not.”
“There you go, sounding like you’re seventeen all over again. You said that exact same thing when I cornered you at our high school yearbook meeting, asking if you liked him because you’d dedicated a whole page to him, and a small corner to hispack.It’s whatever. I don’t even like him. I don’t care if he gets attention in the yearbook.Those exact words.”
I laughed, defensive. “There is no way I said that!”
“Yousodid, and you know what? Within a week, you couldn’t shut up about him.”
“Well, maybe if Ihadshut up about him, I wouldn’t have…” I trailed off. “You know.”
Gotten my heart broken. Had to leave town. Raised his child without his knowledge.
“I know,” June said, falling quiet for a moment, but then her eyes lifted to Cassie. “Hey, Cassandra, what’re you drawing over there?”
“You can call me Cassie,” my daughter told June, speaking very matter-of-factly. I smirked at my friend, who only blinked in surprise. “And I’m drawing the hero who saved us.”
She handed over her paper, and I bit back a gasp. In my seven-year-old’s artistic hand, I saw the ifrit from my cottage fighting with Mason. He was on his hind legs, front paws stretched out in a swipe, fighting the creature fearlessly. The wolf’s muzzle was bared, and Cassie only looked at me.
“You liked that part, huh?” I asked her, a weight settling in my stomach. For all the ways I had tried to protect Cassie from evil, she had enjoyed the fight the most. Part of me hoped it was because there had been magic—albeit dark magic—involved, and not because she felt a connection to Mason as her father.
“Yeah! The wolf wasso cool! And then he was a human!”
I couldn’t yet tell her that one day she would have the same abilities, and definitely not in front of June. One shifter parent had a good chance but never a certain chance.
“He fought the scary thing with the fire,” Cassie mumbled, taking back her artwork.
“I’ll bet he did,” June said. “You know what else he fights?Fire. He’s in charge around here, so not only was he your mom’s and your hero, but so many others, too.”
I threw a glare at my friend. I didn’t need Cassie getting high hopes about Mason. I’d skipped town to have her avoid that disappointment of who he was, and the things he’d never do for her.
But as I was about to ask June not to tell Cassie things about Mason that way, a shadow fell across the window. I was moving back instantly, my hand reaching for my daughter.
“Cass,” I said, my voice firm. “Get behind me.”
It was as if she had summoned the ifrit from her drawing, and my hands shook, my eyes trained on the window.
“What—” June’s question trailed off as another shadow crossed the window. And then she was up, rushing over.
“June!” I called out, my hand throwing out to her.
“I have to see,” she said, but her voice shook. Her curiosity won over her fear, but her fingertips were white where she gripped the windowsill. Craning her head, June looked. I clung to Cassie tighter, but she didn’t look phased. She only peered up at me, entirely calm, unlike how she had been with the ifrit in White Bay.
“There’s nothing there,” June said. “It was probably just the wind.”
