“Like an actualcursecurse?”
“I think so. Same as vampires, if I recall correctly. All down to the bloody witches.”
“You ever met any of them?”
“Just one. She helped with something in the pack a while back, when I was a kid. She came along, said a bunch of incomprehensible words, and the issue got sorted.” Quin had a pensive look on his face.
“Interesting,” Kit said. “Conroy—the St Andrews territory leader—has a couple on retainer, but I’ve not met them. They’re even rarer than the rest of us.”
“That would be down to your lot,” Quin said.
“How so?”
“Rumour has it, the vampires took revenge on the witches centuries ago. Engineered the witch-trials and all that malarkey. It all but wiped them out.”
Kit raised his eyebrows. Lawrence had always kept him in the dark about much of their people’s history and traditions, but it was embarrassing to be schooled by a werewolf.
“I suppose,” Kit said, wrestling back control of the conversation, “that given the witches cursed us to be unable to walk in the sun, and for you to be slaves to the moon, they were asking for it.”
“Who hasn’t cursed a person or two in their lifetime?” Quin asked with a wry smile. “Hardly warrants you vampires taking revenge like that.”
“I genuinely can’t tell if you’re kidding,” Kit said.
Quin shrugged. “Guess you’ll never find out.”
Kit wrinkled his nose. “I want to know where you stand on the issue of justifiable mass murder.”
Quin chuckled. “Fine. Overall, against. But also,” he drew out the word to last several beats before continuing, “can kinda see where they were coming from.”
“Play stupid games, win stupid prizes,” Kit pronounced.
“Just how much time do you spend on the Internet?”
“A normal amount,” Kit lied. “Why?”
“For a second there, you started speaking like the comments on a Reddit thread.”
“Never even heard of it,” Kit said, lying again.
“A likely story,” Quin said, then clicked his fingers. “Spirits of the forest!”
“Huh?”
“That’s what the witch sorted. The forest spirits were getting uppity about something or other.”
Kit tried to digest that information. “Spirits?”
“Yeah. Of werewolves who’ve passed on but aren’t quite ready to move on fully. They can’t take much of a form, and most of us don’t see much of them unless it’s a full moon.”
“I had no idea spirits were real.”
Quin nodded, opening his mouth to respond, but Mabel whined, cutting him off. Kit reached for another treat, Quin’s quelling hand stopping him before he could fish one out. “She’s had quite enough already,” Quin said. “Can’t spoil her too much. But thanks again for bringing them.”
“Don’t mention it.”
“So—” Quin started, but Kit interrupted.
“I need to go.”
