Page 90 of The Spellreader and the Phoenix

Max glared at David, who raised his hands and said hastily, “This is not me!”

“Well, it’s sure as shit not me,” Max snarled, “and last time I checked, ashes can’t do this.”

“Shifters also don’t burst into flames, nor do wounds heal as though they never happened,” David snapped back. “Max, you got stabbed in the chest, and there isn’t a mark on you.”

Yeah, that was… that was something Max wasn’t going to think about right now. Already, he could feel himself calming down again, a weird certainty filling him that it was going to be alright. It made no sense, but he didn’t suppose anything about this did.

“You swear you’re not doing this?” he demanded.

“I swear,” David responded solemnly. “I pulled the charm off at the same time Alex shifted. Rory yelled for us to stop the intruder, and we both, uh, reacted.”

Alex popped into Max’s line of sight again, big and hulking and furry.

“Why are they still a bear?” Edward wanted to know.

“They shifted for the first time last week,” Max explained. “That’s how they found out they’re a shifter.”

“Shit,” Edward muttered.

“Rory’s helping them with their shift, and we agreed that they should rest up before they attempted to shift again,” Max added.

“Yeah, geez, okay.” Edward groaned. “Look, I might not be able to shift myself, but I grew up with shifters, and I probably know all the spiels better than they do at this point. Alex, you want me to walk you through shifting back again?”

Alex let out a mournful noise and nodded their head.

“No problem,” Edward said, stepping carefully around Max and moving into the bookshop.

He drew Alex off a bit and started talking quietly to them.

The rest of them were still staring at the rotating ash cloud.

“You want to tell us why you were pretending not to be a witch?” Max asked. He pointed to where David was still holding the necklace. “Because I know the rules around those and how much they cost.”

David huffed out a breath. “Of course you do.” He cleared his throat. “Uh, so you’re not going to like it.”

Max blew out a breath. Given that he was the only witch in the group, it had been a distinct possibility, although, “it has nothing to do with you or the bookshop,” would have been his preferred response.

“And why were you investigating me?” Max wanted to know.

Stella whirled on David. “That’s why you proposed the bookshop for our games?”

That actually made a lot of sense, now that Max thought about it. He’d figured she was an immovable mountain, but it hadn’t really been clear why she’d picked the bookshop as her location of choice.

David blew out a breath. “I am already going to get in so much shit for this, so screw it. Yes, that’s why I suggested the bookshop. I really do live here, and I really do like D&D. And all of you.”

Stella’s tone was acid. “You were just hiding who you really were.”

Tom’s voice was equally chilly. “It’s not like he was the only one.”

Stella and David both winced.

David said, “The Council got some complaints about you, Spellreader, and I was asked to investigate.”

“Fuck me,” Stella breathed. “You work for the Council.”

Edward suddenly popped through the doorway. “You work for the Council? What the fuck, man?”

David’s cheeks had gone pink. “I’m more like a freelance consultant, okay? It’s a dangerous thing if a Spellreader is unreliable or corrupt, and there was more than one complaint.”