Page 91 of The Spellreader and the Phoenix

Fucking witches. Some days, Max didn’t know why he bothered.

“Am I still under investigation?” Max demanded.

David shook his head. “No, that’s been done for months. It became obvious quite quickly that you’re not very diplomatic but you’re entirely scrupulous in matters of reading spells. Your security is excellent, and there’s never been any evidence of you dealing in dangerous or illegal spells.”

“That’s because I don’t,” Max said flatly. “And what, you just decided to stick around?”

“Yes!” David snapped. “Like I said, I like you all! I live here. And I couldn’t very well suddenly appear to be a witch one day. It shouldn’t have mattered to any of the others, but what was I supposed to tell you, Max? Oh, hey, suddenly I’m a witch? Surprise!”

Max was still inclined to be rather salty about this, but it was true that David hadn’t needed to reveal what he could do just now. He’d done it to stop the intruder who’d nearly succeeded in killing Max—would have, he was pretty sure, were it not for Rory, but he still didn’t understand what the hell had happened.

And even if David had revealed himself, he could have claimed that he was in hiding or something like that. Or investigating someone else. Yes, he’d kept things from them, but as soon as he was called on it, he’d told them the truth—or at least, Max didn’t think he was still lying.

Stella’s eyes were suddenly narrowed into tiny slits. She looked fierce, especially given what she was wearing.

“And why did we meet, David?” she asked sharply. “Going to try to tell me it was a coincidence?”

“It was more than a decade ago,” David protested, clearly uncomfortable.

Stella didn’t relent. “And are you claiming you didn’t know I was a null witch?”

He sighed. “Sometimes null witches and shifters react poorly to their lack of magic.”

Stella was staring at him incredulously. “So you created a D&D group to keep an eye on us?”

“Okay, look, it was something you enjoyed playing, and it was an easy way to meet up with you periodically.” David sounded defensive. “Plus I like D&D. And all of you.”

Edward’s arms were crossed over his chest. “But you pulled me in so that you could make sure I wasn’t about to snap and tell all the normal people about shifters?”

Alex appeared in the doorway as well, thankfully human again. “Did you know I was a shifter?”

David shook his head. “I had no idea. I mean, not until you showed up today and I could feel that you had magic. I just assumed you were a witch or shifter that Max knew. No secret knowledge or anything like that. Like I said, I haven’t been investigating Max—or anyone—in months, and I was just here to play D&D.” He looked between them all. “I consider you my friends.”

“Friends you’ve been lying to every minute you’ve known us!” Tom snapped. “Along with everyone else here. Well, you know what? I don’t need more people in my life treating me like shit. I’m out of here.”

He marched over to the door even as the others began protesting—at which point, Tom realized he couldn’t get out, because the door had a shield over it.

“Let. Me. Out,” Tom ground out.

“Tom,” David protested. “If you’d just let me explain—”

Tom was vibrating with tension. “Let. Me. Out. Now.”

David looked back at Max, who nodded. They needed to deal with all of this, but Max didn’t think it would be helpful right now to make Tom feel like he was trapped in here with them. His world had just gone completely pear-shaped.

David lowered the shield, and Tom yanked the door open.

“Tom, you can’t—” David started again.

But Tom was already gone.

“Let me go talk to him,” Sam suggested, expression caught somewhere between sympathy and pain. “He’ll still be upset that I was hiding something from him, but at least I’m still a normal person like him.”

David’s face was twisted in lines of distress, his hands clenched at his sides, but he nodded stiffly.

Sam added, “I’ll make sure he knows he can’t tell anyone.” She grimaced. “Or if the World Spell has done its magic, I’ll let you know.”

This set off a round of grimaces from all of them. It was one thing for the Spell to sort of… gloss over things for the everyday person who saw something they shouldn’t have. Maybe from the outside, people would consider this to be the same thing, but Tom had been playing D&D with them for years. It didn’t feel like they could go back to playing if he didn’t remember everything he’d learned about them while they all knew the truth about one another…