Instructor Hawke and his companion, who only introduced himself as Brock, stayed the night, checking in on the different Queen-sent hunters and having quiet discussions with the pest. Paloka kept close to her uncle, her eyes wide and mistrustful on both shifters, something that clearly deeply upset both men. It was obvious that while they knew her uncle, she had never met them.

  Paloka was good at hiding it, but she was almost as mistrustful as Squirt, even if she somehow had decided that Squirt was worthy of trust.

  The next morning, they led her through more exercises, waking with her in the grey dawn light. And once again, she was unable to go anywhere without at least three people tailing her at all times.

  Notably, today was the day she was to return to the castle, and casually enough, Tobias, Instructor Hawke, and Brock all needed to return for the day as well.

  No trip straight to the quartermaster through the secret tunnel, then.

  With a sigh, she let them lead the way, keeping to their shadows and her eyes down in deference.

  Not one of them missed as she put them between herself and the Guardhouse at the gate.

  Then they noticed that she did the same for every fey they came across, confusing their protective instincts.

  Tobias, usually friendly and affable on a bad day, actively bared his teeth at anyone who approached.

  By the time they reached a room in the castle in the lord’s residence wing she’d never been to before, the three shifters were wound tight with tension in a way she didn’t know what to do about, especially when Brock’s hand practically swallowed her shoulder as he gently guided her through the door first. She went stiff at the contact, relaxing somewhat at the sight of the lord, Telos, and Lady Kenna already seated in couches surrounding a low table with a map and game pieces dotting it.

  She bowed politely with her eyes wary on them as she looked for a seat in a corner somewhere.

  Then Brock said gruffly, “We’ll be back,” turned on his heel, and shut the door rather hard behind him.

  Lady Kenna reared back slightly in surprise. “Whoever put a bee in their trousers?”

  Squirt’s expression flattened as she muttered, “Overprotective shifter instincts.”

  Kenna gave her a hard stare before saying casually, “Who hurt you, darling?”

  Telos’s expression snapped up. “What?”

  Lord Everwinter casually took a sip of his tea. “The interlopers were already punished.”

  Squirt stared in genuine surprise.

  The man’s gaze darkened considerably. “You are under my protection, Athereon. They disregarded that, then had the audacity to brag in the tavern about it. They face the mercy of the Hunt.”

  Meaning he had them taken out into the Wylds with no supplies and no weapons and left them for the beasts. If the Hunt took mercy, she would guide them safely back home. If Squirt really was one of her favored, the Hunt would have none.

  She dropped her head and sighed in relief. Good riddance. They had outed themselves. She had nothing to do with it, and those who believed they were in the right would assume the Hunt would guide them safely home.

  If she did, well, Squirt would start ignoring her damn signs.

  The lord’s eyes narrowed. “Why didn’t you report it?”

  She shrugged. “Same reason I didn’t fight back. Some fey just like to take out their frustration with their fists. It was either that or take his cock, and I knew I’d only take it with a knife.”

  Lady Kenna snorted delicately into her hand.

  Lord Everwinter was less amused as his eyes darkened, his fingers rapping on his knee. “… what caused their frustrations?”

  Glowering, she trudged herself over and gingerly sat on the couch, looking ready to dive to her knees on the carpet at a moment’s notice.

  Crossing her arms with a huff, Squirt finally said, “Fey like that… they want to prove something. They think they’re owed something. They often offer sex as the more enjoyable way to prove their superiority and control but will happily take violence instead.

  “Sometimes it’s because I’m given attention by someone they want.” The peppy shifter’s face crossed Squirt’s mind. Fenry’s expression had been so carefully blank when Squirt had left the clearing that morning with Tobias in tow. “Sometimes it’s because they feel weak, and I’m an easy target to make them feel strong. Sometimes it’s because they feel threatened, because if I best them in anything, anything at all, then I threaten the natural order, and their own position seems tenuous because of it.”

  Squirt shrugged. “Welcome to the life of a greenling, where in the Capital we trade secrets on how to best protect our noses from getting broken during a beating, because nothing turns a fey on you faster than bleeding where you don’t belong.”

  She finished her tirade by glaring at the dark expression on the lord’s face. “And you wonder why I don’t want your damn attention.”

  His eyes flashed amber, his control over his aura struggling. She dropped her eyes immediately, knowing she’d said too much again.

  The lord’s jaw worked, but he gave no admonishment. A full, heavy, exceedingly tense minute passed between them before he sighed, effectively ending it. As the tension drained, he almost visibly aged from the exhaustion clearly weighing on him. “… I offered you my protection and gave you a boon, and yet you refuse to use it?”

  She snorted. “Using a boon from Lord Everwinter on something as cheap as a beating is as good as washing your silks in the pig’s slop.”

  He stood suddenly with a snarl, his features lengthening with feral rage and his wolf pressing forward, his natural magical dominance spilling over.

  Lady Kenna was there in a flash, one hand gently on Squirt’s head and shielding her from his aura.

  The man snarled, “This is an order—should anyone purposely harm you, you are required to inform me. I will not have my protection become meaningless because you’re too stubborn to ask for help.”

  Clearly, Squirt had a death wish as she snapped back, “Last I checked, I’m not beholden to your orders.”

  He roared back, “You are a member of our Guard and thus beholden to me so long as you wear our leathers.”

  They both stopped, chests heaving and glaring at each other. Then, like they coordinated it, they slowly relaxed back into their seats.

  She scoffed. “As you wish.”

  Exhaling sharply, he muttered, “And clearly, I must do a better job as Lord. To think that they would have disregarded their own code…”

  Squirt kept her retort to herself this time, but only barely.

  Lady Kenna removed her hand from Squirt’s head with a sigh. “I suppose we can get started without the others. We wanted to ask if you knew of any strategies for taking care of a nest of feybeasts in a treebed.”

  She raised an eyebrow. “Gee, wouldn’t you know it, that’s not really my area of expertise.”

  Lady Kenna sighed despondently. “Well, we could just always blast the whole thing to smithereens, but Bartos seems to want to use the opportunity to gather as many ingredients as possible.”

  Telos leaned forward, his elbows on his knees. “How do you normally get the materials from the beasts?”

  Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

  Wary, she answered plainly, “I trap it or incapacitate it, cut off the parts I need until it goes poof.”

  Lord Everwinter turned to Telos. “What about a sleep spell?”

  He shook his head, his lips pursed. “No. The only way to do that over such a large area would be a ritual circle. It’d take too much time, and it would send anyone who stepped foot into that space into sleep.”

  Squirt crossed her arms and frowned as she stared down at the map of the area, thinking of the treebed she’d seen yesterday with the camouflage cats and leopards. “… you wouldn’t need a full ritual circle with ritual stones.”

  Telos furrowed his brow. “Ritual implements like that might be possible for something smaller scale, but something like this? I mean, how big are these things?”

  Standing and pulling out her notebook, Squirt leaned over the map and hovered her hand over the pieces, looking to Lord Everwinter first. He gestured for her to go ahead, so she did, moving the pieces around the place she had found the day before, explaining her observations as she went and the estimated numbers.

  Then Squirt frowned down at the map, her lips moving with that general cadence of speech again. “… targeted sleep… what if, instead of that, we create a ritual of faazi spores, then give everyone goggles and a handkerchief?”

  Telos frowned, rubbing his chin. “… I mean theoretically, that’s a lot easier, but then the conditions become miserable. I mean, what if there are thousands of beasts?”

  Squirt frowned. “The effects of faazi spores last for an hour once inhaled. We can have two teams—one to enter the trees and retrieve the beasts, dragging them out, the other to collect the components.”

  “In that case we might as well do a sleep spell,” Telos said with thoughtful exasperation.

  They both fell into thought.

  Then she blinked. “Hypnostones.”

  Telos blinked twice. “Oh. Shit. That’s genius. You mean to—”

  “Reverse the intention to prevent the hypnosis instead of inducing it? Yes.”

  “Then that comes with the issue of removing them still. Pulling them out of the space would end the spell.”

  “No, not if we add time components to the hypnosis.”

  “Adding time to it could make the whole ritual volatile.”

  “Not necessarily. Think of Muggugibliet’s theory.”

  “That fey also threw his own shit out the window at random passerby.”

  “Sure, but he was still a certifiable genius even if he was certifiably insane. Look, you just have to be firm with the intention and make sure you add an exit condition to the end of the hypnosis. Even if we end the ritual, they won’t wake for an hour.”

  “But if you get one of those values wrong, that hour could be ten years or ten seconds.”

  “Not if we use a ritual stone.”

  “You’re talking about a stone powerful enough to hypnotize hundreds of feybeasts at once.”

  “Not one. Five. Like a pentagram.”

  Telos blinked. “That purple stone the crane tried to give you.”

  Squirt frowned. “How did you know it tried to give me the basilisk’s stone?”

  Telos stood suddenly, rage and fear warring for dominance on his expression. “What do you mean a basilisk—”

  The door opened as two somewhat sweaty shifters, one sullen and the other smiling boisterously, entered the room and shut the door behind them.

  Brock held up a hand in greeting. “How goes the discussion?”

  Lady Kenna said mildly, “Well enough. It seems our resident huntress and magis have it well in hand.”

  Tobias’s eyes lit up as he looked hopefully at Telos. “Really?”

  The elf folded in on himself so quickly it was a wonder he didn’t crumple into nothing. “Oh. Yeah, uh…” he cleared his throat and explained the vague plan they were coming up with.

  Tobias, lovably innocent of his friend’s feelings, softened. “That’s a good plan. If anyone can pull it off, it’d be you two.” Then he collapsed back into the sofa with a groan next to Squirt, unaware of the bashful blush on Telos’s face.

  Schooling his features and clearing his throat, Telos said, “Well… what were you thinking then, huntress?”

  The others had long since lost track of the conversation between the pixie and elf. Lady Kenna, the most familiar with mage work, was the last of the four to concede she was extraneous for the conversation.

  Squirt and Telos sat next to each other, leaning over a slate and trading chalk back and forth as they argued over the runes involved before Telos raised his hands in defeat. “No, you aren’t listening to me—I can’t do this. This fundamentally disagrees with my understanding of magic. I believe you when you say it’s possible, but I’m not going to be able to pull it off.”

  Squirt bit her bottom lip. “I still think it’s worth trying.”

  Lord Everwinter, sensing a chance to regain control of the conversation, leaned forward and asked, “What is?”

  Telos groaned and ran his hands through his hair. “This sleeper spell. We got so close to making it work, and while the theory is sound… magic on this scale requires the image of the user to be incredibly strong.” He gestured vaguely to the slate with an almost defeated expression. “She’s got sound theory, but if it interferes with my understand of how magic and runes work, I’ll never be able to pull it off.”

  Stubbornly, Squirt muttered, “I can guide you through it. It’d be just fine.”

  Lady Kenna tilted her head, considering them. “What about magic transference? If you two are compatible, he can provide the magic, and you can direct it.”

  Telos balked while Squirt’s expression turned to stone.

  Telos’s eyes flickered to Tobias before blushing deeply. “I uh… I’ve not…”

  Lady Kenna giggled. “Oh Telos, no one thinks you’ve checked? I’m just saying it’s worth the try. If the idea will work with guidance, that’d be the most assured way to do it, so what’s the problem?”

  Lord Everwinter’s eyes studied Squirt before he finally said quietly, “Let’s leave that as a backup plan. You said that this treebed is nearby—let’s try out your idea there first. If it goes wrong, we can raze it.” He then leaned forward. “If it does work, what will it entail?”

  Squirt’s expression remained withdrawn as she answered. “We’ll set up the ritual with five poles equidistant from each other around the perimeter and have two teams. The first team brings the feybeasts out, the second does the actual component collection.”

  Tobias frowned. “Wouldn’t it just be easier to collect components where the beasts are?”

  Squirt scowled at the table. “Those idiots suck at collecting anything. If we make them collect where I can see them, I can at least see where they’re going wrong.”

  Tobias beamed before leaning in and elbowing her. “And speaking of compatibility… what was that I heard Qzi say yesterday?”

  She snapped, “Fuck off.”

  Lord Everwinter’s expression darkened. “What of the Hunter Qzi?”

  Tobias’s gave an awkward laugh and a more awkward smile. “Oh, uh, nothing, your lordship, sir…” Then he got a devilish gleam in his eyes that made Squirt’s hackles rise. “Our Braveheart now has not one, but two fey courting her.”

  “I do not!” So incensed, she stood up to face him eye to eye. “Gods damn it, Tobias, they aren’t serious—”

  Tobias scoffed. “Are you kidding me? The only thing that would make Qzi more serious would be if he put his hat on you directly, and with the way Fel looks at you?”

  “Fel?” Squirt asked in utter confusion.

  Tobias gave her a hard stare before bursting out, “You never even asked the damn man his name?”

  Petulantly crossing her arms over her chest and glaring down at the table like it offended her, Squirt muttered, “I just call him pest.”

  Brock badly covered a snort while Lord Everwinter hid his smile behind his hand.

  Lady Kenna, however, had different priorities. Her brow furrowed. “His cap… the redcap?”

  Squirt mumbled, “Yeah.”

  Her expression turned from contemplative to admonishing. “Tobias! Don’t you dare. We’re not letting her mate a redcap.”

  Squirt sputtered, “Letting her mate—”

  Tobias defended himself, “So what if he’s a little stab-happy, he could keep her safe—”

  “Do you have any idea what a redcap mating ceremony entails? He’d want to fuck her on the corpses of his enemies.”

  Tobias threw up his hands, “I don’t yuck someone’s yum—”

  Squirt snapped, “It’s not my yum—”

  Lady Kenna was quicker, “A redcap won’t cut it. She’s way too good for him.”

  Stunned speechless, Squirt stared at her, caught between incredulous and flattered.

  Tobias scoffed. “Yeah, well, that’s her decision. He’s got issues, sure, but I’m not about to judge her bedroom tastes, just gut him if he breaks her heart.”

  Brock looked between them before leaning forward and asking hurriedly, “Have there been others?”

  “Yeah. Ala’ole has offered her Family name as a fully-fledged Valof Creator.”

  Lord Everwinter snapped out, “No. She’s doing too much good work here. They would squirrel her away to the Capital under lock and key, and Athereon would be miserable without the freedom to roam.”

  Offended to flattered in three sentences flat, Squirt fell back against the couch, utterly aghast at the three clearly debating her future like they had a say in it. It didn’t make any sense. After all, even if she accepted the position of Chief Hunter of Everwinter, he couldn’t ban her from taking a Family name any more than Tobias could ban someone from her bed.

  Brock burst out laughing. “Oh lass. You’ve been adopted by their pack, and you didn’t even realize it.”

  Tobias rounded on him. “What are you talking about? I told her.”

  In a daze, Squirt said, “He said he wanted to be like the brother I never had…”

  Grinning, Brock nodded towards the three wolf shifters. “Wolves are cliquish, but once you’re in with a wolf and are pack, you are pack and that is all there is to it. As your siblings, Tobias and Kenna would test any suitors. They’d need their stamp of approval before being accepted in the pack. And as the leader, Bartos—Lord Everwinter—is responsible for managing relationships on a wider scale. Protecting you through his choices for the pack.”

  Brock shrugged. “You can always disregard them and their instincts, but they will not find it as easy.” chuckled and leaned back, throwing his arm over the couch. “As it is, even I’m fighting protective instincts and an animal that wants to claim you as pride.”

  Pride. Lion. So, he was a lion shifter. Squirt dully catalogued that fact along with the rest.

  “Still. They won’t prevent you should you make a firm decision. Just be firm. Social shifters will bond and find members for their little families more easily, but that also means they aren’t as hard to convince. Our instinct is to support and protect our weaker members, after all.”

  Still staring at him wide eyed she said, “Why now?”

  “I’m… sorry?”

  Shaking her head, she said, “I’ve lived my whole life invisible. Why won’t you just let me be invisible?”

  It was Lord Everwinter who calmly answered as he sipped his tea. “Because you were never meant to be invisible, Athereon. Only bide your time until your shot was lined up.”

  Overwhelmed and dazed by the information, she simply stared at him.

  Brock shifted and cleared his throat. “Out of curiosity… I’ve heard many names for you, Huntress, but I’m unaware of your actual name.”

  Squirt’s expression flattened and her shoulders slumped, her eyes narrowing on his face. “… just call me Squirt.”

  He coughed. “Ah, right… but that is not your name, correct?”

  Lord Everwinter’s voice had a dangerous edge of a growl to it as he said, “Brock…”

  “What?”

  “You will not poach her.”

  Sighing, he shrugged. “It was worth a shot.”

  Stunned, she stared blankly at the Leonid, vaguely filing away the tidbit that he had just attempted to grant her a title himself.

  What even was her life, anymore?