Page 62 of The Rut in the Road

I shrugged. “A cardboard box seemed a little insulting,” I replied. “Raj thought he might like something more… stimulating.”

Mason let out a sound that might have been either a grunt or a chuckle, I wasn’t sure. “So our tiger shifter is okay sharing space with an undead rat?”

I shrugged again. “He thought it was weird at first,” I admitted. “But Victor seems to have won him over.”

The big orc snorted softly. “He is weirdly cute,” he conceded. “The rat, not Raj.”

I felt my lips twitch. While I found Raj attractive, ‘cute’ wasn’t really the right word for his physical appeal. I also thought that he would probably object to having that term applied to him.

“Does he eat?” Mason asked, and it took me a half-second to realize he was asking about Victor, not Raj, who Mason knew very well ate food.

“No,” I answered. “He doesn’t seem to be interested in food. He’ll drink, but he hasn’t wanted any food I’ve given him, but hedoesn’t seem bothered by that.” I shifted my weight slightly to the other foot. “He likes to chew on things, but he doesn’t really want toeat.”

Mason made a small sound. “Fascinating,” he murmured. “Life, but not life.”

“Does that mean Iama death witch?” I asked him. I still wasn’t sure what I thought about his hypothesis that I was actually a life caster, since as far as I could tell, I hadn’t actually brought anythingtolife, I’d only ever taken it.

Mason frowned thoughtfully. “I don’t think so,” he replied, although he was speaking slowly, which was usually a sign that he was still thinking things through. “Although I’ve had a very hard time finding anything that tells me what, exactly, Victoris.”

“What do you mean?” Victor was an undead rat. That seemed pretty clear to me.

“Well, there are different kinds of undead,” Mason replied. “There are zombies, wights, and revenants, although there are different words used all over the world. Zombies are mindless—that’s what you normally get with necromancy, a husk that serves as a vessel for the will of the necromancer. Victor definitely doesn’t seem to be that, as he’s active and moving and appears to have at least some agency.”

I nodded in agreement.

“Which leaves wights and revenants,” he continued. “But I’m not sure either applies in this case. Revenants aren’t mindless, but they do tend to be hyperfocused on a singular obsession. Revenge, for instance. Or seeking to right an injustice. And that doesn’t seem right, either.”

Victor definitely didn’t seem to be focused on anything other than chewing and grooming, so I didn’t have an argument with that, either.

“So that leaves wights,” Mason went on. “Although while wights are more neutral undead, they are generally considerednegatively—for instance, wights known to the Norse as draugrs were generally undead soldiers who continued their duties as guards or warriors, killing unsuspecting travelers or those who would disturb their barrows.”

“Victor is definitely not trying to kill anyone,” I told him.

“No aggressive behavior at all?” Mason asked.

“Not that I’ve seen,” I replied. “He plays with toys, escapes his enclosure, chews on things, drinks water, and cleans himself.”

“Huh,” the big orc mused. “Not really standard wight behavior, but that still seems like the closest option.”

“Does that tell us anything?” I asked.

Mason shrugged. “Honestly, no idea. I’ve asked Fiona to try to track down anything she can find on types of undead, but neither one of us knows exactly what to look for.” He shrugged, grinning. “That’s the fun part.”

I had no idea what to say to that. I did not find not knowing or understanding things to bethe fun partof anything. Although maybe if you were Mason Manning and knew a lot about a lot of things, not knowing something might be fun. Unlike Mason, I generally knew very little about what was going on around me, and I didn’t at all enjoy that. For me,knowingsomething was an exciting novelty.

“Hey, Uncle Mace,” Jackson said, drawing our attention.

“Yes?” Mason replied.

“Can I resurrect a rat?”

“Absolutely not,” came the immediate response.

“Aw. Why not?”

“First,” Mason began. “Because Rayn didn’t do it on purpose, which ought to tell you just how unpredictable—and therefore potentially dangerous—necromancy can be. And second, as you’ve been hearing, since I know you aren’t actually listening tomusic, Rayn may very well not be a death witch, which means that whatever he did isn’t something you evencando.”

“I couldtry,” Jackson replied, his tone a little bit of a whine.