Page 31 of Magical Midlife Conclave

Aurora started forward at the same moment Sue did, finding the scent. The tang of it made her nose crinkle.

“The magic smells powerful.” She followed it back to the boundary as he continued into the field after its root. She stopped where it did, bending to check the tracks. A woman, by the looks of it, short in stature, judging by the small, thin feet. Soft-soled shoes. She’d probably be good at sneaking.

She’d stopped right here. Then the smell and tracks disappeared, a trick of the mind, Sebastian said. The impression of the person would still make a mark on the earth, but the magic prevented the evidence from being noticed. He had a revealing spell to counteract it, but it only worked to reveal potions with less power.

“You don’t see tracks or smell anything after this point?” Aurora asked the wolves. All scouts and boundary personnel were required to take the revealing potion.

“No. Nothing. Not even a hint,” Remmi said.

They had something stronger than Sebastian had made. He’d said they likely would.

She backtracked a little and then walked forward, stopping where the person did, and then continuing on that trajectory. Someone very good would’ve immediately changed course, but that was someone trained without concealing spells. Jump in a stream to erase your tracks and you had to be conscious where you emerged so they couldn’t pick up your trail again. This person knew that wasn’t an issue. Hopefully.

She wound through the trees, avoiding rocks and bushes, as someone with soft-soled shoes might. She emerged into a little alcove to find tire tracks. They led toward the corner of the field, which was mostly flat, before meeting the main road.

She swore under her breath. Sue met her there, looking in the direction the tracks went.

“They have help,” she said without inflection.

He swore under his breath as well. He turned away for a moment, and she could read far more in his body language than he would probably like. Anger, unease, fear…and helplessness. He didn’t know how to combat this.

He’d be embarrassed to admit any of that. Alphas weren’t supposed to show that kind of defeat. But she knew the job. She was on the same page.

“Sebastian is working on it,” she said, putting her hands on her hips. “He’s the miracle maker. He and Nessa wouldn’t allow my dad to honor them, worried the mage world would find out about their involvement, but you saw how much he did. You saw his genius. He’ll do it. He’ll unmask these people before they can spring whatever trap they are planning. We can help by continuing to track these breaches. By looking for that car. By figuring out who the hell is helping these mages break into our territory.”

Because someone had brought that car out here. Someone that no one would suspect of foul play, passing by watchful eyes who had no reason to check on them. The enemy had an ally on the inside. Maybe they’d planted someone before Uncle Auzzie had battened down the hatches, or maybe they’d bought someone. Maybe several people. However it happened, there were enemies within their midst, opening the doors for more to come through.

She swore again. “Sebastian can help us.” This time, she was reassuring herself. “Nessa can, too. She’s the sneaking queen. Pair her with Edgar, and I bet they’ll randomly find some clues that’ll help us. They just have to know to look.”

Sue put his hand on her shoulder for one solid beat, probably reading the same thing in her body that she’d read in his. He wasn’t as good with words, so he’d rely on actions. It probably helped just as little.

He turned away and she followed. He complimented the wolves on a job well done and told them to keep at it. He’d take it from here.

“I suppose you’re not going to raise the alarm,” she said, treating this like an exercise. Given their different levels until recently, and now with her training lying elsewhere, she didn’t often get an opportunity to learn from him. She’d be an idiot not to take advantage of it now. “We don’t want the enemy knowing we’re onto them. They don’t scent like we do. They won’t smell us following them.”

“They came in at dusk. They’ll probably leave before dawn. At Kingsley’s, that was their usual pattern for gathering information. They likely won’t be able to see our tracks—if they even bothered looking. They have a superiority complex. They’ll assume their magic was enough to thoroughly hide them.”

He put the car in gear and started out.

“This one had soft-soled shoes, though. Dad also had that type of reconnaissance mage that was good at sneaking, remember? They might be better at tracking. But yeah, not in the dark. So no, we don’t want to alert them. We don’t want to call the Commander of the Watch to put out a notice.” She hesitated. “I mean you, obviously, not we. I’m just⁠—”

“I know. Keep going.”

Grateful, her body said. “Nessa is our best bet. And Edgar. Although Edgar…might do something hasty, like dismember whomever he finds or something.”

“Jessie can rein him in. Mostly.”

She nodded. Truth. “But Nessa is attending the party at Jessie’s. We’re headed there now. It’s wise to tell them in person, within Ivy House walls. I doubt your cell phone is bugged, but…who knows. Also, this is something they should weigh in on anyway. And we’ll want to set up some sort of surveillance to see if that mage uses that area again. Oh! And that mage seemed to know exactly where we patrolled, which is on the boundary line. We always patrol on the boundary line, which is easy to pinpoint. Because maps. We need to change it up. If we need to trespass on the neighbor’s property, we need to trespass. We’ll send a gift basket in apology if we get caught.” She paused, her fingers tapping on the armrest. “Did I miss anything?”

“One thing. These people think of shifters like animals and gargoyles like monsters. The reason we’re not crossing onto the neighbor’s land is out of respect for them. We don’t want to drag them into the crossfire. Mages don’t operate on respect. They probably think our patrol routes mimic that of a dog marking its territory, nothing more. We need to lean into their misconceptions. When we veer, we need to do so in secret. We want them to keep underestimating our intelligence.”

She nodded slowly. That was a very good point. “If they don’t notice any tracks, they won’t catch on that we’ve veered until we make a stink about it. Which goes back to not acknowledging the breach as a pack, and instead we send in a couple people to try to track them down.”

“Yes.” He tapped his thumbs on the steering wheel. “The details of sending in Nessa and Edgar will then be turned over to Austin and Jessie, making us the backup for when we’re needed. And we’ll wait to be told how we’re needed.”

He was still using we even though this was his function and not hers. She suppressed a thankful smile.

“This is how the convocation differs from a pack,” he said. “We have people with expertise well beyond our knowledge. We’ll need the rest of the team to come into this with their various skill sets.”