Easier said than done, of course. But it's good to have goals.

We rode without speaking for a while, listening to the steady 'click-clack, click-clack' of the rails. Athena and Artemis - evidently even more traumatized by the six-hour disruption of our bond than I had been - both dozed off after a few minutes, Athena with her head on my shoulder and Artemis sprawled at our feet. I may have drifted off for a bit myself, because the sun seemed to set with startling speed - one moment the sky was a pleasant late-afternoon blue, the next it was fading to twilight and the train's interior lights had come on.

I shifted a little and stretched, taking a deep breath and letting it out. Athena sat up a bit, blinking sleepily and then shaking herself.

"Eventful day," Jonathan said quietly from where he sat across from us, putting a small notebook away in a pocket. Mom was dozing as well, her head leaning against the window.

I nodded. "Very," I replied just as quietly. "They're going to continue to consider me a suspect, aren't they."

He nodded. "Of course. You're a likely candidate, whether we want to admit it or not. But I doubt anything will come of it. They've already all but cleared you. Now it's just formalities."

"But what if..."

He held up a hand to interrupt me. "Don't go there. It's amazingly unlikely. You may have the means, but they'll never prove motive beyond circumstantial evidence and hearsay, and your explanation of the residue of magic left on you was enough to satisfy Donovan."

I tipped my head a little. "How did you know about that?"

"He asked for my opinion about it," Jonathan said with a little smile. "I've worked with Ben a couple of times when Scotland Yard needed an expert in Dublin. I'm inclined to say that Brenna was very clever about setting you up, disguising herself and her familiar as you and Athena, then planting a magical trace on you that would look as if you'd been casting fire magic recently."

"Assuming it was actually her," I said cautiously. "We don't know that for certain."

"Indeed," he said with a nod. "But who else would it be?"

I shook my head. "I can't think of anyone."

"Nor I," he agreed.

"There isn't anybody," Athena added softly. "Brenna and Hecate are the only enemies we've made."

"That we know of," I said.

"Don't take on trouble that doesn't exist," Jonathan said gently. "Remember Occam's Razor."

"The simplest explanation is usually correct," I paraphrased.

"Quod erat demonstrandum," Jonathan replied. "Brenna is the only enemy you're aware of having made, ergo she's the most likely candidate for having framed you.

"I hate the idea that you might have made others," mom said, yawning and sitting up. "You're too young to have enemies."

I smiled wryly. "Mom, I've had enemies all my life. The Council of Druids saw to that."

"I hesitate to call them enemies...close enough, though," she admitted with a sigh. "But that was my fault. So let me rephrase...You're too young to be making enemies."

Jonathan smiled. "I don't know, love. I infuriated my first police inspector when I was nineteen."

Mom elbowed him. "Don't disagree with me on this," she teased.

He held up his hands in surrender. "Yes, dear." He gave me his most stern look, though his eyes were twinkling with mischief. "Alys Kinnear, you're too young to be making enemies."

Athena giggled and I rolled my eyes. "Okay, Dad."

We all fell silent for a moment. I was surprised by how natural calling him that felt, even in jest. If the look on Jonathan's face was anything to go by he was just as surprised for the same reason, and I could see on Mom's face that she was surprised I'd even made the joke.

I cleared my throat. "Sorry."

"Don't be," Mom said quickly. "That's partly why we invited you to come up for a few days..."

Jonathan smiled. "Mind you, this does not mean you have to start calling me 'dad.' I don't know if I'd be all that comfortable with it anyway. But..." He suddenly looked uncertain, as if he were worried about what my reaction was going to be. "Well, I asked your mother to marry me."

I let it hang in the air for a few moments. I felt honor-bound to tease them about this. It was, after all, a once in a lifetime opportunity. So I let his statement hang without responding and kept my face expressionless, even though I wanted to grin. The silence drew out and started to become uncomfortable. Let them sweat for a minute.

They glanced at one another nervously.

Athena blew it by giggling, startling them. I nudged her with my elbow and she smiled apologetically. >

I finally smiled at them, letting them see how happy I was for them. "I had a feeling that's why you invited me to visit. Let me see the ring."

My mom held out her left hand to show me a simple platinum band. Set in the center was a gorgeous, flawless diamond set with a single tiny emerald on either side. I whistled softly. "Wow."

"I made it myself," Jonathan said proudly.

"The ring?" I asked.

"The diamond," he replied.

I looked up in surprise. "Seriously?"

He flashed me a quick grin. "I haven't taught you everything I know, apprentice."

"Wow," I said again, looking back down. "That's impressive. And beautiful."

"Thank you," he said, obviously pleased with my reaction.

I sat back and smiled at him. "Do you have any idea what you're getting yourself into?"

"Hey!" Mom quipped, "I'm right here!"

Jonathan nodded, playing along. "I know, but what's a guy to do? I'm helplessly smitten. I may as well accept my doom with grace."

"Doom?" Mom asked, giving him an evil look. But I saw her eyes twinkling with much the same mischief Jonathan's had a few minutes earlier, and I could see the last of the tension easing out of her body.

"I meant it in the traditional sense of the word, my love...that of fate or destiny," Jonathan said quickly. I gave him a 'nice save' thumbs up.

I don't know why Mom was surprised and relieved though. Jonathan Tremane had been my Master - my teacher in the ways of Hermetic magic - for ten years. We had always gotten along very well, though by necessity he had kept things entirely professional between us during the six years of my apprenticeship and four years of my Journeyman studies under his tutelage.

But as professional as he had kept things, he had also been my friend. Those years would have been very lonely otherwise. There had been nights out at the theater, day trips to excitingly arcane locations, museums and libraries. There had been four prank wars that I was pretty certain he had allowed me to win - especially having now seen what he was capable of in a snowball fight a few months ago - and endless conversations over meals about every conceivable topic.

He had been there for my successes and failures, celebrating the former and shoring up my resolve after the latter. He had sat up late with me during my first few days with him at the tender age of thirteen, when I had been terrified of being away from home for the first time and unable to sleep. He’d celebrated my birthday every year without fail, and exchanged Yule gifts with me. Jonathan had even gently scared my first date into behaving like a real gentleman when I was seventeen. Though he hadn't known I'd been aware of his doing so until several days later when I thanked him, much to his chagrin (and my amusement).

In other words, he was already my father in every way that mattered except blood. Perhaps it's different in other master/apprentice relationships, but I can't imagine it working otherwise. Pretty much the only part of the father-daughter relationship he hadn't covered was talking to me about sex...he had instead sent me to do a three month work-study program with a group of Tantric Mages when I turned eighteen. I'm pretty sure that what I learned from them was more comprehensive than any mortifying conversation he and I might have had on the subject.

Come to think of it, I'm positive that what I learned from them was both more comprehensive and more mortifying than any conversation he and I might have had on the subject. Those three months are permanently and indelibly imprinted in my memory. Nearly six years later, thinking about that time still makes me blush.

Anyway, his asking my mother to marry him felt like a perfectly natural continuation of my relationship with him. In essence, formalizing his parental authority over me - for all the good it would do now that I was twenty-four - as much as his courtship with Mom.

So I smiled at them and raised my hands in benediction. "My children, you have my blessing. Be happy together."

Jonathan flashed me his quick, happy grin, and my mother reached out and swatted my hands down. "Stop that," she said with a smile. "This is serious."

"Terribly serious," Jonathan agreed, smiling gently now.

"Obviously," Athena said, giving me a teasingly repressive look. "Mistress, you really should treat the situation with more gravity."

"I think there's plenty of gravity in the room already," I quipped. "Any more and we'd all be flattened."

Artemis groaned, put her chin on the floor, and put her paws over her eyes.

The miles rolled past in happy, silly banter. We discussed their wedding plans - a simple, quiet little civil ceremony with a few friends - and where they planned to live afterwards (Dublin, at least for the time being). Mom and I joked about how elaborate her wedding dress should be, resulting in gown of such extraordinary complexity and size that it passed the boundaries of absurdity and set Jonathan to joking about needing to find a hall large enough for it.

Athena chimed in then, jokingly suggesting that perhaps she should go in the other direction. We could, Athena said, take mom to the tailor in London who had made Athena's clothes and my under-armor.

You must understand the humor here. Fashions designed for familiars were - by both necessity and aesthetics - a bit more brief than most humans would want to wear in public. Athena's clothes - a sleeveless leather bodysuit, thigh-high leather stockings that left most of her feet uncovered, and optional gloves - were designed as much to present an appealing (or perhaps distracting) appearance as to protect the areas where her already short coat of fur was thinnest.

The flexible striking plates and blade-resistant fabric woven into the lining of the outfit (and into my nearly identical under-armor, worn beneath my clothes at all times since my encounter with Brenna) also provided excellent protection against attack. Her toes, the balls of her feet and heels were left bare to give her better traction and grip with her retractable claws and the paw-like pads of her otherwise very human feet. The only time she wore shoes or boots was when it was raining or snowing.

(Is it wrong for me to admit that I'm a little bit jealous of her feline traits? I've seen her run and bound flat-out up a rocky hillside that took me twice as long to climb because I couldn't find good footing. And her hearing and night vision are both amazing compared to mine. Artemis, of course, outperforms us both in all of those areas and has been known to rub it in a bit.)

Jonathan approved with a cheeky grin and gallantly offered to help her pick something out. He was, I knew, teasing (mostly). He'd never expect mom to wear something like that in public any more than he believed that the insanely gaudy and overblown dress we were joking about was a serious discussion. But the look in Mom's eyes suggested that she might pay me a visit to pick up something to drive him nuts with later.

I thought I'd probably oblige. It might provide me with a measure of revenge for having sent me completely unawares and unprepared to those Tantric Mages when I turned eighteen.

Through all the banter and good-natured laughter, I saw a shadow behind my mom's eyes, and a tightness to her smile that hinted at the strain she was feeling. It was no longer related to any worry she might have had about my reaction to her marrying Jonathan, so for a while I wasn't sure what could be causing it. Finally, I realized that she was probably upset about the loss of her home and the destruction of the town.

That town had been her home and, in a very real way, the boundaries of her world all her life. I had next to no emotional attachment to the place - I felt sadness thinking that I'd never see the house I grew up in again, or help Mom tend to her garden, but aside from that I felt merely a twinge of sadness for the people who had been hurt and all the destruction that had been done. For me, it was sort of like hearing about a town I'd never heard of before being destroyed. I thought about saying something, but in the end decided not to. Mom probably had her own mixed feelings to sort through.

We arrived in Dublin in high spirits. At least, Jonathan and I were working to keep Mom in high spirits, since he seemed to have noticed her mood too. The train brought us into town in time to have a late-ish dinner at our usual pub before retiring to his townhouse.

I was a little surprised by the warm feeling that came over me as we walked through the door into the familiar foyer, lined with the same Medieval Breton tapestries on one side, and African tribal masks on the other that had been there since I’d first arrived years ago. As I took off my boots, I shook my head in amusement at the very nice oriental rug he'd put down as a boot mat. I noticed that there were now several large antlers nailed to the wall that were being used as a coat rack. Those were new. I wondered if they were real.

That was Jonathan in a nutshell. Eccentric, eclectic, and reveling in it. I wouldn't have it any other way. And neither would my mom, from the looks of it. She didn't blink at the odd mix of decor, simply tossed the light jacket she'd been wearing onto an antler and said, "I'm going to go make some hot chocolate. Anyone else want some?"

Jonathan nodded. "Please."

"Me too, thank you," Athena added.

"Likewise and thank you," I finished.

Artemis sighed.

Mom smiled. "I'll bring you a treat too, Artemis." She ruffled the snow leopard's ears and disappeared down the hall to the kitchen. Artemis purred contentedly and looked around.

I hung my coat on an antler and looked at Jonathan. "Where..."

He smiled. "I haven't touched your room. I was afraid it might be booby trapped."

"Would I do that?" I asked with feigned innocence. "Come on, pets. I'll show you where we're sleeping. We'll be back down in a few minutes," I added as we walked past Jonathan towards the stairs.

My old room still had the little sign I'd hung on it before I'd left. A sheet of paper with the words "Danger, experiments in progress" scrawled on it. I smiled.

Athena raised an eyebrow. "Really?"

I shook my head. "No, just a last practical joke. I wasn't expecting to be back." With that, I opened the door and stepped inside.

It was, as he had said, exactly as I'd left it. A bit untidy, boxes of books stacked next to empty bookcases, a footlocker that held various and sundry magical reagents that I hadn't needed right away packed away neatly in containers, and the closet hanging open to reveal the clothes I'd packed and not taken. The four-poster bed I'd slept in for so many years sat neatly made with a couple of stuffed animals - snow leopards, amusingly enough - sitting on the pillows. The long window seat was still buried under piles of unsorted books and packages.

My old roll-top desk was closed. I had pretty much emptied it of useful contents when I'd left anyway. I made a mental note to disarm the color-changing spell I'd laid on it before opening it.

I had built up more stuff than I'd remembered. Still, ten years is more than enough time to gather quite a lot of clutter. "Huh. He hadn't even shipped any of it to my mom yet."

"I guess that's a good thing," Athena said quietly, taking my bag from me and walking in past me, heading for the desk. "If he had..." She trailed off, not needing to say the rest. If he had, it'd be gone.

There was, however, a more pressing matter.

"Athena, wait..."

There was a soft *twang* from the closet, and several things happened so fast the only reason I could follow them is because I had set it up almost eight months earlier. Had it really been such a short time?

A water balloon whizzed out of the darkness of the walk-in closet. It was a bright, hot pink to make it impossible to miss. It was immediately wrapped up in a time-delayed spell, set to trigger when the balloon passed through the closet's doorway, turning the contents - plain water - into bright pink paint. As it crossed through the mid-way point of the room, I felt a second time-delayed spell go off, magically enlarging the balloon to roughly the size of a large pumpkin…and its contents with it. Finally, one last time delayed spell went off, wrapping around Athena and freezing her in place.

Right in the line of fire.

The balloon struck her and burst, drenching her, our gear, the floor and the desk, and finally me with hot pink paint.

Behind me, Artemis made a choked noise that might have been something approximating a cut-off laugh.

I had most assuredly not included that engorgement spell. The rest was all of my own doing.

I sighed and wiped some of the paint from my face.

From somewhere downstairs, I heard Jonathan start laughing.

Clearly, I had been outclassed all along.

"Don't worry," his voice drifted up the stairs to us, still laughing. "It'll disappear in a few minutes."

Athena turned to look at me with a dour expression, her disapproval and disgust radiating across our bond. I can't imagine that paint felt good on fur. I shrugged and smiled sheepishly. "Sorry pet. Let's take a lesson from this...Never get into a prank war with that man," I said. "He's patient and devious."

She made a soft sound of agreement and set my bag down on the floor, tried to shake some of the paint from her arms, then started unbuckling her gear.

Fifteen minutes later - dry, back to our natural colors and none the worse for wear - we were cozily ensconced in what Jonathan jokingly referred to as his den. It was a comfortable room that he'd decorated to look sort of like a rustic log cabin hunting lodge (sans stuffed animal heads, thank goodness). The walls had been paneled with very convincing fake logs, on which hung a few anonymous landscape paintings and a couple of pieces of native Vinland tribal art that had probably cost him a small fortune.

The floor was bare hardwood with a gorgeous woven multi-colored area rug on it. There was a desk in one corner of the room - just in case, Jonathan said - and a table just large enough for four friendly people to share a meal at. And, of course, there were bookcases. Just about every room in a Wizard's home has them.

There was only one window in the room, hung with heavy dark red drapes, which looked out onto the small walled garden behind the house. The wall opposite the window was dominated by a fireplace large enough to roast an entire pig in, before which were set two overstuffed chairs on either side of a matching sofa. They were arranged in a semi-circle around a small coffee table which was currently inhabited by four still-steaming mugs of hot chocolate and a plate of little frosted cakes.

Yes, I kind of love interior design. The decor of a house can tell you as much about the people who live there as the way they dress.

Mom and Jonathan had claimed the sofa, and I had settled into the chair to its left. As was becoming her habit, Athena settled on the floor at my feet and leaned back against my legs. I hadn't ever suggested she do it...I would have been just as happy if she'd taken the other chair. But there was something so warm and affectionate about the way she did it that I couldn't find the heart to tell her I thought it was just a bit demeaning for her to sit at my feet.

She was, of course, aware of all this. Every time she sat down that way, I got a hint of amused affection from her, as if to say, "This is my chosen place, Mistress, and I'm quite happy with it. Get used to it."

I am perfectly aware of the fact that most Wizards treat their familiars - normal or Elevated - like pets and servants. Which was, at the end of the day, precisely what they were I suppose. But it felt fundamentally wrong to me. Athena and Artemis were my closest friends and confidants, with me every minute of every day, extensions of my heart and soul. How could I treat them as if they were somehow less than me?

Maybe I'm just weird.

Artemis, being Artemis, had sprawled full-length on the flagstones of the raised hearth in front of the fireplace. Her fore paws were draped over the edge, lazily curling and uncurling as she purred like a rusty engine. We didn't really need a fire, but a fireplace of that size looks empty without one, so a small one had been built. Just enough to warm the oversized kitty.

Mom's familiar, Apollo, a handsome snowy owl who was a relatively recent addition to the family, was perched on the mantle above the fireplace. His head slowly turned this way and that, watching each of us in turn with the uncommon intelligence of an animal raised to be a familiar. He and Artemis had reached an understanding on their first encounter - he would ignore her, as long as she left him alone. We both had a feeling he might come out on top if she tried anything, so she left him alone and he paid her no mind.

In spite of all this, I found I could not completely relax.

Somewhere out there was someone who didn't actually want me dead, but was crazy enough to consider eradicating my home town in revenge for a perceived insult. The only person I could think of who fit that description was Brenna, a young woman about my age who bore a striking resemblance to me in spite of her black hair and very gothic fashion sense, and who had an Elevated panther as a familiar, not unlike my own Athena.

And who had insisted on referring to me as 'cousin' while we fought over possession of an Aztec dagger that had been used for ritual sacrifices for hundreds of years. I had destroyed the dagger - and probably burned her arm in the process - with a phoenix constructed of elemental fire magic. And in return, she had - assuming it had really been her - burned my hometown to the ground.

I shivered a little and felt Athena squeeze my ankle reassuringly. Looking down at her, her eyes met mine and she pointedly glanced over at the sofa. I looked over at my mom, cozily tucked against Jonathan's side, his arm around her shoulders. I thought of Hollis Ellister and his familiar Elsie back in London.

My family and closest friends.

Whatever happened, I was not alone. I finally relaxed, taking a moment to caress Athena's hair and ears gratefully. She always knew what I needed.