For all that Riordan claimed he was busy with pack duties today, he was staying the hell away from that bullshit. He’d heard Mark arrive, only for the poor guy to get quickly jumped on by the strong women in his life, all of whom outranked him. Actually, Riordan wondered where Mark’s parents were in all of this. He was young enough that he’d clearly been born into this pack, but Frankie acted like mother as well as mentor to him, with Lucinda being an older sister figure.

His best guess was that Mark’s parents had switched packs but left Mark behind. That wasn’t so strange when shifters didn’t properly age over that time. Parents ended up looking more like siblings to their children in those long middle years. Some families made a point of moving packs together. Others split up for various reasons, including the desire for independence. It could be hard to get out from under a parent’s shadow in a small pack.

The thoughts of pack and family sent pangs of longing through Riordan. It really had been too long since he’d let himself indulge the desire for those connections.

Speaking of connections… Riordan smiled up at his ghostly friend. Daniel hovered awkwardly a few feet away, looking uncertain of his reception.

To be fair, Riordan could see why. Daniel’s actions for the previous night clearly included more than just being Mark’s guide.

The ghost possessed a new solidity that he hadn’t had before, no longer fragilely translucent. His body still appeared faded into the world, gray scale and washed out, but he stood in the air as firmly as another might stand on ground. His existence was not just bolstered though. The ghost felt… rooted.

Yes, rooted was the right word, Riordan realized, perhaps literally. His death sight showed him Daniel as a solid ghost, but his spirit sight showed another layer to the man that hadn’t been there before. His energy wasn’t only denser; it was vibrant and multi-colored, moving in the shape of roots and vines beneath the ghost’s skin.

“You had a busy night,” Riordan observed.

Daniel fidgeted. “Yeah. I– Sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry, Daniel. I get the feeling you were doing what you needed to for yourself. I’m the last person to judge so long as it doesn’t hurt anyone,” Riordan reassured his friend. “What did it cost you?”

That question was asked casually enough, but the answer concerned Riordan. Would he need to have words with a greater spirit, bargaining for his friend’s soul?

“Honestly, not that much,” Daniel said before frowning, “At least, I think so. Talking with spirits is weird. I barely managed it. Mark did most of the work. I think his deal covered part of my price as well. I owe the tree an education on Disney fairy tales and stories with happy endings and positive magic.”

Huh. Riordan blinked at that. Of all the things Daniel could have traded the spirit, that bargain of knowledge never occurred to Riordan. “Really? You traded Disney movies for whatever power that is you have now?”

Daniel looked confused. “How can you tell I got a power?”

“I can see it,” Riordan pointed out. “It looks like vines living inside you. Or roots. Perhaps both. It feels like you have a passive and an active form of the power, hence the two halves. What can you do, anyway?”

“Ah, I think I can absorb and transfer mana? Or whatever you call the aligned energy you mages hold inside,” Daniel said, shrugging. “It’s not like it came with an instruction manual.”

“Gods, wouldn’t that be nice?” Riordan said even as his mind whirled with this new information. “Mana is not our term, but works fine. Hell, it might have entered our terms given the rise of fantasy novels and gaming. There is a cultural cross-pollination and all.”

“I can’t imagine you playing video games,” Daniel assessed honestly. “It seems too sedate for you. Not real enough.”

Riordan snorted and shook his head. “No idea. It’s certainly never interested me enough for me to go out of my way to try it, though hitting an arcade occasionally back in the day was fine for an hour of distraction. You aren’t distracting me now though. Can you show me how your gift works?”

Demonstration would answer far more of Riordan’s questions than anything else, especially since Daniel’s magical background and terminology lacked sophistication. Riordan didn’t want misunderstandings.

That said, Daniel hesitated at the request. Riordan hitched a brow upwards in silent inquiry and gestured in a well, get on with it manner.

“Ah, I’ve never used it,” Daniel mumbled.

Riordan laughed at that, letting his head fall back against the tree he was using as a back rest. “You won’t get better at using it if you don’t try. I know you’ve listened in on my lessons often enough. Intention is nine-tenths of the rule for getting magic to work, though you can refine its usage from there.”

“What if I hurt you?”

“Do you want to hurt me?” Riordan countered.

“Not usually,” Daniel quipped.

“That should be enough. Unless the ability is downright cursed, you’ll be able to pull back. And trust me, you know I’ll fight back if I feel actually threatened in some way.”

“Unless you are being stubborn in some other way, yeah, you will.”

That fact seemed to relax Daniel. Riordan reached out a hand to Daniel. “Do you need contact?”

Daniel paused. Riordan recognized the expression on his face as Daniel turned his attention inward. Riordan wondered how it felt to Daniel and if the power was intuitive or not. Most affinities were, but this was something else and was externally added to the ghost.

“To take from you directly, yes, sort of?” Daniel replied, not entirely certain of his answer. “I get the feeling of needing connection to a target.”

“Okay, try to establish that connection. I won’t fight you if you need to experiment and get handsy.”

“Dangerous offer,” Daniel laughed. “I could take the chance to feel you up and claim it was necessary.”

“See, don’t tell me your plan like that. Just do it if you really want to.” Riordan rolled his eyes, relaxing the tension in his body even as he kept his hand extended.

Daniel smiled, losing some of his own tension. It was amazing how a ghost could look all tight like that when they didn’t really have muscles or biology anymore. The memory of life left strong imprints and habits.

Reaching out, the ghost took Riordan’s hand. Riordan suppressed the automatic startle response at physically touching Daniel, especially since his body still felt inhumanly cold. Cold, but not dead. Corpses had a certain looseness and stiffness all at once, because the body was breaking down and congealing. Daniel’s flesh had the sense of living skin and muscle, only without warmth.

Daniel frowned down at their connection, looking abstracted once more. Riordan held himself in patient attention. He knew how hard it could be to nudge new magic into behaving. Hell, he’d had magic his whole life and still struggled to adapt to the changes to his magic system. At least Daniel probably had no bad habits to unlearn.

At first, nothing happened, but then the vines curled up beneath Daniel’s skin twitched. They slid out of his flesh around the point of Daniel’s wrist before wrapping around Riordan’s wrist in turn.

This time, Riordan jumped, even if he’d seen the contact coming. The vines sparked when they touched him, feeling like a static shock.

“Fuck, that tingles,” Riordan muttered, not letting himself pull away from the uncomfortable sensation.

The pain of the shocks quickly faded into a numb tingling as the vines paused their exploration of his skin. Riordan glanced up at Daniel. His friend looked concerned.

“It hurts?” Daniel asked.

“Yeah, kinda,” Riordan answered. “Felt like I was getting zapped, but now it’s mostly numb and just weird feeling. Keep going.”

Riordan kept his expression neutrally supportive, refusing to show the discomfort from the crawling sensation on his skin. The vines had withdrawn slightly in response to Daniel’s hesitation. Riordan understood that–Daniel wasn’t the sort to hurt his friends–but it was better to do this experiment and know what to expect than to learn something bad in the middle of an emergency.

Slowly, the vines moved forward again. Then suddenly they tightened around Riordan’s forearm like a fucking constrictor, cutting off circulation. The tingles pierced his skin, not leaving any marks even as the foreign energy invaded his body.

Then the energy latched onto his and started pulling.

Riordan’s eyes widened. “Fuck, this–” He cut himself off before he could spook Daniel, switching to saying, “Can you control the rate of pull? Or what affinity you are pulling from?”

He carefully did not say that he recognized the sensation. Ahlgren had a point. If someone felt this before, it was damned hard to mistake the feeling for anything else. Riordan knew what the tree spirit had done with the magical circle it had cleaned up now.

Daniel frowned, focusing on what he was feeling. “I… think so?”

The pull slowed down and then almost paused before it switched to drawing from Riordan’s spirit magic instead of the death magic it had defaulted to. He wondered if that was because death was most aligned with Daniel or the original mages or the tree spirit itself.

“That’s so weird,” Daniel said. “It’s like tasting colors with my fingertips. I can tell the difference, but I don’t know what any of it means.”

“You were absorbing death aligned energy first. Now you are getting spirit aligned,” Riordan said, grimacing. “It is unpleasant but not as bad as last time.”

Daniel looked at Riordan curiously. “Last time?”

“I’ll explain when we’re done. Can you try pushing energy into me? You said you could transfer it as well.”

“Sure.” That look of concentration overtook Daniel again.

The tingling inside Riordan swirled, growing warmer. It went from being electric shock to more like a soothing heating pad, radiating into him. The energy reversed direction, flowing from the vine into him now.

The energy was radiant rather than injected. Riordan’s own internal energy system had to draw it into his muscles and veins before drawing it down into his core and well, which resulted in some loss from the system. The effectiveness was clearly based on the recipient’s own absorption skills, though it was directed enough that even a normal non-magical human would get some energy to their dormant core.

Was that how the affinity eater was originally supposed to work? It absorbed as much energy from its hosts as possible, eating the well all the way down to the core, and then transferring that core into a neutral target to reinforce theirs in a really wasteful transfusion? No wonder it needed the whole well and core to even have a chance of a successful awakening.

For mages, this could be a way to get a quick burst. Even more, Daniel would be highly effective against death mages, since they didn’t naturally regenerate their powers. The ability was invaluable in battles of attrition.

“Okay, you can stop now,” Riordan told Daniel.

The vines retreated and Daniel stepped back, shaking his hand like it tingled too. Riordan’s own arm still felt half numb, though the sensation was rapidly fading now that the vines were gone. A thin circular mark marred Riordan’s dark skin, threatening to bruise. He could already feel his passive regeneration healing it.

“Well, that will be useful,” Riordan finally said.

“I know, right?” Daniel grinned. “It feels odd, but it’s also really cool. I’m sorry it hurt though. I need to figure out if I can fix that.”

“If anyone can, it’s you,” Riordan said sincerely. “I need you to promise me two things though.”

“What things?” Daniel asked, torn between excitement and wariness.

“First, never drain anyone’s well all the way unless you are willing to permanently damage their magic,” Riordan warned.

Daniel jerked his head back. “Gods! No, I don’t want that. Thanks for the warning. What’s the other thing?”

“Don’t tell anyone from the Department of Magic about this or use this power on them.”