Riordan froze. How did he answer that question from Annie? She wanted to know who was standing invisibly in her living room? Riordan had floated the idea of telling her that Daniel still existed as a ghost, of trusting her with that much of the supernatural world at least, trusting that her love for her nephew would preserve the secrets, but the sudden shift in topic from recent trauma to this threw him.

Riordan’s habitual instincts when dealing with humanity regarding the supernatural was to deny, deflect, defend. Secrecy held their greatest safety. He froze in indecision. Mark sat up straighter on the couch, frowning.

Annie held up a forestalling hand. “Before you answer that question, let me get something and explain something.”

Grateful for a reprieve to decide what he wanted to even say, Riordan nodded. Annie left the living room, disappearing into what Riordan thought was a crowded messy bedroom. Rummaging sounds and mutterings of “where did I put it” filtered out, clearly audible to shifters.

Riordan turned to Daniel, asking quietly, “What is she doing?”

Daniel gazed towards where Annie had gone. “I’m… honestly not sure. Aunt Annie is a sharp one, but I don’t know where she’s going with this.”

“Riordan…,” Mark said, tone stuck somewhere between warning and pleading.

Riordan shrugged. “We already were considering telling her. This could be good. It would have hurt if we’d told her and she wasn’t open to believing.”

“Aha!” came Annie’s voice triumphantly. She bustled back into the living room, colorful overshirt drifting and flowing as she moved. She held something in her hand that she quickly set in the middle of the table.

It was a mage’s token.

Riordan sat back in his seat, studying the token. Of all the options, he hadn’t considered that Annie might already know something about magic.

Mages–and shifters occasionally, though it was culturally more of a house mage thing– gave tokens to normal mortals as a sign that they trusted that person, usually with some measure of the supernatural world. Having a token wasn’t the same as being a supernatural or even being a normal person fully involved in the supernatural, like the human members of the pack or the human employees of the Department of Magic. All it signified is that the gifter had judged her worthy of being recognized by others in the know as someone of value.

The token meant that at some point, Annie had met a mage and that mage had trusted her.

Of course, that left a wide range of actual knowledge and a huge ass mystery as to how this eccentric suburban middle aged Midwestern woman had befriended a mage.

Riordan pointed at it and said, “Explain.”

Annie blinked and then slowly smiled. “You know what that is. You aren’t just a sensitive. You’re like he was.”

On a practical level, a shifter was another type of mage. On a cultural level, there was a hell of a lot of difference. Riordan couldn’t help but growl and glare at the token with an adamant negating jerk of his head.

Annie’s smile faded. “Or not.”

Waving Riordan down with one hand, Mark reached out and tapped the token with the other. A little flare of magic popped up, a personal mage’s signature to go with the house symbol, invisible to those who couldn’t sense magic. Riordan didn’t recognize either. He hoped that meant it wasn’t from a Great House, but freely admitted his knowledge of mage stuff wasn’t solid or current enough to be sure.

Mark’s tired and lackadaisical demeanor slid into his shaman professionalism. He laced his hands together in front of him and smiled, asking his version of Riordan’s demand. “Would you care to explain how you came to have something like this?”

Judging by her expression, Annie hadn’t expected Mark to recognize it either, likely because he hadn’t been talking to thin air whenever her back was turned. “Of course, I was planning on that.”

She still took a brief moment to get more hot water to refresh their tea cups. Riordan took it to be a relaxing and centering thing for her. She appeared pleased that the token meant something to them but surprised that it wasn’t a wholly positive reaction.

Then Annie began, “When I was younger, in my twenties, I went through a phase where I wanted to ‘discover myself.’ Not an unusual happenstance, nor was my method of throwing myself into travel, mysticism, and drugs. I wanted to believe that there was more to the world than just getting a job, working constantly, retiring, and dying. My father had lived like that and it had made for a cold home. I did that on my own for a bit, but then I met others doing similar things while visiting spiritual hot spots and some of us started to travel together.”

Her expression turned fond and reminiscent, eyes clearly turned to some distant but pleasant memory. Annie shook herself slightly, took another sip of tea, and continued, “We would talk philosophy and ethics and politics. We’d dabble in anything harmlessly magical we could, tarot and crystals and meditation and so forth–we were at least smart enough not to mess with dark magic. And, of course, we got frequently and totally baked off our asses.”

Daniel listened, fascinated at this bit of his aunt’s history, though he snorted and added, “I can totally see her doing that. No wonder Dad questioned her decision-making. Or her ability to be a role model for me as a young adult.”

Even now, Annie had a decidedly bohemian air. Or perhaps just the attitude of one who only cared if she was happy with her personal choices. She wore colors and styles normally considered unconservative and her shelves still held crystals and meditation bowls. A free spirit, as some would say.

Plus, now that Riordan was looking for it, one of the many plant smells around her house was clearly marijuana. Apparently dear Aunt Annie hadn’t grown out of that phase entirely.

“Most of mysticism always seemed like it was on the edge of a greater truth,” Annie sighed. “As if the principles were sound, but I lacked some trick of mind or spirit to inhabit more than the outer form of them. It frustrated me, especially since I was torn between concluding I was flawed–either in self or in execution of the techniques–or that magic wasn’t real after all, not in the way I wished it was.”

Humanity longed for magic. All of them, mage or ungifted, had magic in them. Magic was in everything; humanity breathed it in as truly as they breathed in air. Sometimes someone lacking affinity could touch the edge of magic, sensing the flow of it or manifesting some lesser talent. Riordan assumed that was what Annie meant by a “sensitive.” However, without affinity, the ability to manipulate magic according to will and intention could not be obtained.

“And then I met him, a man who could do real magic.”

Annie shook her head, though whether in denial of some thought or to clear her mind, Riordan couldn’t tell. “I won’t tell you much about him–I swore to keep his secrets–but he had left his family after some dispute and traveled with us. Unlike most of us, I noticed that he wasn’t seeking for hints of magic, but broadening some already existing underlying understanding of it. The rest of us would try a technique and see if we could make anything happen. He would look at a technique and critique it for the parts that were worthwhile and the ones that were crap. He taught us to think critically about our attempts at magic, making us strive for more than wanting just any effect to happen. He made us think about what we were trying to affect in the world and what impact it could have.”

Riordan could practically see the moment Mark tripped over from professional shaman to scholarly shaman. He snorted as the kid beamed at Annie.

“Yes, very good,” Mark said. “Magic, despite its wonder and power, is a fundamentally neutral force. Magic doesn’t care if you were only messing around when you tell it to remove the air from a space or make something grow uncontrollably. It just does what you tell it to do, rather like a computer program in some ways. Your intention fills in the gaps in your instructions, but your instructions are what determine your effect. Magic has no opinion on what it does.”

“Oh, some magic is very opinionated,” Riordan grumbled, shooting a very pointed look at where Mark’s new tattoo peeked out of his collar.

Mark had the good grace to blush.

“You both look at magic the way he did,” Annie observed, “Yet, you don’t want to be compared to him?”

It was time for them to make a decision and stick with it. Riordan sighed and then gestured to the token on the table.

“That buys you a certain amount of dispensation regarding things we’d normally keep quiet, even if it’s a mage token,” Riordan explained. “We were considering telling you some things today, depending on our impressions of you, but this justifies a bit more.”

He could see Annie mouth the words “mage token.” She looked utterly enthralled, which was frankly a welcome and likely temporary distraction from her deep grief. Any intense emotion couldn’t be sustained indefinitely. One grew numb over time and got on with life until the next great joy or sorrow. Her grief was fresh though, sharp and dragging. Riordan tried to keep that in mind and was grateful he could give her even the reprieve of a distraction. And possibly a lessening of the grief.

Riordan began his explanation with, “We aren’t mages–”

Mark, lost to scholarly enthusiasm, interrupted, “That depends on definition. Practically and magically, we are mages. Culturally, we are not.”

Riordan glared at his friend. He opened his mouth to continue and then deliberately paused, maintaining eye contact with Mark to see if he would interrupt again.

Mark did not, dropping his eyes and blushing again, though Daniel snickered to the side.

“As I was saying, we aren’t mages, not like your old friend was, but we do know magic. The relevant bit here is that, through unusual means, both Mark and I can see ghosts. Or at least a certain ghost.” Riordan pondered that before adding as an aside to Mark, “We should find out if you can see other ghosts.”

He couldn’t remember if Quinn had been by since the time Riordan had taken Mark to speak to Daniel in the spirit realm, triggering the talent. Or if Mark had been around if Quinn had stopped by. Quinn’s companions were the only readily available source of ghosts that Riordan knew of.

Annie, meanwhile, clearly hung on Riordan’s words, even as her eyes flickered to the empty air they had spoken with. Riordan realized he’d inadvertently dangled a desperate hope in front of her of being able to see her nephew again. Fortunately, that was a hope he could actually meet.

Riordan turned to Daniel. The ghost stood near his aunt, as hungry for her to see him as she was.

“Daniel, would you like to try manifesting?”