Aside from the, um, hickey incident, the morning went surprisingly smoothly. Breakfast was a quiet affair with just Sebastian, Edmund, Luke and Daisy. Garret had to leave early for his shift at the station, the elves had apparently eaten earlier, and Obsidian was Moon knows where.

After eating, the group decided on spending some more quality time outside. Luke and Daisy took to practising their archery, and Ed gave them tips from where he was sitting beside Seb under a tree. Sebastian couldn’t have been happier, curled up next to his boyfriend while he was reading, with a slight warm breeze blowing, and joyful chatter filling the air. It was a perfect day.

They ended up eating lunch outside too, enjoying an impromptu picnic under the tree that Seb and Edmund had been occupying. As they were finishing up however, Hayden’s familiar blue coupe arrived.

Persephone was the first to step out looking dishevelled and displeased, with her wife right behind her looking equally unhappy, albeit far colder. Sebastian felt as if that alone was a bad omen for whatever conversation was coming their way. He could only hope that it was about one of the things they were already dealing with instead of something new.

Persephone made an attempt at a smile, which honestly ended up strained. “Afternoon, everyone.”

“Hey, are you two okay?” Ed inquired.

“Exhausted, but otherwise fine. Could we speak to you two?” Hayden asked, directing the question at Edmund and Seb.

Sebastian looked at Luke and Daisy. “Will you two be alright if we went inside for a couple minutes.”

Daisy nodded and Luke answered. “Sure. Come on, Dai. Let’s see who can hit the bullseye first.”

Seb smiled as he watched the pair race back to where they’d left the bow and arrows, but sobered up as his mind began racing with possibilities of whatever Persephone and Hayden had come to talk about. By the time that they’d reached the living room, he had a list that was far too long, and mostly paranoia, but considering the shit that tended to happen these days, it wasn’t all impossible.

The Wiker Pack attacking? They knew that was an inevitability.

A different pack was threatening them? Also possible.

Persephone’s clan wanted to get rid of them? Less likely considering they were dealing with the missing member thing. Probably.

Zombies were coming after all of them? Kind of random, really, but at least it would keep with the occult theme of things.

Sebastian was pulled out of his thoughts by Edmund placing a glass of soda in his hands. Apparently, he’d been spaced out the entire time that it had taken for Ed to fetch refreshments. Hayden and Persephone didn’t seem to mind though.

After taking a sip of her own drink, Persephone began. “Elliot is officially in town.”

“We know.”

“You know.”

“We kind of met him yesterday. You weren’t wrong when you called him an eccentric little shit.” Sebastian commented. “He didn’t tell you about it over lunch?”

“No. What happened?”

“Well, he started off strong by stalking us at the mall, then scaring the crap out of us by suddenly appearing in the middle of the road. He wanted to talk to us about taking in a few werewolves he knows.”

Hayden raised an eyebrow. “How is he connected to these wolves?”

“He didn’t give us a direct answer, honestly. But apparently there are twenty of them. All kicked out of their former pack because the alpha saw them as ‘dead weight’.”

“Dead weight? Why?”

“They’re mostly elders and disabled, as well as some rebels. It doesn’t make sense really, but what’s done is done, I guess.” Edmund explained, staring thoughtfully at his drink.

“You’re going to accept the offer to take them in?” Persephone half inquired/half stated.

Perhaps she knew them too well. Or there was something she knew about Elliot that assured her they would take the offer.

Sebastian nodded. “Do you have something to say that might change our minds?”

“No, honestly, the reason we came today has nearly nothing to do with Elliot. The emporium is in near chaos these days, as you’ve seen, and honestly, we had to close for today because I just couldn’t see us managing with how short staffed we are.”

“Sorry.”

“Oh, honey, it’s nothing on you. You honestly deserve the time off with everything else you’re both handling right now. I’m probably going to need to hire at least two newbies though. Hopefully one of them can even work full time.”

“We did a few interviews today actually.” Hayden explained. “It’s why we arrived so drained. We both work with people regularly but somehow forgot how annoying they could be.”

“Indeed.” Persephone groaned. “I’m dreading going back later. But back to the matter at hand, we wanted to inform you about Elliot, and that we found a caster for the new moon.”

“The new moon? Oh, right, the ritual for figuring out things with the elves.” Seb felt a bit bad for forgetting, but in his defence, as Persephone had mentioned, they were dealing with a lot of other shit.

“Her name is Wendy. She tried out for the emporium interviews, but she’s so damn shy I don’t see her working in a job with as much human interaction as this one.” Persephone sighed.

“She’s a brilliant fit for the ritual though. She specialises in illusion magic.” Hayden stated.

Sebastian nodded thoughtfully. “Can we trust her?”

“About as much as we can trust anyone else, I think. Spot and Lydia seemed fine with her. Those two have rather good sense of intentions.”

“Guess I should message mom and Nick about the good news then. The only thing that seems to be left is where this will be taking place.”

“Nick knows the details of this, so he probably has somewhere in mind already.” Hayden supposed.

Sebastian nodded, but then paused as he noticed Edmund tense and tilt his head like he was listening for something. “What?”

“Someone’s here.”