No, no, he said at once, holding her away from him, bracing her shoulders with his strong hands. He released the black staff, and it clattered to the concrete. His eyes held her own. Listen to me, Nest. Wraith wasn’t your father’s. He was never that. He saved you from your father, remember? Gran made him over with her own magic to protect you. He was yours. He belonged to you.

The lean, weathered face bent close. Perhaps he’s only done what he was supposed to do. When you became of age and strong enough to look after yourself perhaps his job as your protector was finished. Where does magic go when it has served its purpose and not been fully expended? It goes back to its owner. To serve as needed.

So maybe, he whispered, Wraith has just come home.

She spent every waking moment of her journey back to Hopewell wrestling with that concept. Wraith had come home. To her. To become part of her. The idea was terrifying. It left her grappling with the prospect that at any moment she might jump out of her skin. Literally. It made her feel as if she were a character out of Alien, waiting for that repulsive little head to thrust out of her stomach, all teeth and blood.

But the image was wrongly conceived, and after a while it diminished and faded, giving way to a more practical concern. How could she control this newfound magic? It didn’t seem as if she had done much of a job so far. What was to prevent it from reappearing again without warning, from jeopardizing her in ways she couldn’t even begin to imagine?

Then she realized this image was wrongheaded, as well, that Wraith’s magic had lived inside her for a long time before it had surfaced. What had triggered its appearance last night was the presence of other magic, first the magic of John Ross and then the magic of the demon. She remembered how strangely she had felt that first day at Fresh Start, then later that night in Lincoln Park, both times when she was in close proximity to the demon. She hadn’t understood that it was Wraith’s magic, threatening to break free. But in each instance, his magic was simply responding to the perceived threat another magic offered.

Realizing that gave her some comfort, but she still struggled with the idea that the big ghost wolf was locked inside her—not just as magic, but as the creature in which the magic had been lodged. Why did it still exist in that form?

It wasn’t until she was almost home, the lights of the first cluster of outlying residences breaking through the evening darkness, that she decided she might still be misreading things. In the absence of direction, magic took the form with which it was most familiar. It didn’t act independently of its user. Pick had taught her that a long time ago, when he was instructing her on the care of the park. If Wraith had still been whole, still her shadow protector, he would have come to her defense instinctively. It was not strange to think that bereft of form and independent existence, his magic would still do so. After all, the magic had been given to her in the first place, hadn’t it? And in making its unexpected appearance, absent any direction from her, was it surprising it would assume the same form it had occupied for so many years?