He snorted. “No, no. Nothing like that.” He tapped his thumb against his beer. “There’s just a lot of stigma against werewolves, especially—” Trick shook his head.

Van snorted. “He’s not dangerous, or you wouldn’t invite him to live with us.”

“We all know what it’s like,” I said quietly. “To be painted with that particular brush.” This morning wasn’t the first time I’d had some variation of “weird animal mage” thrown at me. “Why would he care if we’re witches?” I might not be close to any shapeshifters, but I’d never heard of them having a beef with witches.

I glanced over at the row of books on Jules’s bookshelf, most of them focused on the Uncanny. Juliet was specializing as a GUNC, which was the unfortunate acronym for a General Uncanny Counselor. GUNCs helped different Uncanny blend and cope with the mundane world. We might have been around for a long time, but we’d remained hidden as human society developed. Some aspects of society weren’t created with Uncanny in mind, and though many had adapted, you could still smack into workplace issues. Apartments couldn’t legally keep a shapeshifter from renting, but it still happened. It was stressful.

On top of that, there were some issues we faced that humans didn’t. Mental blocks with our magic, like shifters who couldn’t shift or witches whose spells fizzled. Juliet had told me about one case study where a river nymph was afraid of water. Several of the titles on Juliet’s shelf were specifically about shifters. So whatever Declan’s issue was, I didn’t think it was a shapeshifter/witch thing.

“Normally, he wouldn’t care if you were witches, obviously, because we wouldn’t be able to be friends if that was an issue.” Trick went to set his beer down, eyed Savannah, thought better of it, and set it up on the bookshelf behind him. “But he’s had a rough time of it lately, so he came up here already off-kilter.” He glanced guilty at me. “And Declan had a really bad experience in the past with a witch—an animal mage.”

“How bad?” I asked.

“The worst,” Trick said.

“Okay,” I said, getting up to recycle my beer bottle.

“Okay?” Van asked. “Just like that?”

“No,” I said. “Not just like that. I trust Trick. I trust his judgment. So far, I’m not impressed with Declan, but it sounds like he was put in a bad position and I’m willing to give him another shot.”

Savvy wriggled, and Van placed her on the ground, where she immediately went after the blocks I’d neatly stacked. Van sighed. “Well, now I feel bad.”

I narrowed my eyes at her. “Van, what did you do?”

Van crossed her arms, guilt virtually scrawled across her face in six-inch neon letters. “I might have already hexed him.”

“Van!” I couldn’t keep the exasperation out of my tone. “That’s not helpful.”

If at all possible, she crossed her arms harder, practically hugging herself. “He was mean to you!”

Trick deflated, putting a hand over his eyes. “Van. If anyone should have been hexed, it was probably me.”