Heaven save him from beautiful women who were several times smarter than him. They were apparently his heretofore unknown catnip. Or bear-nip.

Zed’s maman’s yard had never looked so good. The grass, usually a riot of untamed nature, was neatly trimmed into a velvety green carpet. Outlining the property, torches and cheerful paper lanterns were strung between the heavily-laden fruit trees Clarissa planted to keep her bees entertained. The garden, boosted with energy from la faille, was bursting with spiky bee balm in stunning pinks and purples, broken up by patches of hardy pink coneflower, magenta foxglove, and bright lemon yellow snapdragons. The bees hummed sleepily in their sturdy box hives. If he knew his maman, she’d had a stern pre-party talking-to with each swarm’s queen warning her of the consequences of attacking the guests. (Maman would plant nothing but stinkweed in the garden for the next three years.)

The magique seemed to have decided as a whole that their new neighbors were going to have to get to know them warts and all. The few merfolk the bayou could boast were doing the backstroke in the water beyond the grass, their rainbow fins flashing in the late afternoon sun. Fairy wings were unfurled, gossamer and glistening. Little kids scampered around the lawn in their shifter forms, wolf cubs and lion cubs and tiny bears. Bael was in full dragon form, huge and golden, keeping the cooking fires burning. While a handful of League employees were shifters, the new humans looked somewhat uncomfortable dealing with real live magique, as opposed to paperwork. But they were making an effort at polite conversation, and generally being sociable, so that was a good sign.

The whole town had turned out in force to welcome the League employees, shifters and fae folk and humans alike. There was so much food that Clarissa had divided it into stations. Gumbo bubbled over a fire in Bonita De Los Santos’ iron pot. Another little rock-ringed campfire heated a giant pot of red beans and rice. Earl Webster was overseeing the roasting of several cochon de lait—suckling pigs, turning on spits over the flames—something they could only recently reintroduce to the menu after the Warburtons, a family of warthog shifters, moved out of town. Everything was served with cornbread and drowning in butter.

“You weren’t lying, this is food paradise,” Dani whispered to Zed. “Also, there’s a dragon, which you don’t see every day. Or in my case, ever. I mean, Jillian told me there were dragons here, but . . . wow.”

Zed shrugged. “That’s just Bael. Dragonfire is the steadiest cooking heat there is,” he said, gesturing to the pair of police uniform pants secured around the dragon’s leg with elastic. “He’s very polite about keeping his pants on in public.”

“I’m not sure whether to be more excited about the dragons, fairies and mermaids, or the fact that I smell sassafras in the gumbo.”