The Order of Knights of Merciful Aid offered that aid under some conditions, not the least of which was that once they took a job, they finished it on their terms, and their clients didn’t always like the outcome.

“So the teamster rep asked the People point-blank to stop harassing their convoys,” Curran said, “and Ghastek told him that Kate was the only person capable of making it happen.”

“Did you?”

“I did,” I said. “And now I have to go to the Conclave meetings.”

“I’m there as a supportive spouse-to-be.” Curran grinned, flashing his teeth.

“So why did your father mess with the convoys?” Roman asked.

“No reason. He does it to aggravate me. He’s an immortal wizard with a megalomaniac complex. He doesn’t understand words like ‘no’ and ‘boundaries.’ It bugs him that I have this land. He can’t let it go, so he sits on my border and pokes it. He tried to build a tower on the edge of Atlanta. I made him move it, so now he’s building himself ‘a small residence’ about five miles out.”

“How small?” Roman asked.

“About thirty thousand square feet,” Curran said.

Roman whistled, then knocked on the wooden table and spat over his shoulder three times.

Curran looked at me.

“Whistling in the house is bad luck,” I explained.

“You’ll whistle all your money away,” Roman said. “Thirty thousand square feet, huh?”

“Give or take. He keeps screwing with her,” Curran said. “His construction crews obstruct the Pack hunting grounds outside Atlanta. His soldiers nag the small settlements outside the claimed area, trying to get people to sell their land to him.”

My father was slowly driving me insane. He’d cross into my territory when the magic was up, so I would feel his presence, then leave before I could get there to bust him. The first few times he had done it, I rode out, dreading a war, but there was never anyone to fight. Sometimes I woke up in the middle of the night because I’d feel him enter my land, and then I’d lie there gritting my teeth and fighting with myself to keep from grabbing my sword and running out of the house to hunt him down.

“Don’t forget the monsters,” I said. “They keep spawning outside the boundary and then raid Atlanta.”

“Most of the time we can’t tie it back to him,” Curran said. “When we can, she calls him on it. He apologizes and makes generous reparations.”

“And then we all somehow end up eating in some seafood joint, where he orders the whole menu and the waiters serve us glassy-eyed,” I said.

Curran finished his coffee in one gulp. “Last week a flock of harpies attacked Druid Hills. It took the Guild six hours to put them down. One merc ended up in the hospital with some kind of acute magical rabies.”