I PRIED OPEN THE PAPER CONTAINER OF GENERAL Tso’s chicken and touched a piece with my finger. It was room temperature. The thought of dumping it into a pan and warming it to an edible temperature crossed my mind, but heating it on the stove would make the vegetables mushy and I hated overcooked vegetables. My father, a great believer in the nutritional properties of boiled vegetables and meat broth, had cooked hearty, hot soups. The memory of him watching in distress as I gagged on soft cabbage and half-dissolved onion flashed before my eyes. I smiled at the carton and extracted a fork from the kitchen drawer. Hot food was overrated anyway.

I speared a piece of chicken with my fork, carefully avoiding the lump of green pepper. Suddenly I was ravenous.

Someone knocked.

I paused, the chicken halfway to my mouth, and glared at the door. The knocking persisted. It wasn’t Derek. His knock would be careful, almost apologetic. This bastard knocked like he was doing me a favor.

I looked at the chicken, glanced to the door, stuffed a whole piece into my mouth, and went to see who dared to make demands on my time.

The door swung open, revealing Curran. He wore old jeans and a green sweatshirt and carried a brown paper sack. He raised his face and sucked air in through his nostrils in the manner of shapechangers. “Tso’s, seafood delight, and fried rice,” he said. “You’re going to share?”

I leaned against the wall. The door was open but the ward still blocked his entrance, affording me a bit of leisure. “Oh, it’s you.” I dug in the container with my fork. “I thought it was somebody important.”

Curran stepped forward, brushing against the ward. A flash of carmine rippled through the magic barrier and the lord of shapechangers withdrew.

“A ward,” he said.

“A good one.”

He put his palm against the ward and pushed. Red pulsed from his fingers, spreading through the ward like waves from a pebble tossed into a quiet pond.

“I can break it,” Curran said.

I raised an eyebrow at him. “Be my guest.”

Shapechangers had a natural resistance to wards, so his promise had some substance. Still, I had reinforced all of Greg’s wards. If Curran did break it, the resonance from the collapse would give me one hell of a migraine, but I doubted he could. It was a good ward.

He considered it. I could see it in his eyes, and for a moment I thought he would try it. Then he shrugged. “I could break it, or we can be civil and you can let me in.”

Getting tired of power demonstrations, are we, Your Majesty? I unlocked the ward. A wave of silver rolled from the top of the doorframe to dissipate on the floor. “Come on in.”