The predator in him took note that Underwood was so unskilled that he didn’t understand his spell had not been able to dig into Charles at all. That hadn’t been anything Charles had consciously done, but such a weak construct stood no chance against Charles’s natural shields.

Charles didn’t like leaving Underwood’s influence attached to Anna, but he didn’t want a confrontation just yet. Underwood was no threat. But the garden … that was another matter. He knew that most people who could work or sense magic thought of it as a lifeless power, but he’d been taught by a man who understood that the world was full of spirits, of life. Charles was sure that the garden, whatever the witches thought they had, was a living being.

If he and Underwood had a fight out on the stone walks of the garden, he wasn’t sure either of them would survive intact. Even Brother Wolf acceded to Charles’s judgment in leaving Anna be-spelled, because fighting on uncertain ground was better avoided.

And it was necessary to find out what Underwood had in mind, what he wanted from them. Charles didn’t like to think there was any kind of connection between the witches running this place and whatever had happened at Wild Sign. Black witches were not a fate he would wish on anyone.

Except Daniel Erasmus, Brother Wolf reminded him.

But the hungry expression on Erasmus’s face as he ranted about the power his granddaughter had robbed him of highlighted the fact that the witches in this place might have a reason to be curious about Carrie Green. If the werewolves were going to find themselves going up against witches as well as the Singer, it would be a good thing to know.

Charles paced behind Anna, occasionally blowing the garden’s tendrils of power away from her when they attempted to brush up against her skin. They were welcome to Underwood’s spellcrafting, but he would not allow them to try to feed upon Anna. Anna was not witchborn, so probably the spells in this garden would have done her no harm, but Charles saw no reason to risk it.

The garden made no attempt to touch him.

FROM THE VANTAGE point of the window of Underwood’s second-floor office, the hungry garden looked like nothing more than a well-tended green space. Outside of admiration for its outstanding design, the view elicited nothing more worrisome than the realization of how much money this place spent on labor to keep such an extensive space better groomed than a golf course.

Unless someone was like Charles, who could feel its soothing power reaching through the walls of the building. Funny how Anna, doing basically the same thing, made Brother Wolf content and peaceful, while the garden kept him in a state of near violence. Well, that and having to leave Anna under the influence of Underwood’s magic.