Charles nodded. “I’ll pay to keep the locker and we’ll take what we’ve already sorted out with us now. Once we do that, there isn’t anything with enough magic left here to draw predators.”

Tag tilted his head and then looked at Anna. “Do you know that he doesn’t talk unless you’re present?”

She laughed, and the sound made Charles and Brother Wolf happy. He wasn’t sure he’d known what happy had felt like before they’d found her.

C H A P T E R

11

Anna and Charles went to the office to find the manager while Tag continued repacking the storage unit. The manager was not pleased to learn they had decided to keep the contents—but he was too intimidated by Charles to argue. Charles further softened the blow by paying him six months of rent, sixty dollars (refundable) for the key Charles had been using, and a hundred dollars for the manager’s trouble.

“Bribery is bad,” chided Anna as they walked back to Tag.

“Bribery will keep him happy and out of the storage unit,” said Charles.

Anna shook her head. “I am saddened by your innocent belief that a hundred dollars would keep him out if he was the type of man who would steal things from one of the storage lockers.”

Charles smiled, not unhappy to be caught out. “Then let’s just say that I was sorry I got his hopes up.”

They rounded the corner of the row of units where Carrie’s was, and Anna stumbled to a halt.

“Anna?”

She didn’t look at him but stared down the gravel road at Tag, who was loading his cauldron into the SUV. She reached out and grabbed Charles’s arm.

Honestly alarmed now, Charles said, “Anna? What’s wrong?”

She shivered, took a deep breath, and said, “Maybe a bit of a panic attack.” She took her hand off him and put it into her pocket, where a stray piece of paper rustled unhappily. “I’m glad I’m not going back to Wild Sign.”

“Anna?”

She shook her head and gave him a wobbly smile. “I think I’m just on edge.”

They finished packing the storage unit, and Anna seemed to recover from whatever had bothered her. She teased Tag about his cauldron as she helped them get the last of Carrie’s things back into the unit. By the time they were headed for the hotel, Charles was convinced that Anna was fine.

Tag and Anna carried in the items they’d collected from the storage unit and Charles added them to the collection of grimoires. He sent the other two out for a walk while he reinstated his safeguards. It was more difficult than it had been the last time, which he found worrying.

They are bored, said Brother Wolf in answer to Charles’s silent grumbles.

“Who?” asked Charles.