Twenty minutes later when I opened the door, I nearly tripped over him.

  Drew tipped his head back to look at me. “How’d it go?”

  Little brothers. I stepped over his leg and made a beeline to the last piece of pizza. I snagged it before he could regain his appetite. “They’re on their way to pick you up.”

  He slouched and shuffled to the couch. “Why can’t I stay here?”

  “Do you see space for you? Did you think about that?”

  Drew cupped his hands like cat ears and mimed curling up as a lynx.

  “Cute, but I’m not keeping a lint roller out because my brother is spending his time shedding fur in my apartment.” I tossed the empty pizza box onto the coffee table. “Drew, staying here won’t work, but there are ways to get more of what you want.”

  Not just because I didn’t have room. With my recently active necromancy, privacy was paramount. Besides, if the clan found out he was guarding my secret, well, being a werelynx wasn’t much protection.

  “How? They don’t listen when I tell them I don’t want to go to college.” He sprawled across the couch dramatically. “They never listen.”

  “None of you have been listening.”

  “That’s not true! I hear them tell me to go to college all the time. They’re the ones who don’t listen!”

  I glared at him until his protests stopped. “You haven’t listened. They want what’s best for you. That’s why they want you to go to school and didn’t want me to go to school.”

  “That doesn’t even make sense,” He muttered.

  A deep breath in and then out so my next explanation could be in small words. “For me, joining the clan business, which didn’t require college, was best. For you, going to school and developing skills for a career is the best path.”

  “I guess.”

  Good enough. “When they show up, you need to apologize and tell them you won’t run away again. Then you need to tell them you’ll pay back the money you ‘re-purposed.’ After that, tell them you’d like to talk about your future when things have calmed down, like tomorrow. Got it?”

  He opened his mouth and then closed it and nodded.

  “I don’t know exactly what will happen, but they’ll be hurt you did this and upset that they weren’t communicating with you before. They’ll still want you to go to school. You are going to agree, as long as it’s a school where you can take art classes.”

  And that was where I lost him.

  “School can’t teach art. Art comes from the soul!” He delivered the line with all the gusto of his seventeen years.

  “And a good artist learns from experienced and skilled artists. That’s how you learn important things, like when they need breathing protection and to wear gloves. Or how best to use sculpting tools, and even your hands.” I kept going because he needed time to decide this was a good idea before Mom and Dad arrived. “Odds are they won’t love the idea of spending money on art classes, which is why you’re going to take business classes too.”

  “What?! Why?”

  “Because running a business is hard, and knowledge can make it easier.” Or so I’d heard. Life had taught me being an adult was hard. Adding in running a business where I was the greatest asset sounded like a great way to be stressed all the time.

  “So far, I’m doing all the compromise.”

  “Painful, isn’t it? Welcome to adulthood.”

  He didn’t find that nearly as funny as I did.

  “Next, they compromise,” I said. “You’re going to ask to continue taking pottery classes and ask if you can try to find a job that will put you around pottery more often. Since that’s what you want to do, you should learn as much as you can now, so if you change your mind, you don’t waste time and money in college. You can change directions quickly.”

  “Why would they agree to that?” He made a face. “Compromise sucks.”

  “It does.” I pulled him in for a hug that he gave a great show of resisting. “They’ll agree because they love you. And if you do run away, come here, because I love you, and if you can’t run to your big sister, where can you go?”

  “You still suck for turning me in.”

  “That I do. Would cookie dough ice cream make it up to you? There’s a pint in the freezer.”

  He bolted off the couch.

  As he dug into the pint with a spoon, I suppressed a smile. If only all my problems could be solved so easily.

  A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  Awkwardness abounded when our parents arrived. I got hugs, and Dad pushed some of his power into me, for which I thanked him quietly. He gave me a look that said we’d talk but turned his attention to his more problematic child.

  Dad gave Drew his best disappointed look. If it had the same effect on my bother as it had on me, he was feeling smaller than an ant.

  Lynn frowned every time she looked at Drew, but her eyes held worry and a hint of fear.

  Under the pretense of needing wardrobe advice for a date (ha! Between the case and my necromancy, that’d be an exercise in lying) I lured Lynn into my bedroom and shut the door. Before she could ask where the outfits were hiding, I gave her a big hug. “You’re a good mom.”

  She sniffled and leaned into me. “You were an easy child.”

  My memory said different, but growing up was never easy. “I refused the clan business and went to college.”

  “And that worked out, though your father credits half his gray hairs to the stress of it all.” Lynn pulled back and narrowed her eyes. “It isn’t the same.”

  To give myself time to answer, I retreated to the door and leaned against it. “It isn’t. Drew and I are different people. I knew what I wanted and badgered you and dad mercilessly. I kept at it until I found a way. Drew brooded and decided to figure it out on his own.”

  “This talk of yours is making me feel worse, not better.”

  I struggled to find the right words. “Women talk more than men, especially about their feelings. He lied, a lot, and that deserves punishment, but this isn’t your fault.”

  Mom rubbed her head. “He didn’t trust me.”

  “He didn’t trust himself, and he didn’t know how to talk about his feelings until he was caught in his own web. If he didn’t trust you, he’d have bolted as soon as I called, but he didn’t.” I shrugged. “He trusted you enough to wait here, that you’d help him.”

  “From big protective sister to mom?” She sighed and pushed off the bed. “There was a time your dad and I worried you kids would never bond.”

  “The hunting trips and picnics didn’t leave a lot of options,” I said dryly.

  She snorted. “Parental desperation to bridge two worlds.”

  “It worked, and you can help him make this work too.”

  This time, Lynn hugged me. “Smart and strong daughter.”

  I hoped so. It would take that and more to hide my necromancy.

  Mom went out to have words with Drew, and somehow, Dad cornered me. This time, the worry in his eyes was directly squarely at me.

  “Thank you.” His voice dropped to a whisper. “There’s a dead squirrel by the driveway, if you need to practice your new skill. And rest up. It’s not good for you to be so low on magic.”

  “Work’s been hard.” Not that the idea of bringing a poor squirrel back to life had great appeal, but if I wanted to control these powers, I had to practice them. “Thank you, and you’re welcome.”

  I declined a dinner invitation, which earned me a glare from Drew, and Mom and Dad started ushering him out the door. On his way out, Drew looked over his shoulder. “Have you ever really looked at that vase? Let me know if it works.” He closed the door.

  Footsteps echoed though the hall while I retreated to my bedroom. The blue glaze took on the look of the night sky with the white spots speckling it. The slender curve and lightly flared opening were far prettier than I expected out of a gift from my brother.

  I dumped the fake flowers on the floor and took a close look at the vase. The bottom and lower bit of the sides showed off smooth glaze. My eyes were drawn back to the sides, where he’d managed to give it texture and a bit of depth that almost tricked the eye into seeing shapes or movement in the clay.

  Light shone on the glaze as I turned the vase in my hands. For a moment, I thought I saw a shape etched in the clay.

  A shape or a rune?

  In the bathroom under the brightest lights in the house, I slowly pivoted the vase until I could make out the shape. Not only was it a rune, but there were dozens or even hundreds of them. With each bit I turned the vase, I found more, spanning the vase from the glaze line, up the side, and curling around the inside of the rim.

  When I found the starting point, inside the mouth of the vase, I started the painstaking process of reading the runes. Five lines in, a shiver ran up my spine.

  I dug my phone out of my pocket and texted my brother, asking where he’d found the spell. I added a request for him to call me later, but doubted he’d get a chance for a few hours.

  It took me an hour to work my way through the entire spell. Drew still hadn’t texted me back, so I pulled up a few drops of my magic, which was all I could spare. One went into the runes. They glowed as the spell settled through the clay. I let the other two drops fall into the vase.

  They spread out over the bottom of the vase, moving around as if they were drops of water. Cool.

  Now, could I extract them?

  I poked my finger through the center of the opening, and the magic rose up and slid into me. Extra cool.

  When I got him on the phone, I’d have to praise him and scold him for mucking about with spells. Then thank him again and buy him some clay. He’d managed to turn this vase into a magic depository. When I had extra energy, I could drain some into here and withdraw when I needed to recharge, like today.

  But, I couldn’t keep something like this next to my bed. What if I knocked it off in the middle of the night? Vase cradled against my chest, I opened a padded compartment on my apothecary’s cabinet and settled the vase inside. Next time I had extra energy, it would be easy enough to get to and far less likely to be broken accidentally.

  My phone rang, and I closed the compartment before answering. “Pine.”

  “Does it work?” Drew demanded.

  “Where did you get the spell?” I owed it to Mom and Dad to add a little scolding in before the praise.

  “Found Dad working on translating it. When he finished, I took a picture of the original and the translation. As soon as I read it, I had to try making a pot with it. I thought you’d notice when I gave it to you, but you didn’t, so I figured it didn’t work. It wasn’t until today I realized it might not feel like a spell until it was activated. Did it work?” He stopped to breathe.

  “First, you shouldn’t mess with spells. They can hurt you.” He made a rude noise, and I smiled. “And yes, it worked!”

  “What? Really?”

  “Yes, really. Do you know how much something like that sells for?” As soon as the words left my mouth, I regretted it. We had enough of the wrong type of attention on our family without him selling rune-etched pottery.

  “No.” He drew the word out. “What… you make it sound valuable.”

  “If you could get the license to sell that stuff, thousands of dollars.” I hated to crush a bit of his dream, but it was my fault for mentioning it to begin with. “But you’ll have to see where Dad got the spell and what he thinks about you selling pottery like that. With two of us being witches, it wouldn’t do to have the clan think we were using our abilities without their approval, and you really do need the license.”

  “Okay. Let me think about it, but I promise I’ll talk to dad before I make another.”

  “Thank you, and nice work, Drew.”

  “Can’t believe it worked.” He sucked in a deep breath. “Mom’s yelling for me. Bye, sis.”

  My part of the shared joy faded. Drew had helped me solve my energy management problem, but Dad had offered a way to address a much more dangerous aspect of my life.

  With the last of the sunlight fading, I went out into the driveway to find a dead squirrel. A little death, a little magic. What could go wrong?