Robert didn't know if he ever wanted to tell the truth about Luther to Jenna. She almost died for the old man's lies. On the other hand, Luther was right when he said that they would have gone after Yolanda either way. Ayana would have died without Luther, too. Still… Robert couldn't help, he felt that they were betrayed by the fae.

When Robert got home, the weirdest possible view greeted him: Jenna and Claire were playing video games on the couch, while Teodore was in the kitchen, with Jenna's apron over his white shirt and black tie, cooking dinner. Teodore Carano, the man who was ready to kill him bare months ago, stood in his kitchen and was stirring something in a pot. 

'Erm… Hello,' Robert said, a little unsure of what to do now.

Teodore nodded to him and went back stirring. Jenna paused the game and got up to kiss Robert.

'Where have you been?' she asked. 

'Erm… Hello,' repeated Robert, because that seemed like a reasonably safe answer. 

'Don't worry, Montgomery, I will not curse you and I didn't put poison into the food, either,' said Teodore with a pale smile, then he checked the pot. 'Not intentionally, anyway,' he added.

'I thought it's time for you two to get to know each other a little better,' said Jenna. 

'I told her there is plenty of time for that,' shrugged Teodore. 'But you know her. She always gets her way.'

Robert nodded. That much was true, Jenna indeed got what she wanted, every time. 

'And I am here for no reason whatsoever,' pitched in Claire from the couch. 'I just wanted to pick up a game and Jenna told me that I'm gonna have dinner with you guys. She didn't ask, she told me.'

'Sounds about right,' nodded Robert again. 'So what are we having?' 

'It started out as pasta alla carbonara,' said Teodore. 'But the results are still pending.'

Robert took off his coat and hung it on the crowded rack. Then he took out a bottle of spring water from the fridge, mostly because he didn't know what to do with his hands. 

'Teodore just told me that my father pulled a Lord Montgomery on him,' said Jenna, as she sat back on the couch.

Robert frowned.

'Pulled a Lord Montgomery?' he repeated. 'Did he ask the butler to beat you up?'

'Man, you have fucked up stories…' shook her head Claire. 

'No, he wants me to talk to the press. About how my girlfriend died heroically protecting the city,' answered Teodore. Robert wasn't surprised that he can talk about it so casually: Jenna had told him already that Ayana believed in some kind of afterlife. She had told Teodore several times that when her time comes, she wanted him to be happy for her because she finally could continue her journey. It sounded peaceful. Apparently, Teodore did as he was asked, or at least tried to. Robert was wondering about how it could have felt, not to be angry all the time. 

'Oh, the other Lord Patrick-special,' he said now. 'The media stunt. Whatever you do, it's his success… Or tragedy. Anything for good media coverage. What did you say?'

'I told him to fuck off, only in longer terms and less politely,' Teodore answered and Robert grinned at him.

'And here I thought my parents were hard to deal with because they didn't let me date anyone ‘till I was 18,' said Claire. 

Jenna scoffed.

'By the time I was 18 I had had so many… Erm… Dates… You know what, let's just talk about my jerk father now,' she finished.

Claire fondled her back while Jenna was murmuring something like "it wasn't that much, though". 

Robert sat in his chair at the desk.

'My father reached out after I came out of the coma,' he told the others. 'With the same nonsense. He wanted me to give interviews about how I personally saved the city. I didn't even answer.'

'How they are not best friends, it's beyond me,' shook her head Jenna. 

'Maybe if they would just sit down and talk about their problems, like adults…? started Claire hesitantly.

Jenna laughed, Teodore scoffed and Robert shook his head.

'Best case scenario: they would try to kill each other,' Robert explained. 'Or more precisely, my father would order his butler to kill Don Sebastiano. He doesn't like to get his hands dirty.'

'Okay, what's up with that butler thing?' asked Claire. 'You are fixating on him big time.'

'Unresolved childhood traumas, mostly,' shrugged Robert. 'I'm sure everyone has them.'

'Riiiight…' nodded Claire slowly. 'Sure, everyone had an abusive butler at home growing up…'

'Sweety, we are all fucked up here,' said Jenna. 'You should know that by now.' 

'Anyway,' said Teodore from the kitchen. 'Don Sebastiano plans on inviting everyone to his new year's eve party. To show that he is ready to bury the hatchet in the sake of the city. He celebrates the heroes who saved Trafalgar Square.'

'What do you mean, "everyone"?' asked Jenna. 

'Everyone. Robert, Benjamin, Rose, even Claire and Remy.'

'Why me?' asked Claire. 'I wasn't at Trafalgar Square.'

'But you are famous and popular and helped us out two times already,' pointed out Jenna. 'My father loves the company of famous and popular people.'

'That is a generous offer,' said Robert. 'And if I say no, that would mean I'm parting with the lord and I'm against Don Sebastiano's efforts to make the city a better place. What a clever trap.' he sighed. He knew that he was put into a situation when he would end up with at least one powerful politician angry at him. 'Jenna, tell me about your dress,' he sighed.

'You'll love it,' the girl grinned. 'It's really classy and just the right amount of slutty.' 

'Then I think I have no choice but to attend,' Robert said. 

'If that helps, there will be free alcohol,' said Teodore. 'If you can get to it before Jenna, of course.'

The girl showed her middle finger to her cousin who just smiled at her.

Teodore turned out to be a good cook, if not that great as Jenna, but definitely better than Robert. After dinner, while Claire did the dishes, the rest of them sat and drank wine (Robert with coke). 

'I hear you have a new teacher,' said Teodore with an awkward smile to Robert. 'How is that?'

Robert put down his glass next to the drawing tablet on his work-desk and adjusted the bandages on his burnt hand.

'Hard to tell. We only had three sessions so far, mind you, and there was not much actual magic involved. Apparently, every shaman has a spirit animal, that is actually an uncategorized spirit, and I need to find mine before I could do anything else.'

'But isn't that just conjuring?' frowned Teodore. 

'It's a little different,' explained Robert. 'In theory, I don't order the spirit to come, I just ask for it, and the spirit will decide if it wants to be my helper or not.'

'And what happens if you find it?' asked Claire. 

'Spirit animals are pure magic, so they are working like a talisman which power you can never fully spend. They are also intelligent and have knowledge about magic. Plus they can take a physical form as well which could be very useful. For example, if your spirit animal or as the Native Americans called, totem, takes a big and strong animal's form, like a wolf, a deer or even a bear, it could protect you, not unlike Jenna's shadowhound does,' Robert talked on his teacher-voice again and realised that he missed that. The new semester couldn't start soon enough.

'That's kinda cool,' nodded Claire. She finished with the dishes and sat down with a can of coke. 'Will you like… Turn into animals?'

'We haven't covered that part yet,' said Robert. 'But it's very unlikely.'

'Medically speaking, it's a nightmare,' said Teodore. 'Every bone in your body would break, rearrange itself and change. Your very flesh would tear itself in order to get a new shape. We learned about werewolves in medical school and even though they had a very efficient healing ability, the internal bleeding caused by the transformations killed them appropriately nine out of a hundred times. Not to mention the pain. Some of them simply just went insane because of the pain.'

'So I think it's safe to say that I will not be doing that,' nodded Robert with a little shiver. 'But I will probably be able to borrow some animal's bodies,' he added. 'In a manner that is not really different from astral projection. So in a way, yes, it is possible to be in an animal's body, only mine wouldn't change.'

'I've done some reading about shamanism, too,' said Jenna. She was refilling her glass at the kitchen counter. 'Not like there are a lot of sources, and even the ones you can find mostly just guessing. Some articles I've read said that shamans can take out stuff from dreams, like, they are scanning people's dreams around and if they see something they need, something simple, I don't know, a sword, a glass of water or whatever, they can just make it real.'

'Yes,' said Robert. 'That is also a possibility. Although, not for me: it requires not only dreamwalking, but the Runes of Dream, Reality, and Change. Those were tattooed on most of the shamans, according to Edyta. It's kind of a hybrid form of magic, mixing Runes and shamanism, but sounds very useful.'

After a while, the conversation took another direction. Robert still didn't know whether or not he should tell the other what he found out earlier that day. As it happens, Claire decided it for him.

'I wanted to ask, what about those guys who managed to escape from that church? Remy said we are gonna have to find all of them before they would teach what they know. Do we have any leads or anything?'

Robert cleared his throat signalling that he wanted to answer. He took a deep breath. 

'Actually… I have some news about that,' he said, and told them everything that happened in the Broken Shield. A long pause followed his words that eventually was broken by Jenna.

'Son of a bitch…' she murmured.

'Yeah, that was not cool,' shook her head Claire. 

Robert looked at Teodore. The man's face was as unreadable as usual.   

'I don't think it changes anything,' he said finally. 'Luther is right: we would have gone after Yolanda no matter what. That was our original task, after all, and not from him, but the Commissioner. And if you think about it, Luther not knowing if the fae will come back or not is just another person in doubt. That doesn't mean we should let people run around with power way too great for them. Especially because they were taught that hurting non-magical people is okay. We don't need another Mario Jones.'

'It's your call, Teodore,' said Robert. 'At this point I don't give a damn about what Luther wants, but I will do what you want to do.' 

The two men looked into each other's eyes, maybe for the first time ever. Teodore nodded.

'I think we should continue to look for them,' he said. 'We need to finish what we started.'

'That's settled, then,' said Jenna. 'Who wants some more wine?'

The guests left some time after eleven. Jenna asked Robert if he wanted to shower with her, and he did. Half an hour and not too much actual showering later they got out and went to bed. Jenna fell asleep quickly, with her head on Robert's chest, but the man couldn't sleep for a long time. Then when he finally did, he was woken up by his phone a mere hour later.

'Yes,' he groaned. 

'Hi, sorry to call this late, but I think you should come here,' said Rose on the phone. Robert sat up and Jenna did the same beside him. Her face was concerned: a call in the middle of the night never meant anything good.

'What's wrong, Rose?' he asked.

'It's Benjamin... Just come, okay? I will text the address.'

She hung up and Robert sighed.

'Benjamin, again,' he said as he got out of the bed.

'Do you want me to come?' offered Jenna, half out of the bed already. 

Robert shook his head.

'It's okay, get some sleep. I will take care of it,' he went around and kissed the girl. She leaned back on the pillows. Robert watched her for a few seconds then went to put on some clothes.