Somehow, Van made it through the next day without his thoughts turning to Miranda during sessions, scheduled or otherwise. Between sessions, well, that was another matter, but not as bad as being distracted while trying to help someone would have been.

He got home, and ventured cautiously in the front door. "Oblique?"

"Kitchen," she called back.

That sounded safe. He followed the hall down to the back of the house. Not altogether surprising to find her there at around this time; she did most of the cooking, and it was getting towards supper time.

She glanced at him and smiled, then went back to making... hm, brownies, by the scent and the pan she had out. "How was work?"

"About like usual. Only one unscheduled crisis drop-in, and I got it. Otherwise, just standard stuff. How's Miranda?"

"Doing well enough. She's taking a bath right now, and we found her enough of my clothes to wear for the time being. She'll be joining us for supper." She poured the dark thick batter into the pan.

"You don't mind having another sensitive around?"

"No, even if she is nearly young enough to be my daughter. All sensitives are one family, to us."

"Is there any chance she is?"

"My daughter?" She regarded him for a moment, weighing options. Van expected her to tell him it was none of his business, but she sighed, and the smile came back, affectionately. "I suspect I was about ten or twelve when she was born, and she hasn't said anything about the Vladislav mage who bought her altering her skin colour, so I would say it's extremely improbable. Leave it at that."

Van nodded, leaned against the counter. "Actually, I'm surprised he didn't do any shapechanging."

"Did I say he didn't? I imagine she'll eventually ask you or Bren to undo it. If a mage did to me what he did to her, I'd take the first chance to hit him with something heavy, too. But don't bring it up, let her decide. She's still worn out emotionally and physically, so treat her accordingly, and let her set her own limits."

"I'd do that anyway."

"Do it even more carefully. But I think she'll be fine in no time, she's intelligent and strong and independent. After all her life knowing that her choices consisted of constant motherhood or constant paranoia, the most traumatic and terrifying possibility has already happened, and she's discovered that while it can be very bad, she's still alive, and there's much more to it than she thought. Just try to give her some space, while you can. Now, go tell Bren that supper will be ready soon, and he's to clean up before he comes inside."

Van gave her a playful salute, and went out via the laundry room door in search of Brennan.

He found his uncle on his knees, weeding the garden, and passed on Oblique's message.

Brennan nodded, and sat up, arching to work the kinks out of his back. "As if I'd dare track dirt in the house," he said, amused. "Look, the tomato plants are starting out well, we should have a good crop of them. That'll please Oblique." He got to his feet, stretched.

"Always a good thing." By every custom and every conditioned belief, two Master mages should not be able to share a sensitive peacefully. Brennan would be entirely within his rights to demand that Van never come within arm's length of her. But Oblique had chosen to help Van pass his Master's exam, which the laws allowed for since Van had already been living with Brennan and learning from him, and Brennan had decided to allow her to make that choice for herself; it had simply grown deeper and richer from then on. Without the lifelong bond between Van and Brennan, it probably wouldn't have worked even within the uncommonly tolerant Donovans, but as it was, they had a stable and reasonably serene family.

"Is she still acting like a hen with one chick?"

"That's a good description. Maybe she's identifying with her?" He laughed, following Brennan back to the house. "Maybe we should worry she's identifying with a sensitive who brained one mage and threw things at another one?"

Brennan chuckled. "Nah, if Oblique wanted to whack either of us with a frying pan, she would've done it by now." He pulled open the door, and paused by the sink to scrub his hands and lower arms.

"Good point."

"I wonder if I'll be allowed to go upstairs to change my clothes."

"Yes," Oblique answered from the kitchen. "Miranda is here with me, and if you're as dirty as you usually are, you are most certainly going to change your clothes before you sit down to dinner with the rest of us."

"Yes, my Lady," Brennan teased her, drying his hands before stepping into the kitchen, Van a stride behind him. "Immediately, my Lady."

Oblique simply pointed in the direction of the stairs, her other hand on her hip. Van wondered whose idea it was for Miranda to be perched on that particular kitchen chair, where the elder sensitive could keep herself in the middle. One of the sarongs Oblique was fond of had been wrapped and tied into a dress in a way that Van could never have duplicated even with magic, over a short-sleeved top. She looked much better, but was watching the two mages warily.

"Van, could you set the table, please, while Brennan changes?"

Van nodded, collected plates and silverware and glasses, and made a second trip for juice and butter and the like while Oblique began to arrange things on platters and in big bowls.

"That smells really good," he heard Miranda say, shyly.

Oblique chuckled. "Thank you. I've had a long time to learn. Brennan's idea of cooking is basic at best, and Van is too impatient. Someone has to keep us all fed. Besides, I rather enjoy it."

"How'd you learn?"

"Books and practice, in large quantities of both, and some lessons and advice from a couple of family sensitives, and a few classes here and there. I'm going to start taking this in the dining room, I'll be right back."

"I'll help."

Van made sure he was on the far side of the table arranging place settings when the two sensitives came in, and kept himself as far from Miranda as he reasonably could, while the pair made a couple of trips to fill the table with food.

"And Bren gets away with not helping," he joked. "It's not fair."

"Bren grew the chicken and most of the vegetables," Oblique pointed out. "Of course, you paid for the rest, and I did all the rest of the work, so you may be right."

Van eyed the rectangular old table, big enough for six comfortably, and the four chairs around it—the other two, seldom used, flanked the china cabinet, but he didn't know where the leaf to add to the centre had gone—and wondered where Miranda was likely to feel safest sitting. One way or another, she was going to be in arm's length of at least one mage. As little as he wanted her to feel isolated or singled out, he wanted even less for her to feel threatened.

"Both of you may as well sit down," Oblique said. "I'll be back as soon as I take the brownies out." She vanished back into the kitchen.

Van gave Miranda a questioning look. "Any preference?"

She considered the table, with that measuring look he'd seen yesterday, and chose a seat on one of the longer sides. Habitually, Oblique sat at the end nearest the kitchen, and Van and Brennan sat on either side of her; adding a fourth body shifted the dynamics completely. Van decided on the chair opposite her.

"Feeling better?"

Miranda nodded silently.

"Fresh home-grown food, Oblique's cooking... I think that could help brighten anybody's day."

"It's a lot better than I'm used to," she conceded.

"It's a lot better than what I got used to while I was away going to school," he said ruefully. "My mother got around one of the laws by arranging for me to have my own apartment in the house of a Master mage in the city where the college was. I really didn't like living alone, and having to eat my own cooking was only one of the reasons. It's a wonder I graduated, living on canned soup and canned spaghetti and sandwiches. I'm spoiled, now."

"Mages have laws?"

"Mages have a lot of laws. This particular household is a tad peculiar, but technically it counts, so the most anyone can do is give us funny looks."

"For what? Not having another sensitive here?"

"Oh, according to most mages," Oblique said lightly, joining them, "Bren should be insanely jealous and never let Van near me. But they're Donovans, so the other families expect a certain amount of strangeness from them. The Donovan family figured out the big secret." She sat at the end of the table, and poured herself a glass of juice.

"What secret?" Miranda looked intrigued.

Oblique took a sip of juice, and smiled. "Horses and dogs have always performed much better when they are happy, healthy, well cared for, and not abused. It occurred to some brilliant Donovan that the same might hold true for sensitives, too. Officially, that's why sensitives who belong to Donovan mages tend to be better taken care of than most."

"Officially?"

"Unofficially, quite a lot of them have discovered, while being responsible and considerate Lords and Ladies, that astonishingly enough, sensitives have minds and feelings and personalities, and that it can be worth it to allow one's sensitive a certain amount of freedom to express that." The smile became a grin. "Amazing how observant they can be, hm?"

Miranda snuck a wary look at Van—maybe expecting him to be angry at Oblique's disrespectful comments about mages?

"Donovans," Van said dryly, "are widely regarded as softhearted. And a tad soft in the head, too, depending on who you ask. And possibly weak, because as far as I know, there has never been a Donovan who joined the hunters, and they're supposed to be superior to the rest of us."

"But there are a hell of a lot of us," Brennan said, taking the fourth seat. "So as long as we don't overtly break any laws, they leave us alone and whisper about us behind our backs. Mm, that chicken looks delicious, Oblique. You certainly do them justice."

Attention turned more towards food than mage society. Van and Brennan were both very careful to avoid touching Miranda when passing her a dish or accepting one; she seemed uneasy, but not actually frightened, which was a relief.

A vehicle pulled in the driveway.

"What on earth..." Brennan got up, and went through the living room, reaching the front door just as someone thumped the knocker imperiously. Van placed himself in the doorway from living room to dining room, protectively.

Brennan opened the door, and inclined his head to the pair of mages who stood there—a muscular woman of middle height with short-cropped hair, a man of about her height with broad shoulders and small eyes and dark hair greying in streaks at his temples. Both were in semi-military camo and denim, but Van didn't need the hint to recognize them. Elena Nicodemos, Brock Eldridge. The junior of the two local hunter teams. Van felt his heart speed up, felt his stomach turn queasy, even though he'd been expecting this.

"Can I help you?" Brennan asked calmly.

"You could invite us in," Brock said pointedly.

"I could, but I would prefer that you come to the point quickly so I can get back to my supper." One law to which the hunters had never been given immunity was the one that forbade entry uninvited into a mage household. What happened in a household was up to the Master—or senior Master if there were more than one, although that was only common among the Donovans—and that space could not be violated.

"We tracked a renegade here," Elena said. "She assaulted the Vladislav mage who was her lawful master, and fled."

Brennan glanced over his shoulder. "Van?"

Van came closer, leaned against the edge of the living room archway. He'd spent quite a lot of today figuring out how to handle this when it came; as much as the hunters scared him, he could use the laws against them. "He failed to control her."

Elena frowned. "Yes."

"I claim her."

"No Donovan is going to be able to master that one. She attacked him with a cast iron frying pan and gave him a serious concussion. That goes quite a long way beyond simple rebellion."

"I claim her," Van repeated steadily. "He failed to control her, I caught her, therefore I have the right to try."

"Always trying to save them, aren't you?" She shrugged. "He had her for fifteen days. Given the age of the trail, I'm guessing you caught her yesterday. You have fourteen days left to tame her and prove it, otherwise she's officially a renegade and we'll take care of her personally."

The thought of what it would mean to Miranda, to be "taken care of personally" by the hunters, gave Van chills. For Miranda to end up like the poor broken pair who belonged to these hunters… He nodded, though.

Elena's gaze flicked to one side, and Van picked up on the sense of Oblique's presence, not touching, but in arm's length—he glanced back, found her expression docile and her eyes properly low but her body spoke instead of alertness and wariness. "Just what the world needs," Elena said in disgust. "Another sensitive who doesn't know her place, to go with a couple of mages with no idea how to put her in it. I'm going to come myself to make sure you have the renegade under control, and you can damned well expect to prove it." She smiled, but it was cold. "After all, we can't have sensitives around who think it's acceptable to assault their masters. And she'd better have a collar by then." Her gaze rested pointedly on Oblique's bare throat.

"Oblique wears her collar when she's not on my land," Brennan said, and there was steel under the softness. "If I choose not to have her wear it at home, that is my concern. Van's new sensitive will have one at the appropriate time, and will wear it when Van chooses. Now, unless there's a law we've broken or further business to discuss, you will please stop disrupting my household, take your opinions, and leave."

Elena shot Van a venomous look. "Two weeks, and if I have any reason to doubt your control over her, I'll declare her renegade and take her."

Van shrugged. "Fine."

The two hunters strode away, back to a sleek dark-red mini-van parked next to Brennan's truck. Brennan stayed where he was, and Van moved up beside him, trying very hard not to let his thoughts focus on the shadowy outlines in the back seat. Both watched until the van had pulled out of the driveway and was gone.