“We’re registering to stay for a while,” I explained to the fairy who was interviewing us, “but also we were hoping you might know where a somnus named Henry is?  I’m a witch/somnus hybrid, it appears, but I don’t know how to use my somni powers.  A researcher at Rosen Library gave me his name as a possible resource and said you might know where he is.”  I looked at her hopefully.

The fairy, who was a member of Avenglade’s supernatural council, seemed thoughtful.  “Henry…yes, he still lives here.  I don’t know his address off the top of my head, but I can find his contact information.  However, I’d prefer talk to him myself first and see if he’s okay with us sharing his contact information.  We don’t generally give out contact information if it’s not to a confirmed family member, but I can understand your reasons here.  If he consents, we’ll put you two in touch, but if he doesn’t, well, we can’t share it, but we also won’t stop you from looking for him on your own.”  She smiled a bit wryly.  “So if he says no, I wouldn’t necessarily give up immediately.”

Dana squeezed my hand comfortingly.  “We don’t want to cause him any issues,” she explained.  “Nicolas just wants to understand these powers since they kind of affected him a lot.”

The fairy looked curious but didn’t ask.  “I’ll reach out to him by tomorrow at the latest.  As far as registration goes, the details vary depending on your species, but essentially it all boils down to us asking people to be law-abiding and not start a war with your neighbors, that sort of thing.  I’ll explain the basics of each contract, but if you have any questions, please ask.  I can explain anything you need to know.”

“What was your name again?”  Lola piped up immediately.

“Violet Woodson.”  The fairy gave her a smile.  “Now, let’s go over these contracts, shall we?”

I had a fleeting thought that I’d heard the name Woodson before somewhere, way back as a kid.  Wasn’t that the name of some important fairy?  I couldn’t really remember the details, and it was probably a coincidence anyway – Woodson might be a common fairy name, for all I knew.

As she began to explain the terms – which I was relieved to see were pretty normal; for me, stuff like no curses or fire potions or things I didn’t really have the ability to do anyway, while for Dana it was no drinking from people without permission and for Lola it was stuff like no death-causing screams unless she was in danger herself or trying to protect someone – self-defense type of stuff – while her premonition screams weren’t forbidden at all, to my relief.  From what Lola said, she couldn’t control them anyway, so it was nice to see that at least the Avenglade council didn’t have unreasonable expectations.

The fairy seemed a little startled to learn about Dana being a dryad hybrid, but then went and got the appropriate contract for that, too, and calmly continued her explanations.  She didn’t treat Dana any differently, which was nice.  Actually, come to think about it, she didn’t treat any of us differently.  She just treated us like normal people.

“Any questions?”  Violet asked as she finished the explanations.  “I know that’s a lot all at once, and if you need time to think things over, that’s perfectly understandable.  We do prefer that if you haven’t signed a contract yet, you let us know where you’ll be, but if you need a few days to think about it, we allow that, just we do ask that you abide by our rules during those days just to keep everyone safe.”

I glanced at Lola, who was already scribbling her name on the bottom of the contract, then at Dana, who shrugged.

“I don’t have a problem with any of the terms.  It seems pretty reasonable to me, plus I’m assuming with everyone else signing these, too, it means it’s safer for us?”  Dana tapped the contract.  “Because other people won’t be cursing us or drinking blood without permission, that sort of thing.”

Violet nodded immediately.  “Of course.  That’s part of the point of these covenants.  We want Avenglade to be safe for all the supernaturals who come here, and the humans, too.  We don’t forbid all conflict entirely – that would be impossible, and, well, some of our societies thrive on it, but we do our best to ensure that if people don’t want to be involved in conflict, they won’t be pulled into it.  And we don’t permit full-on wars or outright murder, the normal things human laws would do the same to protect against, only we specifically have people agree in advance to abide by our laws.  So we can keep the city safe for all of us.”

As Dana began to sign her contract, I hesitated still, one question coming to mind as I looked at the sheet of paper.

“This makes it sound like I’m expected to be in a coven,” I stated at last.  “Is that a requirement?”

“Oh no!  Of course not, some witches don’t want to be in covens, and that is fine.”  Violet seemed eager to set my mind at ease.  “We can introduce you to covens, if you like, but you’re not required to join any.  Since most witches do, the language in the contract generally accounts for that, but we can modify your contract if you’d prefer.”

“It’s not like I have anything against covens,” I said slowly, “but mine…mine treated me like a second class citizen.  I haven’t been around any others to see if they’re like that.”

“That was 400 years ago, Nicolas,” Dana reached over to squeeze my hand briefly again.  “Witch covens have come a long way in recognizing male witches’ rights.  I think.”  She looked over at the fairy for confirmation, suddenly troubled.

Violet was clearly curious about the reference, but she was still too polite to ask.  “I suppose it depends on the coven, to be honest, but I think I may have a solution for that.  There’s a light magic coven in town.  I’m not saying you have to switch to light magic – I realize for a male witch, that would be practically removing all your magic entirely,” she added hastily, “but they care less about power levels in general.  I don’t know if they have a male witch among the coven already, but I suspect if you’re looking for a coven that wouldn’t care about your magic levels, a light magic coven would be a good possibility.”

I hadn’t even realized light magic covens were a thing.  My coven had talked down about light magic witches, so much so that I’d assumed almost all witches used dark magic.  But an entire coven of light magic users?  I wasn’t sure if they’d be okay with me as a dark magic user, but…Violet was right about one thing.  If the witches opted to use light magic instead of dark, power wasn’t their prime focus like it was for many witches.  That gave me hope that maybe they wouldn’t care if I had almost no magic and would just treat me like another coven member, not a second-class citizen.

“We won’t let them mistreat you,” Lola promised abruptly.  “But I think you deserve a chance at a coven again.  Isn’t that important for witches normally?”

“I think so.”  My brows furrowed as I thought.  “They never told me a lot of details about how or why we did anything.  I wasn’t allowed to know much since I was male.”

I glanced up to see Violet looking somewhat offended, apparently on my behalf.  “I guess that’s why I really want to know about the somnus,” I told her.  “I grew up being overlooked and treated poorly because I was a male witch, but now that we know I’m something else, too, I just – I need to know.  Besides,” I added with a shaky laugh, “those powers somehow kept me asleep for 400 years, I’d really rather not do that again by accident!”

Lola rolled her eyes and lightly punched my shoulder.  “Yeah, let’s not have another sleeping beauty incident!”

Seeing the look on Violet’s face, something prompted me to explain to her, as briefly as I could, my history.  How I’d apparently almost died during a fight my coven had 400 years ago, and slept until about three years ago, and now was still trying to catch up on all the knowledge that I’d missed.

“That would be disorienting,” Violet murmured as I finished explaining.  “I’ve been around for close to 300 years now, but I learned as I went along – I can’t imagine just waking up in this era and not understanding anything of what was going on.”

“Dana and Lola have helped a lot,” I explained, fiddling with my rings, a little embarrassed.  “Without them, I’m not sure I’d have adjusted this quickly.”

They both looked at me proudly and Dana started to say I was bright enough she was sure I’d have figured it out on my own, though it might have taken me longer, while at the same time Lola began to excitedly explain that it was actually fun to explain things and actually have to think through how to explain things that she just took for granted.

Violet seemed a little amused but touched by their responses.  “I’m glad you all have each other,” she said after Dana and Lola had finished talking over each other.  “It sounds like you’re all good for each other.  And now,” she added with a swift glance at me, “I understand the importance to you of finding Henry and him agreeing to help train you.  I’ll do my best to convince him, since I know what’s at stake.  And if you want, I can get one of the other council members, one of the witches, to take you out to visit the light magic coven and see if they’d be a good fit for you.  If not, don’t worry – I wouldn’t want to see you at a coven who mistreats you any more than your family here would, so we can figure out another option if that happens, okay?”

I felt reassured by her confidence.  She seemed like a professional, but also like she genuinely cared about us, and she didn’t even seem to care that each of us were technically considered outcasts by most of supernatural society.  She just treated us like people.

After I signed my contract and we waited in another room for the witch to take us to the light coven, I glanced at the others.

“She seems nice.  If all the council members are like that, Avenglade has to be pretty good, right?”

They both agreed, and I could see on their faces that they were feeling the same way about it – relieved that the registration process had been smooth, simple, and most importantly, free of the dislike that seemed to follow us around.

As it turned out, though, not all of the council was like that.  I could see it written all over the witch’s face before she even approached us.  She was not happy about having to come over and talk to us – whether it was because of Lola or because of me, I wasn’t sure, but given the way she refused to really meet my eyes when she stopped in front of where we were sitting, I suspected it was me.

“I’ve been asked to take you to the light witch coven.”  She looked at Dana, with fleeting acknowledgement of Lola, but refused to even glance in my direction.  To her, it was like I was invisible.

Oh well, so much for that.  I guess to some witches, a male witch would always be a disgrace.

Lola looked ready to be mad about it, but I shook my head at her when the witch wasn’t looking.  This witch was from the council and was helping us out – it wouldn’t do any good to argue with her, especially when it was about something that we probably would never be able to change her mind about anyway.

So instead we followed her car in Dana’s – Dana driving while I sat in the back and pretended I was okay with the much busier city traffic here – until we reached a fairly small but tidy house in probably a lower-middle income area of town.

The witch didn’t even wait for us to get out of the car before marching up to the door, not bothering to hide her annoyance.  When she banged on the door, an equally annoyed witch appeared shortly after.

“Angelique.”  The witch who’d brought us gave her the slightest of nods.  Huh.  She didn’t seem to like this witch, either.  Maybe she just didn’t like anyone?  “I brought these over at Violet Woodson’s request.”  She motioned towards us, then without any further explanation, headed back to her car and drove off without looking back once.