A pack rat rustled around in the attic directly above Tara’s head.

  She reflexively pulled the covers up. When that exposed her toes to the frigid room’s air, she tucked her long legs and clawed feet up to her chest, in a fetal curl. The rodent was gnawing on something. Was it trying to get through the plaster?

  It was barely past four PM and thus far too early for her to rise. She’d been nocturnal since the transformation, and she usually didn’t crawl out of bed until dark. However, the noise — scritch, scritch, scritch — of sharp incisors made it impossible to sleep. Tara had no illusions; if it wanted to, a rat could chew its way into the bedroom in seconds.

  The rat squeaked. There was a thump, then a skittering noise. For a moment, she was hopeful that the rat had been scared off by some sort of predator, but the chewing resumed several feet away.

  Fuckit. She refused to share space with rats, no matter how grim the rest of her circumstances were. Tara closed her eyes, opened her perceptions, and reached for the leys. They flowed wild and strong all around her, coursing through the land with waves and rolls of power.

  Scritch. Scritch. SCRITCH. Scritchscritchscritch. Scritch! The rat had returned to its original location.

  The Power was roiled into chaotic ripples and unpredictable surges by the previous evening’s storm. The sound of the rat gnawing was a distraction. She let her awareness of the latter slide away and focused solely on harnessing a tiny bit of the land’s natural energy. Granny had always said that even if her distant elven ancestry was far too diluted for much power, she could still make up for that with skill.

  Granny, the great-granddaughter of an elf who’d crossed the veils over a century ago, had been far more potently Gifted — and an optimist. Tara suspected she wouldn’t be in the fix she was now if Granny were still alive.

  When the leys were in this sort of mood, pulling Power from them reminded her of catching a large fish on a kiddy pole. She finally found a tendril of energy that she could tap, and it bucked against her control, surging wildly. The strength was uneven, the location kept moving, and it vibrated in ways she could barely feel, much less explain... but finally, finally, the connection smoothed out, and she could capture it.

  This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

  While still balled up under the covers, Tara wove the Power into a delicate bubble and imbued it with the essence of a predator. She could have cast an illusion of a rat-eating animal. She was exceptionally skilled at making the semblance of rattlesnakes. But, for this spell, she only needed to worry the rat, rather than create a more realistic threat. The spell would influence it into believing an unspecified but very dangerous predator was about to pounce, and the anxiety that provoked would force it to leave the area.

  After Tara was sure the spell-bubble was stable, she expanded it slowly. The energy flowed around her, wild and jagged, prickling at her nerves and raising the hair on the back of her neck. Then, she felt her ears move against the covers as they reflexively flattened to her head, and she flinched at the reminder that she was now something other.

  For a second, she almost lost the spell. Don’t think about what he did to you, Tara reminded herself, not incredibly successfully, but Granny had taught her to spellcast even when distracted. After an unhappy moment, she slid back into the half-hypnotic state required to weave a proper casting. In the background, her awareness that she wasn’t human anymore remained, but she didn’t let it interfere with her work.

  There was a startled squeak and the sound of a terrified rodent fleeing the area — thump skitter thump thump! Satisfied, she expanded the bubble until it encompassed the whole house, despite growing exhaustion. Then, it took a moment’s additional effort to tie the casting directly to the leys, binding the Power to the spell in a complicated welding of artificial pathways and natural energy.

  By the time she was nearly done, her head was pounding. This type of magic was hard work. The weariness was bone-deep and would persist for days. However, living rodent-free was worth it.

  Slowly — feeling a bit like she was setting up a house of cards while praying a gust of wind didn’t topple everything — she balanced all the lines of Power feeding into the spell and then released her control over it. The spell-bubble persisted and was now safely attached to the leys. The anti-rodent spell would persist without her input until disrupted by something like a surge of energy from bad weather.

  The room was silent. The rat had evacuated the attic.

  Tara focused on her senses, both real and supernatural. There was no sound of anyone or anything else in the house. The air smelled of mildew and dust but no living creatures. The same vague but effective awareness that let her tell when a building was occupied assured her that there wasn’t anyone around for a quarter mile or more.

  In the freezing bedroom under four layers of cover, Tara opened her eyes and stared into the darkness.

  She was utterly alone.