Coup de Grace

High school graduation is an exciting time for anyone. But for Robert Lorents, who spent last fall pissing off a demon and upsetting the balance of power in an intricate, underground network of summoners, 'exciting' has taken on a whole different level.

Now he's balancing senior projects with a demon-banishing side gig-and his mentor, Grace, can't even stir herself to help him out. She's off to Las Vegas and other places on "Grove Business" or some rubbish.

Grace Moore, once a mere political pawn from Seattle's Grove of Summoners, has inherited command of Spokane's Grove - no doubt because no one else had been stupid enough to take the understaffed, underpowered, hot-button mess left after the massacre last fall.

She finds herself swimming in political obligations without so much as a rubber floatie. And on top of that, her youngest-and most powerful-summoner isn't too happy that she keeps having to leave to drum up more support and resources for their little group from the other Groves. She has enough to deal with without his nonsense.

Graduation is a time of beginnings. It's also a time of owning one's path and assuming new responsibilities, or accepting consequences of past actions. It's just usually those responsibilities don't involve banishing demons, fending off the police, or controlling world-wrecking power.

Nobody ever promised you'd live past that beginning, though.