Talk about your midlife crisis. How was I supposed to know when I bought a pretty country church in a city named Rome that I was acting like a guardian deity? Lares Schmares. Anybody who deifies me needs serious therapy.

I'd always believed the whole "Lares" thing was a family story, nothing more. When I was fifteen I'd looked up the term "Lares" and discovered that they were guardian deities in the ancient Roman religion.

Heh.

A deity.

That's hilarious.

I can barely manage my own life, let alone help others with theirs.

But...how do I explain a sudden, driving urge to open my candle shop in a pretty white church sitting at the main crossroads of a small town named Rome?

I'm not a Lares. That's ridiculous.

I'm just a forty-five-year-old divorcee who likes to make candles.

How was I supposed to know that buying a church meant becoming the caregiver of a whole array of magical creatures?

Still...I'm not going to guard them.

No Siree!

I'm no guardian deity. That's just...strange.