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The voice that bids Stiles enter when he raps on the door of his elderly mentor’s cottage sounds exactly right. He steps inside, eyes immediately finding her tucked into bed on the far side of the single room. She looks exactly right, too. If Stiles wasn’t already looking for the telltale shimmer of a glamor, he’d have missed it, it’s so subtle.
“Grandmother!” Stiles calls out cheerfully, a term of respect rather than relation. “Are you feeling any better? I brought some sweetcakes in case you feel up to eating.”
“That’s very kind of you,” she says, which is entirely wrong, but the imposter can’t be expected to know these things if this is spontaneous. “Come closer, dear.”
Stiles deposits the basket in her lap, but steps away quickly afterward. “You get started on those while I brew some tea,” he says, crouching down by the hearth.
The temptation to glance over his shoulder to check on the imposter is almost overwhelming, but it could also give the game away, so Stiles resists. When he finally turns, teapot in hand, the imposter has gone through three cakes. “Good?” Stiles asks.
“Excellent,” the imposter says. “But strangely spicy.”
Stiles smiles. “Oh, that’s the wolfsbane. I picked it fresh just an hour ago, after a stranger stopped me in the forest. Its flowers are very pretty, you know. It was a bit of a trick to get it into the cakes, but I managed.”
The imposter freezes, then drops the glamor. Just as Stiles expected, it’s the wolf from the forest. “I could still kill you before I die,” the wolf says darkly. “But I think you’re too clever to give yourself away just to gloat. What is it you want, Little Red?”
Oh, he is a smart wolf. Excellent. “I want you to teach me the tricks you used to best my mentor.”
The wolf arches an eyebrow. “No pleas for her life?”
“I’d learned nearly everything she had to teach me anyway,” Stiles says. “She told me more than once that a new mentor would present themselves when the time is right. Seems right to me.”
The wolf throws back his head and laughs. “Very well,” he says, eyes glittering. “But don’t think I’ll be so easily replaced.”
Stiles smirks. “We’ll see.”