Swamped

Honestly, you're more than a little tempted to just cut Ash loose. He's bound to cause trouble sooner or later, especially if you're right that the threat has passed.

But as a practical matter, what would you even do? Tell him to leave? He'd just lead Carma to you. Or maybe you'd get into a fight. Neither seems very useful right now.

Maybe just give him something to keep him busy. He won't like it, but you at least have an excuse or two for why you can't do things yourself.

"I was thinking you might take a look at what's in that box and tell me if you have any idea what it is," you say. "I'll try to do something for the kid."

Ash sighs, then goes over to the box. The kid's eyes suddenly turn to him, then briefly to you, then he goes back to fixating on the wizard.

Ah! He saw you giving Ash an order, and Ash is following it. So he's getting a sense you outrank Ash in the hierarchy. That might not be enough to convince him your authority is on the level of the wizard's, but you can probably work with it.

"Well. At first glance it looks like coins, but I don't think this is money," Ash says after a while. "The style is more like a badge. But I don't think that's it, either; there's no clip for wearing them, for one thing."

"That guy seemed to want them for some reason," you say, pointing at the wizard. "Does that give you any thoughts?"

Ash pulls one of the not-coins out of the box and glances at it for a while.

"Well, the immediate thought it gives me is that it's magical in some way. I couldn't tell you how. But there is one other thing that strikes me about them now."

"And what's that?"