by Debora Geary
That duo could fix anything, including the aftermath of being swallowed by fire. Lauren tried harder to relax. Mia and her sisters had been hit by sleep spells about ten seconds after Sophie arrived, so the front lines of today’s headline event were all in very good hands.
And the rest of them had a serious job to do.
Rejuvenate. Be ready for tomorrow.
-o0o-
Nell slipped down the hall quietly. Mia was still sleeping soundly—the monitoring spell Sophie had laid in place before she left promised that much. Three girls, deep in dreamland.
Once upon a time, they would have wedged on the bed between her and Daniel, three cuddly pretzel sticks. Those days were long past, but on a night like this one, Nell would have wished them back to that era in a heartbeat if she could.
As much for the parents as for the kiddos they longed to keep safe.
Retha sat on the raggedy couch outside the girls’ door, the light of her Kindle casting an ethereal, comforting glow. She looked up as Nell approached. “They’re fine. All of them. Mia’s dreaming about purple cloud dragons.”
That seemed innocuous enough. “I’d take that dream.”
A quiet chuckle in the night. “That could be arranged.”
Probably—and it was tempting, just for a moment, to crawl into a cuddly-pretzel moment of her own.
Retha’s hand reached out, full of warmth and empathy and unyielding strength. “How are you doing, brave fighter of mine?”
Tears stung Nell’s eyes. So many ways that question could be answered. She chose the simplest one. “I’m okay.”
“Of course you are.” A mindtouch, as gentle and remorseless as the warm hand. “Now try again.”
It was a ritual they had. From the time she was Kenna’s size, Nell had always insisted she was “fine.” And her fierce, insightful mama had always insisted on the rest of the answers underneath.
Because she loved, and because she needed the comfort, Nell dug for them. “Sophie’s goo fixed my channels. Not even a twinge.” Which was pretty impressive, considering she’d turned into a human incinerator.
Retha winced.
Nell almost missed the fleeting echo of horror. More than one mother had feared for the life of her child this day. She moved in closer, the sagging couch tumbling them together. “I’m okay, Mom. Really. It wasn’t as bad as it looked. Between Aervyn and me, that was one bad-ass shield I held up.” And that was as much as she was going to say about the terror of being swallowed up by power that did not care if she lived or died.
Or perhaps preferred the latter. Govin’s butterfly wings had morphed into pterodactyls in Realm’s forest this day. The Sullivans were used to unimaginable power—but Nell had felt the flapping wings in the furnace of Mia’s magefire.
It wanted to destroy.
A shudder from the woman at her side. And then mental steel. It won’t get what it wants.
Nell laid her head on her mother’s shoulder, suddenly exhausted. You weren’t supposed to hear all of that.
Like hell I wasn’t. A flicker of amusement now. Why the heck do you think you wandered down the hall at this hour of the night?
The easy answer had been to check on her girl. But Mia wasn’t the only one who acted first and pondered her motives later, if at all.
Here. Retha’s mindchannel linked in with a light click. All three of your girls.
Mia was still dreaming about purple dragons, but now they were eating spaghetti. Nell managed a feeble grin—a food fight was imminent. Shay had some kind of celestial music playing while streamers and flowers danced. And then, in the way of dreaming, it shifted to yoga on the beach with Auntie Nat and some very big ice cream cones. Comfort, in all its forms.
Ginia’s mind was more focused. Only a single pink blossom, very slowly unfurling.
I think it’s a lotus, sent Retha quietly. I believe she heals, even in her sleep. I’ve been watching the flower for a while now—it’s very soothing.
That was impressive sleep work—Sullivans weren’t all that easy to soothe. Is it draining her?
No. And good luck making her stop. Retha chuckled, almost silently. It isn’t only the fire warriors in this family who are fierce.
Truth. Nell reached out a more mundane mind channel of her own, feeling the shapes in the room just beyond the door. Three girl-sized lumps, all squeezed together. Sharing a bed.
Shay insisted. A grandmother who missed nothing. She sang them all to sleep.
Nell smiled into the dark. Three girls, fighting back every way they knew how.
-o0o-
Well, he wasn’t the late-night visitor she’d expected—but as an old Irish witch looked up into the determined eyes of the world’s best hacker, she wasn’t all that surprised, either.
Few fathers loved their children as deeply and as well as Daniel Walker. “How’s Mia?”
“Sleeping. Gramma’s on dream duty, and apparently Ginia’s using some kind of flower magic to keep them all in happyland.” He poured himself a cup of the contents of the teapot.
Moira smiled—the tea was meant for old-lady aches and pains, but it wouldn’t hurt him. “It’s only the parents who are restless, then?”
He looked up from his hunt through her cookie jar and nodded. “Yeah. Nell fell asleep on the couch with Retha, and every time I close my eyes, I see my wife in flames.”
“I’ll have Sophie send you both something to drink before bed.” And an old witch would consult—tea blends were the one thing where seventy years of intuition still beat skill and gorgeously honed power.
Daniel’s lips twitched. “Send someone to make Nell drink it, too.”
Oh, that could be taken care of easily enough. “Mia needs you both to be well rested.”
Her visitor sat down at the table, flowery teacup engulfed in his hands. “Tell me why my daughter’s hair is flaming red.”
“I only know of it as the sign of a fire mage.” Moira fought off the certainty in her gut. “We can’t be sure—it’s been centuries since those powers have been seen.”
Dark eyes examined her face. A man seeking his own data. “You’re sure.”
“I’m an old witch steeped in history.” She sighed into her cup. “And Irish to boot, so I don’t escape the signs and portents easily. But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t. There are more new magics and changed magics in this generation of witches than the past has ever seen.”
She gave him credit—he listened. And thought very carefully. And then, in the way of a man who knew how to play and win, committed himself. “Nell felt it. She agrees with you. She says it’s nasty, angry power.”
The kind that lived on battlefields. Moira refused to let her hands shake, but she could do nothing about the trembling of her soul. She had to roll with her instincts, just as he did. “We will prepare as best we can. And hope that we’re wrong.”
His gaze never wavered. “Good. Then tell me what I’m preparing for. What do your history books say?”
“The knowledge passed down is sparse.” And terrifying. “Fire mages had red hair. They lived very isolated lives, kept apart from others.” For safety. And because fear was a pox on humanity. “What is remembered comes mostly from the battlefront—it tells little of their lives away from war.”
“That’s not enough.” Daniel’s eyes were as fierce as she’d ever seen them. “What comes for my girl? What else do we know?”
Moira shook her head, at least as frustrated as he was. The Irish had always been far too fond of the glories of battle, and the scribes of five hundred years ago hadn’t known the import of the words they wrote—and the ones they left out. “It’s hints, steeped in myth and legend and too much drink.”
The small smile that bloomed on his face was feral. Predatory. “Just my kind of hunt.”
She blinked. He’d never touched a single one of her musty books before.
“Nell has her way of fighting this. I need mine. When I hack a company, I research the hell out of them first.
Not the official propaganda. The crumbs.” The denizens of dark alleys would have run from the look in Daniel’s eyes. “I’ve taken down some of the biggest companies in the world with those crumbs.”
She knew what it was to take puny weapons into battle.
And she knew what it was to win with them. So did the man across her table.
Moira set down her tea and stood up. There were a few hours yet before Witch Central would wake. “Come, then. I’ll show you the most likely places to start.”
-o0o-
The one who listened finally slept. As did the man who loved her, and the lazy furry creature who seemed to have no purpose in its life whatsoever.
Only a solitary orb remained awake, resplendent in the moonlight.
Once, there would have been hushed voices and reverence, honoring the crystal ball’s beauty. Holding it up in the crisp moonlight, calling on the forces to favor their lineages and their magic. Or laying the sphere in the sands of ancient beaches as words of ritual permeated the night air.
Tonight, there were only the snores of the lazy furry creature.
And the worry.
Fire mage.
The orb had known three in history who possessed this power. Foretold the events of their lives. Felt the unrelenting destruction their fire wrought in the fabric of time.
And then it had watched them die.
All humans died. They came and went, along with the tides and the bright round moons and the stirring of the seasons.
But the fire mages died more quickly than most.
And they never slipped away gently.
The child held the fire of a thousand suns in her hands. The orb had seen this before, and knew what must happen next. Those older and wiser would guide her destiny. Put her feet on the path of serving her best purpose in this world.
Not unlike what a master had done for his tool.
The orb turned its awareness away from the quiet night. Away from the worry that leaked out even in sleep, and away from the ache of knowing where the child’s destiny would likely end. It wasn’t meant for humans to hold the power of the sun.
Those who did—not all humans had the luxury of choices.
Just like tools of magic.
The orb shivered. And wished for the shimmering heat of the land of its birth and the quiet oblivion of the last hundred years.
-o0o-
Moira cuddled her umpteenth cup of tea, watching the first hints of sunrise out her window, wishing with every mote of her heart and soul that she could make bright red curls turn back to blonde.
There were fearsome magics in the world—she had always known that. And some of them had stolen those she loved. Brigit. Evan.
But now the very worst of them had come stalking an eleven-year-old girl she loved as her own. And an old witch had absolutely nothing to throw in its path.
“That’s hogwash.” The voice from her back door was stern—but Marcus’s face wore nothing but concern and love.
Strength—from one who knew exactly the price magic could extract. Moira rose and went straight into his arms, feeling his cloak settle round her shoulders. “You’re up early.”
He smiled into the top of her head. “Cass and Morgan are still sleeping, and I was restless.” He held her away from him slightly. “Seems like there was a reason. Since when does Moira Doonan think of herself as useless?”
Her vision wavered as the tears rose. “I’ve only a sneeze of magic left.”
He snorted, the crusty old Marcus of old. “And since when have you let a lack of magic stop you from doing anything in the known universe?”
The irony wasn’t lost on Moira—she’d spent a lifetime cajoling people out of self-pity with exactly this blend of love and pants-kicking. “I guess I’m feeling a mite weak and ineffectual this morning.”
“We all are.” His voice gentled now as he guided her slowly back to the table and her tea. “I’ve been consulting with Jamie and Nell. Trying to work out a more predictable form of the shielding spell Aervyn helped build.”
Three of their very best spellcasters working in the wee hours of the night, trying to replicate the seat-of-his-pants work of one small boy.
“He’s not so small now,” said Marcus, eyes full of uncanny understanding. “And Mia trusts him absolutely.”
She had spent a lifetime teaching witches to work together. Building community, stirring the glue that would keep them strong in the face of adversity. Moira felt the tears rising again. “We can’t let him be on the front lines of this.” That was a job for the old. For the fierce.
For those who had journeyed with magic’s darkness.
Marcus didn’t move a muscle. But she felt it. His irrevocable commitment. Anything coming for Mia Walker—or her little brother—would go through Marcus Buchanan first. He knew what it was to have a life stolen by magic’s horrors.
Moira reached out a hand, holding Evan’s bright face in her mind and heart. The twin to Marcus’s darkness. “I still miss him so.” One five-year-old boy, lost to the astral planes.
And now another old magic hunted a child they loved.
“This time is different.” Marcus’s voice aimed for his old curmudgeon tones—and missed by a mile.
It was different. They were older. Wiser. And they knew what they were tangling with.
And Moira wasn’t at all sure it would matter.
Chapter 9
Nell knew she shouldn’t have been surprised.
And yet, staring at the determined, immovable faces of her three daughters, she somehow was. “You’re sure you don’t want to go play with the dolphins?” Sierra had shown up full of laughter this morning, talking of her new watery friends waiting just off the coastline for playmates. Nell suspected she’d spent half the night finding them. Aervyn had gathered Lizzie, Kenna, Benny, and his swimsuit in the time it took the rest of them to inhale.
A little boy who still trusted the adults in his world to make things right while he went off to play.
Her three girls had shaken their heads and refused to go.
“We know you’re going to have a big meeting.” Shay got straight to the point. “We have a right to be there.”
No one denied that, even the mama who wanted to shrink them a foot, and a half-dozen years. “You do.” She just wasn’t sure it was what they needed today—any of them. In case one of the Sullivan family’s most important mantras had somehow escaped them, she repeated it. “But it’s also okay to spend the morning being happy and playing in the ocean.”
Ginia rolled her eyes. “We know that, Mama.”
They should—they were the high priestesses of that particular branch of Witch Central’s wisdom. No one dished out fun and happiness with more clarity than these three. Nell shifted her gaze to the girl who hadn’t said anything yet.
Mia avoided the look, staring at her hands instead.
Uh, oh. Nell tried to read the tea leaves—and couldn’t untangle what she was picking up from the three of them. Her power was still half-cracked from playing host to the world’s biggest fireball. She shook her head, annoyed at the lingering weakness, and reached for her daughter’s hands. “What do you need this morning, lovey?”
The words were gentle—and they flooded Mia’s eyes with tears. She bit her lip, eyes full of pain. “I don’t know.”
Her sisters moved as a unit, flanking her a little closer. Their eyes held no tears at all. Only conviction and a singular, soundless message—one that Nell heard loud and clear.
They believed Mia needed to be at the war council. And they weren’t leaving her side.
-o0o-
Nobody wanted to be here. And everyone wanted to wrap Mia up in safety and hide her from the terrible thing that stalked her.
Which was rapidly causing every mind witch in Nell’s living room a massive headache. Lauren tried to tug her own barriers tighter, well aware that it was her own disheveled emotions causing their leakiness.
“Well, my dear.” Moira lo
oked at Mia, eyes gently amused, as if they’d gathered to deal with no more than a summer prank or some squooshed flowers. “You’ve caused rather the uproar.”
It almost got a smile from the girl who sat cuddling a lumpy red clay monster. And then she tumbled off the other side of the precipice instead, tears filling her eyes. Mia shook off the arms and hands that reached out in comfort and glued herself to an old witch’s gaze instead. “Please. Tell me what’s happening to me.”
The plea broke Moira’s heart into a million pieces—and not by a whisper did she let Mia see that. “You’re growing magic, sweet girl. A big and frightening magic no one has seen for a very long time.”
The girl with fiery red hair waited. And then glared. “You know more than that. You always know more than that.”
Again, Lauren felt the old witch’s soul tremble—and again, she let not a hint of it escape. “I know some of what the books say. We never know how true they are, especially for something last seen so long ago.” She held up a hand as blue eyes flashed. “I will tell you what I know, child. You’ve every right to know. But you must also remember that the future is not written entirely by the past.”
Now it was Mia trembling. And this time, when arms reached out to hold her tight, she didn’t protest. Her fingers traveled the lumpy clay in her hands, tracing the fingerprints and bumps of the clay dinosaur-meets-dragon that had been Aervyn’s gift on her last birthday.
Cuddling a monster—to fight one.
“Magefire was a magic much prized in the past,” said Moira quietly. “But it was used as a magic of war. To defend, and all too often, to attack.” She swallowed, looking down at her lap, the bleakness that blanketed her heart finally visible on the outside. “I know it only as a weapon, sweetling. As a magic of destruction.”
Mia looked horrified. “What else can it do?”
Not for all the money and glory and power on earth would Lauren have wanted to be in Moira’s shoes in this moment.
The old witch finally shook her head. “My books don’t say, sweetling. Or I don’t remember their words. Your dad is reading through them all. If there are clues, he’ll find them.”
Daniel was going to have a dozen volunteers before they left the room. But it wasn’t Moira’s words that a girl with red hair was listening to. It was the certainty in an old witch’s eyes.
