by Debora Geary
One traveler, back home—and nothing wrong with her that a bottle of warm milk hadn’t fixed.
Jamie came over, two suspiciously green glasses in his hand. “I’ve sound barriered this corner of the room so we don’t wake him up. Come drink your just rewards.”
Even Sophie looked askance at the glasses. “Which of my students is responsible for those?”
Jamie’s grin was not reassuring. Lauren decided she didn’t want to know. “I don’t need green goo. All I did was a little mindlinking. Cookies will fix me right up.” It was probably bad that she sounded panicky—healers smelled fear.
Mike walked over, Adam asleep in his arms. “It goes down easier if you hold your nose.”
Right. Lauren scowled at Jamie. “I’m unvolunteering for any late-night duties that involve green goo.” She wasn’t at her best at whatever the hell time this was. Not enough coffee.
“I’m glad you were here.” Sophie sat down on the nearest chair, glass of gunk obediently in her hands. “Marcus is the only mind witch on this coast who talks through walls easily.”
The walls had been nothing compared to the effort needed to broadcast Sophie’s voice through Marcus’s hard head. “It seemed like you had things pretty much under control.”
“She did.” Jamie shook his head and looked at Mike. “Your wife has balls of steel.”
Mike spluttered in quiet laughter, Adam jiggling in his arms. “Yup. She broke his laptop. That took some serious courage.”
Jamie chuckled. “Forgot about that. I’ll put my repair crew on it—see if we can resurrect it from the dead before he wakes up and tries to choke someone with the remnants.”
Sophie just made faces and kept drinking.
Lauren eyed Jamie. Newbie-witch time again—there had been a lot of emotional baggage in the room, but Sophie had appeared to navigate it all with a deft touch. She was lost. “Why was she brave?”
He shrugged. “There were a dozen people standing in the street, any of whom could have put up a beacon for Morgan—and she sent in the guy with the drowned-cat magic instead.”
Marcus had been in pretty rough shape, but a beacon wasn’t complicated magic. Lauren frowned. “I haven’t had coffee. Not following.”
“She took a risk.” Mike’s voice was full of pride. “A big one, and it worked.”
That didn’t compute. Witches, especially healers, didn’t take unnecessary risks. She wasn’t that new.
Jamie grinned. Says the woman who left a juvenile delinquent in charge of her office.
Lauren rolled her eyes—Lizard wasn’t all that delinquent anymore.
Sophie smiled and set down an empty glass, looking several degrees perkier than when she’d started drinking. She glanced over at the man sound asleep on a couch in the corner, a tiny sock still clutched in his hand. “He needed to know he was there for her tonight. It will help him face what might be coming.”
Lauren felt unease hit all three minds closest to her. She’d had enough of a crash course in astral travel to understand why. Level two, the traveler was still tethered and fairly easy to call home. Level three required a full circle and someone willing to put their life into the circle’s hands while they chased the traveler—and even then, it often ended in tragedy.
Level three scared the crap out of every witch she knew.
Mike settled carefully in a chair beside his wife. “How deep did she go?”
Sophie’s eyes held a bleakness Lauren had never seen. “Far enough. She was so faint, Mike—I could barely feel her. All the warning signs are there.”
She was high risk for full-blown travel—and all they could do was watch and wait.
Mike leaned in to comfort his wife, and Lauren reached for one of the cookies that had suddenly appeared in Jamie’s hands. She had a question. A very quiet one. How was Evan missed? Moira was the most conscientious witch she knew.
He was a fire witch. Jamie’s mental sigh carried the same collective guilt that stamped every conversation about Evan. Astral travelers always go through the safer levels first, as their magic develops. At first, they get cold—except fire witches never get cold, so no one ever noticed. Just a really bad combination of magics.
An awful and sad one—and it explained one of the missing pieces. After cold came tethered travel. And that weighs on Marcus too—that he didn’t notice his brother leaving.
Jamie’s forehead pinched together in grief. Five-year-old boys sleep like the dead. He couldn’t have known.
Lauren had learned something about the bonds between brothers who had shared the same womb. He doesn’t believe that.
No. Jamie watched Morgan playing, cookie uneaten in his hand. None of us would.
Chapter 13
Jamie watched The Monk steal into another dark alleyway, and turned so the small girl riding on his back could see. “What do you think he’s up to, munchkin?”
“Ya-ma-da-da-ya.” Kenna chattered away happily, far more interested in the buckle on the backpack. So far, early attempts to teach her game strategy weren’t going very well, but at least it let Nat take a nap. Nights were not exactly restful lately.
The Monk turned, silhouetted for a moment by the mage-light in his hand.
Huh. Jamie moved closer, curious now. Odd bumps under cloaks were generally grounds for concern in Realm. He strained to catch a better angle—and then laughed as a small, naked foot popped out.
Marcus’s game persona turned and glared. “If you’re going to follow me, you could at least do it quietly.”
Not a totally unreasonable request. Jamie released a silence spellcube around the four of them—no way was he trying to keep Kenna quiet enough for good skulking. “What are we up to? Is that librarian kid on the move again?”
“I have no idea.” Marcus tucked the stray foot back under his cloak. “My house has been invaded by people expecting me to crack at any moment—I needed somewhere to go.”
Realm had always been a haven for introverts. Jamie’d never been one, but his brother Matt had sometimes suffered from the witch hordes. “You’ve got a nice private castle keep—how come you’re in the alleyways?”
Marcus looked around like he’d never seen an alley before. “I don’t know. We were just taking a walk. I need to think.”
Jamie winced and spelled away a basket of half-rotten grapes, Marcus’s foot inches from being slimed. And sighed—he knew the classic signs of parental sleep deprivation. The man needed a keeper. “Want another head to help you think?” He didn’t have to ask about the topic.
“I’ve spent forty-three years thinking.” Marcus stopped and leaned back against a wall covered in dirt of questionable ancestry. “Gotten exactly nowhere.”
Jamie pulled out a couple of apples and offered one up, crunching on the other. Two sleep-deprived guys were not the best brain trust to throw at hard problems, but there was something that had been niggling him. “Have you wondered why Evan sent Morgan to you in particular?”
Marcus blinked.
“Think about it.” Jamie tugged on the thread he’d been worrying. “If we assume he wasn’t just trying to torture you, then he must believe you can help keep her safe.”
“With what?” Marcus looked ready to spew rocks. “Light sabers and pretty blue flowers?”
“Dunno, dude.” Although Jamie was pretty fond of the light sabers idea. “That’s what you have to figure out.”
“My brother always did overestimate my thinking skills.” Marcus’s voice was as dry as dust, and no more hopeful—but Jamie could hear his brain coming online. “It was usually his utter disregard for the laws of physics that got us into trouble, and then he’d expect me to come up with some brilliant idea to get us out.”
It was an experience Jamie had lived through all too often—and the first time he’d ever heard Marcus volunteer anything about his long-gone brother. “Devin was the holy terror in our trio. Matt was the brains.”
Humor tickled the edges of Marcus’s mind. “What job did that l
eave you?”
“Lookout.” Jamie squeezed the feet of the chatty baby on his back. “Don’t let anyone tell you that’s the easy job, girl of mine. The lookout always gets in trouble first. Gramma Retha’s got eyes in the back of her head.” Although if Nell’s experience bore out, their mother was more often found aiding and abetting the troublemakers these days.
Apparently grandmothers played by different rules.
“The Fairy Godfathers missed that particular piece of advice.” Marcus flicked invisible lint off his robe. “The car-seat-on-top-of-the-dryer trick was quite useful, however.”
Jamie said nothing. He’d mostly been the lookout for that particular project, too.
“You might thank Daniel and his sidekicks, should you see them.” Marcus pushed off the wall and meandered in the direction of daylight. “And tell him to fix whatever infernal hole he used to hack my computer.”
It had been a very small hole—Daniel had cursed a blue streak getting that particular job done. Jamie grinned. Maybe Marcus would read his damn email next time.
Kenna cooed as they reached the street, arms stretched up to the sun. His child of heat and light, even the virtual kind.
They watched as Slink walked by, followed by a couple of motley tagalongs. Fifteen years trying, and he was still the worst player in Realm.
And then Jamie had another piece of the puzzle. Sometimes they were easiest to see just as you stopped looking. “What does Slink do wrong?”
Marcus snorted. “What doesn’t he do wrong?”
Point, but not the one he was trying to make. “He has no plan. All he ever does is react to what happens in Realm. He never experiments, never builds alliances, never launches an attack.” He didn’t even pick his sidekicks—they just kind of stuck to him like old chewing gum.
Marcus stared. “You think I need to go attack the mists?”
Kind of. “I think you need to stop reacting. Go on the offensive. You’re one of Realm’s best strategists—you play to win.”
The Monk steered around a lamppost, amused. “Hasn’t worked out so well. I’m currently getting schooled by a ten-year-old.”
“Exactly.” Jamie’s instincts were humming. “And still you fight. That spellcube raid you led a couple of weeks back? Warrior Girl’s still steaming over that one.” And plotting revenge, but he was sworn to secrecy on that part. “Fifteen years, and you keep coming up with new ways to play. To win.”
“The game’s not life.” Marcus’s voice was quiet, but fierce. “Nobody dies here.”
Jamie pushed away the sympathy—it wasn’t what his friend needed now. “Not all that different. Does Morgan need Slink protecting her? Or does she need the mind that causes half of Realm to tremble?”
Marcus snorted. For form. But his brain had snapped into high gear. Jamie had reason to know that it was a pretty fearsome weapon—and maybe Evan had thought so too.
It had to beat skulking in alleyways.
Jamie watched as The Monk marched off down the street. The sleeping general had awakened. Not a bad morning’s work.
~ ~ ~
Moira touched her fingers to a last zinnia and climbed slowly to her feet. She’d been tending flowers all morning, and a nice distraction was finally walking down the street.
She’d been waiting for hours.
Under the cover of the large, floppy hat that graced her head, she studied the meandering duo. Morgan looked right as rain, if a mite perplexed. Marcus looked like his usual scowly self, which was balm to her heart.
Sleep and green goo fixed many things.
Judging from the way Marcus was holding his wee girl, however, something quite different was needed at this moment. She stepped out of her flowers and walked to the gate. “Good day, nephew. ’Tis a diaper you’ll be wanting, I’m thinking.” She grinned at the brogue in her voice—little ones always brought out her Irish.
Marcus grunted in greeting. “If she’d just stop kicking her legs like that, we might make it to Elorie’s without catastrophe.”
That seemed fairly unlikely. Moira opened her gate. “Come on in—I’m sure I can scare up a spare nappy somewhere.”
The look on her nephew’s face was high comedy. “You have diapers?”
“Indeed I do.” She snipped a sunny yellow buttercup on the way by—her table bouquet could use some brightening.
“And why is this the first I’ve heard of them?” Marcus’s growl would have been more effective if he hadn’t been fighting amusement at the antics of the child in his arms, waving frantically in the direction of the buttercup.
Moira reached over and snipped another. “One for you too, darling girl. You can take it home with you.”
The drooly grin was lovely to see—but it was the light touch of humor in her nephew’s eyes that had an old witch sniffling. She could count on one hand the times she’d seen him relax into simple pleasure.
She walked in her door and headed straight for the hall cupboard—baby poop didn’t come with a lot of patience. It pleased her immensely when Marcus reached automatically for the diaper and looked around for a place to put his bright-eyed girl. “Come—I’ve a blanket on the spare bed for just this purpose.”
Morgan grinned happily as Marcus set her down on the bed. Moira sat down beside her and held out the buttercup. “Maybe you’ve some earth witch in you, sweet girl. Or maybe you just like buttercups. They were your uncle Evan’s favorite.”
Marcus’s hands froze, diaper halfway undone.
Moira kept talking to the baby, trusting the urgency of poop to do its job. “When he got a little bigger than you are, he used to rub them on his face and pretend to be the sun, all yellow and happy.” She touched the blossom to a pink cheek. “And then he’d have his brother make a storm cloud, and they’d walk around town pretending to be the local weather forecast.”
Sweet giggles shook Morgan down to her toes—and had the added benefit of getting the man in charge of her diaper moving again. Moira smiled, delighted with them both.
And then she crossed her fingers and took an enormous chance. “Do you remember that, nephew? The two of you, bringing water and sunshine to the gardens of the village? You nearly drowned Clare Higgin’s prize roses.”
Marcus snatched a baby wipe. “Someone taught me a rain spell and forgot to mention how to turn it off.”
Ah, yes. She’d forgotten about that little training lapse. “You figured it out quickly enough. And then we taught your brother a quick-dry spell.” Mischief was always fertile ground for new magic lessons.
“Scorched my shorts.”
The voice was gruff—but he was talking. About Evan. Moira blinked back tears and reached out a hand to the baby. “Tell her the stories, Marcus. She needs to know her history.”
Eyes snapped to hers in painful shock. “Evan’s not her history.”
“She’s a witch.” That ran deeper than blood. “And we need to remember the whole of Evan. Not just how it ended.”
All she got in response was the harsh sucking of breath.
No point just dipping your toe in the hot water. “Remembering frees us—even when it hurts in our very bones.” Pain sliced at her, old agonies thrust into the light of day. “And Morgan needs us free.”
“Why?” One word, ripped from his throat.
“Because you’ve lived a life of paralysis, my sweet, beautiful man—and we’ve let you.” She leaned over to kiss a round cheek. “This one, she needs us now. We can’t let ourselves sit still in fear and pain any longer.”
A long moment of silence—even Morgan lay still, watching them with big, wide eyes. And then Marcus’s hands moved again, sliding baby limbs into bright, stripey leggings. “You sound like Jamie. He gave me the more manly version of that same speech this morning.”
Had he, then? Moira hid a smile—young Jamie was becoming quite the skilled meddler, and an early riser, too. “Witches are never shy with advice. You know that.”
He snorted and scooped Morgan off the bed. “Al
l too well.” He raised the baby up to eye level. “It’s a bunch of nosy busybodies you’ve chosen, silly wiggle.”
Morgan made a noise that sounded suspiciously like agreement.
~ ~ ~
Marcus tucked down into a cluster of boulders at the far end of the main beach of Fisher’s Cove. If he remembered correctly from his wayward youth, this was the best spot to avoid being seen. It was a matter of survival—village rumor said Lizzie was experimenting with her green goo again.
And he still needed to think.
Carefully, he tucked another blanket around Morgan. Boulder clusters weren’t the warmest of places to take a small baby.
She promptly kicked the blanket off, naked toes waving in the rather brisk breeze coming off the ocean.
He snorted and covered her up again. “Listen, girl-child. The faster you get cold, the sooner we have to head back for hearth and home.”
Morgan grinned—and stuck her toes out the bottom of the blanket.
It was like trying to wrap an octopus. He raised his eyebrows and stuffed the wandering limbs back in. “I’ll tell Lizzie you’re the one that requires a dose of green goo.”
The feet quieted, lavender eyes considering his words with great seriousness.
Heh. “Smart girl.” Marcus nodded in satisfaction. The Fairy Godfathers had been certain you couldn’t negotiate with babies. Perhaps, despite the manual’s general usefulness, they didn’t know absolutely everything.
And then Morgan let loose with the telltale sounds of poop detonation. Accompanied by giggles.
“Again? Ingrate child.” He refused to laugh, even as her Houdini feet escaped the blanket one more time. With a sigh, he raised an air bubble around the two of them. Magic on the beach probably wouldn’t escape notice, but he could hardly strip her down in a brisk Nova Scotia breeze.
She’d been cold enough lately.
Good mood suddenly gone, he squeezed her feet, reassuring himself of their warmth and general feistiness. He needed to figure out how to keep them that way.
