A Dangerous Witch (Witch Central Series: Book 3) Read online

  And it would give him a rest from trying to shoulder the impossible responsibility that came with being the world’s most powerful witch in a seven-year-old’s skin. There was more to being a witch than just magic, and she’d fight tooth and nail, a horde of Sullivans at her side, for his right to grow into the rest of his future as slowly as any other kid.

  They all knew it was a fight they would eventually lose.

  But not today. No matter how much he loved his sister.

  Chapter 12

  Lauren held Shay’s hand as they landed in Moira’s kitchen, coming for a late-night visit as requested. And realized the moment she touched Moira’s mind that a certain realtor was just along for the ride.

  It was Shay their wise old witch wanted to speak to.

  Moira smiled and gestured at the chairs on the other side of her table. Cookies sat waiting, and a bowl of ridiculously red strawberries.

  Shay didn’t move. “You want to talk about Mia.”

  Green eyes didn’t waver. “I do.”

  Lauren did her duty as sidekick and moved them both slowly toward the chairs.

  Shay laid her phone beside the strawberries. Everyone keeping their bat signals close by. “Ginia says the snowball potion is almost done.”

  The healers had been a flurry of activity all day long, as well as the fire witches. And Lauren was quite sure that wasn’t the topic of this conversation.

  Moira laid a hand over a fisted smaller one. “Ginia isn’t the only one who can help her sister.”

  “I want to do something.” The words were said quietly, but they nearly screamed out of Shay’s mind. “I need to. Mia needs help.”

  “She does.” Steady green eyes stood witness to the quiet intensity in her young visitor. “And I think you know how to help her.”

  Whoa. What was an old witch up to? Mia’s sisters had been frantically working all day, along with the rest of Witch Central.

  It was you who gave me the idea, sent Moira quietly. There are some who can stand with Mia who don’t yet know the fullness of their own capabilities. She looked at Shay and spoke briskly. “There is so much more you can do, sweetling.”

  Lauren braced against the impending mental explosion. Moira was one brave witch.

  Shay quivered, teetering on the edge. One supernova of frustration, taken right to the brink. And then she pulled a Nat. Gathered all that energy and funneled it into her center. Held it. And somehow turned it into focused calm.

  Not in a million years could her aunt have followed in those footsteps. Wow. I had no idea she could do that.

  Moira offered only a hint of a smile. And kept watching intent blue eyes.

  Shay finally nodded, her forehead creasing. “Okay. But what? I don’t have healing like Ginia does.”

  “You’ve not got magic, it’s true.” Moira handed out cookies, a witch well pleased with something Lauren hadn’t quite managed to read. “But you’ve talent aplenty. And ways of healing in your own right.” She touched a hand gently to the flute that was never far from its owner.

  Shay’s face was going to crack in two if she frowned any harder. “Flutes can’t heal.”

  An old witch raised an eyebrow. “You’ve not a stitch of Irish in you if you believe that.”

  Lauren was pretty sure the Sullivans and Walkers were only Irish by adoption, but she knew better than to let facts get in the way of truth.

  “I heard you helped Lauren’s crystal ball to dance the other morning.” Moira’s voice leaked quiet pride. “That was a lovely piece of work, my dear.”

  Lauren grinned. That story had been relayed only a day ago. Trust their finest meddler to know when and how to use it.

  Shay tilted her head, utterly confused. “For Moe? I just played a song it liked.”

  Lauren snorted and gave her niece a pointed look. “I was there, remember?” She still didn’t know precisely where an Irish granny was headed with this, but no way was she letting Shay off this particular hook. Moe had been humming quietly for two days, thinking no one could hear. “You did way more than just play a song.”

  A ducked head with slightly pink cheeks. “Mama says sometimes you have to give people a little push.”

  “Indeed.” Moira’s eyes twinkled, bright as those of the child she’d once been. “We all have different ways of doing that, sweet girl. I water. Lauren shows someone a beautiful room and asks them to imagine.”

  Shay’s eyebrows scrunched. “That’s why we do parties and glitter and hugs and stuff.”

  Lauren felt Moira’s love aim, strong and sure and true. “Those are all wonderful things, but they are the things you do with your sisters. When you are working as three together.”

  A sharp intake of breath from a girl who hadn’t expected the sharp edge. Hurt she rose up reflexively to block. And then realization struck—and with it, something that felt awfully like what had leaked from Moe. Even the realtor barely keeping up with the ride could see it.

  A soul who had just named a piece of who she was.

  Moira’s voice was as gentle as goose down. “You’ve found your way now. Your power to change the world.”

  Shay’s eyes blinked slowly, assimilating the new knowing. “The music. It’s mine. Just like Ginia has healing.”

  An old witch’s hands reached out, tender and steady. “Aye, sweetling. It lives at the very heart of you, and you’ve the wisdom and the talent to wield it well.”

  They were the words of witch to student.

  And the student knew it. Shay gazed at the old woman she loved so very dearly. “When you water, you only use a little magic. Mostly, you use your heart.” The words trailed off to a whisper. “Just like Auntie Nat. And Dad.”

  Lauren fought back sniffles. She had known for years that Shay would one day step into the shoes of Witch Central’s wisest and biggest hearts. And she suspected the old witch across the table had known it for far longer than that.

  But at this moment, an eleven-year-old girl knew it too.

  -o0o-

  It was a strange thing to sit alone in someone else’s cottage, but an old witch was on a mission this night. Shay had been the first. This trip was the more daring one, and the less likely to succeed. But it mattered all the same. And the owners of this humble abode had been more than happy to go have a moonlight dip in their marvelous hot pool.

  Moira pulled up a chair to the bay window, enjoying the glorious view of the night from Devin and Lauren’s small home by the sea. The moon hung bright and huge in the sky. A grandmother moon.

  Perhaps tonight, the universe would be open to a grandmother’s pleas.

  The ocean was showing off this evening—little caps of white decorated waves that reflected the hues of the moon overhead. The wind must be up. It pleased Moira’s Irish genes to no end, watching the flicks of energy. The waters, never quite tamed.

  She imagined this view suited the man who lived here very well. And the coziness he watched it from watered the heart of the woman he loved, who knew what “home” meant as well as anyone alive. It wasn’t every couple who could match two such very different ways of being in the world and find the strength where they met. These two had done it delightfully and well. It was lovely to see.

  Moira let her eyes travel to Great-gran’s crystal ball, settled quietly in a beam of moonlight on a velvet pillow that was a little bit reverent, a little bit silly, and absolutely charming.

  Mohana Nitya Ratna Mandeep. She tried the orb’s full name on in her head for size. It would have astonished many generations of Irish witches to know that the tool they had held in such awe hadn’t risen from green hills and faerie knolls. It was more ancient even than the culture that believed itself the birthplace of magic.

  She chuckled. Such conceit would never change, no matter what mysteries lived beyond Ireland’s borders. And perhaps it was rightly such. The magics of this place and time, too, were different than any that had come before. Each generation, embracing its own version of history.

&nbs
p; And each having maudlin old witches to bear witness. Moira looked out at the whitecaps dancing under the moon and shook off her pensive mood. She’d come for a reason that was kin to the waves’ small daring. It was time to have a chat with Moe.

  She breathed in, reaching gently into her heart for the waters of kin and love and history. Her blood might not have birthed the orb, but her ancestors had been its caretakers for centuries.

  Words, old and unbidden, rose from her chest. The language of ancient worship. An incantation, one of the holiest. Descended from the druids, and those who walked before.

  The words of one seeking to cross the veil. Moira smiled. Perhaps not entirely inappropriate here, although she had no intentions of departing her warm and cozy chair. It was only her words that she hoped might cross into whatever consciousness lived in the milky white sphere that she had carried across the sea.

  The orb couldn’t speak to her—or wouldn’t. But perhaps it could listen.

  She took a fortifying breath, and then spoke words that were no longer in a language old and dusty.

  “We love her, you know.” And from that, everything else began. “She is a child of quick heart and fast feet and loyalty beyond measure. She loves glittery things, does our Mia, and the parts of other peoples’ lives that need a bit of shining.” Such a beautiful soul, and it did Moira’s heart good to talk of it. “She’s one of three. And one of five and one of seven, and one of a clan big enough and openhearted enough that they’re difficult to count.”

  The surface of the ball showed no signs it heard her. She hadn’t expected any different. Sometimes it mattered to say the words, even if the audience had no ears. “Children have often been the pawns of history.” That wasn’t quite right. “The great forces of the universe have a job to do—I know that.” And it was often their young and strong called to make the highest sacrifice.

  Moira breathed, finding the words she needed to finish. “But this child is more than a vessel capable of welcoming fire. Please, Mohana Nitya Ratna Mandeep. If you know how to speak to the other side of the veil—let them know that.”

  Her voice wandered off again into old Irish words of ritual.

  Her heart simply held Mia close and willed the ancient, timeless powers to see.

  An old witch, taking a stand. Love mattered.

  -o0o-

  It longed daily for such reverence. Yearned for the times when orbs had been honored as tools of great power, and the words of ritual had swirled with power and ancient grace.

  Tonight, Moe would have gladly given up all of that forever.

  The old woman with a heart bigger than the sky and belief deeper than the vast oceans of this place was magnificent. Entirely worthy of the boon for which she asked.

  In her words, in her heart, lived the faith that a simple glass ball could speak to the forces of the universe, and the universe might listen.

  It hurt beyond measure that she was wrong.

  -o0o-

  Nell landed in Moira’s tiny, cozy parlor, still holding a half-eaten midnight sandwich, magic blazing and mind flaring with panic.

  And what she saw made her blood run cold. Daniel, holding an old, musty book—face as white as porcelain.

  Oh, hell. The man hadn’t slept in three days. Nell’s abused guts felt the icy shards stabbing deeper. “What did you find?”

  “A story,” he said quietly. “Relayed by some dude who heard it from some other guy walking down the road.”

  Hearsay. And if the dudes were Irish, potentially even further from the truth than that.

  But her husband had still turned the color of death.

  He touched the page in his lap, fingers trembling. “I found a girl like Mia. With red hair and fire in her hands. She served her sept for thirteen years, brought her chief to great power. They wrote songs about her.”

  There was only one possible way fire mages would have served clan warlords. “She was used as a weapon.”

  His entire body shuddered. “She was nine years old when she came into her power. They wrote ballads about the glory she brought to her chief with the lightning from her tiny white hands.”

  Nell saw the bleak terror in his mind. Thousands dead, scorched by a child indentured to horror. She dropped onto the couch beside him and stuffed her hands under her legs, trying to stop their miserable shaking. “We won’t let that happen. This isn’t the twelfth century.”

  Lines etched her husband’s face, cracking the porcelain. “She couldn’t see her power either. Just like Mia.”

  This was heading somewhere awful—she could see it in his eyes. Nell gave up on stopping her shakes and laid a hand on Daniel’s thigh, resisting the urge to curl up against his chest. He needed her warrior now. “What happened?”

  “Hard to tell from song and legend.”

  No one on the planet pieced together small hints and half-truths better than the man she’d married. “What do you think happened?”

  “I think she learned to aim. And she never knew whether the fire would be there or not.”

  Nell tried to imagine swinging her sword and not knowing before she swung whether the blade would be there or not. “How long did it take her to go insane?”

  Daniel’s shudders started again. “I don’t think she ever did. She was twenty-two years old when she called the fire on the field of battle for the last time—and then refused to let it go. She held it just long enough for her sept to get out of the way. And then she turned it on herself.”

  The last act of a heart still human—and the reason her husband clutched an old and dusty book wet with tears.

  Mia would never stand at the center of a war. That much they could prevent.

  But her heart was wildly, gloriously, powerfully human. She was not a child who ignored, who turned away. She stood squarely on all of life’s battlefields, offering up who she was.

  Nell wrapped her arms around the man holding the musty book and let her tears fall to join his. They could fight many things. But her daughter’s beautiful heart wasn’t one of them.

  Chapter 13

  If yawns could split heads, Fuzzball was about to become two cats. Lauren peered at their lazy, half-awake kitty and managed to peel her second eye open. Late-night visits to Fisher’s Cove were hard on a woman.

  Coffee, husband, shower, breakfast. Probably in that order. It was a rare morning at this time of year that she didn’t have clients and houses clamoring for attention, and her soul desperately needed some recuperation time.

  Fuzzball’s comedy routine of yawning started again, and Lauren’s face seriously contemplated joining him. Definitely time for coffee.

  “Morning.”

  The smile from the bedroom doorway was palpable, even though Dev hadn’t moved into her line of sight yet.

  A hand slid over her shoulder and fondled Fuzzball’s head. “Looks like he could use some coffee too.”

  A rusty chuckle worked its way up Lauren’s throat. “Exactly how did I end up married to a guy who thinks caffeinating a cat is a good idea?”

  His weight settled on the bed beside her. “I wooed you with coffee.”

  She could smell it now. The exotic, rich blend of Costa Rican magic that she’d fallen in love with sometime in the dog days of March. “You’re a saint.”

  “Nope.” She could hear his gentle grin. “Just hungry.”

  It sounded like such a typical morning in their cottage. And if you couldn’t hear and feel all the undertones, you might even believe it. Two people trying to lighten each other’s loads.

  Maybe it was time to talk about it instead.

  Lauren slurped coffee and tried to resist the urge to soothe the hurt away and aim for more comfortable weekend-morning pursuits instead. “Worried about Mia?” It wasn’t really a question.

  “Trying not to be.” His smile was a little lopsided. “Of the three, she’s the most like me.”

  Yeah. Both of them charged through life headfirst, and both had big, soft hearts that were easil
y moved to outrageous generosity—and easily bruised. Lauren contemplated Moira’s late-night charge to Shay. Maybe their musician wasn’t the only one who could be tapped a little differently on Mia’s behalf. “How did Matt and Jamie used to help you?”

  “You mean, besides acting as my best accomplices?” Dev climbed into bed beside her, sliding into the human knot they’d somehow perfected over the last two years. “Mostly they’d help me think stuff through.” He sighed. “And then I’d usually get up the next morning and do something dumb anyhow.”

  Fire mages couldn’t be dumb. But her gut smelled something here. Lauren reached for it and sipped more coffee. “Dumb, how?”

  “It’s—” Her man of action paused, searching for words. “Some people are good at letting uncomfortable things sit in their heads. Nat, Moira, Dad…”

  The thinkers. The current generation had some of those too. “Shay.”

  “Yeah.” Devin loved the niece who lived in her inner landscapes every bit as much as he loved the others. “And then there are those of us who need to do stuff. Especially when we feel uncomfortable.”

  Lauren pondered. When the man she loved felt that way, he tapped into the primal powers of the sea and went for a swim. A long, wild, solitary one. “Mia needs an outlet. A non-magical one.”

  “Yeah.” He shrugged. “Nell will know that. And Jamie. And Mom.”

  But none would get it quite so deeply as the guy she loved. “I bet you could find hers. You’d know what would fit her best.”

  He was already thinking about it—she could hear it. “When did you get so smart before you finish your first cup of coffee?”

  Lauren nestled into his chest. Costa Rican rain-forest blend, for the win.

  -o0o-

  Nell tiptoed into the craft room, already warned. The denizens were cranky. Very, very cranky.

  The first person she saw was Aervyn, sitting in a corner doodling with a paintbrush, unnaturally subdued. Helga sat beside him, holding a second brush and watching the occupants of the table Nell couldn’t yet see.