A Celtic Witch - By Debora Geary Page 0,76

was not. Marcus glared at Nell and Kevin as they slid down a convenient tree trunk in a tandem fit of mirth. The Wizard took one look at his face and laughed harder.

Warrior Girl reached into Kevin's bag, tossed out a simple rope spell, and walked off, singing.

Marcus looked at the two suddenly sober witches tied to a tree. Considered Daniel and Moira's penchant for the absurd. And hurried to catch up with his swaggering partner. "I'm not making them pink."

Ginia grinned. "You could make them green, like Cassidy's eyes."

The growl that came out of his throat would have subdued a phalanx of dragons.

His puny companion giggled. "She's really pretty."

The next growl sounded more like a strangled cat. "Watch your step, youngling."

"Are you going to kiss her?" Warrior Girl danced away, waving a bunny-slippers spellcube in warning. "If you want to, you should. Mama says she first wanted to kiss Dad behind server number three, but she didn't, and she's always regretted it."

That was far more than Marcus had ever wanted to know, past, present, or future, about Nell and Daniel's love life.

And more than any child of ten should know about anyone's kisses. Or servers, for that matter.

Ginia opened her mouth one more time, her mind a bundle of questions that all had Cassidy's name attached.

"Let's go." Marcus jumped at his own sudden bellow. "I'll bloom the damn flowers."

It suddenly seemed the lesser of two evils.

Cass listened to the end of Kevin's ballad, well pleased. "You practiced hard."

His cheeks flushed. "I like it."

He a lot more than liked it. "Are your fingers sore?"

"Not too bad."

That was a screaming lie, but she let it pass. "It will get better - you'll build calluses soon." She handed him a small tube. "This is something my nan mixes up for my fingers. You only need a tiny bit, but you might ask Sophie to see if she can make more before it runs out."

The boy examined the tube, curious. "What's in it?"

Cass just raised an eyebrow - anyone raised around healers should know the answer to that question.

He grinned and shoved the tube in his pocket. "Right. We don't want to know."

Smart kid. Cass reached over and picked up Rosie. "Want to learn something new?"

"Yeah." One word, said with eyes bright enough to light up half the village. He picked up a worn backpack tucked behind a chair. "Marcus let me borrow some of his recording stuff. He said it's old and he doesn't need it anymore."

Cass raised an eyebrow at the top-of-the-line equipment that came out of his bag. She'd seen it the day before, sitting in its brand-new packaging in a certain grumpy witch's kitchen. The man was a total fraud. "Do you know how to use it?"

Kevin nodded seriously, plugging all the bits and pieces together. He tapped the touch screen a few times and nodded again. "Okay, it's ready. You can play now."

Quickly, she ransacked her mental repertoire. Another ballad, maybe - but one with a sense of humor this time. "This one tells the story of a slightly clumsy knight errant, gone off to save his princess."

Her student rolled his eyes. "How come they always want to save the princess?"

She'd asked Nan that very same question once. "Because poets and songwriters love to tell three kinds of stories." She paused a beat, enjoying his quick attentiveness. "Our best moments, and our worst ones."

He didn't wait long. "And?"

It was always helpful when a musician could count. "And our dumbest ones."

Kevin's giggles still held the delightful remnants of little boy. "This is about some of the dumb ones, right?"

At his age, she'd definitely thought so. These days, it was something else she heard in the knight's quest. Something bright and important, managing to shine through human foible. She shrugged and shouldered Rosie. At twelve, she would only have heard the stumbles. Maybe Kevin would be different.

She played the ballad, enjoying the determined, awkward efforts of a man who had picked up a sword only because he loved. And the wisdom of the princess who had seen beyond the errant knight's bumbling. It had always been one of her favorites, written by a bard with an uncommon sense of humor.

Nan had always insisted it must have been written by a woman.

Watching Kevin's eyes glint with amusement in all the right places, Cass wasn't entirely sure. She finished the ballad and waited for him to turn off the equipment.

He flashed her a grin. "I'm going to use that for my new