fire, although no one but Aervyn can see that yet.
Moira: It’s normally a sign of a very strong talent, and one that will emerge early.
Nell: Right. So if Elorie has a natural affinity for Net power, even when she’s not doing active magic…
Moira: You’re saying she might be particularly strong with this talent.
Sophie: I want her for my partner in Realm.
Nell: Get in line. However, we don’t know that spellcoding is the only way for this talent to work. That’s how most people use it right now, but really, it’s just a power source.
Sophie: Ah. So just like I use my earth magic to heal or make flowers bloom, Elorie may be able to use her power in more than one way.
Nell: Possibly. Most magics have a likeness to their power source—it would be really hard to use earth magic to create a windstorm—so we’re guessing she’s not a weather witch, but we’re not exactly sure what she might be able to do.
Moira: Start at the beginning, then.
Nell: Which is?
Moira: She must learn to call her power reliably and use it in small spells. Once she has that control, you can work out what else she can do.
Nell: Wise words, Moira. Thanks.
Sophie: Does this mean Elorie gets spellcoding lessons?
Nell: I think so.
Moira: The poor girl.
Sophie: I’ll take her into Realm. Ginia could use some backup taking Marcus down.
Nell: Careful with that. Next to Ginia, Marcus has the highest Net power reading on our scans so far.
Sophie: That figures.
Moira: It’s like a foreign planet, that game of yours.
Nell: You’re welcome to come for a visit. Marcus will be over later today to teach you the basics of spellcoding.
Moira: Me? Goodness sakes, why?
Nell: Because most witch talents are hereditary. If your nephew and your granddaughter are both Net witches, there’s a decent chance you are, too.
Nell pushed back from her computer and grinned. She really should have put on video chat—Moira’s face would have been priceless. She didn’t envy Marcus his task. Moira might just turn him into a frog, or worse.
Then again, her assignment for the afternoon was to teach Aervyn some basic spellcoding, and that was a fairly risky proposition as well. Mia and Shay were currently unhooking all the most precious electronics in the house from the Internet so Aervyn didn’t fry them with an errant line of code or two. Daniel was reinforcing their network firewall so Wonder Boy didn’t accidentally fry the computer of anyone else in the neighborhood, either. Life was never boring at Witch Central.
Jamie, Ginia, and Marcus would test the Realm players, and by the end of the day, they’d likely have a pretty good list of Net witches.
Then they just had to figure out what to do with them.
~ ~ ~
Jamie had no idea how he’d gotten roped into setting up a jewelry booth with five giggly girls. Nat and Elorie were no better than the triplets, trying on a gadzillion different necklaces and debating which ones were their favorites. As far as he could tell, the favorites pile was bigger than the discards.
Nat sidled up to him, some creation of copper and sea glass around her neck. “What do you think?”
He was wise in the ways of women. “Don’t you have to wait until tomorrow to buy stuff?”
She shook her head in amused dismay. “In six months, you’re going to be the most important man in the world to our baby girl. You need to get better at questions like this.”
“Don’t I get a couple of years of training while she learns how to talk?” He hoped.
His wife gave him one of her brain-melting smiles. “You’re a slow learner, so you might want to get started now.” She gestured at his three nieces, all festooned in jewelry and giving him the same “so what do you think” look.
He was taking Aervyn to a ball game later. It was a matter of guy survival.
Elorie dug in her bottomless backpack. “Girls, I have something special for you. ” She pulled out three very similar chains, each with a gorgeous piece of sea glass entwined in silver wire and two smaller pieces of glass, one on each side. Each necklace had the same three colors of glass, but with a different color as the central focus.
Even Jamie, a triplet himself, could see that Elorie had captured the bond of identical, but unique, sisterhood. His nieces were speechless.
He could feel Elorie’s joy at the gifting. She had an incredibly open mind, and that wasn’t always a