Nell gave up and dropped to the sand, holding her ribs. Lauren was milking her moment as an elemental witch for all it was worth. And damn, the girl could rhyme. As she watched in breathless laughter, a storm cloud of monster proportions formed over Marcus’s head and let loose a torrential downpour.
Marcus appeared to be raining curses down on all their heads, but no one could hear him over the thunder.
Moments later, the cloud dissipated, and Marcus’s clothes instantly dried. Nell rolled her eyes. Aervyn had a soft spot for the man. Her son was the only fire witch present with enough power to do a quick-dry spell that fast. Oddly, he never thought to do it on his own wet clothes.
Marcus glared at Lauren. “I assume you were just the decoy for that little stunt.” He turned and stormed down the beach, muttering epithets under his breath. Nell sighed. No point letting some poor witchling take the blame.
She called after Marcus. “Lauren wasn’t the decoy. She did the magic.”
He spun around, eyes sparking. “She’s no elemental witch.”
Nell kept quiet, waiting for him to put it together. He might be an arrogant ass, but he was a very smart witch. She saw when it hit him. His anger vanished, replaced by total fascination. “Elorie sent the spell to Lauren?”
Aervyn popped up at Marcus’s elbow, having ported his entire tribe of troublemakers back from the far end of the beach. “She totally did, Uncle Marcus. Did you like the thunder? That was my idea.”
Sean poked Aervyn. Being a little older than four, he was wiser in the ways of not owning up to your part in witch pranks quite so quickly.
Marcus ruffled Aervyn’s head absently and turned to Nell. “How did you figure it out?”
Sheer genius, Gandalf. My daughter comes by it honestly. Nell shrugged. “I took a guess. It seemed reasonable that if Elorie can download, she could upload, too.”
Elorie looked confused. “Download and upload what? I just used Net power.”
“Aye, niece,” Marcus said. “But this time you didn’t pull magic to yourself. You pushed it to someone else. Someone without those powers.”
Ginia’s eyes got big. “You’re right. That’s so cool. I wanna try.” She jumped up and motioned to the others. “Let’s go make another spell for Lauren to catch.”
As a herd of witchlings ran down to the other end of the beach, Elorie moved away from Marcus. “Just in case you’re about to get wet again.”
Marcus snorted and waved a hand briefly in the air. “I don’t think so. Any witchling who tries is going to discover the meaning of counterspell.”
Nell wondered if Elorie had any idea of the implications of her newly discovered ability.
Not a clue, Marcus sent. She still thinks this is fun and games on the beach.
And you don’t?
Nell’s heart cracked when Marcus replied. With this, I could have saved my brother. I wasn’t strong enough on my own, and we couldn’t get a circle together in time.
~ ~ ~
Elorie held her breath as Ginia finished drilling a tiny hole in a piece of green sea glass. She wasn’t at all sure that equipping a nine-year-old with a power tool was a good idea, but Ginia had been sweetly insistent.
Her temporary apprentice looked up. “So now I do the same thing to the other one?” Elorie nodded. Ginia had found a couple of small bits of green sea glass on the beach, and she wanted to make them into a birthday gift for Lauren.
Elorie rummaged in her wire collection. She had some thin copper wire that would go well with the green glass and Lauren’s gorgeous hair.
Finished with the drilling, Ginia took off her safety goggles and looked at the wire with interest. “Now what?”
This was the fun part, if you had any artist’s calling. “Now you dream a little. You need to ponder the glass and the wire, and think about how they might look nice together.” She started pulling some half-done samples off her shelves. “You can hang the glass from a simple hoop, like this, or wrap the wire around to make a curly nest for the glass. That would look nice with the copper.”
Ginia contemplated for a few moments, and then looked shy. “What did you do for the heart one you’re wearing? It’s really beautiful.”
That caught Elorie by surprise. She’d expected Ginia to go for the curls. Her heart pendant had a hammered silver rim, which looked very simple, but required