A Reckless Witch - By Debora Geary Page 0,18

the wind fairies playing in your hair.”

His eyes were huge. “There’s fairies in the wind?”

“Of course. Who else do you think does all that blowing?” She pulled just the lightest touch of air magic and tickled his curls.

Joey giggled and ran back down the aisle. “Mommy! We hafta go play with the wind fairies!”

Sierra danced the tiny wind through her own hair. The fairies and ghosts would be there to keep her company, just like always. Time for a new adventure.

~ ~ ~

Nell drove up to the house, trying to page her youngest. Or her brother. Or any mind witch in the vicinity. She had an exhausted and shell-shocked passenger—not what they’d been expecting—and she wanted the party waiting inside to calm to a dull roar.

You called? Lauren’s mental voice landed in her head.

Yeah. Nell cast a worried glance at Sierra. I have a girl here who looks ready for food and bed, not a welcoming celebration. I thought having her ride the train down here would give her some time to transition, but maybe I should’ve just had Aervyn port her. See if you can simmer things down in there a bit?

Oh, sure. Give me the easy jobs. Now Lauren sounded a tad worried too. I’ll see what I can do.

Nell felt Sierra’s muddled surprise as they parked in front of the house and wondered what the girl found strange. Judging from the racket she could hear out the car window, a warning was in order. “There are a lot of people inside waiting to meet you. If it’s too much, just let me know, okay? The party can always wait until tomorrow.”

The effect of the word “party” was astonishing. Sierra’s eyes sparkled, and she jumped out of the car with the eagerness of a small child. She beat Nell to the front door, nearly colliding with the herd of children who rushed out.

Lauren followed close behind, apology on her face. Sorry—I don’t have your noise-management skills.

Nell looked at Sierra and shrugged. She seems to be rolling with it.

Lauren frowned. She’s got images of castles and people in evening gowns in her head. What gives?

No idea. By now, the under-ten crowd had shepherded their new arrival into the house, and Nell followed at the back of the parade. In under two minutes, they had Sierra sitting in the middle of the couch, pink and glittery crown on her head, brownie in her hand, and one of Aunt Jennie’s purple-haired grandsons on her lap. Welcome to Witch Central, girl.

Jamie slid up beside Nell, bearing extra brownies. “She doing okay?”

She shrugged. “Seems to be now. She was running on fumes when I picked her up, but…” They both looked over at the mob of kids.

Someone had started a game of Hot Potato with a brownie. Probably Leo of the purple hair—he finally had enough control over his earth magic to play, and it was his current favorite game. The kids were slowly backing up into a large circle. The adults were more quickly backing up out of the line of fire.

Jamie laughed. “Wimps. I remember way messier choices for the hot potato than a brownie.”

“You aren’t the one that usually got hit with them.” Nell was pretty convinced her spellcasting abilities had evolved as a consequence of losing one too many hot-potato matches with her brothers.

He shrugged. “We had to do something with all that green slime Devin kept making.”

“Just you wait. If there’s any karma in the world, your daughter’s going to be a supremely good mess-maker.”

Jamie tried to look innocent and failed hopelessly. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.” He turned back to the game. “Sierra’s holding her own.”

Nell watched more carefully. He was right. Leo wasn’t much competition, but Aervyn was. And Ginia… “Holy crap. When did Ginia figure out how to arm her sisters?” Splitting power streams was complicated. Giving control over a power stream to a non-witch was even trickier. That Ginia could do both and still dodge the flying brownie was very impressive.

“She’s not the only one.” Jamie spoke quietly, but he was intently focused on the game now. “Sierra’s splitting streams, too—she’s helping Leo out.”

He was right. She was using primarily air power to push the brownie around herself, but she was feeding small amounts of fire magic to Leo to speed up his earth power flows. Which was probably good, because slow magics didn’t survive at Hot Potato for long.

Sierra sent the brownie on a swift rolling loop, and then laughed