always be there for her, something to make her feel special.
But Momma had lied. Magic wasn’t a toy, it wasn’t simple, and it wasn’t something little girls should do just to have fun. It was complicated, and dangerous, and if you screwed up, people died. Or baby birds.
So she’d made a decision. And now she needed to go ask for a job. Because when little girls grew up, they had to pay the bills.
Sierra stepped into the kitchen and clutched at the strap of her bag. “Can I talk to you for a minute?”
Nell turned from the computer parts she had scattered all over the counter. “Sure. Want to give me a hand with this while we talk?”
It looked like the computer had puked its innards. “What are you doing?”
Nell held up a small silver part and laughed. “Trying to figure out where this goes. Aervyn took this machine apart and tried to put it back together, but he left a couple of parts out.”
Wow. “Does it run?”
“Nope.” Nell seemed awfully cheerful. “But it didn’t before he started, either, so no great loss.”
“Isn’t he kind of little to be doing this stuff?” Sierra realized that probably sounded critical and hurried to explain. “I don’t mean it’s bad or anything, but it doesn’t sound like something most four-year-olds do.” Not that she knew a lot of four-year-olds.
“My brothers were always taking stuff apart. Jamie swears it’s a boy thing.” Nell shrugged and held up the part again. “Maybe he can figure out where it goes.”
“Sorry, I guess I’m not much help.” And that was probably bad right before you asked for a job.
Nell looked up, suddenly alert—then turned to the fridge, voice very casual. “Want some ice cream?”
Always. “Sure.” Sierra took a deep breath. “I have something to ask you.”
Nell set two pints down on the table. “Sure. Shoot.”
“I need a job.”
Nell blinked. “You have a job.”
Cripes, she wasn’t doing this very well. “I need a different job. I’d really like to keep working for Realm, and I’m a pretty good coder and everything, but I can’t help with the WitchNet library anymore.”
Nell nodded as if she heard confusing stuff like that every day. “Okay. Why not?”
It felt like half the air was suddenly missing from the room. “Because I have to do magic for that. I’m not going to use power anymore.”
Nell took another spoonful of ice cream. “That sounds pretty serious.”
“I’m dangerous—everybody says so. And they’re obviously right.” Sierra looked down at her hands. “So if I’m not a witch, then I can’t be dangerous anymore.”
“It’s not that easy, sweetie. You can’t just turn off the power switch.”
Yes, she could. “I’ve done it before. After Momma died, I didn’t do any magic for almost a year because it made me so sad.”
Nell frowned, eyes full of sorrow. “You’re a strong witch. That must have been incredibly hard.”
That whole year had been impossibly hard. But if she could survive that, she could do this. It wasn’t really something she wanted to talk about anymore. She just wanted to get it done. “So, can I have a job? A non-witch one?”
“Okay.” Nell nodded slowly and reached out to squeeze Sierra’s hand. “Done.”
Sierra breathed out. That had been so much easier than she’d expected. “Thanks.”
Nell licked off her spoon. “I’ll call a meeting.”
Huh? “Why?”
“So you can tell everybody else.” Nell shrugged. “It’ll be faster than telling them one at a time, don’t you think?”
Sierra stared, trying to figure out why her stomach had suddenly tied itself in a Chinese knot.
~ ~ ~
Nell sat down on the end of one of the Witches’ Lounge couches, waiting on her second impromptu meeting of the day. After a quick debate, she’d left her kiddos at home. None of them, witches or not, would understand choosing to walk away from your talents. And Sierra didn’t need any more little Walkers bruising her heart accidentally.
The grownups would probably handle that perfectly well.
There was one fairly immutable law in the witching world. With great power came great responsibility. And Sierra had great power. There was an abundance of support in learning to use that power, and every attempt made to let a witch grow into her talents slowly—but in the end, the hard truth was that a big piece of Sierra’s path had been sketched out the first moment she touched power.
They would not force her. It wasn’t the way of witches.
But they could throw their weight hard on one side of the scale. Nell trusted that those