have water power at all. We use what we have.”
She cocked her head. “So you’re a weather witch with fire as your strongest talent?”
“Yup. He’s a weirdo.” Devin tossed a pebble into the pond. “He was born with a brain for weather, so he decided to be the only fire-powered weather witch in the universe.”
Govin snorted. “Says the guy who spends his life trying to do fire magic with water power.” He grinned, very glad to have his old friend back in town. Even if he was really annoying.
Sierra just sat watching the two of them, yearning written all over her face. It suddenly struck Govin how insanely lonely the last six years must have been for her. He was an only child—but with the Sullivan brothers as friends, no guy would ever be lonely unless he wanted to be.
Sympathy stirring, he looked at Devin, hoping his friend’s very occasional mindreading was online. And then realized he was way behind. Devin wasn’t here to support Sierra’s training. He was here because she needed a friend. Trust a Sullivan to figure that out first—they’d always been the family adopting stray frogs, puppy dogs, and witches.
Devin winked. “Analysis complete, dude?”
Govin nodded ruefully. Sometimes a big brain didn’t work nearly as fast as good instincts. “Ready to make some weather, guys?”
Sierra straightened and swirled her fingers, suddenly all sporting two-inch hurricane funnels.
Govin gaped and closed his eyes to see her energy flows. Holy hell. She’d split air power ten ways—and then used water to swirl the left-hand funnels, and fire for the right-hand ones. Twenty-five years of practice, and he was darned sure he couldn’t do five at once. Okay. Maybe putting herself in the same sentence as superboy hadn’t been totally crazy.
He rapidly revised his plans for the morning’s lesson, pulled out a stopwatch, and selected one of his more advanced drills. “Can you lay those out on the pond in a way that none of them will amplify for at least sixty seconds?” Amplification happened when two funnel effects ran into each other.
Sierra squinted out at the pond. “Can I do stuff to the pond water too?”
Seriously? It had taken him a month to figure out that was the only way to solve this little problem. “Yeah. But only at the beginning. Whatever you set in motion needs to run free once the clock starts ticking.”
He watched as she carefully laid out her funnels on the pond’s surface, water currents eddying and ripple effects heading out to the rest of the pond. The first three, she impressed him with her understanding of spatial relationships. The next three, she astonished him with her easy skill weaving water currents.
She didn’t step wrong until funnel number eight. As soon as she let that one go, it was clear to Govin that disruption was coming. Funnel eight sat spinning quietly—but one of its side ripples began to create havoc over on the left edge of the pond.
And Sierra noticed nothing. Her eyes were fixed on funnel nine’s pretty dance—she’d just set that one down. She didn’t notice until the combined entity of funnels two and five bounced off the edge of the pond and ricocheted back through the center. At that point, a blind man wouldn’t have missed the chaos.
Her face fell.
Devin waved his hand to calm the energy flows, and then elbowed Sierra gently. “Congrats. I don’t think I’ve ever managed to create two-foot waves in a duck pond.”
She frowned, clearly not ready to let go of failure. “I was really close. What went wrong?”
Govin debated how to approach his answer. She’d laid down seven funnels before disaster hit. That was two more than he’d ever managed. Which made her later blindness all the scarier.
And hopefully more correctable. She’s not reckless. Not reckless. He tried to remember Devin’s words as he faced a witch who still scared him silly. “You’ve got the mind of a mathematician. Your initial layout was brilliant.”
She scowled at the pond. “I still had one more to add. I’m not sure where that one was going.”
He was pretty sure TJ and all his models couldn’t have solved that one either. “That’s part of the work we do—needing to judge when we can’t safely do any more.”
Her eyes opened wide. “You lay out funnels on the ocean?”
He’d forgotten how literal teenagers could be. “No. But we look at existing weather patterns and try to intervene in ways that solve problems without creating more. Sometimes the ocean’s pretty clear, and it’s like