A Dangerous Witch (Witch Central Series: Book 3) by Debora Geary

those powers have been seen.” 
    Dark eyes examined her face.  A man seeking his own data.  “You’re sure.”
    “I’m an old witch steeped in history.”  She sighed into her cup.  “And Irish to boot, so I don’t escape the signs and portents easily.  But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t.  There are more new magics and changed magics in this generation of witches than the past has ever seen.”
    She gave him credit—he listened.  And thought very carefully.  And then, in the way of a man who knew how to play and win, committed himself.  “Nell felt it.  She agrees with you.  She says it’s nasty, angry power.”
    The kind that lived on battlefields.  Moira refused to let her hands shake, but she could do nothing about the trembling of her soul.  She had to roll with her instincts, just as he did.  “We will prepare as best we can.  And hope that we’re wrong.”
    His gaze never wavered.  “Good.  Then tell me what I’m preparing for.  What do your history books say?”
    “The knowledge passed down is sparse.”  And terrifying.  “Fire mages had red hair.  They lived very isolated lives, kept apart from others.”  For safety.  And because fear was a pox on humanity.   “What is remembered comes mostly from the battlefront—it tells little of their lives away from war.” 
    “That’s not enough.”  Daniel’s eyes were as fierce as she’d ever seen them.  “What comes for my girl?  What else do we know?”
    Moira shook her head, at least as frustrated as he was.  The Irish had always been far too fond of the glories of battle, and the scribes of five hundred years ago hadn’t known the import of the words they wrote—and the ones they left out.  “It’s hints, steeped in myth and legend and too much drink.” 
    The small smile that bloomed on his face was feral.  Predatory.  “Just my kind of hunt.”
    She blinked.  He’d never touched a single one of her musty books before. 
    “Nell has her way of fighting this.  I need mine.  When I hack a company, I research the hell out of them first.  Not the official propaganda.  The crumbs.”  The denizens of dark alleys would have run from the look in Daniel’s eyes.  “I’ve taken down some of the biggest companies in the world with those crumbs.”
    She knew what it was to take puny weapons into battle.
    And she knew what it was to win with them.  So did the man across her table.
    Moira set down her tea and stood up.  There were a few hours yet before Witch Central would wake.  “Come, then.  I’ll show you the most likely places to start.”
    -o0o-
    The one who listened finally slept.  As did the man who loved her, and the lazy furry creature who seemed to have no purpose in its life whatsoever.
    Only a solitary orb remained awake, resplendent in the moonlight.
    Once, there would have been hushed voices and reverence, honoring the crystal ball’s beauty.  Holding it up in the crisp moonlight, calling on the forces to favor their lineages and their magic.  Or laying the sphere in the sands of ancient beaches as words of ritual permeated the night air.
    Tonight, there were only the snores of the lazy furry creature.
    And the worry.
    Fire mage.
    The orb had known three in history who possessed this power.  Foretold the events of their lives.  Felt the unrelenting destruction their fire wrought in the fabric of time.
    And then it had watched them die.
    All humans died.  They came and went, along with the tides and the bright round moons and the stirring of the seasons.
    But the fire mages died more quickly than most.
    And they never slipped away gently.
    The child held the fire of a thousand suns in her hands.  The orb had seen this before, and knew what must happen next.  Those older and wiser would guide her destiny.  Put her feet on the path of serving her best purpose in this world.
    Not unlike what a master had done for his tool.
    The orb turned its awareness away from the quiet