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

the time it took the rest of them to inhale.
    A little boy who still trusted the adults in his world to make things right while he went off to play.
    Her three girls had shaken their heads and refused to go.
    “We know you’re going to have a big meeting.”  Shay got straight to the point.  “We have a right to be there.”
    No one denied that, even the mama who wanted to shrink them a foot, and a half-dozen years.  “You do.”  She just wasn’t sure it was what they needed today—any of them.  In case one of the Sullivan family’s most important mantras had somehow escaped them, she repeated it.  “But it’s also okay to spend the morning being happy and playing in the ocean.”  
    Ginia rolled her eyes.  “We know that, Mama.”
    They should—they were the high priestesses of that particular branch of Witch Central’s wisdom.  No one dished out fun and happiness with more clarity than these three.  Nell shifted her gaze to the girl who hadn’t said anything yet.
    Mia avoided the look, staring at her hands instead.
    Uh, oh.  Nell tried to read the tea leaves—and couldn’t untangle what she was picking up from the three of them.  Her power was still half-cracked from playing host to the world’s biggest fireball.  She shook her head, annoyed at the lingering weakness, and reached for her daughter’s hands.  “What do you need this morning, lovey?”
    The words were gentle—and they flooded Mia’s eyes with tears.  She bit her lip, eyes full of pain.  “I don’t know.”
    Her sisters moved as a unit, flanking her a little closer.  Their eyes held no tears at all.  Only conviction and a singular, soundless message—one that Nell heard loud and clear. 
    They believed Mia needed to be at the war council.  And they weren’t leaving her side.
    -o0o-
    Nobody wanted to be here.  And everyone wanted to wrap Mia up in safety and hide her from the terrible thing that stalked her.
    Which was rapidly causing every mind witch in Nell’s living room a massive headache.  Lauren tried to tug her own barriers tighter, well aware that it was her own disheveled emotions causing their leakiness.
    “Well, my dear.”  Moira looked at Mia, eyes gently amused, as if they’d gathered to deal with no more than a summer prank or some squooshed flowers.  “You’ve caused rather the uproar.”
    It almost got a smile from the girl who sat cuddling a lumpy red clay monster.  And then she tumbled off the other side of the precipice instead, tears filling her eyes.  Mia shook off the arms and hands that reached out in comfort and glued herself to an old witch’s gaze instead.  “Please.  Tell me what’s happening to me.”
    The plea broke Moira’s heart into a million pieces—and not by a whisper did she let Mia see that.  “You’re growing magic, sweet girl.  A big and frightening magic no one has seen for a very long time.”
    The girl with fiery red hair waited.  And then glared.  “You know more than that.  You always know more than that.”
    Again, Lauren felt the old witch’s soul tremble—and again, she let not a hint of it escape.  “I know some of what the books say.  We never know how true they are, especially for something last seen so long ago.”  She held up a hand as blue eyes flashed.  “I will tell you what I know, child.  You’ve every right to know.  But you must also remember that the future is not written entirely by the past.”
    Now it was Mia trembling.  And this time, when arms reached out to hold her tight, she didn’t protest.  Her fingers traveled the lumpy clay in her hands, tracing the fingerprints and bumps of the clay dinosaur-meets-dragon that had been Aervyn’s gift on her last birthday.
    Cuddling a monster—to fight one.
    “Magefire was a magic much prized in the past,” said Moira quietly.  “But it was used as a magic of war.  To defend, and all too often, to attack.”  She swallowed, looking down at her lap, the bleakness that