Ember's Kiss by Deborah Cooke Page A

didn’t have to fully understand magic to mess it up. He’d wait a while, long enough for Chen to realize he’d been robbed, then find out.
    Jorge was pretty sure it would hurt somebody, and that made him smile.
    Sara Keegan, partner of Quinn the Smith and herself Seer of the
Pyr
, was ready to drop even though it was just after lunch on a routine Saturday. She sat down at the kitchen table and sipped a cup of tea. She could hear Quinn talking to their older son, Garrett, as they headed back to Quinn’s workshop together. Ewan, the second of their sons, was sleeping blissfully in his crib.
    Sara sipped her tea. Too bad Ewan hadn’t been inclined to sleep the night before. Sara had gotten up to nurse him at eleven, an hour early, fed up with his fussing and restlessness, but he hadn’t gone back to sleep after his feeding.
    She couldn’t figure out what had troubled Ewan the night before, but he had refused to sleep a wink. That would have been one thing, but he had also screamed himself into a fury and wouldn’t be soothed. That had put her nerves on edge. Quinn had been restless, too. At the time, she’d thought the baby was keeping both of them awake, but now she wonderedwhether Ewan’s mood had something to do with the
Pyr
.
    There had been a lunar eclipse the night before. She guessed from Quinn’s gruff manner this morning that a firestorm had been sparked somewhere. He would have felt it and might be wondering whether they would be expected to join the
Pyr
there.
    But Ewan shouldn’t be able to sense any of that dragon stuff yet. The
Pyr
came into their powers at puberty, and that was mercifully far in the future. Sara sipped her hot tea and yearned for a nap.
    An hour wouldn’t hurt anything and she’d feel much better. The problem was that Sara wasn’t positive she’d wake up in an hour. She might sleep four, and that would put everything off.
    She was just stifling a yawn when there came a crack like lightning.
    A brilliant light flashed outside and Sara was wide-awake. She raced to the window in time to see sparks radiating from the lightning rod on the roof of the studio. She ran to the studio, fearing that Quinn was hurt, only to find him striding for the house as soon as she got outside. He had Garrett in his arms and looked intent.
    The sky was perfectly clear and blue. The snow all around their country home was pristine and the woods were quiet. A last strand of dark smoke wound upward from the lightning rod, and Sara could smell ash.
    Something was terribly wrong.
    â€œWhat’s burning?” she asked.
    â€œI thought you knew,” Quinn said. “Where’s Ewan?”
    â€œHe’s asleep.” Even as she spoke, Sara hurried back into the house.
    To her relief, their baby was sleeping quietly, his fist in his mouth. Sara picked him up all the same, needing to feel his warmth against her. She turned to face Quinn, who had paused in the bedroom doorway behind her, and saw the flames in the mirror over the dresser.
    There were letters there, like handwriting wrought of flames, burning on the glass. It made absolutely no sense, but Sara knew better than to ignore it.
    She also knew better than to expect it to last. Portents tended to fade.
    She handed Ewan to Quinn, grabbed a pen and paper, and wrote down the verse written in burning letters on the mirror.
    â€œWhat are you doing?” Quinn asked, standing behind her with the boys.
    â€œCan’t you see the words?” Sara asked, not pausing in her transcription.
    â€œWhat words?”
    â€œThere’s a verse, written in fire, on the mirror.”
    â€œOne ring to rule them all,” Quinn suggested, humor in his tone.
    â€œNot quite,” Sara said, scribbling to get it all down as she saw the letters start to fade. The mirror glimmered, flashing once before all the text disappeared.
    It looked perfectly normal again.
    â€œGone,” Sara said, putting down