Annie’s talent was spellcasting. She could speak and get what she wanted, but learning to craft a spell with words that didn’t backfire took time, and for a while, she’d only grown more frustrated, especially surrounded by telekinesis witches who could point and levitate whatever they wanted. Cat’s talent was even more powerless than her spellcasting, and she found a weakness.
Now it was just old banter.
“The Double Thirteen house is occupied. They came on the day of the blizzard,” Niamh said solemnly and reached out to caress the handle of an ax.
“It has to be an omen,” Siobhan echoed. “We’re preparing now. We spent the blizzard doing nothing but shoving spells into potions and decking out the house with defensive magic.”
“I don’t think omens work like that,” Cat said gently, given that her talent was literally reading omens. “The weather is just the weather.” Unless there was a weather witch around, but another of her sisters had long moved away.
“At any rate,” Niamh said primly, “now we’ve got to put up all the wards. That’s what we were starting.”
“A werewolf could just walk up to our door, and you wouldn’t know right now?” Cat asked, quietening old fear.
“It’s terrifying,” Annie said flatly. “Because werewolves are just beating down our door day and night. How will we know?”
There was a bitterness in Annie around the subject of werewolves that Cat had never understood.
“However will we?” Cat deadpanned. “But first, I’m going to grab some food.” She wasn’t particularly hungry, but hopefully it would switch Niamh out of warrior mode.
Sure enough, the shorter woman squawked and threw up a hand. She left the ax alone as they all headed down the hall toward the back of the house, where the kitchen stretched across the back of the ground floor.
They passed the library where a hidden swinging shelf led to the secret werewolf library. The shelf was closed, and it just looked like a normal library with a couple of chairs. Their giant wolfhound, Ducky, was asleep on the rug.
“Thanks for being happy I’m back,” she told the lazing hound with a smile.
When she got to the back of the house, she saw her sister Beatrice at the stove. A few years older, Bea was Niamh’s only biological daughter, a quiet woman with the power of healing. In a coven full of unusually strong personalities and active talents,she had become the family peacemaker. Her twin brother had coped by spending his childhood on a ski hill.
Beatrice dropped the spoon into the soup, ran over to Cat, and folded her in a hug. “I’m so glad and I’m so sorry and I’m so happy.”
Cat patted her on the back. The effusiveness was definitely unusual. She was the least demonstrative of any of her sisters. “It’s okay? I’m fine.”
Beatrice pulled back and squinted at her. She matched her mother with strawberry hair and freckles. “Truly?”
“You can scan me.”
Beatrice nodded once and closed her eyes. Because they didn’t share blood, Cat couldn’t feel her healing.
Beatrice’s hands moved over her automatically. She had a business in town as a masseuse and a naturopath, taking clients above theCauldron and Broom. The herbal remedies and massages were just a cover for her healing talent, which didn’t take any kind of intervention.
“You are good. Hmmm, you’re better than good,” Beatrice said after a minute and let her go. Cat blushed and turned away, wondering what she had sensed.
Niamh gently shifted them out of the way and tried to fish the spoon out of the cauldron.
“I was, um, inside,” Cat said. “We had a stove.”
“We?” Siobhan said sharply as she shoved her sister away from the cauldron and used her telekinesis to rescue the spoon herself.
“Me and the Search and Rescue team,” Cat said quickly. “I’ll take a bowl of soup, that’s fine.”
Niamh tittered. “This isn’t soup. I thought I could make a chunky potion, then gradually increase the chunky part until it was solid.”
“Great,” Cat said and backed away from the stove.
Niamh worked all her magic through liquid concoctions, emphasis onliquid. She was always running experiments to try to make a solid potion. She had not succeeded yet.
“It’s just criminal that we have solid charm magic and liquid potion magic but no solid magic we can eat,” Niamh said as she let the potion gloop back into the cauldron.
“Yes, how dare magic work like that?” Annie said as she followed them into the room.
