Complete with a water-pistol spell that took aim at anyone over four feet tall who seriously abused the number two. Nat chuckled. “Any more and the porch might have needed some engineering help.”Trust his wife to be the practical one. Or not—6 a.m. yoga this morning had involved a lot of wigs, capes, and one guy learning the hard way why most people didn’t try handstands while wearing a sword. And his last name hadn’t even been Sullivan.Jamie kissed Nat and moved forward to take his daughter’s hand. Darkness had settled in full earnest.Time to make some dragon fire.-o0o-“You look cute.”Lizard glared up at the guy beside her and contemplated murder. “The next person who calls me that is going to get a glitzy purple butterfly stuffed up their nose.”Josh only laughed.Next year, he was so getting a princess costume. She knew who to bribe.He leaned over and kissed her forehead. “You’ve been quiet.”Yeah. She’d been watching Sierra all night. Bubbly and bright and related by blood to exactly no one in Witch Central. And it would take a genetic test to prove it. Tonight Sierra had little sisters, roughhousing big brothers, part-time dibs on a snoring baby of undetermined relationship, and a pistol-toting old lady who gave her gramma hugs and kept trying to introduce her to some dude in a pirate hat.Family. No matter what the DNA said.She sighed, and the words slipped out all by themselves. “They make this family stuff look easy.”His fingers slid into hers. So damn quickly he understood. “You’re not nearly as bad at that as you think.”Somehow, the mess with him and Raven had all become one mess. “I’m not good enough.” If she were, she’d know what to do with the world’s most awesome guy in a cape and a teenager who was going to be homeless in two more days.His eyes followed hers. Raven, giggling as she chased Aervyn under a low arbor. She looked about twelve. “She’s having a really good time tonight.”“They made her feel part of things.” They always did. And even if it evaporated in the light of morning, Raven wouldn’t forget.Lizard hadn’t.She just wished paying it forward wasn’t so damn hard to figure out.-o0o-Moira looked into the dark expanses, arms stretched wide to the past and future.She didn’t need a timepiece to know that midnight had arrived. Samhain, straddling the line halfway between the fall equinox and winter solstice. A changing of the guard.The sky had decked herself out tonight to celebrate. Nary a cloud in the sky, and the stars had polished themselves brightly, as Great-gran had been wont to say. A universe steeped fully in her own moment of import.Moira breathed in of crisp and salty and timeless. The surface of Fisher’s Cove never changed overmuch. Roots, for those who needed them. But it had been a year of babies walking and talents emerging and love coming to roost in their wee village. She gave thanks for each, and for the music that played at her back.Cassie would still be fiddling when she returned.And then, a few quick hours of sleep and a trip west. The little ones would have their candy now. When the sun rose, the deeper events of Samhain would begin. Moira knew not what they would be—she simply trusted that they would come.And if the portents were wrong, as sometimes they were, she would sit for a few hours and dispense hugs and soak in the laughter of a Witch Central morning.-o0o-Nell looked around the chaos that was her back yard and grinned. Halloween’s aftermath, Sullivan-Walker style. Given the amount of sugar the kids had managed to collect from unsuspecting neighbors, it wasn’t ending anytime soon. They’d be staying outside until everyone with enough magic to scorch her ceiling had run themselves out of gas. If the number of spell glows she could see at the moment was any indication, gas guzzling was well underway.She spared a flicker of magic to monitor the circle that wiser minds had put in place around the yard perimeter. Witchlings buzzed on candy, delayed bedtime, and sensory overload tended to the occasional magical sneeze. And when Kenna or Aervyn sneezed these days, they put whole city blocks at risk.Circle’s fine.
