Free The Water Witch by Juliet Dark Page A

powers.”
    “Can I join the circle?” I asked, desperate to find any way to help Brock.
    Fiona snorted. “That would be like lighting a match in a gunpowder factory. You have no control, no—”
    “But she does have the essential spark,” Liz broke in, surprising all of us, apparently herself most of all, by interrupting the intimidating Fiona. She swallowed and went on. “Callie might be woefully untrained, but she has power. I’m sure of it. I will take it upon myself to train her. We need her—to help Brock and also to keep the Grove from closing the door.”
    Fiona’s green eyes widened at Liz’s last words and her skin seemed to stretch tighter over the fine bones of her face. I had never seen Fiona display any emotion but anger so it took me a moment to recognize her expression.
Fear
.
    “May the Goddess Danu help us if
she’s
our best hope of keeping the door open,” she spit out, glaring at me. “But I will leave it to your questionable judgment. I will make preparations for the likely possibility that you fail, in which case I must set my affairs in order and decide in which world to stay forever.”
    She turned on her heel, the folds of her dress snapping like a sail in the wind. I heard bells chiming again, but now they sounded as if they tolled for a funeral.
    “I’ve always wondered,” I said when Fiona had disappeared around the corner of my house, “why she’s here at all. I mean, if she’s Queen of the Fairies, why isn’t she in Faerie?”
    “She left because her husband, King Fionn, was unfaithful,” Soheila replied. “He betrayed her with a human girl.”
    “Is that why she hates humans?” I asked.
    “Perhaps,” Soheila answered. “Although the first thing she did on arrival here was to take a human lover. I believe she has stayed here to taunt Fionn with her own affairs. But nowshe has to choose between never being able to return and returning forever.”
    “As will we all,” Ike said.
    I stared at him, startled. Ike seemed such a fixture of Fairwick. Would he really consider going? And what about all the other supernatural creatures at the college and in the town? Liz had once told me that about 30 percent of the town, and 40 percent of the faculty, were otherworlders. What would the town and college be like without them?
    “We must find a way to keep the door open,” I said, looking from Ike to Soheila to Diana and finally to Liz. “Did you really mean what you said about me having a spark?”
    “Yes,” Liz said firmly. “Although your magic is erratic, you possess a great deal of it. In addition to your fey ancestry, you come from a line of powerful witches. We could train you.”
    “Can I join this spell circle you’re calling?” I asked.
    Unsure, Liz looked toward Ike.
    “I think Brock would want Callie to be there,” he said in response. “The Norns are arriving tomorrow. We can hold the circle at our house and they can help.”
    “We’ll work together to bring Brock back,” Liz said, “and find a way to keep the door open.”
    Ike held out his hand and Liz took it. Liz’s elegant, manicured hand seemed to disappear in Ike’s broad calloused palm. Looking at the two of them I understood something about Fairwick I had never before fully appreciated. It had been founded as a place where fey and human could live together, but it was more than a neutral Switzerland between the warring factions of witch versus fey, human versus otherworlder. The conjunction of fey and human was precisely what made Fairwick strong. Without the fey, Fairwick would be a pale shadow of what it was now. As I watched Ike andhis two companions lift Brock up and carry him to a red pickup truck with the Valhalla Landscaping logo on its side, I swore to myself that I would find a way to keep the door between the worlds open.
    Liz, Soheila, and Diana left soon after the Norsemen did to make arrangements for the spell circle. I asked again if I could help but they all insisted what I