Free Magick (Book 3 in the Coven Series) by Trish Milburn Page A

ways. At least some of them. If your mom, you and Egan can be different, it stands to reason there are others.”
    I think about the message Egan received from someone claiming exactly that and decide to tell Sarah about it.
    She considers what I’ve said for a moment. “I agree it’ll be tricky to find out without giving yourselves away, but maybe we can help with that. Let me think about it, talk with the others.”
    I look down the hallway behind us. “Do all of you live here? And why aren’t there any men?”
    “We stay here when the need arises, like now. But we all have normal lives, too. Homes, families, jobs. I’ve got the library. Amanda is a teacher. Hope is a stay-at-home mom, though her little ones have gone to visit her husband’s grandmother in Connecticut until this is all over. Caren is the local medical examiner. Piper goes to school in Marblehead. As for the men, it hasn’t always been all women. Right now it is because none of us have male children, and all of us are descended from the original Bane through our mothers.”
    The sounds of a door opening and closing are followed by the thud of footsteps.
    “Sounds like your friends are back,” Sarah says. She takes a step away. “We’ll start again in a couple of hours.” She heads back the way we came just as Toni and Amanda round the corner ahead of me followed by Keller and Piper.
    Something ugly rolls inside me, and I catch my breath at the fear it’s the darkness making its presence known. But then I realize it’s just good old-fashioned jealousy. When Keller notices me and smiles, the jealousy flickers out. That smile tells me more than words that I have nothing to worry about. Even Piper’s friendly smile tells me my initial reaction is foolish. She’s been nothing but nice to us, and we need all the friends we can get.
    That thought reminds me of Rule. I wonder how he and Adele are doing. I hope that they’ll not do anything too dangerous, that they’ll stay safe and well out of the line of fire. Honestly, I wish they would leave town until this is over. But even if I could communicate that message to them, I doubt they’d heed it.
    “Hey,” Toni says when she looks up from her conversation. She looks past me as Amanda follows in Sarah’s wake. “Where’s Egan?”
    “Working on becoming Egan the Good Witch.”
    “Not too good, I hope,” Toni says under her breath.
    Piper laughs, and Keller covers his ears. “I have to bleach my eardrums now,” he says. But he lowers his hands to pull me into his arms, planting a kiss on top of my head.
    “I’ve so got to get a boyfriend,” Piper says as she shakes her head.
    Toni looks at her with disbelief, and I’m pretty sure my expression is similar.
    “You probably have boys lined up for miles to go out with you,” I say.
    “Ha,” Piper says. “My dating pool is pretty thin. Like nonexistent. Well, nothing remotely serious anyway.”
    Where moments ago I was jealous of her, now I totally sympathize with her plight. Going out for pizza or to a school dance is probably not difficult for her, but a serious relationship? That gets a little stickier when you’re a witch, even if you can’t use dark magic.
    We start down the hallway, heading to lunch.
    “Did you get all of our stuff?” I ask.
    “Yeah. The clothes and other things are already in our rooms,” Toni says.
    “The vehicles are stashed in an underground garage, weapons included.”
    Keller holds me back so that Toni and Piper get a bit ahead of us. “How did things go this morning?” he asks.
    “Okay, but they haven’t unharnessed me all the way yet.” I lift my arm to show him. “I was afraid of releasing both of us at once, so we’re taking it slow with Egan first. But I’m on tap this afternoon. Don’t guess there’s any chance of you skipping out on that now that you’re back, is there?”
    “Nope.”
    “That’s what I thought.”
    He hugs me close. “I have faith in you.”
    “Yeah, we’ll