Free A Celtic Witch (A Modern Witch Series: Book 6) by Debora Geary Page B

on?”
    She snickered.  “I don’t want to duel you .  I need you to be my partner.  Realm’s having a tournament.”
    He knew better than to take innocent looks at face value.  “And why exactly would that be happening?”
    “We planned it.”  She shrugged.  “It’s winter and all.  Witches are bored.  Besides, you can’t be a parent all the time—Mama says that would make anyone crazy.”
    He wasn’t certain a trip to Realm was the cure for that.  And he was most decidedly not bored.  “Well then, how about you go find a partner who needs some excitement in their life and let me get back to the only hour of relaxation I will probably get all winter?”
    Her eyes lit up.  “You have a whole hour?”
    “You aren’t listening to me, youngling.”  He added a growl, expecting it to be entirely ineffectual.  Nell Walker’s daughters didn’t scare, any of them.  “Go find somebody else.”
    “Can’t.”  She tapped the pink spellcube.  “We’ve already been challenged.”
    He had no desire to spend his one free hour trampling over some dumb gamer silly enough to challenge Realm’s top two players.  “I’m sure you can crush the upstarts without my assistance.”
    “Not a chance.”
    He frowned—Warrior Girl had wicked gaming skills, and she knew it.  “Who issued the challenge?”
    “Kevin.” 
    The boy was developing a nice game—but he was no idiot.  Marcus felt disquiet creep into his gut.  “And who’s his partner?”
    She looked at him sideways.  “The Wizard.”
    Disquiet landed with both feet.  “Your mother’s in the tournament?”
    “Yup.”  Ginia grinned and added a shine spell to her sword.  “She said Kevin made her an offer she couldn’t refuse.  And she has a right to wrong.  Something about librarians and bushes.”
    Demon wings and bat dung.  “Your father’s playing too?”  The Hacker’s exploits were legendary in any gaming era.
    “I told you.  Everyone’s playing.”  She glared at him down the full length of her sword.  “And I don’t intend to lose.”
    He made a brief wish that one day Morgan might have a fraction of Ginia’s confident grace.  And then gave in.  A duel might even keep his mind off of green Irish eyes.
    He raised an eyebrow at his screen.  “Well then, we’d better formulate a plan.  Your keep or mine?”  The pub would be far too full of spies and eavesdropping spells.
    “Mine.”  Her eyes danced a happy jig.  “Yours is full of pink bunnies.”
    He kept the curses inside his head.
    Mostly.
    -o0o-
    Moira watched their guest from the hallway a moment—it wasn’t everyone who could sit so quietly.  Or look like they could lift off into the sky at any moment.  A wanderer, this one was.  “It’s turned into a stormy day out there.”  The rain had blown in quickly—and it hadn’t taken much to convince Moira to sit out the bluster in the inn’s parlor.
    Guests were particularly cherished on an inhospitable winter’s eve.
    Cass looked over from her perch on the window seat.  “I like the storms.  They remind me of home.”
    “Ah, and where’d you grow up, then?”  Moira set down the tea tray, ready for a good Irish conversation—the kind that lasted for hours and went nowhere in particular and everywhere important.
    “County Galway.  Mum and Da are still there.  My sister Bri’s in Dublin, and Rory flits around depending on his mood.  He has a lot of them.”
    Moira thought of Marcus and chuckled.  There was always a moody one somewhere in the family tree.  “Do you go back to see them often?”
    “When I can.”  Cass turned, finally noticing the tea.  She unraveled from her neat ball on the low bench and glanced back out the window one last time.  “When I’m on this coast, I always like to go to the beach and imagine them standing there waving, just beyond the horizon.”
    For fifty years and more, Moira had done exactly the same thing.  “Will you ever move