Her baby brother had a hell of a poker face, but Nell could feel the neurons in his brain shorting. “You promise messages from the dead.”
“Sure do.” Adele set down her coffee cup, eyes suddenly serious. “You ever talked to the dead? They pretty much all have only one thing they want to say. ‘I love you.’” She shrugged. “And the occasional dead asshat who doesn’t want to say that isn’t getting any of my help.”
Game, set, match. Nell grinned-no way Jamie could hold out against a woman who stood against dead asshats.
It took a moment. And then humor flooded into his eyes, along with something deeper. “Evan’s message wasn’t that simple.”
“No.” Adele’s voice leaked sadness. “Although the love is there too, whenever folks are ready to believe it.”
Nell tried not to feel sorry for one crusty old bachelor. “He expects us to believe messages about soldiers and babies instead?”
“Not all of you. Just enough of you to keep the child safe.” Adele sat up straighter. “Wait. Has Morgan arrived?”
It didn’t take a mindreader to pick up her racing concern. Nell sipped her coffee, willing the caffeine to her brain. “She did. Last night. We need to know more about what’s going on. She arrived coated in magic.”
Adele nodded slowly. “She would have. He would have taken every precaution.”
“He? Evan?” Jamie leaned forward. “He’s alive?”
“No.” Adele stood up and walked toward the windows. “He’s a traveler. One with the strongest magic I’ve ever seen.”
Nell felt the world shifting under her feet. “Wait. Astral travelers aren’t dead?”
“To most of us, they are.” Sparkly fingers danced in the early morning light. “I only know what little Evan has been able to explain. There’s a world between, one that travelers can visit.”
“Most don’t come back.” Jamie’s voice was tight with fear.
Adele’s face softened. “Your Kenna isn’t a traveler. Evan said to tell you that.”
Nell watched a weight lift from her brother’s shoulders-one she hadn’t even known existed.
His breath whooshed out. “I have some precog. She’s got so much magic…”
“Not this one.” Adele patted his shoulder. “He seemed very sure.”
Jamie nodded, mind heavy with gratitude.
Nell said quiet thanks to a dead man she’d never met. “He’s still in that world-the in-between one?” And he couldn’t come back-that much she could read in their occasional medium’s eyes.
“Yes. He calls it the halfway house.” Eyes met Nell’s over her brother’s head. “He does what he can to help the souls passing through. Sends on the dead peacefully, chases the occasional traveler back to safety.”
Traveling was a talent most witchlings grew out of-if they lived. Evan had been the last witchling lost to the astral plane. The dots connected. “He sends our travelers back?”
Adele nodded. “He kept saying something about ‘with great power comes great responsibility.’”
Nell felt the lump hit her throat. “If you talk to him again, tell him thank you. And that his aunt Moira would be very proud of him.”
“That will be up to him.” Adele sat down again, picking up her coffee. “He comes to me. I just listen and deliver messages. And crash into your Witches’ Lounge against my better judgment. He weaves a hell of a spell, that one.”
Jamie’s eyebrows hit the ceiling. “Evan got you into Realm?”
Adele’s laugh was loud, long, and sent every inch of gold lamé shimmering. “You think I’m that kind of computer genius, honey boy?”
Nell filed away the “honey boy” for the next time she needed to poleax Jamie. Big sisters took their advantages where they could. “You’re saying a five-year-old boy lives in the in-between world and throws around enough magic to transport babies and full-grown witches?”
“You got a better explanation?” Adele refilled coffee cups. “And he’s not five any more. I’ve been chatting with a grown man-that much I know for sure.”
The dead grew up? Nell pushed her coffee away, trying to wrap her head around the strangeness, and leaned instead on the question that really mattered. “Why did he send us Morgan?”
“I’m not sure.” For the first time since they’d arrived, Adele’s mind clouded. “He said only that it was necessary to keep her safe.”
That wasn’t good enough. “We can’t just keep a baby because of a cryptic message.” Well, they could, but it might be every kind of wrong.
Adele eyed Nell. “You put a fetching spell out into the ether. It fetched. Evan said to thank you for the spell-it made his work much easier.”
A dead witch had hijacked her spell? This morning could not get any weirder. “It’s supposed to fetch witches.” Morgan had arrived covered in magic, but it hadn’t been hers-every competent witch in Fisher’s Cove had checked.
“Sometimes the universe doesn’t go exactly like you planned.” The humor in gold-flecked eyes was hard not to warm to. “A mother of five ought to understand that just fine.”
Yeah. She did. “If he talks to you again…”
Adele nodded, the eyes behind the glitz as solid as Nell’s own. “I’ll let you know.”
Sophie looked over at Elorie, competently juggling two nursers. The inn’s parlor had become their favorite gathering place in the mornings-big enough to contain babies and all those who wanted to rock them, and close to the kitchen. Aaron calmly fed whoever arrived and claimed it was good for business.
Probably true-Aislin and Lucas happily showered smiles on anyone who looked their direction. Adam, a month younger, hadn’t found his smiles yet-but he radiated newborn cuteness.
It was these moments of peace that kept Sophie sane when her unhappily nocturnal baby fussed all hours of the night.
Elorie glanced up in surprise as the floorboards of the inn’s parlor shook. The shadow filling the doorway moments later answered one question-and created many more.
Marcus held out the Moses basket, presumably filled with baby. “Where do I put her?”
It was a dangerous question-Sophie had stopped off to say good morning to Aunt Moira before coming to the inn. “Wherever you like-is she sleeping?”
“Yes.” His eyes held a strange light of victory. “She’s diapered, fed, burped, and had some blanket time in a warm, sunny spot. She should sleep until noon.”
Not if there was any justice in the world, but it was a pretty impressive list. “Sounds like you’ve had a productive morning.”
“I spent the morning demonstrating that any minimally competent adult with an Internet connection can take care of a baby’s basic needs.” Marcus set the basket down in a corner-with a gentleness totally at odds with his gruffness. “Perhaps now we can have a more mature discussion about who should be responsible for Morgan’s care until we sort out whatever tragic mistake landed her on my doorstep.”
It was a very nice speech. Rehearsed, even. Sophie weighed her choices. “You don’t believe she was sent here?”
“Hardly.” His glare cracked, momentarily distracted by movement in the basket. “And with the possible exception of my misguided aunt, doubt runs rampant in the rest of you as well.”
It had been-she couldn’t deny it. But as Sophie watched the crankiest man she knew sing a quiet lullaby in the direction of a restless baby, doubts began to leak away.
Sometimes magic worked in very mysterious ways.
And Sophie decided it could perhaps use her help. “Elorie and I have our hands full at the moment, and fishing season is in full swing.” The village was at its yearly busiest.
“She handles two.” Marcus glanced Elorie’s direction. “Surely adding another for a few days wouldn’t trouble you much.”