That was the kind of question Marcus had no intentions of answering. Ever. He ignored the male snickers behind his head. “I have no earthly idea.”
Aervyn crunched into another cookie. “He should talk to Mama about that.”
“Here.” Daniel peeled the lid off a container of raw vegetables. “Mama says we need to eat more of these, and a few less cookies.”
Aervyn looked at a carrot stick with suspicion.
Jamie picked one up and crunched. “How about carrots and cookies, superdude?”
Kevin reached dutifully for a veggie stick. “Is this what you guys do at your secret meetings? Drink beer and eat carrots?”
“Mostly.” Jamie produced a soda from somewhere. “Until someone smart like you gives us something more complicated to think about.”
Marcus watched the glances exchanged over young heads-the brain trust wasn’t as relaxed as it looked. Good-his head was practically exploding with the implications of Kevin’s latest theory.
Daniel looked at his phone. “Mike’s coming. Aaron’s got cranky twins on his hands, so he says to talk hocus-pocus without him.”
Mike’s large head showed up over the horizon. Close enough. Marcus prepared to draw the meeting to order, and then realized Jamie was watching his daughter, distracted.
Kenna stared, intent, at totally empty air-and then giggled like an octopus had attacked her ribs. She held up her arms, blew bubbles, and cooed.
Jamie grinned, still puzzled. “That’s Kenna-speak for do it again.”
Three grown men and a boy scholar watched as the same thing repeated itself two more times.
And then, very carefully, Kenna put her hands over her eyes-apparently not an easy feat at her young age. Marcus winced as she nearly poked an eye out. Mission accomplished, Kenna flung her hands out wide, and giggled so hard she fell over.
Daniel chuckled as he tipped her back upright. “I swear it looks like peek-a-boo.”
Kevin grinned. “We have a Realm ghost.”
With fifty half-trained coders on the loose, it was a wonder they didn’t have a dozen. Marcus wondered idly if the ghost could be convinced to come entertain at the castle nursery.
Aervyn looked up from his Legos. “Can you see the ghost too, Kevin?”
Marcus intercepted the Lego rocket right before it made a lunar crash landing on Morgan’s belly. “I think ghosts are invisible.”
“Nuh, uh.” Aervyn set his rocket up for blast-off number two. “You just have to use your magic eyes to look instead of your real ones.”
He now had the rapt attention of every adult on the picnic blanket. Marcus glanced at Jamie and then magically scanned the air in front of Kenna, damn sure her father was doing the same thing.
Nothing. Jamie frowned and shook his head.
Daniel, brain moving faster than the average witch, leaned over and put his hand on the rocket, temporarily disrupting launch. “You can see a magical ghost? Playing with Kenna right now?”
“Yup.” Aervyn grinned. “Wanna see? You don’t have magic eyes, but I can show you.”
Jamie laid a hand on his trainee’s shoulder. “Show me too, superdude.”
“‘Kay.” Aervyn muttered a quick spell under his breath and started making rocket launch sounds. Daniel moved his hand.
Marcus felt the quick click of incoming mindlink. Apparently he rated a look at the ghost too. For a moment, the world looked distinctly weird-and then it refocused, back to normal. All except the web of energy dancing in front of Kenna.
Marcus had no idea which one of them slammed walls down around the child first-but neither baby nor ghost was very happy about it. Power danced against the circle’s edge from both sides.
And then the outer lights vanished.
Any idea what that was? Jamie’s mindvoice was as tense as Marcus had ever heard it.
It’s the ghost. Aervyn sounded distressed. Don’t be mean next time-you’ll make it sad. It’s been playing with the babies for days now.
Marcus felt some important organ in his gut tie itself into knots. Babies? It plays with more than Kenna?
Uh, huh. I think it likes Morgan best, though. Aervyn paused, thinking. It went swimming with me in the lagoon once.
Marcus grabbed his baby girl and tried to find the off switch for his overreact button. “It’s gone now, right?”
Aervyn nodded sadly. “You scared it away.”
It was Kevin who broke the stunned silence. “I don’t think it’s just any ghost.” He took a deep breath. “I think it was Evan.”
Denial ripped through Marcus’s head-and shattered against the certainty of his heart. His brother had always loved babies. And swimming.
Jamie looked at the crowd gathered in the castle dining hall. On most days, it would be a party.
Today, it was an unsteady, unfocused mob-when they needed a council of war.
Elorie walked up to his shoulder. “Rumors are flying thick and fast. What’s going on?”
He wasn’t sure anymore. “I’m pretty sure I only have parts of the story.” They were blind witches trying to describe the proverbial elephant.
She looked around the hall. Uneasy conversation buzzed, and the room practically crackled with energy looking for somewhere to go. “Someone needs to run the show-we’re never going to figure anything out like this.”
It was hard to disagree, but their resident general sat in a corner, brain stunned and eyes bleak. Not that Jamie could blame him-he’d literally just seen a ghost. “You’re pretty good at herding witches.”
She snorted. “More than pretty good.”
But it wasn’t hers to do-he could feel that as well as she did. Jamie sighed. Realm was his, even if his insides felt like they’d traveled through a whale already today. He pushed off the wall. One battlefield general, coming up.
“Wait.” Elorie grabbed his arm, intent on a stir moving through the crowd.
Jamie watched in astonishment as a quiet librarian walked to the front of the hall. And felt pride beaming from the mind of the woman standing beside him.
It seemed that a new general had arrived.
The hall quieted as Kevin climbed onto one end of the big table. He surveyed the room, books clutched to his chest, glasses crooked on his nose like they always were. The look he shot Marcus was pure nerves.
But when he spoke, his words were calm and sure-and pulled the eyes of every person in the hall. “We have a mystery. And if we want to solve it, we have to get way more organized than this.”
Elorie chuckled quietly. “That’s my witch.”
“We’re witches.” Kevin looked around the hall. “Well, some of us are. Witches have been trying to keep astral travelers safe for thousands of years.” He held up the books in his hand. “And after all that time, we still don’t know how to do it.”
He gulped. “Witches still die-and that’s not good enough.”
Jamie looked over at his baby girl, safe in Nat’s arms, and agreed with every cell of his being.
“We have to be smarter.” Kevin held up his book again. “I found something today. And we saw a ghost.” He waved down the murmurs in the room. “But there’s more. Ginia has some weird lines of code.”
Warrior Girl nodded as everyone turned her way.
Damn. Jamie kicked himself-he’d totally forgotten about that.
“There’s more.” Kevin’s voice was implacable. “When Morgan came to Fisher’s Cove, she had magic on her, but nobody knew what it was.” He looked over at Elorie. “Net magic, but not quite.”
Jamie could feel confusion circling as minds tried to connect the dots.
Kevin gulped a breath. “I think everyone in this room might know something that will help. We have to be scientists. We have to put our data together and see what comes out.”
It was exactly the right battle call for a room full of geeks. Ten people at once started to offer their contributions-and for the first time, Kevin seemed to realize he was standing on a table in front of a hundred people.