Page 46 of Grimoires & Glamoury

The boy slid down from my lap. He stood in front of me, closed his eyes and screwed up his face in concentration. Then he raised his hands, palms up, and a wind came whistling across his mother’s gardens, sending the trio of fern-filled hanging baskets swaying from the eaves of the porch.

“Nice!” I said, and my compliment had the little boy’s eyes popping open. He grinned at me.

“His first magicks all involved the elements,” Ruby explained.

“I can do more!” Xander insisted.

“Okay,” I said, rising to stand next to Xander, “show me earth.”

With a giggle he spun around, gestured to the garden, and several decorative stones from around the pond began to hover about a foot off the ground.

I could tell it was difficult for him to maintain that particular magick, and so I placed my hand on his shoulder and said, “Let them go, Xander.”

He nodded but began to tremble.

“Don’t hold your breath,” I suggested. “Blow out your air—like the candles on a birthday cake—and let the element of earth go.”

Xander did as I told him and the rocks dropped back to the ground—albeit not in their original location. “It’s hard,” he complained.

“I know it is,” I said sympathetically. “Maybe practice with the elements that come easiest to you.”

“I like fire and air best,” Xander said very seriously.

I nodded. “Can you work with water?”

“If he’s touching it,” Ruby explained.

“You wanna see?” he asked me.

“You bet I do,” I said.

“Watch me, Lorna!” Xander said. Jumping down from the porch, he raced to the edge of the pond. “Come on!” he called for me to follow him and so I joined him there.

Once I arrived, he knelt down, plunged his fingers into the liquid and water droplets began to rise up, defying gravity and hovering in the air above the pond.

“Stop holding your breath, buddy,” I reminded him, and when he didn’t exhale, I gently tickled him on his side.

Xander squeaked and exhaled on a laugh, and the water rained right back into the pond with a splash.

“You tricked me!” Xander laughed.

“You were holding your breath, again,” I said, wiggling my eyebrows at the boy. “Had to do something to make you stop.”

“You’re funny!” he said.

“I never realized he’d been holding his breath,” Ruby said, after I returned to the porch.

“I used to do the same when I was small,” I confided in her. “My grandmother used to playfully swat me across the butt with her willow broom to remind me to stop.”

Ruby threw back her head and laughed. “I may have to try that.”

Charles and Damien joined us on the porch as Xander raced around the gardens. We stayed for dinner and I enjoyed myself, catching up with Ruby. By the time Charles and I headed for the small hotel in town, it was around eight o’clock in the evening.

Charles did indeed tell me what he and Damien had spoken about on the drive to our hotel. Seems the Ozark Council of Supernaturals were aware of the stolen grimoire and the missing Westons and all of the issues involved. No one had seen either Sawyer or Shelby, and several council members were actively looking.

“The trouble is,” Charles said as we pulled into the parking lot of our hotel, “if no one is finding them, then the Fae might already have them.”

It had been a long day, and all I wanted to do was get to my room, take a shower, climb into bed and face plant. Charles and I agreed that we could and would figure out a course of action first thing in the morning—preferably after breakfast. Our master plan hit a snag however, because when we went to check in much later than expected, we were informed that the hotel had accidentally given one of our rooms away, leaving us with no choice other than to share.