“Her poor husband is going to hear nothing but ‘Fernando this’ and ‘Fernando that’ for days,” Abby said with another giggle. “The ladies will be very disappointed when they discover they are trying to saddle the wrong horse,” Fernando replied. “Your friends told me the most charming stories, Diana. Did you know that vampires are really quite cuddly, once we find our true love?”
“Matthew hasn’t exactly been transformed into a teddy bear,” I said drily.
“Ah, but you didn’t know him before.” Fernando’s smile was wicked.
“Fernando!” Sarah called from the kitchen. “Come help me light this stupid fire. I can’t get it to catch.”
Why she felt it was necessary to light a fire in this kind of heat was beyond me, but Sarah said Em had always lit a fire on Lughnasadh, and that was that.
“Duty calls,” Fernando murmured, giving Abby a little bow. Like Betty Eastey, she blushed.
“We’ll go with you.” Caleb took Grace by the hand. “Come on, sprout.”
Matthew watched the Pratts troop off to the kitchen, a smile playing at the corner of his mouth.
“That will be us soon,” I said, slipping my arms around him.
“That’s just what I was thinking.” Matthew kissed me. “Are you ready to tell your aunt about being a weaver?”
“As soon as the Pratts leave.” Every morning I promised to tell Sarah about all that I’d learned from the London coven, but with every passing day it got harder to share my news.
“You don’t have to tell her everything all at once,” Matthew said, running his hands over my shoulders. “Just tell her you’re a weaver so you can stop wearing this shroud.”
We joined the others in the kitchen. Sarah’s fire was now crackling merrily in the stillroom, adding to the warmth of the summer evening. We sat around the table, comparing notes on the party and gossiping about the latest coven happenings. Then the talk turned to baseball. Caleb was a Red Sox fan, just like my dad.
“What is it about Harvard men and the Red Sox?” I got up to make some tea.
A flicker of white caught my eye. I smiled and put the kettle on the stove, thinking it was one of the house’s missing ghosts. Sarah would be so happy if one of them were ready to apparate again.
That was no ghost.
Grace tottered in front of the stillroom fireplace on unsteady, two-year-old legs. “Pretty,” she cooed.
“Grace!”
Startled by my cry, Grace turned her head. That was enough to upset her balance, and she tipped toward the fire.
I’d never reach her in time—not with a kitchen island and twenty-five feet between us. I reached into the pocket of my shorts and pulled out my weaver’s cords. They snaked through my fingers and twisted around my wrists just as Grace’s scream pierced the air.
I acted on pure instinct and rooted my feet into the floor. Water was all around us, trickling through deep arteries that crisscrossed the Bishop land. It was within me, too, and in an effort to focus its raw, elemental power I isolated the filaments of blue, green, and silver that highlighted everything in the kitchen and the stillroom that was tied to water.
In a quicksilver flash, I directed a bolt of water at the fireplace. A spout of steam erupted, coals hissed, and Grace hit the slurry of ash and water on the hearth with a thud.
“Grace!” Abby ran past me, followed by Caleb.
Matthew drew me into his arms. I was soaked to the skin and shivering. He rubbed my back, trying to restore some warmth.
“Thank God you have so much power over water, Diana,” Abby said, holding a tearful Grace.