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I heard Fiona in the hallway knocking on Conn’s door and asking for help. But I was beyond all that. I was completely caught up in finding out abouther.

The spell caster rose gracefully and moved from sitting at the desk to watching the sky outside a window. A phone she carried dinged in her hand and she lifted it to her face to read the message she’d received. I tried to see what was on the message screen but couldn’t make out the words.

When she returned to the desk, I saw a flyer on the surface nearby. It mentioned an event but I couldn’t make that out, either.

I squeezed my eyes shut and opened them again. When I looked up, Fiona had dragged Rasmus out of bed. He lifted me from the floor and held me steady while I came out of the vision.

I clung to him to keep from falling. “It’s this damn locket. I keep forgetting how powerful it is. Nothing’s wrong with me. I’m just not used to it yet.”

Rasmus nodded, but his gaze was full of disbelief. My eyes finally cleared enough to take in his nearly naked state. He wore nothing but a pair of cut-off sweats that had seen better days. His body was too lean from being on the run, but I had to concede that physically he looked like a younger version of his mature self.

“I couldn’t find Conn,” Fiona said.

“It’s okay, sweetie. I know where he went.” I patted Rasmus on the hand, but he still didn’t let me go. “Conn went to the hair shop. Mulan usually comes in early to open it. He’s hoping to catch her before her day gets started.”

Rasmus ran his hands down my arms. “If I let go, are you going to fall down again?”

“I sure hope not,” I said because this situation was too new to be certain. “Sorry to jolt ya awake for no reason. I could have recovered on the floor without the worry of falling.”

Fiona grunted at my explanation. “You turned whiter than normal and fainted.”

“No, I fell into a vision about the magickal being I’m chasing after. I saw her in what looked like a fancy hotel room. There was a flyer on her desk next to her computer, but I couldn’t read any of what was on the things she was touching. I need to learn to turn my astral self around when I’m doing this.”

Fiona crossed her arms and glared at me. “If visions that make you faint are part of being a witch, I don’t want to learn that kind of magick.”

I gently pulled Rasmus’s hands off me but squeezed his fingers to let him know I was okay. The truth was that Ineededto get his hands off me before I did something I might regret—something like stepping into his body and asking for a hug.

Unlike Isaiah or Murray, Rasmus offered me a temptation I might not be able to refuse.

I put my focus on my daughter. “I’m afraid witches don’t get a choice of what powers they get and what they don’t. When I was yer age, my scrying produced a few flashes. In my thirties, it was like someone was showing me a series of photos. At forty, I got a significant power boost, but maybe it was more than I realized. Then I merged with The Dagda Stone, which I should have done after ya were born. I’m fairly certain these extended visions are the net result of my greater powers. And I’m grateful for them, so they’re worth it to me. Soon I’ll adapt and the visions won’t send me to the floor every time.”

I slipped the locket off and tucked it into a pocket of the pants I wore.

Fiona crossed her arms. “I bet Wu Shamans don’t have visions that make them ill.”

“Mulan has some sort of extrasensory knowing that seems fairly instantaneous, but ya will have to ask her for the details. She was born into her Wu Shaman role so some of her powers could be in her blood. Just like being born of The Dagda is in mine and yours. No one chooses their own DNA, Fiona.”

Irritated by our debate, my daughter made a sound I couldn’t identify. She followed it by stomping to the bathroom and shutting the door—something she knew I would understand.

Flouncing away when miffed was still her preferred method of communicating.

Since I was her mother and making her be polite was my job, I lifted my voice to yell. “A simple‘excuse me, I have to leave soon’would have been a more proper response to end our conversation.”

She mumbled something that wasn’t clear because of the shut door, but it sounded pissy, so it was probably just as well that I didn’t hear her. I couldn’t handle her sass this early in the day, so I looked at Rasmus. “I need coffee. Should I pour ya a cup when it’s done? Or would ya rather go back to bed for a while?”

“No, I’m up now and I’d love some coffee. Are you going to be okay?”

I chuckled as I headed toward the kitchen “Ask me after I’ve had coffee. My answer will be better.”

* * *

“Describe her again,”Rasmus ordered. “Go into as much detail as you can about her face.”

He’d stolen a blank sheet of paper from the Fiona’s printer and bummed a pencil from her before she stormed off to take her exams.

I tried to recall the details of my vision. “She looked like an Egyptian to me. Her makeup looked like Elizabeth Taylor’s when she played Cleopatra, only her hair was much longer, and I don’t think it was a wig.”

Rasmus blinked at me. “Who’s Elizabeth Taylor?”