It was an unusual sight for Jamie to see his sister squirm. “No. But she charges people by the minute. Probably uses the fire globes for cheap parlor tricks to keep them paying.”

“She wouldn’t be the first witch to use smoke and mirrors to hide her true magic.” Moira stroked Adam’s head. “And she got in here. That tells us something, even if you don’t want to see it.”

Jamie stared, trying to follow the breadcrumbs.

“She comes in power. And I’m going to assume she deserves respect for it.” Moira motioned Sophie over. “Take your sweet babe, my dear. I have a message to deliver.”

There was dead silence as she poofed out of the lounge, witch matriarch on a mission.

Jamie tried to wrap his mind around what had just happened. Realm had the best firewalls code and magic could procure. And they’d been breached by a woman who worked for $4.99 a minute.

A woman who hadn’t taken much longer than that to breach the defenses of the toughest old witch he knew-Moira was nobody’s biddable messenger.

An odd sound escaped from the couch. Jamie looked over at Sophie, who was quietly giggling into her son’s hair. She looked up, waving her hand in apology. “Sorry. I know we have some serious issues here, but oh, to be a fly on the wall of the conversation she’s about to have.”

Jamie blinked and tried to backtrack. In all the mad code checking, he’d mostly tuned out the audio feed from the room. Something about a baby. Or a soldier. But mostly stuff about Marcus’s dead brother.

Daniel, who never missed anything, started to chuckle. “A baby in a basket, headed Marcus’s direction.”

A grin slowly bloomed on Nell’s face. “A girl baby.”

Jamie tried to imagine. And really, really wished he wasn’t too old for a good eavesdropping spell.

Chapter 2