The Morrigan's Curse by Dianne K. Salerni

Sheila arched a dark eyebrow, but Jax plunged on. “Bedivere said he’d take in Kin refugees, and I know of a house that’s full of them—mostly children. We could use help moving them to safety before something bad happens to them.”
    â€œWhy would I be interested in this?” Jax understood she wasn’t being cold, just blunt. What benefit did she gain from transporting a bunch of Kin orphans?
    â€œBecause there’s also a Kin woman living at that house who might help us. When I was there a few weeks ago, she went into a trance and told me the Llyrs were escaping from Oeth-Anoeth. I’m pretty sure she said this at the exact moment it was happening, all the way across the ocean.” Jax smiled. “Would someone with that kind of talent interest you, ma’am?”
    Now, Sheila truly smiled back, and her face didn’t even crack.

10
    ADDIE RISKED A GLIMPSE out the window, and the sight of the ground so far below made her feel dizzy. Her first time in an airplane had been after her rescue from the Dulac prison—and on that occasion she’d been more worried about the Transitioner planes pursuing them and the lightning Bran was using to fight them than how high off the ground she was. All her life, Addie had seen Normal airplanes hanging motionless in the sky on the eighth day, but that was different. Magic held them there. Addie knew the power of magic. What was holding this plane up while it flew? Science? Addie had no faith in the power of science.
    Neither, apparently, did Bran. He’d questioned Madoc extensively about the plane and especially about the Normals who serviced it. “If the mechanics don’t excel at their job
and
keep their mouths shut,” Madoc had explained, “they won’t receive their exorbitant salary.”
    Normals were motivated by money, according to Madoc,which was why he’d spent centuries acquiring it. Addie wondered what the Normals thought of their mysterious, anonymous employer. When Madoc first started amassing his fortune in the early 1700s, communicating through the use of handwritten letters wasn’t unusual. Now, Normals conducted business with phones and computers and other devices Addie had never seen in operation, but according to Kel, Madoc issued instructions to his employees the old-fashioned way and paid them well enough not to question it.
    Madoc’s money would finance their search for the Treasures of the Kin, but once they were found, it would be up to Addie to use their power to weave the eighth day into the Normal timeline and end the exile of her race. To do this, she would have to master a spell that had confounded her father—a spell that might not have been successfully cast since her ancestor Merlin did it centuries ago.
    So, before they boarded the plane to Vermont to speak to the Corra oracle, Addie had met with Bran Llyr for her first tutoring session. The sun had just risen over the ocean when she joined him on the patio outside Madoc’s living-room windows. “What can you do?” Bran had demanded of her without any kind of welcome.
    Addie glanced around, unsure of what he wanted. Her eyes passed over the embers of last night’s bonfire—cold, dry, scattered embers, because
last night
had really been a week ago. Seeing the remains of the fire, she made up her mind to give Bran the best she had, rather than build up to it. Shesnapped her fingers and, with a purple starburst of magic, produced a five-inch flame that danced on the tips of her forefinger and thumb. It wasn’t the invisible magic fire her father had taught all his children as a defensive spell, the one that burned her palms and drained her of energy. This was an actual flame, although it didn’t burn
her
. She smirked a bit.
    Bran’s expression didn’t change. “So, you can light Madoc’s cigarettes without a match. Is that all?”
    The smirk fell off Addie’s face.
Is