Page 2 of Wildfire Witch

I was by no means an ordinary witch, something that I had to hide. My magicwasAodhnait, and so I could wield raw flame until I burned out or some unknown trigger activated my curse. Then I died in fire and was discovered in the resulting ashes as a fussy baby with no family to claim me.

I’d regained some fractured memories at age twelve in this life and began speaking to Aodhnait soon after. At one point, we may have been best friends, but this hopeless cycle of death, rebirth, and retreading old steps for new hope had bred bitterness between us.

Her constant commentary was both annoying and reassuring. It was when she became quiet and too hot did I worry that my number was up. We’d made it to age twenty-five in this life and reached Seattle, but then fizzled from there, as we weren’t sure why it was so important to come here in the first place.

As I sat on a curb down the street from the café, waiting for the firefighters to arrive, I was consumed with dread. My manager knew I’d started the fire somehow and kept shooting narrowed glances in my direction from where she sat a few yards away with the new hire. A couple of disgruntled customers waited, watching smoke roll off the café’s roof.

I needed to skip town. Maybe in a past life, Seattle had been some kind of haven, but I was in for a dive into some deep shit if there was footage of my magic going out of control. The supernatural police would have a cell with my name on it for performing magic amongst the magicless, unless the ordinary police tossed me in one of their prisons for arson first.

An even worse group could also track me if my face hit the nightly news. My boogeymen, the Fire Brotherhood.

“So we are just sitting here…why?”Aodhnait asked.

“We’ll look a lot more suspicious if we flee the scene. Maybe we can work an angle here,”I said.

“An angle,”she repeated doubtfully.

“I’ll say that one of the machines threw off a spark. Besides, I got burned too.”

It’d been ten minutes at most since the café erupted into flames. Someone from a nearby restaurant had given me a cup of ice water and my right hand was submerged in it up to the wrist. I’d dabbed some water on my neck, but I knew from old experience that the sensitive skin I’d grabbed wasn’t burned as badly. A crowd murmured around us on the sidewalk and a handful of people checked in with the same question. Was I okay?

No, not really. But I smiled prettily for everyone who asked and said yes. It was the fastest way to get them to leave me alone.

A fire engine rolled in, followed closely by an EMT truck with all lights blazing. The firefighters got straight to work trying to salvage what they could of the café.“From my fire? Nothing will remain,”Aodhnait commented.

“That’s not good for us, you arsonist,”I muttered back. I had the feeling she preened.

One of the firefighters had climbed out of the truck and stopped, staring at me from across the street. He was fully suited up, mask and all, but something about him had Aodhnait humming in my chest. My ribs vibrated with the low thrum.“Stop that, someone’s going to notice,”I said quickly.

She made a joyful trill, and I raised a brow. I didn’t remember her taking such notice of another person before.

The firefighter caught the attention of one of the EMTs and pointed in my direction. The moment the firefighter turned away, Aodhnait stopped humming.

There were two EMTs and one was deep in conversation with Agnes and my manager, while the other strode across the street straight for me from where he’d spoken briefly to the firefighter. He lifted his gaze toward the watching crowd, urging them to move on if they weren’t injured and that “it was under control.”

Then, he addressed me. “Good morning, ma’am. I see you’ve gotten hurt. Will you come with me?” he asked. I blinked up at him, dazzled for a moment.

He was pretty darn cute in that uniform and filled it with a leanly muscled physique. Maybe he was an actor on the side, as that white smile was certainly sponsored by some toothpaste brand. His side swept brown hair made a fringe over his bold glasses frames and slightly magnified a pair of kindly creased eyes.

“Not going to hum for this handsome stranger?”I questioned Aodhnait.

“Why should I? You’re practically doing it for the both of us,”she said dryly.

Touché. I wished I could’ve lingered there looking at him, but he’d come over here to do a job. He turned and walked me back to the EMT truck.

I lifted my hand out of the now-lukewarm water and flicked the droplets away. I didn’t question the cute EMT’s intentions until he got into the truck and gestured for me to do the same. When I hesitated, he whispered, “We have to talk about your magic.”

He held his hand out. The water from my cup flowed up in ribbons, twisting around one another in a midair dance before finding a new shape as a sphere balanced over his fingertips. My jaw dropped. He was a witch too, performing magic practically on the street!

I got into the truck and he dropped the water back into the cup I held out. “Someone could see,” I rasped, my throat raw from smoke.

He closed the doors and turned on an overhead light, maneuvering around me in the cramped space with old experience. He gestured for me to sit in the chair against the wall and kneeled to search through a bag of medical supplies. “Did anyone notice you start the fire?” he asked.

“That’s a mighty big assumption you jumped to,” I said defensively.

He considered for a moment before flashing that disarming smile. “You can trust me.” He put a hand over his chest. “My name’s Seth. I’m a Moortide…my family’s been erasing little supernatural blunders from the minds of humans for generations. A touch of the fae, they say.” He flicked his free hand, sending out a shower of multicolored sparkles.

“My fire was notlittle,”Aodhnait protested.

---