“Sorry.” He raked a hand over the top of his dark blond hair. “Was she okay when you left her?”

“She was neck-deep in a comic book with two fellow fans. She seemed a bit nervous when they started talking to her, but she’d pretty much forgotten Ian and I were there when I left.”

The stormy grey of his eyes softened to something warmer. Then, as they walked back down the twisty street, he absently put himself between her and the icy wind coming from the left.

It was impossible to stay cross with him after that.

Of course, it was also a little difficult to maintain the moral high ground when, upon getting back to the bookshop, they found Ian and Rosetta waiting outside with a stack of torn books and rather sheepish expressions on their faces.

“There may or may not have been a small cyclone,” Ian informed them. “But not to worry, it’s gone now and semi-convincing explanations have been offered. We are, however, in possession of six largely unreadable books because it seemed only polite to buy the books that were ripped apart.”

“I maybe lost my temper a bit when Billy said he hoped Captain Chaos never got the Spear of Fate back,” Rosetta explained.

Mika didn’t dare look at Jamie, whose voice was studiously even as he said, “Did Billy survive the cyclone?”

“He didn’t even notice it!” Rosetta said. “It was only a tiny cyclone.”

Jamie considered her. “Did you have fun?”

“So much fun,” she said, her sheepish, anxious expression dissolving into an enormous smile.

Jamie shrugged. “In that case, a cyclone seems like a reasonable price to pay.”

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

As the days passed, life at Nowhere House settled into a gentle rhythm. This wasn’t to say that it was predictable, because it certainly wasn’t that; the teaching of young witches was nothing if not unexpected. Mika might find herself brewing potions with the girls on one day, then have to fish Altamira out of the cauldron on the next. There was no telling when Terracotta would turn up and, if she did, when she might be in an even more quarrelsome frame of mind than usual. And just as Mika had warned the others on that first day, her presence at Nowhere House had attracted even more magic to the area, which demanded more of her attention than she was used to.