“That’s what Father and I did,” said Ian. “Mother was fine, and Mika will be, too.” He put a reassuring hand on Jamie’s shoulder, but Jamie shrugged it off, too profoundly on edge to stay still.

“Do you think she can hear us?” Altamira wondered. She bent her lips to Mika’s ear and whispered intensely for a minute. Jamie caught the phrases Very sad and Miss you, which hit him like a kick in the chest.

Terracotta had crept closer. She wrung her hands in front of her. “I didn’t mean for her to get hurt,” she whispered.

“No one doubts that for a minute, my sweet,” Ian said severely, “but let me tell you, you are in a world of trouble!”

“It’s my fault, so I should be in trouble,” said Terracotta without the slightest hesitation. Jamie could tell it was difficult for her to look him in the eye, but she did. “She wouldn’t be hurt this badly if she’d let one of those lightning bolts hit me.”

“She’s older than you are, and more powerful,” Jamie said evenly, working very hard to shut down each of the wild, feral feelings rattling around inside his chest. “Frankly, Terracotta, it seems to me that she’s kinder than you are, too. There’s no telling what the lightning bolt would have done to you. So she absorbed it herself. None of which would have been necessary if you hadn’t done something you have been repeatedly and expressly asked not to do.”

“I just thought . . .”

“You thought she was getting in your way for her own amusement?” Jamie finished for her. “You thought she was making stuff up because she didn’t want to be shown up by an eight-year-old? Yes, you’ve made that very obvious. And that’s on me as much as it is on you because I assumed the worst of her and you took your cue from me.” He let out a short, humourless laugh because Mika had said the same thing and he hadn’t wanted to listen. “I should have put a stop to it a long time ago, but the choices you made today are all on you, Terracotta. And they were inexcusable. You could have been hurt. You could have hurt one of your sisters. You did hurt Mika.”

Terracotta nodded again. “I’m sorry,” she said quietly. “I owe Mika an apology, too, but this one’s for all of you.”

“What about my missing jigsaw puzzle?” Altamira wanted to know. “Are you going to say sorry for stealing it?”

“For the last time, I did not steal your stupid puzzle!”

“It can’t have just walked away!”

“We’re witches! Maybe it did!”

“Just you wait,” Altamira said bitterly. “Let’s see how you feel when your whole room smells like stinky fish!”

“It can’t smell any worse than you do!”