Gradually my breathing deepened and slowed, and sometime later I sensed that Sky and I were breathing in unison. Without opening my eyes I reached out to touch her mind, finding the same suspicious brick wall that I had with Hunter. I pushed against it, and I felt her reluctance and then her slow acceptance. Cautiously she let me into her mind, and I went slowly, ready to pull out if this was a trap, if she tried to attack. She was feeling the same fear, and we paused instinctively until we both decided to let down our guards.
It wasn't easy. She had always rubbed me the wrong way, and she just about hated me. Surprisingly, it hurt to see the depth of her dislike for me, the rage she felt over what I had done to Hunter, her suspicion of my powers and their possible sources. I didn't realize witches could transfer their powers to another until I saw her worry that Selene had done this to me.
We breathed together, locked in a mental embrace, looking deeply into each other. She loved Hunter dearly and was very afraid for his safety. She missed England and her mother and father terribly. In her mind I saw Alwyn, Hunter's younger sister, who looked nothing like him. I saw her memory of Linden, how beautiful he had been, how tragic his death was.
Sky was in love with Raven.
What? I followed that elusive thought, and then it was there, in the forefront, clear and complete. Sky was in love with Raven. Through Sky's eyes I saw Raven's humor, her strength, her gutsiness, her determination to study Wicca. I felt Sky's frustration and jealousy as Raven chased Matt and flirted with others and had no reaction to Sky's tentative overtures. To Sky, slender, blond, restrained English Sky, Raven was almost unbearably lush and sexy. The bold way she spoke, her vivid appearance, her brash attitude all fascinated Sky, and Sky wanted her with a frank desire that took me aback and almost embarrassed me.
Then Sky was leading me, asking questions about Cal. Together we saw my love for him, my humiliating relief that someone finally wanted me, my awe at his beauty and respect for his power. She saw my uncertainty about and fascination with Selene and my discomfort about Cal's seomar. As Hunter had, she saw that Cal and I hadn't made love yet. She saw that Hunter had almost kissed me, and she nearly broke off contact in surprise. I felt like she was paging through my private diary and began to wish I'd never agreed to this. My mind told Sky I had been shocked to find out I was Woodbane and extra shocked just four days ago to learn Cal was Woodbane also.
Now, together, she thought, and I opened my eyes. After looking at each other for a moment, weighing what we had learned, we turned, staying connected, and looked into the fire.
Fire, element of life, Sky thought, and I heard her. Help us see Cal Blaire and Selene Belltower as they are, not as they show themselves to us.
Are you ready to see? I heard the fire whisper back to us seductively. Are you ready, little ones?
We are ready, I thought, swallowing hard. We are ready, Sky echoed.
Then, as it had for me in the past, the fire created images that drew us in. I felt Sky's awe and joy: she had never served with fire before. She strengthened her mind and concentrated on seeing the here and now, seeing Cal and Selene. I followed her example and focused on that also.
Cal, I thought. Selene. Where are you?
An image of Cal's huge stone house formed within the flames. I remembered how I could never project my senses through its walls and wondered if that applied to scrying. It didn't. The next time I blinked, I found myself in Selene's circle room, the huge parlor where she regularly held her coven's circles. It had once been a ballroom and now seemed like a grand hall of magick. Selene was there, in her yellow witch's robe, and I recognized Cal's dark head standing out from a group of people I didn't recognize.
"Do we really need her?" a tall, gray-haired woman with almost colorless eyes asked.
"She's too powerful to let go," said Selene.
An icy trickle down my back told me they were speaking of me.
"She's from Belwicket,"a slender man pointed out.
"Belwicket is gone," Selene said. "She'll be from anywhere we want her to be." Oh, God, I thought.
"Why haven't you brought her to us?" asked the gray-haired woman.
Selene and Cal met eyes, and to me it felt like they fought a silent battle.
"She'll come," said Cal in a strong voice, and inside me I felt a piercing pain, as if my heart were being rent. "But you don't understand—"
"We understand that it's past time for action," another woman said. "We need this girl on our side now, and we need to move on Harnach before Yule. You had an assignment, Sgath. Are you saying you can't bring her to us?"
"It will be done," said Selene in a voice like marble. Again her gaze seared Cal, and his jaw set. He gave an abrupt nod and left the room, graceful in his heavy white linen robe.
I can't see anymore, I thought, and then I said the words aloud. "I can't see anymore."
I felt Sky pulling back as I did, and I shut my eyes and deliberately came back to the snowy woods and this moment. Opening my eyes, I looked up to see that the sky was darkening with late afternoon, that my jeans were soaked through and miserably uncomfortable, that the trees that had made a circle of protection around me now seemed black and threatening.
Sky's hands slid off my shoulders. "I've never done that," she said in a voice just above a whisper. "I've never been good at scrying. It's—awful."
"Yes," I said. I looked into her black eyes, reliving what I had just seen, hearing Selene's words again. Shakily I uncoiled and stood, my leg muscles cramped, my butt beyond feeling, and an unsettling feeling of nausea in my stomach. As Sky stood, stretching and groaning under her breath, I knelt and scooped up some clean snow, putting it in my mouth. I let it melt and swallowed the cold trickle of water. I did this again, then rubbed snow on my forehead and on the back of my neck under my hair. My breath was shallow, and I felt shaky, flooded with fear.
"Feel ill?" Sky asked, and I nodded, eating more snow.
I stayed on all fours, melting small mouthfuls of snow while my brain worked furiously, trying to process what we had seen. When Bree and I had fought over Cal and I had realized that we were no longer friends after eleven years, it had been shockingly painful. The sense of betrayal, of loss, of vulnerability had been almost unbearable. Compared to what I was feeling now, it had been a walk in the park. Inside, my mind screamed, No, no, no!
"Were those images true?" I choked out.
"I think so," Sky said, sounding troubled. "You heard them mention Harnach? That's the name of a Scottish coven. The council sent Hunter here to investigate evidence that Selene is part of a Woodbane conspiracy that's trying, basically, to destroy non-Woodbane covens."
"She's not the dark wave?" I cried. "Did she destroy Belwicket?"
Sky shrugged. "They don't see how she could have. But she's been linked to other disasters, other deaths," she said, hammering my soul with each word. "She's been moving around all her life, finding new Woodbanes wherever she goes. She makes new covens and ferrets out blood witches. When the coven is solid, she breaks it up, destroying the non-Woodbane witches and taking the Woodbanes with her."
"Oh my God," I breathed. "She's killed people?"
"They believe so," Sky said.
"Cal?" I said brokenly.
"He's been helping her since he was initiated." This was all too much for me to take in. I felt frantic.