"Okay, so Hunter's been reporting on me." I tried to sounds casual. "Fine. But why, exactly, are you so interested in me now?" Three months ago I would have been too insecure and intimidated to be this direct. Almost being killed more than once had put insecurity into perspective.
"Hunter is your loyal friend," Eoife said. "And we're interested in you for several reasons. First, because you've impressed several of out contacts with your remarkable power. Some of the things you're apparently capable of are simply unfathomable, coming from an uninitiated witch who's been studying only three months. Second, because you're the daughter of two extremely powerful witches—a daughter we didn't know either of them had. Bradhadair was the strongest witch Belwicket had seen in generations."
Badhadair had been Maeve's coven name. It meant "Fire Fairy."
"We know about Ciaran's other children, of course," Eoife went on. "To tell you the truth, none of them has caused waves of excitement."
Ciaran had three children with is estranged wife, back in Scotland. I had met one of them, Killian, in New York. My half brother. Ciaran and Maeve had been lovers, and I was the illegitimate result. Ciaran hadn't even known I existed until a few days ago.
"The council needs you to find Ciaran."
Eoife dropped this bomb right after I had taken a sip of tea, and almost spit it out all over her. I gulped and swallowed, trying not to cough.
"What?" I asked.
"Do you know what a dark wave is?" Eoife asked.
"It's… devastation," I said. "I read about it in my mother's Book of Shadows. A dark wave can kill people, level houses, destroy whole villages, whole covens."
"You have Maeve's of Belwicket's Book of Shadows?" Eoife's eyes practically gleamed.
"Yes," I said quietly, feeling a little resentful of her excitement. "But it's private."
She sat back and looked at me. "You're very… interesting," she said, as if speaking to herself. "Very interesting." The she remembered where we were in the conversation. "Yes. In essence, a dark wave is destruction. Utter destruction. Belwicket was obliterated by one. Until recently, no one knew Maeve and Angus had survived."
Angus Bramson had been Maeve's lover also. They had know each other since childhood and had lived together after they had fled to America. But Angus wasn't her mùirn beatha dàn. Maeve loved him, but she never felt the connection to him that she did to Ciaran. Maeve had never married Angus, and he wasn't my father. But he had died by Maeve's side in a barn in upstate New York. Ciaran had locked them inside the barn and set on fire.
"Belwicket isn't the only coven that had been decimated by a dark wave," Eoife went on. She took a picture out of her black leather brief case. "This was Riverwarry," she said, handing me the photograph. It was a black-and-white shot of a charming village. I couldn't tell if it was Irish, English, Scottish or Welsh.
"This is Riverwarry now," she went on, handing me another photograph.
My heart filled with sadness as I saw what had happened to Riverwarry. It looked like a bomb had gone off right in the center village. Only rubble remained: bits of wall, shiny, melted lumps of glass that had once been windows, blackened remains of trees and shrubs. I was afraid to look too closely—in Maeve's BOS, she had described how she had seen the body of her cat among the ruins and her mothers hand beneath a crumpled wall.
"There are many others," Eoife said, gesturing to a stack of photographs in her briefcase. "Chip Munding, Bett's Field, The MacDouglas, Knifewind, Crossbrig, Hollysberry, Incdunning. Among others."
"Why were these covens destroyed?"
"Because they had knowledge and power," Eoife said simply. "They had books, spells, tools, charts, or maps that Amyranth wanted. Amyranth gathers knowledge at any price. As you know, they are willing to steal power from witches outside their coven to make themselves stronger. We call them old Woodbanes because they conform more closely to the traditional Woodbane tenets: knowledge is power, and power above all."
Of course she knew I was Woodbane. Belwicket had been a coven of «new» Woodbane, those who had renounced dark magick and sworn to make only good an positive magick. Ciaran was one of the old Woodbanes. Yet he and Maeve had slept together and made me, a Woodbane who had one foot in darkness and one foot in light.
"These pictures are awful. But what do they have to do with me?" I asked.
"We've recently received information that Amyranth is planning on calling another dark wave," Eoife said. She tucked the photographs back into her briefcase. "Here, in Widow's Vale. They plan to wipe out the Starlocket coven."
My mouth dropped open. Whatever I had expected, it wasn't this. Starlocket had once been Selene Belltower's coven. When Selene had fled Widow's Vale, her most loyal Woodbane followers had disappeared with her. But not all of Starlocket had been Woodbane or dark Woodbanes. The members that had been from the other great clans—Leapvaughn, Brightendale, Vikroth, Rowanwand, Burnhide or Wyndenkell—and also those who were not blood witches had continued on under the leadership of my friend Alyce Fernbrake. Alyce owned Practical Magick, a store in the next town over that specialized in Wiccan necessities. Ever since I first discovered my powers, Alyce had been a kind of adviser, and after our tàth meànma brach, in which we shared one another's knowledge and experiences, I felt a special closeness to her.
Now my birth father and his coven were planning to plunder Starlocket for its books, tools, spells, star charts—anything they could find. Not only that. I knew from bitter firsthand experience that Amyranth could actually steal people's magick, their power and their knowledge, in a dark ritual. Unfortunately, the person didn't usually live through it. That was what had almost happened to me in New York before Ciaran had helped Hunter stop the ritual.
"How do you know about this?" I asked faintly.
"We had an agent who infiltrated the San Francisco cell of Amyranth. It was the last message she sent us," Eoife said. "Right before she died."
I was startled. "Died?"
"She was killed," said Eoife sadly. "Found drowned in the bay, with the Amyranth sigil burned into her skin."
"Oh, Goddess." My brain began piecing together ideas.
"But if she was killed because of passing on that message, then surely Amyranth knows the council is onto them. Surely they'll change their plans." I said.
"We thought of that. But it's not necessarily true. After all," Eoife went on, her voice turning bitter, "we've been singularly ineffectual in finding out anything about most cells of Amyranth—especially the New York one. And even having this bit of information doesn't really help us. Alyce and some of the other Starlocket members have been having disturbing visions. Some of their spells have gone terribly awry. They have bad dreams. It all feels like a noose closing around their necks."
"But why can't the council help? Isn't it made up of the strongest witched alive?"
Eoife looked at me with anger. "Yes. But we're not gods or goddesses. Simply knowing about a dark wave doesn't help us stop it. Frankly, we have no idea to stop it."
"So what can I do?" I asked carefully.
My guest took a deep breath, trying to control her emotions. Her fingers trembled almost imperceptibly as she sipped tea that by now must be cold.
"We want you to help us stop the dark wave," she said.
My world went white in an instant. Jagged images of what had almost happened to me in New York crashed into my mind, and my breath went shallow. With tunnel vision I stared at Eoife, sure that the horror and panic were written on my face.
"Eoife," I breathed. "I'm seventeen years old. I'm not initiated. I don't see how I can help with anything…"
"We know about your situation. But you have a great deal of power." She tried to keep defeat out of her voice but didn't succeed. "And you're our only hope."