I can't breathe, Morgan thought, shock actually making her feel faint. As she stared, jaw clenched, the image of Hunter faded slowly. She gulped convulsively, trying to get air to her lungs. It was all she could do not to scream, Bring him back! But another image slid forward: a woman. She was dark, the light was behind her, and though Morgan peered desperately, she could make out no details. It was a woman, standing before a huge fire that was spitting and smoking into the air. The woman raised her hand, and in it was an athame. In her other hand she held a writhing black snake, its triangular head whipping back and forth as it tried to bite her. Morgan winced as the woman brought athame and snake together, and then she threw the serpent into the fire. A huge, stinking cloud of smoke rose up, billowed over, and filled the cave. Cave? The smoke roiled poisonously and blotted out the woman's image. Morgan recoiled.
Suddenly the front door burst open and Moira rushed in. "Mum!" she cried. "Mum!"
Startled, Morgan dropped Katrina's hands and pulled back. A gust of cold, wet air swirled in and doused the scrying candle. Morgan blinked, trying to make sense of reality. She'd just seen Hunter. Had Katrina seen him, too?
Moira was there, followed by Ian Delaney, followed by… Killian?
"Mum!" Moira cried again.
Morgan's brain wasn't functioning properly. Katrina was blinking, too, obviously shaken by what they had seen. Morgan felt her heart slowly begin to thud.
"Honey, what is it?" she managed, her voice a croak.
Moira motioned back over her shoulder to Killian. "Mum, who was your dad? Your real father. Wasn't it Angus?"
Oh, no. Not this, not yet. She'd known this was coming- Moira was reading her Books of Shadows. And perhaps it should have come a long time ago. But right now, on top of everything else, it just felt like too much. Morgan's shoulders tensed as she looked at Killian. He shrugged again, an unrepentant look on his face. If you can't tell your own daughter the truth… he seemed to say.
"It's… it's complicated," Morgan said lamely.
Moira's eyes widened, and she gestured to Killian. "So you know him?" Obviously she hoped that Morgan would deny all knowledge of him, but it was too late for that.
"Yes," Morgan said, wishing with all she had that this wasn't how Moira was finding out. "He's my half brother. Killian, come in."
Killian stood a moment, glancing back and forth between Morgan and Moira. "Cute cottage you've got here," he finally said, a bit awkwardly, and then came over and sat at the table. "Is that tea?"
"Yes," Morgan said. "Moira, why don't you sit down, too." She looked over at where Ian was standing, just inside the door. "Ian, I'm sorry-this is kind of a bad time for us."
"I understand," he said, and he went up a notch in Morgan's opinion. He looked like a nice kid. Unfortunately, so had Cal. Ian squeezed Moira's hand, and she let him out the front door. Once he was gone, Morgan pulled out a chair for Moira, who sat down reluctantly.
"I'm so sorry, Moira," Morgan said.
Moira looked from Killian to her mother, her face pale. "I met him in the village," she said. "He says he's your half brother. He says Ciaran MacEwan was your father. Your father! What is he talking about?"
Morgan took a deep breath. Colm, be with me, she thought.
"You know that I was sixteen when I first found out I was adopted," she began. "I've told you about how shocking it was, how weird it made things in my family. And over the next several months I found out more about my birth mother, Maeve Riordan, and Angus Bramson."
"You've told me all this," Moira said. She picked up a paper napkin and twisted it in her hands.
"Later that same fall I discovered that Angus wasn't actually my real father," Morgan went on. She looked at Katrina, who shook her head sadly. "I found out that in fact another witch, Ciaran MacEwan, had had an affair with Maeve, and that was when she got pregnant with me. They were muirn beatha dans, but Ciaran was already married-they couldn't be together. I know Maeve loved him very much." Morgan refused to look at Killian, who was sitting quietly.
"And I think in his own way, he loved Maeve," Morgan went on. "But as I said, he was married, and he already had three children. Killian was his youngest child. I met Killian a long time ago, in New York, and we realized we were half siblings. Since then he and I have kept in touch."
Moira looked stunned and angry. "Ciaran MacEwan! One of the most evil witches in history was your father!" She looked at Killian. "You don't care?"
Killian shook his head slowly. "I wish many things had been different, lass," he said seriously. "I wish Ciaran had not been evil. I wish my parents had loved each other, I wish my dad had been different, I wish my mother could have done better for herself. But it's not Morgan's fault for having been born, and it's not my place to judge anyone. None of us are without stains. I'm happy to have Morgan for a half sister, no matter how we happened to get here."
It was times like these that made up for all the times Killian drove Morgan crazy. As close as she had always been to her sister, Mary K., she was still happy to have a sibling with whom she shared a blood bond. She smiled at him sadly, her half brother.
"But Ciaran MacEwan." The horror in Moira's voice was an eerie echo of Morgan's own reaction, so many years ago, to the revelation about her relation to Ciaran. Moira's napkin was in shreds and she started tapping her fingers nervously on a fork. "Did you ever meet him?"
"Yes," Morgan said. "I did. He was… already dark by then. He knew I was his daughter. He wanted me to join him, but I wouldn't. So he tried to kill me and take my powers. But all the same, in his own way, I know he loved me. He was proud of me. He saw something of himself in me."
"Goddess, I hope not!" Moira said.
"It's true," Killian said. "Not that your mum is evil, not at all. But of all of his children, Morgan inherited Da's greatness, his strength, and his ruthlessness. Your mum can be very ruthless." He smiled as he said it, and Morgan knew he didn't consider it an insult.
"Did Ciaran know about you before Maeve died?" Moira asked.
Morgan shook her head. "No. She had me and gave me up for adoption because she didn't want Ciaran to know. But he still came for her, and when she refused to be with him, because he was married and she was with Angus, he locked her and Angus in a barn and set it on fire." How bizarre to state the facts so calmly, Morgan thought.
Moira's eyes were huge and round. "Goddess," she whispered. "He killed them?"
"Yes." Morgan felt a familiar sadness. "He loved her so much, and he killed her. And he loved me and tried to kill me. And I loved him, and in the end I trapped him and bound him so his powers could be stripped. And he died because of it."
"You trapped him and bound his powers?" Moira whispered. "You bound Ciaran MacEwan?"
Morgan nodded, looking down at the table. "And he had his powers stripped. And he was never the same after that, and he hated me for it. And then he died." She swallowed hard and felt that Killian was feeling the same ache.
"And Ciaran is part of you, and you're part of me " Moira trailed off, her eyes full of anguish and confusion. Morgan felt herself being torn apart all over again, watching her daughter suffer the same shock and betrayal she had once experienced. Only it was even worse this time, because Morgan would have taken on a world of pain to spare her daughter an ounce.
"I'm so sorry," Morgan said again, her voice cracking. "I should have told you earlier. It's just-I remember how horrified I was when I realized who my father had been. I would have given anything for it not to be true. And-for you not to have to live with that knowledge as well."