Moira bit her lips, tension making her muscles feel like knotted wood. Tell Morgan what she wants to know. Do not force her to harm your son.
Feeling ill, Moira started to sink to her knees in the wet grass, giving in, but instantly stood when Sky's eyes flicked to her. She could not show weakness. She could not become a liability in this desperate situation. She was Moira of Belwicket, Morgan's daughter, and she would show that she had her mother's strength. Locking her knees, she clenched her hands at her sides and pressed her lips firmly together. Only now was she beginning to understand what it must have been like for her mother when she'd found out she was a blood witch, when she'd realized that Cal was using her, when she'd had to fight the darkest forces Wicca had seen in generations. She'd never be able to look at her mum in the same way again.
"Moira saw you looking at an image of Hunter Niall in a crystal," said Morgan. "Tell me what you know. Don't make this worse than it has to be."
"You don't know who you're dealing with," Lilith snarled.
"Neither do you. You would be hard-pressed to come up with someone who could scare me," Morgan said coldly. "Not after my father. I've felt the foul wind of a dark wave against my face. I've gone face-to-face against Ciaran and defeated him. I've been hard to impress since then. Now, for the last time, you will tell me what you know, or after tonight you will know what it's like to be hard to impress."
With that she clenched her hand into a fist, then twisted it sideways, and Lilith crumpled like a puppet with cut strings. She slumped to the ground, curled around the door, her face contorted into a mask of pain and rage. Ian dropped to his knees next to her and put his hand on her shoulder, then shot Morgan a look of anger.
"Stop it! Stop it!" he said harshly, and Moira closed her eyes for a moment and stepped back, still unable to bear seeing Ian frightened, angry, hurt.
Flecks of blood appeared at Lilith's lips, but she could not speak. Morgan made the tiniest gesture with her closed hand, and a high keening escaped from Lilith and split the night air, a howl of agony.
Morgan leaned closer, not looking at Ian. "I can do this all night," she said slowly. "Can you?"
Lilith's face deformed one last time, then suddenly she spit out, "It was Iona! Iona MacEwan!"
Moira saw her mother step back, visibly shocked, "Iona. What about her?" she demanded.
Iona? Moira thought. Ciaran's other daughter? "She'll know the answers you want," Lilith said.
"And where's Iona?" Sky said, her voice sounding like a dry knife on leather. "Where is she now?"
Lilith seemed to wrestle with this answer. Her short, heavy body was still frozen on the ground, and Moira thought that if she could move, she would be writhing and screaming. Then she burst out, "Arsdeth."
"Where is Arsdeth?" Sky snapped.
With an effort Lilith gasped, "North. North, by the sea."
Morgan looked at Ian. "Get a map."
He clearly wanted to refuse: his face was red with anger and overlain with worry for his mother. But Morgan's voice was a force field, and Ian stood and disappeared into the house. A few moments later he returned, a much-used and faded map of Ireland in his hand. He threw it on the ground between Morgan and Sky, and Sky picked it up.
"Arsdeth," she said. "In the north."
Moira swallowed hard as she saw a dark red drop of blood slide from Lilith's nose to sink onto the worn stone step under her head. Goddess, this was a bloody night. She understood now what Keady had meant when she'd told Moira it would truly be better never to understand what Morgan was capable of. So much pain and terror already. Did she have enough of her mother's strength in her to bear it?
"Arsdeth," Sky murmured again, tracing the map with her finger. "Oh, Goddess, here it is. Arsdeth, way the hell up north in County Donegal, by the ocean."
Morgan looked at her, and Sky nodded. Then Morgan said to Lilith, "What will happen to you if we go there and find you've been lying to us?" Morgan let Lilith have a minute to think about it. "What will happen to your son? Your house? Your coven? You do know you'd never escape me." Her tone was conversational, mildly curious.
There was no response, and Morgan rocked her fist from side to side slightly. A crumpled sound of agony came from Lilith, and once again Moira had to look away. "You know that I'll track you to the ends of the earth if you flee, if you've lied to us?"
Lilith nodded. Ian looked as though he was trying not to cry. Goddess, how could she turn off her feelings for him? How could he have betrayed her to his mother? Nothing would ever seem normal again. In one short week, one long night, her life had changed dramatically forever.
"Lilith," Morgan said, her voice sounding horribly gentle, "think about this. Do you believe I'm my father's daughter?"
A flash of fury sparked from Lilith's eyes. Her lips, stained with blood flecks, pressed even more tightly together. Her nod was unwilling, but it was there.
"You are right," Morgan whispered, and straightened. She nodded to Sky, who was looking at her curiously. Sky folded the map and put it on the ground next to Ian. Ian angrily scraped his sweater sleeve across his eyes. Moira couldn't resist meeting his gaze one last time. To her surprise, the look he gave her was anguished, but not full of hatred.
Morgan had already left Lilith and was walking to the car when Sky said softly,"Morgan?"
Morgan turned to look at her, and Sky met her gaze, then flicked her glance over to Lilith, still on the ground. Quickly Morgan turned and strode back to the high priestess of Ealltuinn. "I release you," she said, her voice low and steady. Her hand sprang open, and with an audible gasp Lilith seemed to melt onto her doorstep. "Mother?" Ian said, his hand on her shoulder. He gave the three of them a last glance, then went inside to return moments later with a blanket, which he pulled over his mother. Her face was waxen, and the blood from her nose shone dark and red against her skin.
Morgan turned again and walked to the car, her back stiff, hands hanging like claws from her sides.
Moira followed her quickly, sliding into the backseat as Sky started the car. She still couldn't believe what she'd just seen- her own mother had hurt someone on purpose. Had frightened and threatened someone. Bound someone. Miserably Moira leaned her head against the window, wishing she could just shut down and stop thinking, stop feeling.
In the front seat she saw Sky glance quickly at Morgan, saw her mother's shoulders bend and her head droop-and then she heard her mother start to cry. Not just smothered sniffles, but huge, heaving sobs.
Then Moira remembered one of the most basic Wiccan teachings, the threefold rule-What you send out comes back to you-times three. Morgan had just sent horrible pain to Lilith-what would be returned to her or to Moira and Sky for participating?
Sky shifted the car into a higher gear, and Moira saw that they were going back toward town, where Sky could get on the highway going north. "Morgan, it's all right," Sky said. "You need to be strong now. You had to do it. For Hunter."
"Oh, Goddess," Morgan sobbed. "What have I become? Who am I?" And she cried harder. Those were the only words Moira heard her mother say the rest of the night.
16. Morgan
In the end it took almost seven hours of driving to get to County Donegal. There was little traffic, but the roads were small and often curvy or hilly. Dawn was starting to break when Sky stopped the car not far from Arsdeth.
Morgan looked back at her daughter, sleeping in the backseat. What had she been thinking, dragging Moira into this? Moira ought to be at home, just waking up to go to school. Some mother she was. Oh, Colm, help. Colm had been her rock, her anchor, all those years. It was his steady presence that had allowed her to put her painful past behind her. His gentle insistence that she live in the present, that she continue to find joy and meaning in her life was what had enabled her to fulfill her dream of becoming a healer.