Magick had brought me searing grief. It had made me question absolutely everything I’d ever believed to be true. But magick was also the most amazing gift: an opening of the senses, a surfacing of ancestral memories, an exhilarating connection to the earth, and a strength I’d never imagined possible. And it had brought Hunter into my life. Hunter, who I loved more than I’d thought possible.
“You’re almost up to eighty,” Hunter said, sounding disapproving.
I slowed down to sixty-five. “There’s no one else on the road,” I pointed out.
“Except perhaps a police officer,” he warned. I felt his green eyes on me, and when I glanced at him, he smiled. “Pity we don’t travel by broomstick anymore,” he said.
“Did we ever?” I asked, honestly curious. “It sounds like fun.”
Hunter shrugged. “Really? I suspect it would be awfully uncomfortable—hard seat, no heat or air-conditioning, bugs constantly flying into your mouth….”
I glanced at him again and saw the glint of amusement in his eyes. I felt a rush of delight that made me break into a goofy grin. “I guess I’ll stick to driving for now.”
We rode in silence for a while. The haze of thin clouds in the sky was starting to burn off, the sky settling into the pale, crystalline blue so typical of winter skies. There were a few more cars on the road now.
Hunter was the reason we were all going to New York City. Hunter, my dream, and the ancient boiler in Widow’s Vale High, which had broken down the Wednesday before Martin Luther King Jr. Day, miraculously extending a three-day weekend to five days.
As it turned out, the council had taken my dream very seriously. They considered it a prophetic vision and had ordered Hunter to investigate. “They think the animals in your dream were actually members of a Woodbane coven called Amyranth,” Hunter had told me when he’d gotten the council’s directive.
“Amyranth?” I frowned. Where had I heard that name before?
Of the Seven Great Clans, the Woodbanes were known for their tendency to covet and abuse power. But there were also Woodbane covens, like Belwicket, the one my birth parents had belonged to, that had forsworn evil.
“Amyranth is not one of the good ones,” Hunter told me. “It’s one of the worst. It’s the only coven believed to practice the forbidden magick of shape-shifting. Actually, another coven, Turneval, also used to shape-shift. But Turneval was disbanded in the early seventies, after their core members were stripped of their magick by the council. Amyranth has avoided the same fate by operating in deep secrecy. Members usually maintain membership in another coven; Amyranth is their secret coven.” He gave me a sideways look. “Selene Belltower was a member of Amyranth.”
“Oh.” That’s where I’d heard the name Amyranth before. I shuddered involuntarily at the thought of Selene. “So we’re talking very scary.”
Hunter had been sent to Widow’s Vale last fall to ferret out a group of Woodbane witches who were using dark magick to destroy their opponents and increase their own power. Their local leader had been Selene Belltower, the mother of Cal Blaire, Hunter’s half brother and my first love. Though I was Woodbane myself, Selene had wanted to drain me of my power, and she’d used Cal to get to me. When that plan had failed, Selene had kidnapped my younger sister, Mary K., forcing Hunter and me into a horrible showdown with her, just before Christmas. She’d nearly killed Hunter and me both, and I worried that Mary K. might still be suffering some subtle bad effects from having been her captive.
Cal had stepped in front of me and taken the bolt of dark energy she’d aimed at me. Now Cal was dead, killed by his own mother. Although he’d used and betrayed me, in the end he’d given his life for me. I was still coming to terms with that: both with the fact that the beautiful boy I’d loved so much was gone and that he was gone because of me.
Selene had also died that night—and though I certainly hadn’t meant to kill her, I was haunted by the fear that my magick had somehow contributed to her death. I’d never seen death up close. It was so final and empty and awful. Seeing Cal and Selene alive one minute, dead the next had changed something inside me. For all of Selene’s and Cal’s formidable powers, they were as mortal as anyone else. Ever since that night I’d looked at everyone I knew and loved with a new awareness. We were all so fragile, all capable of being so easily extinguished. I couldn’t help thinking of that again as I drove on this beautiful morning.
“Are you all right?” Hunter asked softly. “If you grip that wheel any more tightly, you’re going to wrench it off the steering column.”
“I’m fine.” I forced my hands to relax.
“Are you thinking about Selene and Cal?” Hunter guessed. He was very sensitive to my emotions. No one had ever read me with such precision. Sometimes it made feel vulnerable and exposed. Sometimes it was weirdly comforting. At that moment it was a little of both.
I nodded as we whizzed past an exit. No love had been lost between Hunter and Cal. They’d never known each other except as enemies. But Hunter knew I’d loved Cal and was doing his best to be respectful of that. More than anyone, he understood how much coming into my powers had cost me.
“Let’s talk about something else,” I said. “Can we go over the details of this vision one more time? I’m still not clear on what it is we’re supposed to do.”
“We’re not supposed to do anything,” Hunter said. “You’re staying out of this. I don’t want you taking any risks, Morgan.”
I felt a prickle of annoyance. We’d had this argument several times in the two days since the council had contacted Hunter. Because I was the one who’d had the dream, the council had asked that I accompany Hunter, just in case he needed to consult with me. I, of course, wanted to go. It was my dream, after all. Besides, I loved the idea of spending time in the city with Hunter.
Hunter hadn’t been so keen on the idea, though. “It’s too dangerous,” he’d told me flatly. “For you of all people to go walking into a nest of Woodbanes…”
He explained that the council believed Selene had been acting on behalf of Amyranth; it was possible I still was a target. I couldn’t pretend that prospect didn’t frighten me. But Selene was dead now, nothing bad had happened to me in the weeks since her death, and I was starting to feel safer. Safe enough that my desire to go with Hunter outweighed my fear.
“The council thinks I should go,” I’d argued.
“The council are a bunch of—” He broke off, pressing his lips together in irritation. My eyes widened. Was he really about to bad-mouth the International Council of Witches?
“They don’t always consider the risk to individuals,” he said after a minute. “They’re not out here, doing the legwork. Anyway, you can’t go,” he went on. “You’ve got school. Your parents aren’t going to let you take two days off to go down to the city just because a bunch of witches in London think you should.” He was right about that, I had to admit.
But then the school boiler had broken down, and Bree had suggested that we combine Hunter’s mission with a road trip to her dad’s New York City apartment. After a long discussion my parents had said I could go, and after that even Hunter couldn’t come up with any more good reasons for me not to. I smiled, thinking about it. It must have been fate.
By late Wednesday night our road trip had expanded to include six members of Kithic, our coven. Sky was coming along because she and Hunter, who were cousins, always looked out for each other. Raven wanted to be with Sky, and Robbie had come to be with Bree.