Everything is fine, I told myself, stretching and yawning loudly. My family was all around me. I was safe in my bed. Later on I would see Hunter, and as usual, just the thought of my boyfriend-his short, white-blond hair, his fathomless green eyes, his intensely attractive English accent-made me shiver pleasantly. Everything was calm and normal, an incredibly nice change when I considered what the past several weeks had been like.

Everything was okay. I was Morgan Rowlands, a blood witch of the Woodbane clan. Tonight I would meet with my coven for our regular Saturday night circle. But now I was going to go downstairs and see if we had any Pop-Tarts.

"Right," I said. "But why you would use the second form of limitations here? This spell is all about place, about where you are, where you want the spell to ignite."

My da nodded. "Aye. But what's its purpose?"

"To make a barrier that would stop something or slow it down," I replied. It was Saturday morning, and Da and I each had about an hour before we had to leave: me for my part-time job at Practical Magick, one of the few very good occult bookstores nearby, and Da for a lecture in a town two hours away. Ever since he had crafted the spell that dismantled a dark wave, he'd been in high demand as a speaker at coven meetings. Witches everywhere were eager to know how to dispel this massive threat, and Da seemed happy to teach them.

Right now, he was teaching me.

"You're right there," said Da. "But is the place in which you set the spell its most important aspect?"

"Of course," I said. "If you set this barrier in the wrong place, it's useless."

Da gave me his even look, the one that made me feel like I was particularly slow-witted. He was an incredibly gifted spellcrafter, and I was lucky to have the chance to learn from him. As a Seeker, I had been well trained in many areas but had gotten only the most basic training in spellcraft.

What was he was getting at? I waited, telling myself to stay calm, not to get my hackles up. It wasn't easy: Da and I had had a lot to argue about in the past few months.

"What level of a starr is this?" Da asked, flipping though his Book of Shadows, hardly paying attention.

"What level? This is a…a…" Oh, bloody hell! My brain screamed, recognizing too late the trap I had fallen into. Damn! I hate it when I do something stupid. Especially, most especially, in front of my father. I tried to keep burning embarrassment from reddening my face. I had two conflicting feelings: humiliation, over making a mistake in front of my father, and annoyance, about the lecture I knew I was about to receive.

But to my surprise he said, "It's not easy, lad. You could study spellcraft for years and still make mistakes like that. And who knows? There could conceivably be a situation where the exact location of a starr is more important than its strength."

I nodded, surprised at this unprecedented display of mercy. "Mum was a great spellcrafter, wasn't she?" I asked the question gently, still feeling the pain myself and knowing how heavily my mother's death, only four months before, had affected my father.

Da's eyes instantly narrowed, as if he had suddenly stepped into sunlight. I saw his jaw muscles tighten, then relax. "Yes," he said, sounding older than he had a moment ago. "She was that." A wistful half smile crossed his face for a moment. "Watching your mother craft spells was like watching a master wood-carver cut complicated figures out of a simple block of wood. It was an amazing thing. My parents and teachers taught me the Woodbane basics when I was a lad, but it was your mother, with her thousand-year Wyndenkell heritage, who taught me the beauty of pure spellcraft."

"I would like to become a master spellcrafter someday," l said. "Like Mum."

Da gave me one of his rare smiles, and it transformed his thin, ravaged face into that of the father I had known so long ago. "That would be a worthy gift, son," he said. "But you have a lot of work ahead of you."

"I know," I said, sighing. I glanced over at the clock and saw that I had about half an hour till I had to leave. It would be midafternoon in England. I had a phone call to make. "Ah, I think I'll ring Kennet now, while I have the chance," I said offhandedly.

The truth was, I was dreading this phone call. A few weeks ago, following our battle with the dark wave, I had decided that I was quitting my position as a Seeker for the International Council of Witches. At seventeen I had become the youngest Seeker in history, and for a time I'd had complete faith in the ICOW's judgement. I had taken great pride in my work, in making the world a safer place for good witches. But that was before the council has failed me in several key areas: neglecting to tell me that they'd found my parents, for one, a decision that resulted in my mum dying before I had the chance to see her and say good-bye. Also, they has failed to warn Morgan and me that her father, Ciaran MacEwan, the leader of a dark coven called Amyranth, had escaped from captivity and might be coming to Widow's Vale to harm us (or to send the dark wave after us, as turned out to be the case).

Da was quiet for a moment. I knew he had reservations about my quitting the council, but I also knew that I couldn't continue serving a system I no longer trusted. Kennet Muir had once been my mentor and my friend, but he wasn't any longer as far as I was concerned. "Are you quite sure?" Da asked.

"Yes."

"It's not too late to change your mind, you know," he said. "Working at Practical Magick is fine for now, but in the long run, you'll be hurting for a career with more fulfillment. Even if you Bo longer want to be a Seeker, surely you could find something to challenge you a bit more. I just hope you've thought this through."

"I know, Da. And I have. I just need some time to figure out what the right new career is." Nobody was more frustrated by my lack of direction than I, but you can't spend years dedicated to being a good Seeker and then find something just as fulfilling overnight.

"Perhaps I could help you," Da said, organizing the books we had been using for reference into a clean stack. "I do speak to a wide variety of witches in my spellcrafting lectures. Perhaps one of them…"

"No, Da." I shook my head and tried to give him a reassuring smile. "I'll be fine. Just need dome time."

He looked like he wanted to say more, but then he nodded and headed to the kitchen. I heard the tap turn on and the sound of water filling the kettle. I fetched Kennet's number and dialed it quickly, before I lost my nerve, even though I knew it was going to cost a fortune, calling England in the middle of the day. After five rings Kennet's voice-mail system picked up. I grimaced and left a brief message, giving him my mobile number and the number at Practical Magick.

Soon Da headed off to his lecture, not sure if he would be back that night, and I set off for Practical Magick. It was in Red Kill, about twenty minutes north of Widows's Vale, the town in midstate New York where I lived. As I drove, I thought about what Da had said. It was funny. For the last eleven years of my life I'd had no father. Now, at the age of nineteen, I had to get used to having a da to take an interest in me. But he was right about one thing: I did need a new life plan. All around me everyone had a purpose, goals-except me.

The doorbell jingled lightly when I entered Practical Magick. Its owner, Alyce Fernbrake, smiled a greeting at me as she rang up a purchase for a customer. I smiled and waved, then headed through a new doorway that had been cut into the right-hand wall of the store. The room next door was divided in two: a larger room that would stock store items and books, and a smaller room in back that people would be able to use privately. It was in this room that I worked, imbuing objects with low-level magickal properties.