Robbie made a rude noise. "I think it's good for her."

"Oh, I never said it wasn't," my mom was quick to say. "I didn't like her with all those damned older men is all."

I sighed, used to my mom's mouth. It was worse than mine, which sucked when she caught me swearing.

"Men?" Robbie's voice had a laugh in it. "They're not that much older than her. Rachel can take care of herself. She's a good girl. Besides, she's still living at home, right?"

I blew a strand of my hair out of the mix, feeling a tug when one caught under the pestle. My arm was hurting, and I wondered if I could stop yet. The leaves were a gritty green haze at the bottom. The TV went loud when a commercial came on, and I almost missed my mother chiding him. "You think I'd let her live in the dorms? She gets more tired than she lets on. She still isn't altogether well yet. She's just better at hiding it."

My shoulder was aching, but after that, I wasn't going to stop until I was done. I was fine. I was better than fine. Hell, I'd even started jogging, though I threw up the first time I'd run the zoo. All those hills. Everybody throws up the first time.

But there was a reason there were very few pictures of me before my twelfth birthday, and it didn't have anything to do with the lack of film.

Exhaling, I set the pestle down and shook my arm. It hurt all the way up, and deciding the holly was pulped enough, I stretched for the envelope of roots I'd scraped off my mom's ivy plant earlier. The tiny little roots had come from the stems, not from under the ground, and the book said they acted as a binding agent to pull the lingering essence of a person together.

My head came up when the TV shut off, but it was only one of them turning on the stereo. Jingle Bells done jazz. One of my dad's standbys.

"Look, it's snowing again," Robbie said softly, and I glanced at the kitchen window, a black square with stark white flakes showing where the light penetrated. "I miss that."

"You know there's always a room here for you."

Head bowed over the mortar as I worked, I cringed at the forlorn sound of her voice. The spell had a pleasant wine-and-chlorophyll scent, and I tossed my hair out of the way.

"Mom…" Robbie coaxed. "You know I can't. Everyone's on the coast."

"It was just a thought," she said tartly. "Shut up and have a cookie."

My knees were starting to ache, and knowing if I didn't sit down they'd give way in about thirty seconds, I sank into a chair. Ignoring my shaking fingers, I pulled my mom's set of balances out of a dusty box. I wiped the pans with a soft rag, then recalibrated it to zero.

The wine mixture needed dust to give the ghost something to build its temporary body around, kind of like a snow cloud needs dust to make snowflakes. I had to go by weight since dust was too hard to measure any other way. Robbie had collected some from under the pews at a church while out shopping for a coat, so I knew it was fresh and potent.

My breath made the scales shift, so I held it as I carefully tapped the envelope. The dust, the wine, and the holly would give the ghost substance, but it would be the other half with the lemon juice that would actually summon him Yew—which was apparently basic stuff when it came to communing with the dead, the ivy—to bind it, an identifying agent—which varied from spell to spell, and of course my blood to kindle the spell, would combine to draw the spirit in and bind it to the smoke created when the spell invoked. There wasn't anything that could make the situation permanent, but it'd last the night. Lots of time to ask him a question. Lots of time to ask him why.

Guilt and worry made my hand jerk, and I shook too much dust from the envelope. Please say I should join the I.S., I thought as I alternately blew on the pile of dust and held my breath until the scales read what they should.

Moving carefully to prevent a draft, I got the tiny copper spell pot with the lemon juice and carefully shook the dust into it. I breathed easier when the gray turned black and sank.

The box of utensils scraped across the Formica table, and I dug around until I found a glass stirring rod. It was almost done, but my pleased smile faltered when Robbie asked, "Have you given any thought to coming out with me? You and Rachel both?"

I froze, heart pounding. What in hell? We had a deal!

"No," she said, a soft regret in her voice, and I stirred the dust in with a clockwise motion, paying more attention to the living room than to what I was doing.

"Dad's been gone a long time," Robbie pleaded. "You need to start living again."

"Moving to Portland would change nothing." It was quick and decisive. When she used that tone, there was no reasoning with her. "Rachel needs to be here," she added. "This is her home. This is where her friends are. I'm not going to uproot her. Not when she's finally starting to feel comfortable with herself."

I made an ugly face and set the stirring rod aside. I didn't have many friends. I'd been too sick to make them when younger. The girls at the community college treated me like a child, and after the guys found out I was jail bait, they left me alone too. Maybe moving wasn't a bad idea. I could tell everyone I was twenty-one. Though with my flat chest, they'd never believe it.

"I can get her into the university," Robbie said, his voice coaxing. I'd heard him wield it before to get both of us out of trouble, and it usually worked. "I've got a great two-room apartment, and once she's a resident, I can pay her tuition. She needs to get into the sun more."

We had a deal, Robbie, I thought, staring at the empty hallway. He was trying to work an end around. It wasn't going to work. I was going to do this spell right, and he was going to sign that paper, and then I was going to join the I.S.

"No," my mom said. "Besides, if Rachel wants to pursue her studies, Cincinnati has an excellent earth magic program." There was a telling hesitation. "But thank you."

"Did she tell you she's taking martial arts?" she said to change the subject, and I smiled at the pride in her voice. The lemon half was done, and I reached for the mortar with the wine and holly mix.

"She got her black belt not long ago," my mom continued as I stood to grind it up a little bit more, puffing over it. "I wanted her to tell you, but—"

"She sold The Bat to pay for it," Robbie finished glumly, and I grinned. "Yeah, she told me. Mom, Rachel doesn't need to know how to fight. She is not strong. She never will be, and letting her go on thinking she can do everything is only setting her up for a fall."

I froze, feeling like I'd been slapped.

"Rachel can do anything," my mom said hotly.

"That's not what I mean, Mom…" he pleaded. "I know she can, but why is she so fixated on all these physical activities when she could be the top witch in her field if she simply put the time in. She's good, Mom," he coaxed. "She's in there right now doing a complicated charm, and she's not batting an eye over it. That's raw talent. You can't learn that."

Anger warred with pride at his words on my skill. My mom was silent, and I let my frustration fuel the grinding motions.

"All I'm saying," he continued, "is maybe you could get her to ease up on trying to be super girl, and point out how some guys like smart chicks wearing glasses as much as others like kick-ass ones in boots."

"The reason Rachel works so hard to prove she's not weak is because she is," my mom said, making my stomach hurt all the more. "She sees it as a fault, and I'm not going to tell her to stop striving to overcome it. Challenge is how she defines herself. It was how she survived. Now shut up and eat another damned cookie. We get along just fine here."

My throat was tight, and I let go of the pestle, only now realizing my fingers had cramped up on it. I had worked so hard to get my freaking black belt so the I.S. couldn't wash me out on the physical test. Sure, it had taken me almost twice as long as everyone else, and yeah, I still spent ten minutes at the back of the gym flat on my back recovering after every class, but I did everything everyone else did, and with more power and skill than most.