"Did Selene send it? Or. . Cal?" I asked in a low voice, not really wanting to know the answer.

"More likely Selene," Hunter said. "To her your power is an irresistible lure, almost as much as Belwicket's tools are. If she can't coerce you to join her group, she wants to absorb your power. It would increase her own to the point where she'd be practically invincible."

My skin crawled. I thought of David, saying that we had to take Selene's intentions into account as well as her actions. Maybe he was right, but her intentions sounded pretty awful in themselves. "They're really evil, aren't they?" I asked. "Selene and. . and Cal?"

He took some branches from the box of kindling, snapped them in half, and added them to the fire. "Cal. . is his mother's creation. I don't know if I'd call him evil." Glancing up, he gave me that quick grin again. "Besides, that's not a nice thing to say about one's own kin, is it?"

I grinned back. Hunter did have a sense of humor, I realized. It was just an offbeat one.

"As for Selene," Hunter went on, getting serious again. "She's ambitious and ruthless. She studied with Clyda Rockpel."

I shook my head, indicating that I didn't know the name.

"Clyda Rockpel was a Welsh Woodbane who was legendarily vicious. She's said to have murdered her own daughter to enhance her power. And it's certainly true that wherever Selene goes, witches tend to disappear or die. Destruction seems to follow in her wake. Yes, I would agree that she is truly evil."

I felt a wave of pity for Cal. With a mother like that, he'd never really had a choice. Or a chance.

As if he'd read my mind, Hunter said in a quiet voice, "Poor Cal." His eyes met mine, and I was startled by the depth of compassion in them.

We stared at each other, and then we were both suspended in a strange, timeless moment. I felt like I was falling into Hunter's gaze, and again I remembered the night when he'd almost kissed me. Of the profound connection I'd felt with him, the lightness I'd experienced when he and I had done tath meanma, the intense sharing of minds I thought of as the Wiccan mind meld.

I wanted to feel Hunter's mouth on mine, his arms around me. I wanted to kiss away that sadness, all that had happened to him before we'd met. To tell him that his father would be proud of him if only he could be here. I could feel him wanting to do the same for me; I could sense him aching to stroke my face until he had wiped away all the tears I'd shed over Cal.

Then I blinked. What was I thinking? Here I was, talking to my ex-boyfriend's half brother and fantasizing about making out with him. Was I insane?

"I–I've got to go home," I said.

A faint flush had risen under Hunter's clear, pale skin. "Right," he said, standing up. He cleared his throat. "Wait just a moment. I've got some books for you."

He strode into the hallway and began pulling books off the shelves. "Here," he said, his voice back to its usually proper tone. "An advanced compendium of runic alphabets, Hope Whitelaw's critique of Erland Erlandsson's numerological system, and a guide to the properties of stones, minerals, and metals. Start with these, and when you've finished them, we'll talk about them. Then I'll give you more."

I nodded, not trusting myself to speak. When I took Hunter's books, I was careful to not allow our hands to touch.

Outside, the late afternoon sky was a harsh, glaring white. I drove home in a daze, my mind whirling, barely noticing the cold at all.

It happened again this afternoon. Just the way it did that other night. We were talking—talking about how to protect her, actually—and then, suddenly, I looked at her and it was as if I'd found an entire universe within her eyes. And I wanted so badly just to touch her, to kiss her mouth. . I can't stop thinking about her. She moves me so strongly, so strangely. I've never felt like this before.

I'm an idiot. She can barely stand me.

— Giomanach

Thursday and Friday, I worked really hard on keeping things normal. I went to school. I talked to my friends. I worked at my mom's office—I'd made a deal with my parents in which they'd front me the money for my car repairs in exchange for me getting all my mom's real estate listings entered into the computer. I cheered when the news came that Aunt Eileen and Paula had closed on their house and that they would start moving in over the weekend. I tried not to think about Cal. Or Hunter. Or the bad news about Practical Magick. Or dark forces that might be out to get me. I made it through the days like other teenage girls.

On Saturday, Robbie picked me up in his red Beetle. By now everyone in the coven had heard about Practical Magick closing, and Robbie had suggested a trip over there to see if there was anything we could do to help. I didn't think there was. but I was glad to go, anyway.

“So. . how'd it go last night?" I asked as I buckled my seat belt I knew that Robbie had gone out with Bree. It was a new direction for their age-old friendship.

Robbie shook his head, gazing through the windshield. "Same as before. We hung out, watched a video. Then we made out, and it was great. Fantastic. But the second I tried to talk about how I felt, she got all squirrelly." He grinned. "But this time I had the sense to shut up and kiss her again before she kicked me out of her house."

I laughed. "Quick thinking.”

The fact was. Robbie had been in love with Bree for years. But Bree was gorgeous, while Robbie. . well, he'd been a pizza face. It had made him afraid to approach her. Then, in trying out my newfound power, I'd made a potion to clear up the acne that for years had obliterated his looks. The potion had worked and kept on working in an almost frightening way. The scars had disappeared completely, and then his poor vision had improved, to the point where he no longer wore the thick glasses that he'd had ever since I'd known him. Without the acne or the glasses, he turned out to be amazingly good-looking and was now considered a major hottie at school.

With his new looks, Robbie had found the courage to go after Bree. But the results so far were uneven. They weren't exactly seeing each other but were definitely more than friends. On Robbie's side, it was love. For Bree. . it was impossible to tell. Even back when we told each other everything, she'd always been hard to figure out when it came to relationships.

Thinking about Bree, I felt another pang of loss. With all that had happened to me in such a short amount of time, it was painful to not be able to confide in her. But the wounds were still too fresh. Maybe, just maybe, with Cal gone, we could begin to be friends again. I hoped so.

Robbie and I talked about Practical Magick's problems for the rest of the drive. Robbie's brow creased as he hunted for a parking space in front of the store. "There's something I don't get," he said. "I mean, we've got you, David, Alyce, Hunter, and Sky—that's five blood witches. And I assume you'd all like Practical Magick to stay open. Why can't you just all do a spell together so David hits the lottery or something?"

"I'm sure that kind of thing isn't allowed under Wiccan law," I said gloomily. "Otherwise David and Alyce would have done it already."

"That's a drag," Robbie said. He squeezed into a space behind a minivan, and we started for the store.

I nodded, but I couldn't help thinking—there must be some kind of spell to increase wealth. After all, going by the listings I'd seen in my mom's office, Selene Belltower's property must be worth at least a million dollars. And although Cal had told me that Selene's employers had transferred her to Widow's Vale, I never had found out what she supposedly did for a living. I had a feeling her money didn't come through any of the usual channels.