I swallowed. "Great."

Hunter and I split up after leaving Afton's offices. Needing a break from the strain, I went home.

I walked in to find Mary K. sitting at the kitchen table, white-faced.

"What's wrong?" I asked quickly, thinking, Bakker.

"Aunt Eileen just called."

"What happened? Are they all right?"

She nodded, looking stricken. "Nobody was hurt, but those guys—or some of their buddies—came back last night. This morning they found the front of the house covered with spray paint."

"What did it say?"

"Aunt Eileen wouldn't tell me," said Mary K. "So I guess it was bad. They just got back from the police station."

I felt a surge of irrational guilt. If I hadn't gone to Practical Magick and then been with Hunter. .

"I've never heard Aunt Eileen sound so shaken up," Mary K. went on. "She called here looking for Mom, and I could tell she'd been crying. She wants to put the house on the market."

"What? Oh, no! She can't be serious!"

Mary K. shook her head, her perfect bell of auburn hair brushing her shoulders. "They're tired of the Northeast. They think that in California, people will be more tolerant." Her voice trembled. "Aunt Eileen wants Mom to relist their house."

"That's crazy!" I said. "It's just three high school kids! Three idiots, three losers. Every town has them."

"Tell that to Aunt Eileen and Paula," Mary K. said. She got up and began taking clean dishes out of the dishwasher. "God, they were so excited about that house. I hate it that anyone is doing this to them!"

"I do, too," I said. And I can do something about it, I thought.

I glanced at my watch. I had about four hours before I had to be at Jenna's house for our circle. That would give me time to finish the protection charm. And to find a spell to teach those thugs a lesson they'd never forget.

Fiona is dying.

The news of Linden's death broke her, I think. She'd been in pain before, but she had a core of toughness that kept the illness at bay. But in the last two years she has been. . fading. Her hair, once bright, is entirely white now, and her green eyes are sunk deep in her gaunt face. I see her agony, but I can't bear the thought of losing her, my dearest love, the only precious thing I have left.

This morning I broke the silence and sent a message to Giomanach. I didn't contact him directly, but I cast a spell that would open a door to him, that would let him know that we're alive. Now I'm living in terror that I've exposed him to the dark wave.

— Maghach

I was the first one to show up at Jenna's house. "This isn't like me," I said. "I'm never early." The truth was, I'd I driven faster than I usually did. I felt weirdly edgy. Maybe because I was nervous about my decision to deliberately work a dark spell on the jerks who'd been harassing my aunt. Or maybe just because I was worried about going through another circle without connecting to my power.

Jenna took my coat. "All the others are running late. Ethan convinced them to go to a lecture at the Red Kill library with him. It's on sacred space and mythic time. I think it's being given by someone who studied shamanism."

"You didn't want to go?" I asked, following her into the Ruizes' comfortably shabby living room.

"With Matt? No thanks. I mean, I'm stuck in the same coven with him, but if I have a chance to avoid him, I take it."

"It must be awful to break up with someone after four years of being together," I said inadequately. Considering how I was pining over Cal, whom I had known barely three months, I could hardly imagine what Jenna was going through.

Jenna removed a large basset hound from the couch. "Go sleep in your own bed," she said. "We're having company." The dog padded off placidly, and Jenna turned to me. "Yeah. At first I just didn't know how to get through the days. Raven Meltzer!" She wrinkled her nose in disgust. "Of anyone he could have picked. I was so humiliated."

We sat down on the couch, and a big gray-and-white-striped cat jumped onto Jenna's lap, purring. She petted it absentmindedly. "We've been together since I was thirteen. I didn't know what to do without him. And everyone knew. But now—" She shrugged. "It's amazing. I'm getting over it. I'm finding out that I'm different without Matt." She shook her head, and her fine, pale blond hair swished in a shining wave. "When I was with Matt, I was always checking in with him. I don't even know how I got into that habit. But there was nothing I did that Matt didn't know about."

The doorbell rang then, and I waited while Ethan, Sharon, Matt, and Robbie came into the house, all talking at once. "Sorry we're late," Robbie said, giving Jenna a casual hug. "We got hung up in traffic in Red Kill."

"Yeah, the place was packed," Matt said. "I had no idea that so many people even knew where the Red Kill library was."

I felt Hunter coming up the walk, and an unexpected sense of anticipation made me sit up straighter.

"My apologies, everyone," he said as he unzipped his jacket a minute later. He looked around, seeming pleased that everyone was there. "Since we're running late, let's get started. Jenna, what do you have for forming a circle?"

"Chalk, candles, incense, water," she answered.

"Perfect. Then if you'll get them and if everyone else will form a circle. ."

Hunter quickly drew the circle and chanted an invocation to the Goddess and the God.

"I want to concentrate on things that have been lost," he said when we'd raised the energy of the circle. It was flowing among us so strongly that I could almost see it—a ribbon of light, linking and encompassing us in its strength. This time I felt more connected to it.

"Each of you, think of something lost that you want to be found," Hunter went on. "Don't say it aloud, but silently ask the energy of the circle to open a way inside you to find what's been lost."

What had I lost? My heart, was my immediate answer. But even to me that sounded too melodramatic to ask the energy of the circle to act on it.

My mind wandered, my connection to the circle weaker. I glanced at Hunter, wondering if he knew. His eyes were open, but whatever he was seeing wasn't in the room. He looked eons away.

I closed my eyes, trying to find my connection again. Suddenly I was filled with a rush of emotion, a deep sense of loss, a yearning that I knew wasn't my own. I saw a man I didn't recognize, tall, with brown eyes and graying hair.

Father, something said within me.

Father. My eyes flew open. Somehow I knew I'd just seen Hunter's father. I had somehow picked up the images that he was experiencing in the circle.

Startled, Hunter's head whipped toward me. I flushed. I hadn't meant to invade his privacy in that way. I hoped he'd know that.

I felt him refocus, connecting to the rest of the group, and then he began taking the circle down. Once again we sat in a circle on the floor. Hunter avoided my eyes. He gave the others an apologetic look. "Would you please excuse us?" he asked. "Morgan, may I speak to you?"

Before I had a chance to answer, he was on his feet and steering me by my elbow to Jenna's kitchen.

"That was an abuse of power," he hissed at me. "You had no right!"

My mouth dropped open. "I didn't do it on purpose!"

Hunter's nostrils flared as he breathed in and out rapidly, trying to calm down. I couldn't tell if the two bright spots on his cheeks were anger or embarrassment.

I thought about how much I hated it when I felt he'd read my thoughts. He must feel awful, I realized. "I'm sorry. I truly, really, and totally have no idea how that happened."

He stared down at the tile floor. His breathing was returning to normal. "All right," he said shakily. "All right. I believe you."