Hunter and Selene were facing each other, and suddenly Hunter surprised me by snatching up a crystal globe from a shelf and humming it at Selene. Her eyes widened and she stepped sideways, but the globe hit her shoulder with an audible thunk. In the next instant she flung out her hand and an athame flew across the room, straight at Hunter. It reminded me too much of that awful night weeks ago, and I flinched, but Hunter deflected the knife easily, and it glanced off a lamp and fell to the ground.

What could I do? I had no experience at things whizzing through the air—I had never practiced controlling physical things like that. In this battle I would need to use magick and magick alone. I would need to use my truth.

I saw Hunter pull out his braigh, the silver chain that was spelled to prevent its wearer from making magick. Coupled with some spells, it was enough to stop most witches.

But Selene merely glanced at Hunter with contempt, dismissing his threat and turning to me. Walking quickly across the room, she said, "Morgan, stop this foolishness. Call off your watchdog. You have it in you to be one of the greatest witches of all time: you are a true Woodbane, pure and ancient. Don't deny your heritage any longer. Join us, my dear."

"No, Selene," I said. Inside me, I consciously opened the door to my magick and with a deep, indrawn breath allowed it to flow. The first strains of a power chant began to thread their way into my mind.

Her beautiful face hardened, and I once again realized what I was up against. Hunter had said that Selene had been wanted by the council for years—that she had been implicated in countless deaths. Clinging to calmness, I nevertheless wished every member of the council would suddenly burst through the open door, capes waving, wands brandished, spells spouting from their lips. Coming here alone had been desperate. It had been crazy. Worse, it had been stupid.

Hunter began moving on Selene. His lips were moving, his eyes intent, and I knew he was starting the binding spells he used as a Seeker. Seeming bored, Selene barely waved a hand at him, and he stopped still, blinking. Then he started forward again, and again she stopped him.

With my mind I reached out, closed my eyes, and tried to see what I felt was there. I saw that Selene was putting up blocks and that Hunter was working through the blocks— but not as quickly as she was able to put them up. I also saw the first thin ribbons of my power spell coming to me, floating toward me on the winds of my heritage. I reached out for them, but Selene interrupted me.

"Morgan, don't you want to know the truth about how your mother died?"

17. Shift

Yule, 1982

The house is decorated with yew boughs and holly, wintergreen and mistletoe. Red candles burn and catch Cal's eyes, now golden, like mine. This is his first Yule, and he loves it.

I found out that Daniel's whore in England had a baby, a boy, a month ago. It's Daniel's. She named him Giomanach. Daniel must be shielding her, because I haven't been able to find her, this Fiona, and get rid of her. Now I'm going to ask Amyranth to help me. It's hard to describe the feelings I have. It's so painful to admit to humiliation, despair, fury. If I were truly strong, I would strike Daniel dead. In my fantasies I've done that a thousand times—I've out his head on a spike in my front yard, cut out his heart, and mailed it to Fiona. I would scry to see her opening the box, seeing his heart. I would laugh.

Except that this is Daniel. I don't understand why I feel about him the way I do. Goddess help me, I can't stop loving him. If my love for him could be cut out from me, I would take up an athame and do it. If my need for him could be burned out, I would sear myself with witch fire or candle fire or an athame heated red hot in flame.

The fact that I still love him, despite his betrayal, despite the fact that he had a bastard with another woman, is like a sickness. I asked him how it had happened; were they both such poor witches that they couldn't even weave a contraceptive spell? He snapped at me and said no, the child was an accident, conceived of honest emotion. Unlike Calhoun, who had been my decision alone. He stormed out, into the wet San Francisco fog. He'll be back. It'll be against his will, but he always returns.

The joy in my life right now consists of one being, one perfection who delights me. Cal at six months is surpassing all my hopes and expectations. He has wisdom in his baby eyes, a hunger for knowledge I recognized. He's a beautiful child and easy: calm tempered yet determined, willful yet heartbreakingly sweet. To see his face light up when I come in makes everything else worthwhile. So this Yule is a time of darkness and light, for me as well as the Goddess.

— SB

I blinked and snapped my head to look at Selene. She will use anything against you, I thought. Even your dead mother. This is why you needed to know yourself. And you do.

At once Selene seemed pathetic, like an ant, like an insect, and I felt all-powerful. In my mind the ancient ribbons of power, the crystalline tune that contained the true name of magick itself, intensified.

"I know exactly how my mother died," I answered evenly, and saw her flicker of surprise. "She and Angus were burned to death by Ciaran, her muirn beatha dan."

I felt rather than saw Selene sending out fast, dark tendrils of magick, and before they reached me, I put up a block around myself so I remained untouched inside it, free of her anger. I felt the urge to laugh at how easy it was.

But Selene was older than I, much more educated than I, and in the end she knew how to fight better than I did. "You're seeing only what Hunter wants you to see," she said with a frightening intensity. She moved closer to me still, her eyes glowing like a tiger's, lit from within. "He has been controlling you these past weeks. Can't you see that? Look at him."

For some stupid reason I actually did flick a glance toward Hunter. "Don't listen to her!" he gasped, walking toward me with halting movements.

Before my eyes, the Hunter I had come to know changed: the bones of his face grew heavier, his jaw sharper, his mouth more cruel. His eyes sank into shadow. His skin was mottled with odd white striations. His mouth twisted in a hungry leer, and even his teeth seemed sharper, more pointed, more animal-like. He looked like an evil caricature of himself.

In my split second of uncertainty, of dismay, Selene struck.

"An nahl nath rac!" she cried, and shot a bolt of crackly blue lightning toward Hunter. It hit his throat and he gagged, his eyes wide, and sank to his knees.

"Hunter!" I yelled. He still looked different, evil, and I knew Selene was doing it, but I couldn't help feeling repelled. I felt intense guilt and shame. I was supposed to trust myself, my own instincts, but the problem was, my instincts had been wrong before.

Now Selene was muttering dark spells as she advanced on me, and involuntarily I took a step back. All at once panic came crashing down on me: I had screwed up. I had made a good start but had lost it. Now Hunter was down, Mary K. was vulnerable, and I was going to die.

I felt the first prickles of Selene's spells as they flitted around me like biting insects. Tiny stings bit my skin, making me writhe, and gray mist swirled at the edges of my vision. I realized she was going to wrap me in a cloud of pain and smother me. And I couldn't stop her.

"Not my daughter."

I heard the Irish-accented voice clearly in my head, its sweet inflection not hiding the steel underneath the words. I recognized it instantly as Maeve, my birth mother. "Not my daughter," she said again in my mind.