There was a strange edge in her tone, as if she were nervous. I wondered whether she was upset about the way Alisa looked—she certainly was a pitiful sight. “Are you okay?” I asked. “We don’t have to stay here if you don’t want to.”

“No, no,” Mary K. insisted. “I want to. I just. . want a Coke.”

I frowned at her. Her tone was strange and tense, as if she wanted to tell me more than she was saying. But— what? “Do you want me to come with you?” I asked.

“No—that’s okay. I’ll be right back. I mean,” she said quickly as she raked a hand through her hair, “I mean I’ll be back in a few minutes. The soda machine is near the entrance. It’ll take me a few minutes to get back.” Mary K. glanced at Alisa, then at me, and in that one glance I understood.

Mary K. wanted to leave me alone with Alisa.

She thought I could heal her.

Before I could even protest, Mary K. was out the door. Her footsteps retreated down the hall, first quickly, then more slowly. I guessed that she remembered she needed to take her time to get the soda.

I glanced at Alisa and had to suppress a shudder. She was so very sick. And I wasn’t even the one who had healed Dagda—Erin had done that! I knew next to nothing about healing, even with Alyce’s knowledge inside me. I wished Erin were there with me. I didn’t know whether she could heal Alisa, either, but she sure as hell knew a lot more about it than I did.

I sat on my hands, swallowing the sob that was rising in my throat. But what if I can help her? I wondered. How can I sit here and do nothing when Alisa might be—

Don’t think it, I commanded myself.

— dying. The word stung my consciousness like a fresh burn. I pictured Mary K.’s face. I tried to imagine what I would tell her. You see, Mary K., I know enough magick to fight dark forces, but not enough to help your best friend. . My vision blurred, and I rubbed my chest where it had begun to ache.

Alisa drew in a ragged, shuddering breath, then moaned. My stomach dropped. “Please don’t,” I whispered. Alisa grew quiet, but that didn’t make me feel better. I had to do something to help her. Even if I couldn’t heal her, maybe I could do a spell to take away some of the pain. Quickly I reached out and took her hand.

Immediately the cool, steady pulse of the heart rate monitor began a high-pitched scream. I dropped Alisa’s hand and jumped back, my heart pumping wildly. What had I done? I hadn’t even touched the machines! Without thinking, I screamed, “Mary K.! Mary K.!” I should have called for a doctor, but I didn’t even think of it.

The door was flung open and a tall African American nurse exploded into the room, pushing a cart full of machinery. “You’re going to have to get out of here,” she said to me as a doctor hurried in behind her and rushed to check Alisa’s monitors.

A chill breeze blew over me—I felt like the temperature in the room had dropped forty degrees. Goddess, help me! I thought. Alisa’s body shook with convulsions.

Mary K. appeared in the doorway, looking tense and pale. “What happened?” Her wide eyes fastened on Alisa’s machines, which were still going crazy. “Oh my God—what happened?” She stared at Alisa in horror.

I steered her out the door. “I don’t know,” I said as Mary K. tried to peer past me. Another nurse ran down the hall and pushed past us into Alisa’s room. “Look, the nurse said we should get out of here,” I said as calmly as I could, fighting my panic. Every nerve in my body was screaming.

“But we can’t just leave,” Mary K. protested. Her eyes were filled with tears.

“We’re in the way,” I said. “Mary K. — I’m sorry.”

I was. I was so sorry. But I didn’t know what to say. I had barely touched Alisa’s hand, and I hadn’t even been using magick at all.

Something had happened—but what? And why? I couldn’t have caused that, I told myself. I didn’t even do anything! But even if it was true, I couldn’t change the fact that Alisa had just crashed horribly. That she was very sick and maybe dying. And that I couldn’t do anything to help her.

As we walked down the corridor tears flowed down Mary K.’s face, a silent, steady stream.

There was nothing I could do to stop them.

15. Lift

October 8, 1971

I’m so weak, I can hardly write this. I’ve told Mom and Dad that I have a bug so they won’t bother me, but that’s a lie. I’ve been in bed for over twenty-four hours. I can hardly sit up. And I can’t stop crying.

I had to do it. Sam is still in the hospital, and I’ the one who put him there. Who would be next? My mother? My father? Me?

So last night I pulled the Harris Stonghton book from the shelf. It took only a moment to find the spell I was looking for—the same one I’d discovered accidentally the other day. The spell to strip one’s self of magick.

I crept to my room and prepared everything, the black candle, the cauldron. At first I was afraid that I wouldn’t be able to pronounce the chants correctly—they were written in a language I didn’t know. But as I started speaking, I found that the words felw off my tongue. For a moment I thought that the ceremony wouldn’t be so bad.

I was wrong.

After the few minutes I began to feel like there was a weight on my tongue. Something slimy. As I continued the chants, the weight slipped down my throat, into the pit of my stomach, as if I’d swallowed a snake. It stayed there and started to grow. I kept chanting, but the weight grew and grew, choking me. It spread farther, down my arms, down my legs, until I felt like my entire body was filled with a giant, black serpent. I was gagging on it, gasping for air. The weight pressed me against the floor, crushing me. I thought my spine would crack, but it didn’t, and soon the weight turned into a searing pain. Then, thankfully, the whole room went black.

I woke up on the floor of my room, feeling like a tree that’s been hit by a lightning. Alive on the outside but dead on the inside… rotting away. I’ll never use my magick again. I hardly even know what I am.

And I still have the book. I’ve hidden it under my mattress until I can decide what to do with it. I can’t bring myself to destroy it, and I can’t let it fall into the wrong hands.

I can’t think about this now. All I want to do is sleep. Forever.

— Sarah Curtis

I was just about to crawl into bed when I heard the call. Morgan. The instant the word sounded in my mind, I knew that it was Hunter. He was sending me a witch message. I reached for the lapis lazuli by my bed. Lying back, I focused my energies and placed the smooth stone on my forehead. At the next heartbeat I felt Hunter, as if he were within me.

We have Ciaran.

For a moment they were words without meaning. I had spent the last several hours worrying about Alisa, terrified that I’d somehow hurt her, so it took me a moment to remember that there were other terrors in my life. Then images came into my mind, images of my birth father being bound by the braigh, of him crying out in pain, and I knew that Hunter was telling me that Ciaran had been apprehended by the council.

A thousand emotions rained down on me—relief, first, but then anger, and pity, and fear. And other feelings that I couldn’t even identify. Ciaran’s dark magick frightened and revolted me, but he was my father—the closest blood relative I had ever known. And when I remembered what I knew of witches who had had their power stripped—David Redstone, who had suffered horribly, or even how awful I’d felt when my power was only reined—I felt a horrible dread in the pit of my stomach. My father, my evil father. Captured. And utterly changed.

He will be stripped of his magick soon, Hunter’s voice said in my mind. First, he must stand trial. But Morgan, apparently he had a few things in his possession that led the council to conclude that he definitely was targeting you for attacks.