At seven-thirty I called Alyce and told her everything. She was horrified and also astonished that it had happened despite Bethany's sleep potion. She agreed this was too serious to continue for another day and said she'd meet us at four that afternoon. I asked her to call Bethany and tell her what had happened, and she said she would.

Downstairs I found Sky in the kitchen, an unusually sour look on her face.

"What's wrong?" I asked, pouring myself a cup of tea.

She sighed and shook her head. "I called some members of Kithic to talk about Beltane," she said. "I thought I could get the ball rolling on the celebration. Everyone seemed gung ho. So I started making plans yesterday-thinking about fresh flowers, oatcakes with honey, where to get a maypole."

"Sounds good," I said.

"You would think so," she said tartly. "Unfortunately, what no one told me was that someone else had also started working on plans for Beltane."

I frowned. "I hadn't heard about that. Who?"

Sky gave me an icy stare. "Raven."

I took a drink of my tea to allow myself time to formulate a response. On the one hand, I almost felt like saying, Well, you know what? Morgan almost died this morning. But on the other hand, I knew how much Sky had been hurt by her breakup with Raven, and she was my cousin and I loved her and didn't want her to be hurt.

"Crap," I said inadequately, then realized with no small amount of horror that I had picked up that expression from Morgan.

Sky looked at me with raised eyebrows. "Raven called here last night, incensed," she continued. "I can't just waltz back into town and start messing with her plans and so on. So we barked at each other for a while, and neither of us would back down, and then we had a better-idea-than-thou contest."

"Who won?"

"Neither of us," Sky admitted. "As hard as it is to believe, she actually had one or two decent ideas."

"Hmmm. So what happens now?"

Sky gave a heartfelt sigh and stretched her arms over her head, arching her back. "Well, unfortunately, my brain tumor chose to act up just then, and I agreed to meet Raven in person to discuss ideas." She shook her head, her feathery white-blond hair flying. "I don't know what I was thinking. All I can do now is hope that I'm hit by a stomach flu."

I looked at my cousin with interest. Morgan was strong, and Sky was also strong, but in a different way. Morgan was strong like a young willow tree, able to bend with the storm. Sky was strong like a knife. It was extremely unusual for her to admit any kind of weakness whatsoever. For her to tell me that she would rather get horribly sick than see Raven was a clue as to how raw her feelings still were. Sky could be quite ruthless-all she had to do was call Raven and cancel. But she wasn't planning to do so. It was very interesting and also a little alarming. Sky looked at me looking at her and got an irritated look on her face. "Oh, shut up," she muttered, standing and carrying her plates to the sink. I waited till she left before I groaned quietly.

Later I found my father in our circle room, hunched over an old tome that looked like it was disintegrating right before my eyes.

"You were up early, lad," he said, looking at me over the half-moon reading glasses he had recently started wearing.

I told him everything that had happened this morning with Morgan, and his face became increasingly concerned. It was hard for me to moderate what I said about Cal and his suspected involvement, but Da hid his reaction, if he had any.

"Bad news, son," he said when I was done. "Do you think Alyce and Bethany have a handle on it?"

"Yes," I said. "We're all doing research, and I think we're pulling a plan together tonight."

"I see. Is there something I could do to help?"

His voice sounded a little stiff, and I knew there was no way he could remain objective about Cal.

"No, Da, I don't think so."

"Right, then. Well, let me know." He paused. "In the meantime, I've been thinking about Patrice." He took off his glasses and tapped the book with them. "There's some interesting reading here. It talks about some variants of common limiting spells that seem to have interesting possibilities. Of course, I'm afraid Patrice is in all probability going to end up getting her powers stripped."

"I hope not," I said. "Let's just keep trying to be creative." I told him about some of the reading I had done lately, a few histories of witches who had, by accident, been the victims of spells that had gone awry. There had been one witch who had surprised herself by losing her powers in January-only in January-but in every January after that, for the rest of her life. Things like that. Another had lost the ability to work any kind of animal magick, but only animal magick.

Da looked intrigued, and I told him I would show him my sources.

"It's an interesting problem," he said, putting on his glasses and turning back to his book. "Very interesting."

11. Morgan

When school was over, Mary K. met me by Das Boot and we headed for home. I felt foggy and distant, and I could barely remember anything that had happened that day. However, as awful as I had felt, being surrounded by hundreds of other students hadn't been a bad thing. I had felt safe, lost in the hustle and bustle of classes and lunch and more classes.

"Yoo-hoo," Mary K. said loudly, and my head snapped in her direction. "I said, do you think you can give me a ride to Alisa's later?"

"Sorry," I said. "Didn't hear you. Um, I don't think so. I'm going to be home for just a minute, then Hunter's coming over and we're going out. Maybe Alisa can get a ride to our house."

"Okay, I'll ask."

At home I went up to the bathroom and tried to salvage my appearance somewhat. There wasn't a heck of a lot I could do. I stood in front of the mirror, feeling depressed and wondering if Hunter was legally blind. I felt Mary K. come up and sighed.

"Yeah, you're not exactly the poster child for glowing health, are you?" she said, leaning against the door frame.

"No, guess not." I turned to go, but my sister stopped me.

"Hold on a minute." She rummaged through her bathroom drawer and then held my face in a hard grip while she dabbed and brushed and stroked and almost blinded me with a mascara brush when I blinked.

"I'm going to look like a clown," I said warningly.

"No, you're not," she said. "Look."

I turned to the mirror, and once again my sister had managed to somehow work with my unpromising raw materials. My cheeks looked healthily pink, my eyes larger and more distinctive, and my mouth looked natural instead of looking like I had just donated a lot of blood. Yet I didn't even look made up. I looked like me, but me on a really good day.

"Nice?" she asked, obviously pleased.

"You are my idol," I said, staring at myself. "This is great."

Mary K. grinned, and then the phone rang and she went to answer it. I quickly changed my shirt, since I had spilled Diet Coke on it at lunch, and then Mary K. tapped on my door. "For you," she called. "It's someone named Ee-fuh or something like that."

Eoife. That's strange, I thought, taking the phone. "Hello?"

"Morgan," said Eoife McNabb's familiar voice. Instantly I pictured her in my mind: she was small, probably not much more than five feet tall. Her eyes were a warm, light brown, and her hair was the most shocking shade of natural red I had ever seen. "Hello, how are you?"

"Okay, I guess," I said warily. I liked Eoife and respected her, but that didn't mean I trusted her completely. She was one of the subelders of the council.

"Morgan, do you have a moment? I need to talk to you about something."

"Um," I said, glancing at my watch. Hunter should be here any minute.