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  Then it came to me—an idea that had been fluttering around my mind. I had been ignoring it, but it would be ignored no longer. I could confront Ciaran again. I could tell him that I would join him. A cold feeling settled over me like a mantle. No—it would be lying, and he would see through it. But maybe . . . maybe I could confront him again and then somehow use his true name against him? Maybe I could bind him, shut him down so he couldn’t do the final part of the dark wave spell? Ciaran was impossibly strong, but I knew that I had an unusual strength myself. For the most part, I was untrained and uneducated, but I had always been able to call on the power when I needed to. And I had Ciaran’s true name. I had discovered it in the middle of our shape-shifting spell. A witch’s true name is made of song and color and rune and symbol, all at once. Everything has a true name—rock and tree and wind and bird. Animal, flower, star, river. Witch. To know something’s true name is to have ultimate power over it—it can deny you nothing.

  And I knew Ciaran’s. Of course, he knew I knew it and would be on his guard. But it was a risk I felt I should take.

  Looking up, my glance fell on my open textbook. I had a plan.

  waited until I sensed that everyone in the house was asleep. I could feel Mary K. in her room, sleeping deeply and innocently. My dad was sleeping more lightly, but I knew that soon he would go deeper and start snoring. Mom slept as she always did, or at least always had since I’d started noticing—with the efficient, light sleep of a mom who manages to get her rest while at the same time being poised for action in case she hears the unmistakable sound of a child crying or throwing up. Mary K. and I were in high school, but Mom would probably sleep that way until we left for college.

  I crept out of bed and shut myself in my walk-in closet. In there I drew a small circle on the floor with chalk. I closed myself into the circle, then sat cross-legged and meditated. This circle would increase my powers and give me an added layer of protection. I had no idea where Ciaran was, but I had a feeling he was still nearby. I summoned as much power as I could and sent a concentrated message: Father—I need you. Power sink.

  I felt a pang of guilt over calling him Father—especially when my real father was sleeping across the hall. I found Ciaran extremely compelling and charismatic, and the idea that he was a blood relation still confused me. For him, I was the child most like him, the one he wanted most to teach. Yet we both despised aspects of each other, and we had never really trusted each other.

  I dismantled the circle, feeling sick and tired and close to tears.What was I doing? This had seemed like a good idea an hour ago, but now the whole concept frightened me. I didn’t know which outcome would scare me more: that he wouldn’t answer my message or that he would. I crawled back into bed, every muscle aching, and lay there in a tense half sleep for I don’t know how long. Then it came to me, Ciaran’s voice in my mind: One hour.

  An hour can fly by (when I’m with Hunter) or crawl by (when I’m at school). After I got Ciaran’s message, each second seemed to take an entire minute to tick past. After lying stiffly in bed for twenty minutes as if I had rigor mortis, I couldn’t stand any longer. I pulled on some jeans and a hoodie sweatshirt, whisked my hair into a long braid, and, holding my shoes, crept downstairs.

  Outside, I buttoned up my coat and pulled on a knit watch cap. Everything felt tight, surreal as I crunched over the spring frost to Das Boot. I felt like I had infrared vision: I could see every tiny movement of every twig on every tree. The moonlight as it filtered through the tree branches was pale and fragile. I opened the car door, put it in neutral, then took off the parking brake. My Valiant began to roll heavily backward toward the street, and soon we bumped almost silently over the curb. I cut the wheel sharply to the

  left. When I was facing forward, I eased up on the brake again and let myself roll slowly downhill about thirty yards. Then I started the engine, flipped on the headlights and the heater, and headed for the power sink.

  When I was younger, I was afraid of the dark. At seventeen, I was more afraid of things like becoming irreversibly evil or having my soul taken from me by force. The dark didn’t seem that bad.

  Since I had first started realizing I had witch powers, my magesight had developed, and now I could see quite easily with no light. I parked my car on the road’s shoulder and left it unlocked. Every detail stood out as my boots crunched over frost-rimed pine needles, decaying leaves, and water-logged twigs. I was more than twenty minutes early. Casting my senses out, I felt only sleeping animals and birds and the occasional owl or bat. No witch, no Ciaran.

  The power sink was in the middle of the graveyard, and to me it felt like every age-worn headstone had something or someone hiding behind it. Ruthlessly I clamped down on my fear, relying on my senses instead of my emotions. I was cold, whipped by a wet, icy wind, but more than that, I was chilled through with fear. No, the dark didn’t bother me, but the worst things that had happened in my life had all happened in the last four months, and they had mostly been caused by the man I was waiting to meet. My birth father.

  I paced back and forth, and slowly I became aware of tendrils of power beneath me in the earth, tingling energy lines of the power leys that had been there since the beginning of time. They were beneath my feet; they had fed this place for centuries.Their power was in the trees, in the dirt, in the stones, in everything around me.

  “Morgan.”

  I spun around, my heart stopping cold. Ciaran had appeared with no warning: my senses hadn’t picked up on even a ripple in the energy around me.

  “I was surprised to get your call,” he said in that lilting Scottish accent. His hazel eyes seemed to glow at me in the darkness. Slowly I felt the heavy thudding of my heart start up again. “I hope you called me here to make me happy—to tell me that we’re going to be the most remarkable witches the world has ever seen.”

  I felt so many things, looking at him. Anger, regret, fear, confusion, and even, I was ashamed to admit it—love? Almost admiration? He was so powerful, so focused. He had no uncertainty in his life: his path was clear. I envied that.

  I didn’t have an exact plan—first I needed to know for sure what his plans were.

  “I’ve been feeling awful,” I told him. “Is it from the dark wave?”

  “Aye, daughter,” he said, sounding regretful. “If you know far enough in advance, you can protect yourself from the illness. But if you don’t . . .” Which explained why he looked bright eyed and bushy tailed, but I felt like I was going to throw up or collapse. “I can do a lot to help your symptoms,” he went on. “And then the next time you’ll be protected before it starts.”

  “I’m not joining you,” I said, drawing cold air into my lungs.

  “Then why did you call me here?” There was a chill underlying his tone that was far worse than that of the night air.

  “My way isn’t your way,” I said. “It isn’t a path I can choose. Why can’t you just let me be? I’m a nobody. Kithic is nothing.You don’t need to destroy us. We can’t do anything to hurt you.”

  “Kithic is nothing,” he agreed, his voice like smoke rising off water. He stepped closer to me, so close I could almost touch him. “An amateurish circle of mediocre kids. But you, my dear—you are not nothing. You possess the power to devastate anything in your path—or to create unimaginable beauty.”

  “No, I don’t,” I objected. “Why do you think that? I’m not even initiated—”

  “You just don’t understand, do you?” he said sharply. “You don’t understand who you are, what you are. You’re the last witch of Belwicket.You’re my daughter.You’re the sgiùrs dàn.”

  “The what?” I felt hysteria rising in me like nausea.

  “The fated scourge.The destroyer.”

  “The what?” I repeated in a squeak.

  “The signs say that it’s you, Morgan,” he explained. “The destroyer comes every several generations to change the course of her clan.This time it’s you who will change the course of the Woodbanes�
�just as your great ancestor Rose did centuries ago. So you see, you have more power than you realize. And I simply can’t let that power be in opposition to my own. It would be . . . foolish of me to go against fate.”

  “You’re insane,” I breathed.

  He grinned then, his teeth shining whitely in the night. “No, Morgan. Ambitious, yes. Insane, no. It’s all true. Just ask the Seeker. At any rate, you won’t be around long enough for it to really matter. Either you join me now or you die.”

  I stared at him, seeing a reflection of my face in his more masculine features. “You wouldn’t really kill me.” Please don’t do this, I begged silently. Please.

  A look of pain crossed his face. “I don’t want to. But I will.” He sounded regretful. “I must. If I have to choose your life or mine, I’ll choose mine.”

  Hearing him confirm this broke my heart. I felt a sadness in my chest like a dull weight.Any of the confused affection I had for him, any lingering hopes I had of someday, somehow having an actual relationship with the man who had fathered me dissipated. A real father would never hurt his own daughter—as a real soul mate wouldn’t have killed his lover. Ciaran was failing on all counts.

  With no warning I was overtaken by a wave of rage, at his arrogance, his selfishness, his shortsightedness. He would rather kill me than know me! He would rather wipe out an entire coven than achieve his ends in other ways! He was a bully and a coward, hiding behind a dark wave that had killed countless innocent people. He was going to kill me because I—a teenager, an unschooled witch—scared him. I didn’t think before I moved. Suddenly I felt like I was on a play-ground and being picked on. I flung out my fist, catching him squarely on the shoulder. Taken by surprise, as I was, Ciaran caught my wrist in his hand, and then I was twisted down to the ground, crying out. This wasn’t magick—this was just a man who was stronger than me. But then he muttered something and I felt a horrible stillness coming over me, a remote coldness that I had felt once before, when Cal had put a binding spell on me.

  Dammit! My mind raced ahead in panic as I knelt, so numb I couldn’t feel the dampness of the ground seeping through my jeans. What had I been thinking? I knew Ciaran’s true name! But instead of using it, I had lashed out like a stupid kid!

  He released my hand and stepped back, looking angry and concerned. “What is this about, Morgan?” he said, sounding, ironically, quite fatherly. I couldn’t form words—it was like being under anesthesia, those scary minutes before you go totally out. My brain felt wrapped in damp cotton, synapses firing slowly and erratically. I couldn’t move; I no longer felt like I had a body. Besides sheer panic, I was now filled with anger. Could I be any stupider? Magick is all about clarity of thought. Clarity of thought dictates clarity of action. Not thinking, lashing out blindly, not having a firm plan and sticking to it, meant not only trouble—for me, now, it meant death.

  I’m not one of those heroine-type people who think best under pressure. Mostly, under pressure, I just want to cry. I wanted to cry now. I was choked with frustration, with fury, with fear. Instead, I knelt on the cold ground, my father standing before me, holding my life in his hands like an egg.

  “Morgan.” He sounded surprised, disappointed. “What are you thinking? Are you really going up against me? I’m much stronger than you are.”

  My mouth moved, but I couldn’t form words. Then why are you so scared of me? I thought, sending him the message.

  I wondered if I could just think his true name—if that would be enough to control him. I was reluctant to try. If he even knew it was in my mind, I’d be toast. I had already made one terrible, possibly fatal mistake. Anything I did from now on would have to be a sure step.

  Foggily, my eyes went to Ciaran’s face. He was talking to me in a low tone, and I struggled to understand what he was saying.“Would it be so terrible to join me? Am I such a monster? I’m your father. I could teach you things that would make you cry at their beauty, their perfection. Do you really want to throw this opportunity away?”

  My eyes were focused on him as he spoke. Think, think, I told myself dreamily. Think or he’ll win. A binding spell was one of the odder spells one could be under. There were different levels of it—from simply being unable to harm another being to being virtually comatose. The way I felt now was like being wrapped in many layers of tissue: hard to get out of, yet made of thin, tearable layers. I also knew that keeping me in this spell required Ciaran’s concentration. One could work a binding spell from a distance, but he hadn’t had time for that. This was a quick one, hastily put together and requiring his continued effort.

  If I broke his concentration, if he for one millisecond dropped his guard, I might be able to do something. Like whimper pathetically and then fall over. Or break free. And then I was sure I could use his true name. It was just so hard to think. I could send a witch message to anyone not right next to me while I was bound. I couldn’t form the sounds of Maeve’s power chant. What could I do? What was I capable of? Starting fires was something I was good at—but everything around me seemed damp. Could I set wet leaves on fire?

  Ciaran was talking, pacing back and forth, earnestly trying to convince me why black equaled white. My eyes followed him, but he didn’t look at me much: he was sure I couldn’t break free.

  Fire. Heat. Heat plus dampness . . . made steam. Steam could be powerful. Most heavy machinery used to be run on steam. Radiators.

  Then it came to me.With great effort, I slowly slid my gaze past Ciaran to the trunk of a pine tree. Heat, I thought. Heat and water. Heat. Fire. I imagined sparks, tiny flames flickering into being, fire warming bark, running beneath it.

  Ciaran didn’t notice the very faint ribbon of steam coming from the tree behind him. His soliloquy continued, as if he thought that if he talked long enough, I would finally be convinced.

  Heat, building beneath the pine bark. Pressure building. Cells expanding. Tiny fissures splitting wood fibers. The water in every cell evaporating, turning to steam. I lost myself in it, imagining that I could see the bark swelling, feel the fibers splitting, feel the pressure building.

  Crack!

  With the force of a small explosion, chunks of pine bark flew outward, hitting Ciaran, almost hitting me. He whirled, his hand outstretched, ready to deflect an attack, but it took him several seconds to see where the sound had come from. Seconds in which his concentration was weakened. In those precious seconds I made a tremendous effort and managed to work my right arm. Summoning every bit of power in me, I raised my voice to say his true name. He whirled as the notes began, my voice sounding dull and leaden under the binding spell. My right hand clumsily sketched runes in the air, and with a last breath I managed to complete it—his true name, a color and song and rune all at once. He hissed something at me, but I held up my hand and deflected it.

  Teeth gritted, I said,“Take off the binding spell.”

  The look of fury and horror on his face was frightening, even though I knew I had power over him.

  “Take it off!”

  His arm raised against his will, and words fell from his lips. In moments I could take deep breaths, and when the spell dissolved, I fell to my hands and knees.

  “Morgan, don’t make this kind of mistake,” Ciaran said softly. But he wasn’t in control anymore.

  “Be quiet,” I panted, slowly standing up, rubbing feeling back into my arms and legs. The cold of the night air made me shake: I had been motionless for too long.

  looked at him, my biological father, an extremely powerful witch whom I had both reluctantly admired and truly feared. He had put a binding spell on me! He had planned to kill me, kill my friends, my family. I let my contempt show in my face as I looked at him.

  “Ciaran of Amyranth,” I said, my lungs still feeling stiff, my tongue thick, “I have power over you. I have your true name, and you are bidden to do my will.” I was trying to remember the exact phrasing from various witch texts. His eyes flashed, but he stood quietly before me. “You will never hurt me aga
in,” I said strongly. I wasn’t sure exactly how a true name worked—but I felt that pretty much anything I said went.“Do you understand?”

  His lips were pressed tightly together.

  “Say it,” I said, feeling unreal, giving him orders.

  “I will never hurt you again.” It looked like the words were costing him.

  With quick, efficient motions I put a binding spell on him, just to be safe. He stood in the darkness like a handsome mannequin, but fire was burning in his eyes and his gaze never left me. “I have your true name,” I said again for good measure.“You have no power.”

  I backed away from him, feeling exhausted. My watch said 2:26 A.M. Pressing one hand against my temple, keeping my eyes open, I sent out a witch message as strongly as I knew how. Hunter. Power sink. Now. Bring your dad. I need you.

  10- Alisa

  ><“The secret of a successful dark wave is in creating its limitations. Be clear in your intent, unemotional. Act because of a calm, logical decision—not out of anger or revenge.” —Ciaran MacEwan, Scotland, 2000><