26

As we topped the stairs and stepped out onto the second floor of the Shadows, I gasped. The activated color theme, which I

would later learn was used only for a pledging ceremony, made the dark, cavernous room appear a lofty, bright cathedral of

obsidian and amber, bathed in warm honey-gold light, reflecting off countless mirrorlike surfaces and glittering cut-crystal

facets.

Unlike the night I'd danced here to "Witches Reel," when the club had felt wicked and sexy, gusting with fog and lit by crimson

flames, tonight it was bright and felt somehow holy. I'd never have believed such a dark room could be so brilliant, warm,

and inviting, but the clever arrangement of reflective surfaces coupled with the genius of the lighting system offered a wide

array of effects.

Yet another of Juniper's touches.

Devlin had told me she'd never wearied, never stopped participating, living, working, caring, until shortly before she died,

when her body, at long last, grew too frail to be coerced into activity by the sheer force of her indomitable will.

I couldn't imagine living an entire century in a single place, being part of something like Divinity for so long. Dying wouldn't

be easy when one loved one's home, one's world, so deeply and completely. How hard to leave it all behind, a century of rooted

life!

The center of the dance floor was lined with rows of folding chairs, affording an aisle down the middle, leading to the stage,

upon which an enormous standing stone had been hoisted from below.

Glancing up, I spied the sole unlit candelabra in the room—the Cameron torch that had gone out with Juniper's final breath.

It was my job to light it tonight, and, I vowed, I would.

One hundred and sixty-nine members of the Kovan rose from their chairs, turning to watch me as we entered the room.

As Mr.Balfour escorted me up the aisle, it felt oddly like a wedding march, and I supposed it rather was, as I was wedding

myself to Divinity for life. I glanced from side to side, taking note of faces, realizing these, the Kovan, were the families

that had come to greet me my first night in the club: the Elders and Alloways, the Somervilles and MacGillivrays, Rutherfords

and Mathesons, Napiers and MacLellans, the Galloways, Kincaids, Logans, and Alexanders, and the Balfours.

As Devlin and Lennox veered off to take seats in the front row, I narrowed my eyes, wondering why, then, Althea Bean was present.

Perhaps she'd married into one of the families and kept her last name. I wasn't particularly pleased to see her here and find

she was part of the "inner circle" after all.

Then we were at the stage and Mr.Balfour was escorting me up the stairs as the Kovan resumed their seats.

Moving toward the giant obelisk, I was surprised to find I was trembling. Staring out at so many faces, all gazing expectantly

up at me, I nearly swooned; the moment felt so... ponderous, enormous, and slightly... terrifying.

In that moment, countless fears coalesced in my mind.

What if I was wrong?

What if I couldn't read anyone?

What if I was too stupid to live and, in fact, wasn't long for this world?

What if I was some kind of... bizarre sacrifice necessary for this Kovan to—

Future Zo would tell you that my mother often said, We make the biggest decisions of our lives with the most broken parts of ourselves, my darling. We can't help it, even when

we try. Those broken parts are our needy babies, crying out for nurturing, love, and healing, and we will go to great lengths

to silence their cries. The problem is babies can't see danger. They know only need.

I had a lot of broken parts.

And this legacy, this town, this moment succored each and every one of them.

Mom also used to say, and the crassness of it drove me crazy, coming from a woman who was always so eloquent, Shit or get off the pot, Zo .

In other words: Commit. One way or the other. Stop vacillating. I nearly snorted, remembering it. I'd get so mad at her every

time she said it.

Locking my legs to still the trembling, I turned to Mr.Balfour, who placed a hand on my shoulder and guided me to the right

of the towering stone.

Quietly, he told me, "Like the crosses of Divinity Chapel, the Cameron Pledging Stone was hewn from the rock of Ben Nevis and shipped from Lochaber. It's engraved with many of the same symbols you'll find in and around the manor, and about town. After I draw blood from your palm, you will place your hand upon this series of symbols." He gestured to the stone, where the same symbols tattooed on Devlin's arm had been chiseled; they were stained with the faint brown of blood from past Cameron hands. "It's the Cameron clan motto in Gaelic, which says ‘where there is clan, there is no law.' There have been dark ages when that motto was interpreted as a call to recklessness, to doing anything whatsoever to protect and defend the Cameron house. In truth, the meaning is far deeper, wiser, and more ancient. That where there is true clan, there is no need for law. True clan strives to achieve the best and bring forth the finest in each other, rendering

law and punishment unnecessary."

His voice dropped. "Admittedly, there are still those who adhere to the other interpretation, but they are the minority here.

Some also debate the word clan and claim it means love instead. Regardless, the meaning is the same. You are Cameron, and as head of the Kovan, you will strive to achieve the best

and bring out the finest in Divinity."

"Invite me in," I whispered.

"By your leave," he whispered back.

We locked gazes and held.

This was it, all I could do, all I could trust; my deepest witch senses. And behind his gentle but fierce and intensely intelligent

blue eyes, this man's heart was ride-or-die loyal to not only the Cameron clan and Divinity but me . It blazed inside him, so warm and kind and deeply caring that, had we been elsewhere, I might have burst into tears. Never

had a man felt such a thing for me. His feelings were deep, fatherly, protective, a gentleness wed to something powerful,

a peaceful bear who would turn savage to protect his cub.

If, at this moment, I was reading James Balfour's heart wrong, I was blind and couldn't possibly hope to navigate life.

Because I was reading his heart with mine.

And if I couldn't trust my own heart, I was fucked.

He smiled. "You're going to be fine. Are you ready?"

I nodded.

Turning to address the Kovan, he said strongly, "As the sole living descendant of Juniper Cameron and the great-granddaughter

of Marcus Cameron—"

"Where is the genetic testing?" a woman demanded, rising.

It wasn't Althea, I was surprised to see, but someone to whom I'd not yet been introduced.

"Sit down!" Mr.Balfour thundered. "Both Juniper's will and her letter—which you all saw today—"

"A copy of," the woman snapped. "Copies can be manipulated. Nor have we ever seen her will."

The man seated beside her stood. "I agree with Megan. Where is the genetic testing? We've seen no true proof that this woman

is in any way related to Juniper Cameron."

"You'll see proof when the torch lights," Mr.Balfour said coolly.

So, I observed wryly, all resistance hadn't melted away today as Mr.Balfour had hoped.

Althea Bean stood. "She is unacceptable!" she spat. "And unlike your inability to show us a shred of evidence, I'll give you

cold, hard, indisputable facts."

Her eyes narrowed intently, focusing beyond me, at the rear of the raised platform upon which we stood. I jerked when something

whirred and a white screen descended behind me, nearly filling the stage.

Then a brilliant light flickered on from seemingly nowhere, illuminating the enormous screen, with Mr.Balfour and me silhouetted

in front of it.

I glanced from the screen to Althea, trying to figure out what she was using her magic to do. Her lips were compressed in

a tight, vindictive smile as she withdrew several thick sheets of paper from a folder she clutched. Holding one aloft, she

triumphantly informed the room, "I've not only made copies for each of you, but have the digital originals." Frowning with

effort (clearly not a powerful witch, despite being in the inner circle, I thought snidely), she focused on whatever she was

holding, and abruptly, the room gasped.

I turned to see the screen filled with a horrifying image and realized she was holding photos, using her power to superimpose the image on the screen for the entire Kovan to view.

Two corpses, blackened, wizened—but not beyond identifying—crumpled on the charred, ashy ground of the back courtyard at Cameron

Manor.

Gruesome mummies, shrunken inside seemingly enormous black pants and shirts; clothing that was untouched by the fate that

had befallen them. The life had been stripped, stolen from them , not their attire.

Hand flying to my throat, I gasped. My gaze flew to Mr.Balfour, filled with accusation. "You told Devlin you pulled back

the bodyguards!"

A muscle worked in his jaw, but he said nothing.

Whirling, I sought Devlin's gaze. He, too, was standing, hands fisted at his sides, poised as if he was about to lunge for

the stage, to use his body as a shield for me. "Aye, that is what he claimed," he growled.

"But that's Jesse and Burke!" I cried.

Another image appeared, two more corpses, charred in the front yard. The other two guards, men whose names I'd never learned,

reduced to similar shrunken corpses inside pristine clothes.

A third image, and this one took me a bit longer to process, as it was a coroner's report. I had, indeed, been lied to about

the man in the barn's cause of death; his heart had literally exploded, as if crushed in a fist of steely spikes.

Then the screen filled with all three images, side by side.

"She has killed," Althea snarled, "not once but five times, unpledged! You know it, James. And you've covered for her. But we're not about to let her or you get away with this. It wouldn't matter now if she were Juniper's own daughter! You know the price for what she's done! I am issuing a formal demand that the price be paid here, now, tonight. Yours is a price we'll collect later," she added venomously.

I stared from Althea to Devlin to Mr.Balfour and back again, with increasing franticness and fear. Had I truly killed those

five men? Had I killed kind Jesse, Burke, and all those others?

"You have no proof that she actually killed those men," Mr.Balfour spat back. "And I have good reason to believe someone

else did. Someone who was waiting, watching, and took advantage of an opportunity to make it look like she had committed the

crime. For all I know, it may have been you who killed them, Althea. Although, diluted as you are, you'd require a coven at

your back, a thing I'm aware you've covertly gathered for your purposes in the past. I know how many out there would rather

see our town unprotected, ripe for a coup. Not only beyond the bounds of Divinity, but within the town itself. What better

way than to frame the legitimate heir? Now, sit down and shut up! This ceremony will continue, and you will abide by—"

Everyone stood then, erupting in enraged shouts and roars. It was so deafening, it was difficult to make out what anyone was

saying, but I could pick up enough to judge that although some agreed with Althea, others passionately sided with Mr.Balfour.

My God, the politics of it all! I could see it happening both ways. But surely if I'd killed, wouldn't I know it? Wouldn't

it have... I don't know, made something in me feel different? I felt like exactly the same woman I'd always been, honorable,

desiring to do good, be light, to care for this town.

I gazed imploringly at Mr.Balfour. "Tell me the truth. Did I kill those men?"

"SILENCE!" Mr.Balfour roared, and everyone froze.

Literally.

"Did you just freeze the whole room?" I said, gasping.

"Not me," Devlin said dryly. "I'm more powerful than he is."

Mr.Balfour cut me a sharp look. "It is sometimes necessary to silence this lot of fools in such fashion. Juniper didn't choose

me to stand at her side all those years merely for my legal prowess."

Power sizzled and crackled in the air as he thundered at the Kovan, "You will hear me out. I have read Zo Cameron's heart

with deep sight. She is true. I believe her to be the Cameron heir, and I believe her to be the rightful leader of this Kovan.

Let us see if the torch agrees. Let us see if it lights for her. You must at least—"

He broke off, choking and gurgling as the electrifying sensation of magic being discharged intensified exponentially in the

air.

I glanced, panicked, at the members of the Kovan, searching face after face, trying to decide who was attacking him. Many

were staring, hard, directly at him. Dozens in fact. Were they all working in concert together? They might have been silenced

by his spell, but I doubted any of their power had been stripped from them.

"A light witch who takes life unpledged dies," Althea shouted into the sudden silence, which I presumed meant whatever spell

Mr.Balfour had employed had been nullified when he was silenced. "I demand justice. I demand this murderous, vile woman receive

the mandated punishment for her actions. You know our laws! She must be killed, here and now!"

With her words, a stout, upright timber draped with heavy, knotted ropes for binding and surrounded by piles and piles of

rough-hewn kindling abruptly manifested on the floor directly beneath the stage.

A pyre. For burning .

Who the hell had magicked that into existence? Althea's vegetable coven or the Kovan itself? The ancient grisly method of executing a witch sent an atavistic lance of terror through my heart, as whoever had erected it intended.

Seriously? They would burn me alive, like witches of yore? Was I to die like my mother before me? The Kovan would kill me on such flimsy presentation of evidence, without any sort of investigation?

I would have found that impossible to believe, but as I scanned the room, I realized with dawning horror that nearly half

the witches in the room wore similar expressions.

Anticipatory, bloodthirsty, concurring silently with Althea's demand.

Some of the most heinous witch hunts and executions in history have been enacted by witches themselves , Este had said.

With a bone deep shiver, I fully, chillingly apprehended just how perilous the ground beneath my feet had become. I perched

on ice thinner than glazing on a windowpane.

None of them knew me, really.

Other than James and Devlin, I'd barely spoken to any of them, aside from greetings that night at the Shadows. I was nothing

to this gathering of witches. An outsider, a nobody. And there was a massively rich, enormously powerful legacy up for grabs,

to anyone mighty enough to seize it.

How simple to dispose of me, poor, orphaned Zo Grey, with so few who cared about her and certainly no one magically endowed

enough to go up against something as forbidding as the town of Divinity.

How easy for a Kovan of such power to kill me and conceal all trace of evidence.

"If she's truly a Cameron, she's even more dangerous than—" Althea choked and sputtered, grasping frantically at her throat.

Attacked. But who was doing it? I continued searching the room, trying to figure out who was working this dark magic.

"Zo didn't kill those men!" Devlin roared. "I, too, know the woman's heart. She's not capable of such savagery. On the contra—"

Holy hell! Devlin, too? Who was doing this?

Somehow, and I'd never have believed the Beanhead capable of such power, Althea surmounted whatever was being done to her

and once again found her voice. "Kill her!" she screamed, lips peeling back in a savage, bloodthirsty snarl. "I insist she be burned alive! She has taken life and—"

Althea was once again silenced, but this time a loud, horrifying cracking sound exploded in the room. One moment Ms.Bean

was screaming for my death, the next her head was lolling at a gruesome angle, falling sloppily toward a shoulder, eyes wide

and staring.

She slumped to the floor in a meticulously coiffed heap, dead.

I stared, horrified. This was the way of the Cailleach? Who had done it? Every person in the room was suspect to me. I whipped

my gaze from Mr.Balfour, to Devlin, then the rest of the Ko—

Oh, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit.

At the far end of the room, a thick gray mist was drifting in dense tendrils from the floor. Or had it been there for some

time and none of us had noticed, too busy bickering amongst ourselves?

Gray had always seemed a passive color to me, one too timid to be a color at all.

Staring at that fog, for the first time in my life, I apprehended the true color of gray. It was gunmetal, a diamond-hard, knife-sharp, aggressive color that knew exactly what it was: a razor-edged chasm between black and white in which one might be forever lost, drifting in an all-obscuring fog.

I watched, mouth ajar, as the dense gloom rose and rose, tendrils morphing into whipping tentacles that stretched hungrily

all the way to the cathedral ceiling, stretching up and up until they forged a solid wall of dark, writhing grayness. Within

that wall formed a multitude of slithering entities that lurked just beyond my brain's ability to define them, as if fashioned

of creatures humans knew on a deep, atavistic level but hadn't seen in millennia, beings we prayed in desperate hours, in

troubled times, never to see again.

An icy multitude of voices thundered from the murky vapor: "She belongs to us. She is beyond your reach now."

Every member of the Kovan peeled back and away from the fog as fast as they could, hugging the perimeter of the room as that

dense, oppressive, charcoal mass oozed toward the stage.

Devlin alone did not yield, but leapt up onto the stage and took my hand in his. "You will not take her!" he roared. His fingers,

twined with mine, rippled strangely as if his very bones were changing, shifting. He growled low in his throat, as if resisting

it, then his fingers solidified again.

Still the gray miasma moved closer, closer, until I could no longer see the Kovan beyond it. A solid wall obscured my vision,

flush to the stage, staring down at Devlin, Mr.Balfour, and me, faceless, without eyes, yet I somehow felt the weight of

infinite judging gazes.

Taking my other hand, Mr.Balfour snarled, "She did not kill those men, and you have no right to claim her."

"So you say. We believe otherwise," the voices said flatly.

Mr. Balfour said, "You know the politics of our community! You know how many would set her up—"

"SILENCE!" The fog spoke in a voice unlike any I'd ever heard, containing an even greater multitude of voices, layered upon one another

into a resolute, implacable command. Impossible to defy, stealing the words from our lips, muting any possible reply.

I tried. I opened my mouth repeatedly, attempting to form words, but none would come.

Abruptly, I was furious. Both Mr.Balfour and Devlin had at least gotten a chance to speak in my defense.

Was I to be given none?

That was bullshit.

I was a Cameron! I didn't believe for one moment otherwise. And as such, I was the most powerful witch in this room.

Eyes narrowing, I reached deep within for Zo, the real, true, fully empowered Zo Cameron. I would have my chance to speak

to this... this... stain of unyielding terror that was not going to take me. Not today, not ever.

I'd spent enough of my life gray. Bold though the shade may be, I was done being it. I was vibrant, colorful Zo Cameron, and

that was who I intended to remain.

Gently, carefully, I reached for power, spanning the boundaries of the town, opening myself to each blade of grass, each tree,

each flower, bud, and stem. I beseeched them to donate willingly but a single atom of their life force, thereby gathering

billions of atoms of energy without taking too much from any living thing yet drawing more than enough to break the gray house

spell.

Then I snapped, "I belong to no one but myself! I will not—"

I broke off abruptly, this time from shock as a cloaked, heavily hooded figure manifested within the towering dark wall and thrust forward, emerging from it to drop heavily onto the stage.

One of the gray house, come to speak? I wondered, stunned into silence.

Tall and powerfully built was the only impression I could gather from the voluminous dark gray folds of robe. It was male,

although I'm not sure how I knew that; something about the presence the figure exuded, perhaps. The folds of his hood fell

about his face, gaping open, yet where a face should have been was merely a blur, a smear of featureless grayness.

Mr.Balfour moved to stand as a shield in front of me. "You'll have to go through me to—"

As if a tightly focused, invisible tornado hit him and him alone, Mr.Balfour was abruptly ripped from the stage, tossed nearly

to the ceiling, and flung across the room, where he slammed into the wall with a loud crack before crashing to the floor,

far below, in a crumpled heap.

I stared in horror, willing him to move, if only a finger, to let me know he was alive.

Never had Mr.Balfour looked so frail, so fully his age, with brittle bones that accompanied three-quarters of a century of

life. I glanced frantically at Lennox, who was standing, hands fisted, tears streaming down her face, mouth open on a silent

scream.

My gaze whipped back to him. "James!" I cried.

He lay motionless, blood slowly staining the floor around his head.

I lunged forward, grief and fury boiling in my veins. Not Mr. Balfour. Anyone but him. That man and my mother were the only protectors I'd ever known. I would not permit both of them to give their lives for me!

"You sonofabitch!" I snarled. "You motherfucker, you will restore him ! If James Balfour is dead, you will bring him back to life. As Royal heir to the Cameron house, I demand it!"

"SILENCE!" the gray fog thundered in that multitude of voices again, this time even more resonant, more laced with power.

Hands flying to my neck, I tried frantically to speak again but failed.

"I am not Death, witch; you cannot command me. We all belong to one of the houses." The figure spoke icily, and it was, indeed,

male. "And you, Zo Grey, are ours."

"You!" Devlin snarled at the hooded man.

The figure seemed to find his response amusing. Sardonic humor laced his reply, "You and I are destined to eternally be on

opposite sides, Blackstone."

Yanking his hand from mine, Devlin surged forward, then drew up short, as if he'd slammed into an invisible wall.

"You know better," the cloaked figure said, laughing. Something about his laughter nagged at me, as did his voice. "We may

have sprung from the same ancient well, but the similarities end there."

"I will hunt you to the ends of the earth if you take her, MacKeltar," Devlin snarled.

"Good luck with that," the gray figure mocked. "You've tried before and failed. You always will. She is mine."

"No," Devlin said flatly, "she is not yours. It was my bed she shared last night."

Stiffening, the figure said with soft menace, "But never will again."

That voice. Where had I heard that voice?

The fog exploded, obliterating my vision of everything and everyone.

I felt it pressing in on me, thick, suffocating, and oppressive, and I drew again for power, but I was somehow... being

blocked. I couldn't draw a damned thing! In fact, I was horrified to realize, I couldn't feel myself at all. No wonder the

gray house was the most feared of all. No wonder the room had peeled back.

I vowed silently, then and there, if James Balfour was dead, I would hunt and destroy each and every witch belonging to that

abominable house, if it took me a thousand eternities.

What had the gray house done to me?

How had they done it?

I was lost in fog, powerless. If there was an ounce of true witch within me, I'd somehow been completely severed from her.

I had the dim sensation of being gathered up in powerful arms, lifted, and drawn into a vortex of sorts, felt a chilling,

biting rush of wind and pressure as if I was being moved in some impossible fashion across some impossible distance. Far off,

though fading quickly, I could hear Devlin roaring.

Then I heard nothing.

Saw nothing at all.

Gray turned to black.

Black to blindness.

To silence so absolute it reeked of oblivion.

The world ceased to exist. I was nowhere and nothing.

A consciousness conscious only of its own consciousness, no body. A disembodied, drifting, blind mind.

Then the fog began to lift, ever so slowly peeling back, and my vision slowly returned.

I was in someone's arms.

The tall gray-cloaked man Devlin had called MacKeltar.

I stared up at the gray hood, at the smear where a face should be, and as I stared, the smear began to coalesce into features and I knew, abruptly, exactly where I'd heard that laughter, that voice before.

Gaping, I managed to utter a single disbelieving word. " Kellan? "