We kept going around the circle. Jenna was afraid she wouldn't be brave. Raven was afraid of being tied down. Matt was afraid no one would ever understand him. I thought of telling him he should start by trying to understand himself, but I realized this wasn't the right time or place.

"I'm afraid I'll never be able to have what I really want," Bree said in a small voice, looking at the floor.

"I'm afraid of unrequited love," Sky said, her dark eyes as enigmatic as ever.

"I'm afraid of fire," Simon said, and I jerked, startled. My birth parents had burned to death in a barn, and Cal had tried to kill me with fire when I'd refused to join the conspiracy he and his mother were part of. I, too, was afraid of fire.

"I'm afraid of my anger," Alisa said. That surprised me. She looked so sweet.

Then it was my turn. I opened my mouth, intending to say I was afraid of fire, but something stopped me. I felt Hunter's gaze on me, and it was as if he were shining a spotlight on the darkest recesses of my mind, urging me to dredge up my deepest fear.

"I'm afraid I'll never know who I am," I said, and as I said it, I knew it was true.

Hunter was last. In a clear voice he said, "I'm afraid of losing any more people I love."

My heart ached for him. His brother had died at the age of fifteen, murdered by a dark spirit called a taibhs. And his father and mother had disappeared ten years ago, driven into hiding by the dark wave, a cloud of evil and destruction that had wiped out many covens, including my own birth parents'. He had a younger sister, I knew, and it occurred to me that he must worry about her all the time.

Then I looked at him and found his gaze locked on me, and my skin prickled as if the air were suddenly full of electricity.