"It's too late for that," I said quietly. "And I need to know the truth. There have been too many secrets for too long."

Mary K. raised her hands, and they fluttered for a moment in midair as she tried to think of something to say. But there wasn't anything to say, and in the end we just got our backpacks and headed outside to Das Boot.

Cal was waiting for me at school. He walked over to my car as I parked and met me as I opened the door. Mary K. looked at him, as if to measure his involvement in all of this. He met her gaze calmly, sympathetically.

"I'm Cal," he said, holding out his hand. "Cal Blaire. I don't think we've really met."

Mary K. looked at him. "I know who you are," she said, not taking his hand. "Are you doing witchcraft with Morgan?"

"Mary K.!" I started, but Cal held up his hand

"It's okay," he said. "Yes, I'm doing witchcraft with Morgan. But we're not doing anything wrong."

"Wrong for who?" Mary K. sounded older than fourteen.

She slid past Cal and got out of the car. She was immediately surrounded by her friends, but she looked unhappy and withdrawn. I wondered what she would tell them. Then Bakker Blackburn, her boyfriend, came up. They walked of together.

"How are you?" Cat asked, and kissed my forehead. "I've been thinking about you. I called last night, but your mom said you were asleep."

I saw people looking at us, Alessandra Spotford. Nett Norton, Justin Bartlett. Of course they were surprised to see Cal Blaire, human god, with Morgan Rowlands, Girl Most Likely to Remain Dateless Forever.

"Yeah—I think my brain just shut down. Thanks for calling. I'll tell you about everything later." He squeezed my shoulder, and together we walked up to where the coven—we were a coven now and not just a group of friends—hung out, on the cement benches by the east side of the school. The redbrick building looked reassuringly familiar and unchanged, but that was about the inly thing my life that was the same today.