No one seemed to know exactly what the dark wave was—whether it was an entity with a will of its own or a force of mindless destruction, like a tornado. All we did know was that where it passed, it left death and horror behind it, entire towns turned to ash. Hunter believed that Selene was somehow connected to the dark wave. But he didn't know how.

I put my head in my hands. "Is all of this happening because Cal and Selene are Woodbane?" I asked in a small voice. Woodbane was the family name of one of the Seven Great Clans of Wicca. To be Woodbane meant, traditionally, to be without a moral compass. Woodbanes throughout history had used any means at their disposal, including calling on dark spirits or dark energy, to become more powerful. Supposedly this had all changed when the International Council of Witches had come into being and made laws to govern the use of magick. But as I was learning, the world of Wicca was as fractured and divided as the everyday world I'd known for the first sixteen years of my life. And there were many Woodbanes who didn't live by the council's laws.

I happened to be Woodbane, too. I hadn't wanted to believe it when I first found out, but the small, red, dagger-shaped birthmark on the inside of my arm was proof of it. Many, if not most, Woodbanes had one somewhere. It was known as the Woodbane athame, because it looked like the ceremonial dagger that was part of any witch's set of tools.

Hunter sighed, and I was reminded that he was half Woodbane himself. "That's the question, isn't it? I don't honestly know what it means to be Woodbane. I don't know what's nature and what's nurture."

He set down his mug and rose. "I'll see if your clothes are dry. Then I'll run you home."