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not have been authentic magical relics. Two stone swords rested on hooks in the wall, bronze jewelry boxes and dusty heirloom books were stacked high on drooping shelves, and multicolored stuffed birds hung precariously from wire pitched to the ceiling. A claw-foot table sat in the center of the room in front of a sagging green couch.

Melanie sat on the couch, but everyone else remained standing, spread out between piles of cardboard boxes.

They waited silently for Cassie to begin.

Melanie was examining her, leaning forward, eager to hear what Cassie knew. There were dark circles beneath her usually alert eyes, and all the life had escaped from her features. Cassie suddenly worried this news might be more than she could handle at the moment.

Cassie bought some time and tried to soften the blow by explaining, step by step, the conversation she'd had with her mother the night before. She paced herself, carefully building up to the description of the symbol she saw on Constance's forehead before everything went black during the resuscitation spell.

"Did any of you see it?" she asked.

Everyone shook their head.

"How do you know it wasn't just a hallucination?" Faye asked, with a tinge of malice. "Or your overactive imagination?"

"Because Cassie has the sight," Diana said. "Tell us, Cassie, what exactly did the symbol look like?"

"Well," Cassie glanced quickly at Melanie before she spoke, "I thought it looked like a hexagon with two bent- up U-shapes inside it. But my mother corrected me."

"It was a W," Melanie said, almost to herself. "Great-Aunt Constance was killed by a witch hunter." The room shuddered.

"This is bad," Melanie said, shaking her head. "I've read about that symbol."

Adam sat beside Melanie on the sofa. "Do you think this means there's someone in town targeting us?" Melanie nodded, too numb to cry. "And not amateurs like the Bainbridge family, either. These guys are the real thing.

They're descendants of an ancient clan of hunters." Adam's jaw tightened, and his eyes sharpened to an intense navy blue. "The hunter could be anyone."

"Or hunters," Diana said. "There could be more than one."

Laurel sat down on the couch on the other side of Melanie and reached for her hand. "We have to be careful."

"That's right," Adam said, jumping up to pace the room, nearly bumping his head on various hanging fowl as he marched back and forth. "And we have to stick together.

More than ever. Is that understood?" He stood still and eyed each member of the group individually.

Then his gaze rested on Faye.

To Cassie's surprise, Faye had no snide remarks this time. She simply nodded. But this out-of-character response worried Cassie more than if Faye had been her inappropriate, obnoxious self. If Faye was frightened, they were in serious trouble.

Diana glanced at the door. The people inside the house were getting louder, and one muffled voice was asking for Melanie.

"I have to get back inside," Melanie said.

Diana nodded. "You should. Melanie, I'm sorry to leave, but I'm going to run home. I know I've seen a protection spell in my Book of Shadows somewhere. I'll look into it and see what I can do."

"That's a good idea," Melanie said, standing now but still holding on to Laurel's hand.

Hesitantly, they all began filing out of the garage, but Nick hung back, and Cassie took advantage of the opportunity to talk to him alone. She reached for his arm and started talking before he could say anything.

"I know you've been avoiding the group because of me," she said. "And I want you to stop doing that." Nick turned away, but she forced him to look at her.

"Listen to me. We have to stay close now. We're in serious danger."

He squinted his mahogany eyes at her as if she were a foreign object.

"I don't want to see you get hurt," Cassie said desperately. "Please."

"Well, thank you for your concern." He said it sharply, like it was intended to cut her, but Nick always resorted to sarcasm when he started to feel something. It meant she'd gotten through to him, at least a little bit. She'd take what she could get for now.

Chapter 10

Cassie woke up to sunlight streaming in her windows. Her room was bright but cold, and the March morning air contained a windy chil that shook the windows. She would have given anything to stay beneath her warm covers and hide from the day, but she knew that wasn't an option.

Instead she got up, wrapped herself in her blue terrycloth bathrobe, and made her way outside to