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Witches. Each phase represents our power as individuals. The full moon is the combined power of all of us. This pendant was cut to represent that. You and I, we’re stronger together than apart. And if you ever need to find me, just tap the pendant against a piece of metal. It will vibrate and lift, pointing in my direction. I’ll be able to do the same for you.”
    Joshen stared at the pendant. “I don’t know what to say.”
    She smiled. “Say you’ll always be there. No matter what.”
    “Always.”
    She fingered her necklace. Next to the pendant was the ring Joshen had given her over two months ago. It was a simple thing, made of willow branches that Coyel had sung to wrap around a pearl.
    Senna’s mother and the other Heads had had a fit over it. Apprentices weren’t allowed to have contact with men, let alone be betrothed to one. So Senna had quietly moved it from her hand to her neck. For her, the meaning was still the same, regardless of its location.
    Joshen rubbed the pearl with the edge of his thumb. “If it were just you and me on a horse ranch somewhere, we could marry whenever we pleased.”
    Senna leaned toward him, inhaling the air he breathed. “Someday.”
    He kissed her again, but there was a taste of goodbye in it. She wouldn’t risk being late for class—not when she still had so much to prove.  
     

4. Earth Song
     
    A cold trickle of rain dripped through Senna’s soaked hood and slid down her back. Wishing she’d left her long hair down, she shivered under her heavy cloak. Thunder grumbled in the sky. Lightning stabbed the sea beyond Haven’s high cliffs. Senna used the brief illumination to glance back at the long line of sopping-wet Witchlings trailing behind her.
    “Come along. The storm will only remain this strong for an hour at best. We mustn’t dally.”
    Senna had to resist the urge to strangle Drenelle. She’d left Joshen for this. All because the Head insisted they commune during a storm. Something about the earth opening up to receive the rain, and therefore opening up to them as well. She also claimed the earth came awake at night.
    So here they were, traipsing through Haven in the middle of the night. In the pouring rain. Drenelle and the other Heads believed the attackers were gone. Senna suspected at least one was still out there. The whole outing was utter madness.
    It wasn’t like Senna needed to slip into a trance to feel the Four Sisters—Earth, Water, Plants, and Sunlight—all around her.
    As the class finally reached the Ring of Power, the clouds parted briefly, revealing the crescent moon.
    Four was a sacred number for the Witches. There were four phases of the moon in direct opposition to each other—half moon, crescent moon, gibbous moon, and full or new moon. Four seasons. Four Sisters or elements. Four Creators who’d formed the world by combining their mastery of their respective elements. Four Discipline Heads who were patterned after the Creators to administrate over their respective elements.
    Drenelle peeked out from under her umbrella. “Perfect. This is all going perfectly. All of you spread out. Make yourselves comfortable.”
    Comfortable? Sopping wet in a lightning storm. Under a tree. Comfortable? More like suicidal. But Senna kept her thoughts to herself. In Drenelle’s earth lessons, they mostly identified rocks, meditated to map out valuable deposits, identified soil composition, and studied earth-tremor detection and reduction.
    Tugging her hood further down, Senna did her best to arrange her cloak so it protected her from the damp grass, then leaned back against the smooth trunk of one of Haven’s trees, which managed to keep a little of the rain off her.
    “All right, everyone,” Drenelle said in her most soothing voice, which reminded Senna of a cawing crow. “Dig your feet into the earth. Spread yourself into it like a seedling, sending forth roots—searching, feeling, being. Send away your conscious thoughts. Feeling the