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creed when she feels slighted by a man’s lack of attention.”
    A chill raced up Breanna’s spine. That spike of fear sharpened her voice. “What are you saying?”
    “That Liam and Falco have a good reason to be wary of being alone with Jean—especially when it’s clear to everyone but Jean that neither of them are comfortable with her interest and don’t want to play the ardent lover.”
    “You can’t be serious. You actually think she would use magic to harm them because they aren’t interested in her?”
    Fiona nodded slowly. “Because they aren’t interested in her... and because they are interested in you.”
    Breanna stared at Fiona, too stunned to speak.
    “Oh, not in the same way. I don’t mean that,” Fiona continued. “But you’re the one they both inquire about first. You’re the one they look to in order to understand our way of life. Jean resents your ‘power’
    over them because she wants it for herself.”
    Breanna shook her head, not to deny what Fiona had said but because she still couldn’t accept that Jean might be a danger to Liam and Falco. It was one thing to consider breaking the witches’ creed in order to defend her family and home; it was quite another to break that creed and do harm simply because you could do it. “Have you any proof that Jean ever harmed a boy because he wasn’t sufficiently attentive?”
    “Proof? No. Suspicions? Oh, yes. But she always acted the darling around the elders, and they wouldn’t believe sweet, pretty Jean has the heart of a cold-blooded bitch. There was nothing serious, you understand. Just little spiteful things that could have been easily explained as simple accidents if they hadn
    ’t occurred soon after a boy she wanted showed a preference for another girl.” Fiona sighed. “I didn’t want her to come with us. Even knowing what she would have faced if she’d stayed, I didn’t want her to come with us. All during the journey, I was afraid she would do something that would call too much attention to us, make the guards in the villages we had to pass look too closely at where we were coming from. Make them look too closely at us .”
     
    “But she didn’t do anything,” Breanna said. “Perhaps, with Nuala keeping an eye on her ...”
    Fiona shook her head. “I told you, the elders only saw what Jean wanted them to see—and that’s the face she shows to Nuala, too. Pretty, sometimes pouty in a teasing way, fluttery feminine Jean. She was fearful enough of the people the Inquisitors have turned against our kind to behave on the journey here, but the only reason she didn’t do anything more damaging back home was because...”
    “Because?” Breanna prodded.
    Fiona looked uncomfortable. Finally, she said, “She was afraid of Jennyfer. And she hasn’t stirred up much trouble here because she’s afraid of you.”
    “Me? Whatever for?”
    “You and Jenny ... you’re .. . different... from the rest of us. I don’t mean that in a bad way, but... there’s a strength in both of you that runs so deep. A strength that comes from here.” Fiona shifted the quiver to her bow hand in order to press a fist against her heart. “I remember the last time you came to visit the family and stayed for the summer. Do you remember?”
    “I remember,” Breanna said quietly.
    “There was a brutal storm one night—wind fierce enough to uproot trees and rain that beat down hard enough to bruise skin. The rest of us huddled inside the house, but you and Jenny ... I heard you sneak out of the room the three of us were sharing that summer. When I crept to the window and looked out, the two of you were outside in your nightgowns, dancing in that storm, celebrating it and ... changing it.
    Air and water. You embraced that storm, took it into yourselves, made it part of your dance, gave it back as something gentler. You tamed a storm , Breanna. You and Jenny.” Fiona smiled. “The look on your face right now. As if I’ve suddenly started