I remembered something in the middle of my complete confusion.

“You said you found the one who is missing,” I said, looking at Selene but pointing to Keira. “Didn’t you? When she first arrived.”

She nodded. “I did. You are quite perceptive. I can understand how the two of you gravitated toward one another in the outside world. She is the heiress. That’s the correct word, I believe.”

“The heiress?” Keira asked. “Of what? A cave?”

“Keira,” I whispered, wincing.

She needed to back off a little—while I found it difficult to believe that she was one of them, since I had known her my entire life and would be the one to know something like that, there was only so far she could push them before they decided to zap her with a lightning bolt or something. Or so I imagined.

Iris’s eyes blazed icy fire. “How dare you insult us in such a manner?”

“Iris, please,” Selene murmured.

Seemed Iris would not be silenced. “It matters not that she is the last of our original bloodline. You would never allow one of us to speak this way to you. Why should she receive special dispensation?”

“You’ll need to slow down a bit.” Keira rose her voice to be heard over Iris’s protests and the attempts of the other witches to shut her up before all hell broke loose.

Selene didn’t move a muscle, but something told me she could turn on a dime and lay some serious smackdown.

Iris was practically begging for it.

“I did not intend for you to find out in this manner,” Selene explained, speaking slowly and deliberately, “but it is true. You are not only the last of the coven’s original bloodline, but you are the daughter of my daughter—who would have taken my place as High Priestess.”

I looked at my best friend, the girl I had known almost my entire life, who knew more about me than anybody else ever had. We had shared almost everything. Every fear, every dream. We had laughed ourselves sick together--once, she had even made me wet my pants, though she had sworn she’d never tell another soul.

And she never had.

I wasn’t seeing any of that as I looked at her, the two of us standing side-by-side in that insane cell. I saw a witch, like the others around us. How was I supposed to ever see the old Keira again?

“That’s impossible,” Keira whispered. She took a step back from the invisible wall, then another. “They told me you were all disbanded by now, that the coven didn’t even exist anymore.”

“They lied to you,” Selene replied. “Or, it’s quite possible that they simply did not know of the coven’s existence. The relationship we once had with them disintegrated not long after we discovered your expected birth.”

“No, no. That makes no sense, either. Alan said the rift occurred much earlier than that.”

“It is true, our relations had begun to fall apart long before—which was why the announcement that you were due to be born finally broke our connection to the clan irreparably. The fallout very nearly caused a war. Ever since then, we have missed your presence in our coven. Your absence, and that of my daughter, have disrupted the balance of our existence. Now, you’ve returned, and things might be set to rights.”

“Wait, please!” I clapped my hands over my ears. “I don’t want to hear this! I don’t understand it, and I don’t want to know about it. If this is who you are,” I said, looking to Keira, “fine. Whatever. But it has nothing to do with me! I just want to go home!”

It was like being in a nightmare I couldn’t wake up from. Everything had turned on its head. My best friend was a witch, her mother had been a High Priestess, and now there was talk of a clan, and a war, and what the hell was going on?

Nobody cared about me. Nobody cared that I was there. I was nothing more than an accidental arrival, someone to lure Keira to the witches who considered her their heiress. I had served my purpose, but they weren’t about to allow me to leave after hearing all of this.

The more I heard, the less likely it was that I’d ever be free again.

Tears filled Keira’s eyes as she turned to me, hands closing over my wrists. “Em, it’ll be okay. I don’t want you to ever be hurt. Nobody here will hurt you, I swear. I’ll never let that happen.”

“How do I know?” I whispered as I let her lower my hands. There was no sense in fighting, since she was a witch and everything. How was I supposed to know she wouldn’t use her witchy powers on me?

“It’s still me, you know. I’m still me. I’m still your friend.” Her eyes searching mine. “You know that, don’t you?”

“I don’t know anything anymore.”

“This is unimportant at the moment, and something the two of you can settle later,” Selene announced.

I turned to her, and just like that my tears were nothing but a memory. “I’ve had about enough of you,” I spat. What did it matter that she was powerful and could probably shut me up permanently with a wave of her hand? I almost wished she would, since there was nobody left in my life. I had no one left.

Her sapphire eyes widened. “Pardon me?”

“I thought you could read thoughts, right? Why do you need to ask me what I said?”

“All right,” Iris snarled, taking a step toward the cell. “You might ask me to hold my tongue toward one of our own, but I will not allow a pathetic human to speak to you this way.”

Keira stepped in front of me. “You’ll have to go through me—and in case you forgot, it took four of you to drag me in here.”

“I don’t need you to protect me.”

Keira turned around, and my heart ached at the pain on her face. “What are you saying?”

“You heard me. I don’t need you right now. You can be whoever it is you are. You don’t need to look after me—we’re not kids anymore.”

A crashing noise from down the widest tunnel of them all, the one we had entered through, took all of our attention. Even the witches seemed surprised, throwing worried glances at each other before falling into fight stances.

“What’s happening?” Keira asked.

Selene drew a deep breath as she squared her shoulders. “It seems we have additional company.”

“How did we not know they were coming?” Iris demanded as the sound of pounding feet grew louder.

“Remember: when the connection to the clan disintegrated, we lost the ability to track their presence,” Selene explained, stepping out in front of her witches as more of them poured into the room. “The only reason we were able to sense Keira’s presence was her blood ties to us.”

“You don’t have to worry,” Keira whispered over her shoulder. “They’ll protect you.”

I was too busy trying not to pee myself to be mad at her, even though I didn’t know for sure why I was. “Who?”

“Tamhas’s family.”

That didn’t comfort me. Something told me we were about to get into even bigger trouble.