Sky nodded soberly.
"I still don't understand how it's even possible," Morgan said. "Hunter and I… we did all the appropriate spells. It's why I never even considered Moira could be his."
Sky gave a helpless shrug. "I don't know," she said.
"Well, right now I just need to be with my daughter. Maybe I should send her a witch message," Morgan said, sniffling and wiping her nose on her sleeve. Hunter's daughter. Moira was Hunter's daughter. She glanced outside, hoping to see Moira running back to the house. Now that she knew, she was dying to look at Moira carefully, to see where she left off and Hunter began. Oh, Colm. Goddess, Colm, what were you thinking? How could you do this to me? I trusted you.
"I think she needs time alone," Sky said, always straightforward. "I don't feel her in the area. If she's not back in ten more minutes, we'll scry and go find her."
"She probably went to Ian’s house," Morgan said, frowning with this fresh worry. "Like last night."
"Maybe not. She might just want to be alone."
"They did us such an injustice," said Morgan, and Sky nodded. "It's incredibly sad that Colm died, leaving no children."
"Moira was his daughter," Sky said gently. "She mourns him like a daughter. You know from your own experience about the bonds between parents and adoptive children."
"Yes, I do." Morgan thought of the parents who'd raised her, whom she loved so much. "But I also know there can be a special bond between blood relatives. In a way, it's like Moira has lost two fathers."
She sat down in Colm's leather chair. What would Hunter have been like as a father? Her heart constricted painfully, imagining how it might have been. His face, surprised at Moira's strong, tiny grip. Hunter changing a diaper with the same intense concentration with which he did everything else. Baby Moira sleeping between her and Hunter in bed. More tears rolled down her cheeks. How precious those moments would have been.
Sky crossed the room and sank down on the couch, leaning back. "He would have loved to have had a daughter," she said, echoing Morgan's thoughts.
Morgan nodded, crying silently. After a few minutes she got up and washed her face and drank some water. "I'm going to scry for her," she told Sky. "I just need to know she's okay."
Then she lit the candle on the table and sat down, losing herself instantly to the peace of meditation. Scrying, she saw Moira, in the dark, sitting on wet grass. Ian was with her. He had his arm around her, and her head was resting on his shoulder. Finnegan lay nearby, panting and "relaxed. She saw Moira nod, then both she and Ian straightened up slightly, awareness coming over them. They'd felt her scrying. Morgan sent a quick witch message to Moira, and Moira replied-curtly-that she was fine. Morgan warned that if she didn't return soon, she would have to come find her, then pulled out of the image and blew out the candle.
"Moira's okay," she said. "She and Ian are in a field somewhere-maybe up on the headland, by the sea. But she'll be on her way home now, I believe."
"Good," said Sky.
"I just wish…," Morgan began hesitantly, then decided to go on. "I just wish I could see now who Ian is underneath. Maybe he's Cal all over again. Maybe he's not. I can't let him hurt my daughter."
"We could pin him down and do a tath meanma."
"And have the New Charter all over us? No thanks. But it is tempting."
"Well, then, listen-there is something else we could do while we're waiting for Moira."
Morgan looked at her, knowing exactly what Sky meant.
"You said you scried and you saw Hunter. Tell me about that again."
Morgan did, describing what he'd looked like, how he hadn't appeared youthful, as he had in all her previous dreams over the years, but instead had aged. Not only aged, but had gone through some shocking physical changes. When she finished, Sky was silent, and Morgan asked, "What are you thinking? What can we do to know the truth?"
"I have Hunter's athame," Sky said thoughtfully. "It's out in the car. Daniel once told me about a spell where you focus intently on someone's energy, using one of their tools to help focus on them. It finds them whether they're alive or dead. I've been thinking all day-it's risky, but it's what we need to try. The thing is, you need three witches for it."
Morgan was quiet for a moment. Daniel Niall, Hunter's father, had almost killed himself trying to contact his wife in the netherworld. Contacting the dead was dark magick, ill-advised, and often ended tragically.
But this is Hunter.
She didn't have to think twice. "Let's do it," Morgan said. Sky went to the car. The only question was who to enlist to help. Hartwell? Keady? In other times, when she had a difficult question about magick, she would have turned to Katrina. Not now. She wished she could call up Alyce Fernbrake, who had worked at Practical Magick back in Widow's Vale so long ago. Alyce was almost eighty now and living quietly over the store she still owned but no longer managed. Morgan hadn't seen her in eight years. It would be presumptuous to call her for advice now.
The front door opened, startling Morgan. "Look what the cat dragged in," Sky said, coming back in.
Moira looked like she had been hauled through a hedge backward. Several times.
Morgan stood up and ran to her. It was clear that she'd been crying hard, and it looked as if she had fallen. Finnegan was right behind her, panting, wet, and muddy. Sky grabbed his collar and a dish towel and started rubbing him down.
For a minute Morgan just looked at Moira. She saw her height and slenderness. And her hair, that fine, straight, light hair-it was more Hunter than Morgan. But the pain in Moira's eyes was a reflection of Morgan's pain.
Morgan drew her daughter to her. Selfishly, Morgan was grateful that Moira couldn't be angry with her about this the way she had been about Ciaran. This hadn't been Morgan's decision, Morgan's fault.
"I was worried about you," Morgan said.
"I just ran and ran and ended up on the headland, above the cliffs. Ian came and found me there."
"Oh." How had he managed to find her? "Did he… help you feel better?"
A nod. "I told him everything," Moira said, sounding both defiant and tired.
"Oh, Moira," said Morgan sympathetically. "I wish you hadn't. It's family business, our business."
Moira sniffled and shrugged helplessly. "I'm sorry… it all just came out. I had told him about Ciaran, too, and then afterward wished I hadn't. But I was so upset… I'm sorry. I know you're not sure about him and his mother, but he's been so good to me."
Morgan knew the last thing Moira needed right now was to be pushed on the subject of Ian-and his family. "Well, why don't you go take a hot shower," she suggested. "Then we'll talk."
Moira nodded and headed upstairs. "Morgan," Sky said when Moira was out of earshot, "I think I know who our third witch should be."
Morgan met Sky's gaze uncertainly. "Moira," she said simply.
An hour later the three of them went into Morgan's workroom. It was impossible for Morgan to keep her eyes off Moira-she kept examining every aspect of her daughter in order to find traces of Hunter, which now seemed so evident. And even her personality-she too kept much inside, like Hunter. They shared a similar dry humor. And Moira was tenacious, like Hunter-she couldn't let go of things.
"You don't have to do this," Morgan told Moira as she got out her own tools. "Usually it would be for three initiated witches. It's almost certain that Hunter is, in fact, dead-has been dead all these years. If he's dead and we contact him, we could all be in danger."
"I want to do it," Moira said.