"It was hot," I said. There are few topics less complicated and unpleasant than weather, right? "Outside. Where exactly is the Brannicks'

place?"

"Tennessee," Mom answered.

"Okay, well that's...Wait, Tennessee?" I sat up to look at Mom. "I used the Itineris to travel from England to here. It's this magic portal thingie," I started to explain, but she was nodding like she already knew. "Anyway, I left Thorne at night, and I got here at night, so I couldn't have gone that far."

Mom was watching me very carefully. "Sophie," she said, and something in her voice made my stomach go icy. "Thorne Abbey burned down nearly three weeks ago."

I stared at her. "That's impossible. I was there. I was there last night,"

Shaking her head, Mom reached out and cupped my cheek. "Sweetheart, it's been seventeen days since we got word of what happened at Thorne. I thought..." Her voice cracked. "I thought you'd been captured or killed. When Finley brought you in tonight, it was like a miracle." My mind was reeling.

Seventeen days.

I remembered stepping into the Itineris, remembered the crushing, still blackness. But I'd only felt it for a moment or two before I'd found myself flat on my back in the woods. How had seventeen days passed in the space of a few heartbeats?

Then another thought occurred to me. "If it's been that long since Thorne burned down, you must have heard something about Dad. Or Cal, or the Casnoffs."

"They're all gone," a voice said from across the room.

I whipped my head around, wincing as I did. A woman leaned against the doorframe, holding a steaming mug. She was wearing jeans and plain black T-shirt, and her red hair, darker than Izzy's, fell over her shoulder in a long braid.

"Vanished off the face of the earth," she continued, moving into the room. Beside me, I could feel Mom stiffen. "James Atherton, the warlock boy, the other warlock boy, those Casnoff witches, and their pet demon. We figured you disappeared with them until you showed up trying to kill my daughter."

I'd guessed this badass woman was Aislinn Brannick. Still, actually having her in front of me sent my stomach somewhere south of my knees. I cleared my throat. "In my defense, she pulled a knife first," I said.

To my surprise, Aislinn made a rusty sound that might have been a chuckle. She handed me the mug. "Drink this."

"Um, how 'bout, no," I replied, staring at the dark green contents. Whatever the liquid was, it smelled like pine trees and dirt, and seeing how this woman was Izzy's mom, I figured it was poisoned.

But Aislinn just shrugged. "Don't, then. No skin off my nose if your head hurts."

"It's okay," Mom said, never taking her eyes off Aislinn. "It'll make you feel better."

"By making me dead?" I asked. "I mean, I'm sure that would make my headache go away, but that's a heck of a side effect."

"Sophie," Mom murmured, a warning tone in her voice.

But Aislinn just regarded me shrewdly, a tiny smile playing on her lips. "She's got a mouth on her, that's for sure," she said. Her eyes flicked to Mom. "Must've gotten that from him. You were always quiet."

I looked to Mom, confused, but she was still watching Aislinn Brannick, her face pale.

"You need to get downstairs in five minutes," Aislinn said, moving to stand at the foot of the bed. "Family meeting." I took a very hesitant sip from the warm mug. It tasted even worse than it smelled, but as soon as it slid down my throat, I felt some of the pain in my skull recede. Closing my eyes, I leaned back against the headboard. "Why do you need us for that?" I asked. "Can't you guys just...Brannick it up without us?"

A heavy silence fell over the room, and when I opened my eyes, Mom and Aislinn were staring at one another.

"She doesn't know?" Aislinn asked at last, and a mix of dread and anger rose up in my chest. I didn't want to deal with this. I wasn't ready to deal with this, not yet.

But when Mom turned to me, I knew. I saw it in the fear and sadness on her face, in the way her hands were clutching the blanket. And I knew that whether I wanted to face it or not, there was a very simple reason for why she was here.

Still, I heard myself ask, "Mom?"

But it was Aislinn answered. "Your mother is a Brannick, Sophia. Which makes you one of us, too."

CHAPTER 4

When the door clicked shut behind Aislinn, Mom lowered her face into her hands with a shuddery exhale. I downed the rest of the drink Aislinn had given me. Instantly, my head felt better. In fact, everything felt better, and I felt almost...perky, even though my mouth felt like I'd just licked a pine tree.

But the gross taste in my mouth was fine. That gave me something to focus on other than the fact that basically everything in my life had been a lie. Or that I'd somehow lost seventeen days. Or that I'd had a ghost inside of my body.

Suddenly, I missed Jenna so much that it was almost a physical ache. I wanted to hold her hand, and hear her say something that would make this whole situation funny instead of incredibly screwed up.

Archer would've been nice, too. He probably would've raised an eyebrow in that annoying/hot way he had, and made a dirty joke about Elodie possessing me.

Or Cal. He wouldn't say anything, but just his presence would make me feel better. And Dad-

"Sophie," Mom said, shaking me out of my reverie. "I don't...I don't even know how to start explaining all of this to you." She looked at me, her eyes red. "I meant to, so many times, but everything was always so...complicated. Do you hate me?" I took a deep breath. "Of course not. I mean, I'm not thrilled. And I totally reserve the right to angst over all this later. But honestly, Mom? Right now, I'm so happy to see you that I wouldn't care if you're secretly a ninja sent from the future to destroy kittens and rainbows." She chuckled, a choked and watery sound. "I missed you so much, Soph."

We hugged, my face against her collarbone. "I want the whole story, though," I said, my words muffled. "All of it on the table." She nodded. "Absolutely. After we talk to Aislinn."

Pulling back, I grimaced. "So how exactly are you related to her? Are you guys like, cousins?"

"We're sisters."

I stared at her. "Wait. So you're like, a Brannick Brannick? But you don't even have red hair." Mom got off the bed, twisting her ponytail into a bun. "It's called dye, Soph. Now, come on. Aislinn is already in a mood."

"Yeah, picked up on that," I muttered, shoving the covers off and standing up.

Mom and I left the bedroom and headed out to the dim landing. There was only one other room on this floor, and I suddenly found myself thinking of Thorne Abbey and all its corridors and chambers. It was still hard to believe a place that massive could just be...gone.

We headed down a narrow flight of stairs that ended at a low arch. Beyond the arch was yet another murky room. Did these people have something against overhead lighting?

I spotted an ancient green refrigerator, and a round wooden table positioned under a grimy window. The smell of coffee hung in the air and there was a half-finished sandwich on the counter, but the kitchen was empty. "They must be in the War Room," Mom said, almost to herself.

"Hold up; did you just say 'War Room'?" I asked, but Mom had already moved past the kitchen and was rounding a corner. I trudged after her, trying to get a sense of the house. The main word that came to mind was "spartan." At Thorne, there had been so much stuff-paintings, tapestries, knickknacks, freakin' suits of armor-that your eyes couldn't process all of it. Here, it was like everything that wasn't completely necessary had been stripped away. Heck, even some things that were necessary seemed to be missing. I hadn't seen a bathroom yet.

There were no windows, just several fluorescent bulbs affixed to the ceiling, throwing a sickly light over everything. And by "everything," I mean the one dingy brown couch, some metal folding chairs, a couple of overflowing bookshelves, some cardboard boxes, and a huge, round table covered in papers.

Oh, and the weapons.

There were all kinds of scary instruments of death littered from one end of the room to the other. Next to the couch, I counted three crossbows, and there was a pile of what looked like those throwing star thingies on top of one of the bookcases.

Izzy was sitting cross-legged on the couch, a paperback book in her hands. She didn't look up when we came in, and I wondered what she was reading that had her so absorbed. Monster Killing for Beginners, probably.

The only other people in the room were Aislinn and a girl who looked around my age. When Mom and I walked through the door, both their heads shot up from a book they were studying. I saw a Maglite tucked into a holster around the girl's waist. So this was Finley, Wielder of Flashlights. I rubbed the crown of my head, and she scowled at me.

I turned to look at my quiet, bookish mother, a woman I had honestly never seen swat a fly. "I'm sorry, but there is no way you grew up here. It's not even possible."

There was a whirring sound, and I felt something pass by my face. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Mom's hand go up, and suddenly she was holding the hilt of a knife-a knife that had apparently just been hurled at her head. The whole thing had happened in less than a second.

I swallowed. "Never mind."

Mom didn't say anything, but kept her gaze focused on Aislinn, who, I noticed, still had one hand slightly raised. She was smiling. "Grace was always the quickest of all of us," she said, and I realized she was talking to me. Smiling at me.

"Okay," I finally said. "Well, I didn't get that from her, in case you're wondering. I can't even catch a football." Aislinn chuckled, even as Finley's scowl deepened.

"So you're the demon spawn," Finley spit out.

"Finn!" Aislinn snapped. Huh. So at least one of the Brannicks hated me. Weirdly, that made me feel better. That was normal. And if there was one thing I knew how to deal with, it was Mean Girls.

"I actually go by Sophie."

From the couch, I heard a snort of laughter, and we all turned to look at Izzy. She covered her mouth and tried to turn it into a cough, but Finley still jerked her head and said, "Go on to your room, Iz."

Izzy closed the book and laid it on her lap, and I was surprised to see that it was To Kill a Mockingbird. "Finn," she protested. "I wasn't laughing like, with her." Izzy glowered at me. "She tried to kill me."

"Actually, I didn't," I broke in. There was a hard look in Aislinn's and Finley's eyes that scared the heck out of me. The last thing I wanted was to be held responsible for Elodie's actions, especially now that I was, technically, one of these women, and the words just came pouring out of my mouth. "See, I don't have powers anymore, because I was supposed to go through the Removal, and that sort of locked my magic away so that I can't use it. But there was this girl-well, this witch-Elodie, and because she passed her magic on to me when she died, we're connected. That means her ghost follows me around and stuff, so when you attacked me, she possessed my body. Which is new and, quite frankly, super freaky, and something that I haven't really processed yet. Anyway, she was the one who used magic on you. Oh, and held the sword to your throat, and said all that creepy stuff. I'm not creepy. At least not on purpose."