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“For what it’s worth, I don’t like this much more than you do,” I admitted, sitting on the bed with my folded hands between my knees. “I have no desire to meet new dragons, for one. This clan is more than enough for my tastes.”

“Agreed,” Iris whispered.

“And I have no desire to see Appalachia,” I added. “It might be lovely, but that matters little to me.”

“I agree on that as well.”

“But there’s nothing we can do about it. If these dragons have some information, something that might help us, we need to have it. It could make a tremendous difference to us for generations to come. Don’t you think we owe it to ourselves and our future bloodline to pursue this if it will make such a difference?”

“I suppose I’m too set in my ways.” Another flicker of the lights, and the bed trembled beneath me. “I don’t like change. This has already been more than enough change for me.”

I snorted. “We can agree on that much. But we’ve managed to survive, haven’t we? It hasn’t killed us, nor has it broken the coven. Nothing can break us. Am I right?”

“You’re right.”

“And have I ever been wrong before—when it’s truly counted?” I added when she opened her mouth to disagree.

“When it truly counted?” She sighed, looking up at the ceiling as if she had to think about it.

“All right, all right, but you get my point, I’m sure.”

“I get your point. I don’t have to like it, but I get it.” She was shaking her head as she walked to the door. “Don’t complain to me when this starts to go south, all right?”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” I murmured, smiling to myself even after she left the room. Iris had always been one to live with her emotions close to the surface. She felt everything keenly and had rarely been one to think before reacting.

This would make her the ideal traveling companion, I thought with a roll of my eyes. What would the American clan think of her? Of any of us, for that matter?

Why the dragons had to come with us, I still had no idea. Why my mother believed us incapable of taking care of ourselves was a mystery. She was the one person who ought to be aware of our power, yet she had no faith in us.

“Is that truly what you believe?”

My head snapped around hard enough to leave a crick in my neck when my mother suddenly appeared at my door.

“What was that?” I asked, flustered.

“I felt what you were thinking.” She stepped into the room without asking whether I would allow it, but that was her way. Why would she change her ways simply because we’d gone from living in one cave to living in another?

She would feel it, wouldn’t she? The High Priestess, the most powerful of all of us. I could trust my shield to hold up against my sister, my coven, the dragons. But not my mother.

“If you felt it, you must know it to be what I was thinking.” I’d learned many years ago not to lie. Lying was a waste of time and effort, and it only made the person telling the lies look ridiculous.

Besides, trust was not an easy thing to regain once it had been lost. If I was willing to lie about something as relatively inconsequential as the thoughts I knew very well my mother could already sense or feel, what else was I willing to lie about?

“You think that little of me? That I would have no faith in you? I, who know better than anyone what you’re capable of?”

“It seems to me that if you were aware of our abilities, you would see how unnecessary it is to send chaperones.”

“Chaperones.” She laughed softly, shaking her head. “It worries me that you see it this way.”

“What other way is there to see it?”

Her laughter ended. “I’ve never thought you dense, but it seems you’re determined to prove me wrong. Would I allow my daughters, my coven, out into the world without protection? And yes, it is protection, make no mistake about it. I want you protected.”

“From what?” I stood, facing her. The very sight of my mother had always been rather awe-inspiring—her beauty, the way she held herself, the grace with which she moved—but I couldn’t look at her that way just then. I couldn’t allow myself to be dazzled.

“From the world. Nothing less than the world.” She came nearer, reaching out to stroke my hair. A comforting caress, one as familiar to me as my name. “You are too precious. Would that I might avoid sending you out. But you and Calliope are also the two I trust more than any others. If I cannot go, I would have you go in my place. You can translate the runes and be of service to the coven.”

She knew just what to say. Service to the coven. Who wouldn’t wish to serve? To distinguish themselves? To be a heroine in their mother’s eyes?

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