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“Is it true that there are male witches?” she asked me after a while.

I couldn’t help but think of Alaister.

“Yes, they exist...” I snapped off a branch from one of the trees lining the path, because my hands needed something to distract them from the itching in my wrists. “But they're very rare. I don't know of any myself.”

What if Julie was right and my father had been one? What if that was the explanation for my strange powers?

I stopped abruptly.

What if...

No, I didn't look like him.

When Tania put her hand on my elbow, I flinched.

“I'm sorry. It must have been traumatic for you, being there with them.”

I stared at her in confusion, and my spiral of thoughts evaporated, replaced by memories of the ritual, of the mayor with the dagger in her hand. Added to that were the dreams of the children in the abandoned house, the face of the girl who had disappeared with her family a long time ago, the image of the burned car from the late eighties in which an entire family had burned to death, images of Julian kneeling in front of Graham and, lastly, of me being torn away from my mother without warning.

“The whole town is traumatic for me.”

The pity in Tania's eyes hurt incredibly. She knew nothing about my pain. My pain didn't even feel justified.

“I thought I was human,” I tried again. She should know how I really had gotten here. “My mother kept all of this, her entire past, from me until my eighteenth birthday.”

We kept walking, and Tania let her gaze drift over the stream that continued to babble beside us.

“It sounds like she wanted to protect you.”

I had heard that far too many times already.

“We would both be in Sacramento now, not here, if that had really been the case.”

“I'm sure she had obligations,” Tania argued, and I wondered if she had had obligations.

“That may be. But then she could just as well have given me away when I was born.”

I caught myself alluding to Julian.

Tania looked straight ahead, as if focusing on something.

“She had the chance to raise you far away from this society. You should see it as a blessing, even though you might have needed the pack.”

“Like Julian.”

I bit my tongue and watched as Tania stopped and looked at me as if I had finally broached the subject she was here for.

“I thought he grew up with the pack?”

I knew it.

Tania and I took a path that led back to the mansion, and I decided to dive into the topic. Maybe I could find out how she really felt about her son and what her reasons had been for dumping him at Graham's.

“He told me he had a wonderful childhood.”

She nodded, and I noticed that she was hanging on my every word.

“Together with Emely and Nash.”