“Oh, I don't know,” she said, and marveled to hear how casual her voice sounded. “I just didn't want anybody-like Suzan or Faye-to get the wrong impression. You don't mind, do you? It didn't seem very important.”
Adam was looking at her in an odd way, hesitating, but then he nodded. “If that's what you want, I won't mention it,” he said.
Relief washed over Cassie, but she kept her voice light. “Okay, thanks. Oh, by the way,” she went on, fishing in her pocket. “I've been meaning to give this back to you. Here.” It was strange how her fingers seemed to cling to the chalcedony rose, but she managed to open them and drop it into his hand. It lay on his palm, the quartz crystals seeming to capture a little of the starlight.
“Thanks for loaning it to me,” she said. “But now that I'm an official witch, I'll probably be finding my own stones to work with. And besides”-she curved her lips in a teasing smile-“we don't want anybody to get the wrong impression about that either, do we?”
She had never in her life acted like this with a boy, teasing and carefree and confident. Almost flirtatious while making it clear that she meant nothing by it. And it was so easy-she'd never imagined it could be this easy. It came, she supposed, from the fact that she was playing a role. It wasn't Cassie standing here; it was someone else, someone who wasn't afraid because the worst had already happened and there was nothing left to fear anymore.
A wry smile had touched Adam's lips, as if he were responding automatically to her tone, but it disappeared almost instantly. He was looking at her hard, and she forced herself to return his gaze blandly and innocently, the way she had returned Jordan's on the beach that day in August. Believe me, she thought, and this time she knew the power of her own thoughts, the power she could draw on to enforce her will. Sky and water, sand and sea; As I will, so let it be. Believe me, Adam. Believe me. Believe me.
He looked away from her suddenly, turning sharply toward the ocean. It reminded Cassie, to her surprise, of the way she had broken free of Faye's mesmerizing gaze.
“You've changed,” he said, and there was wonder in his voice. Then he turned back to look at her with that hard, unrelenting gaze again. “You've really changed.”
“Of course. I'm a witch now,” she said reasonably. “You should have told me that in the beginning-it would have saved a lot of trouble,” she added in a scolding tone.
“I didn't know. I could sense-something-in you, but I never thought of you being one of us.”
“Oh, well, it all turned out okay,” Cassie said quickly. She didn't like him talking about what he sensed in her. It was too dangerous. “Anyway, thanks for walking me home. This is where I go up.”
With a final smile, she turned away and quickly climbed the narrow path. She couldn't believe it. She'd pulled it off! The relief that flooded her was actually painful, and when she reached the top of the path and saw her house, her knees felt weak. Oh, thank you, she thought, and started for it.
“Wait,” a ringing, authoritative voice behind her said.
I should have known it wouldn't be that easy, Cassie thought. Slowly, keeping her face expressionless, she swiveled to look at him.
The faint light from above reflected off the planes of his face as he stood on the bluff with the ocean behind him. Those high cheekbones, those humorous, expressive lips. There was no humor now. His eyes were as keen and piercing as when he had stared after Jordan and Logan that day on the beach, radiating a power she didn't understand, frightening her. They frightened her now.
“You're good,” he said. “But I'm not completely stupid. There's something you're not telling me, and I
want to know what it is.”
“No, you don't.” The words escaped her lips before she could stop them, but their flat sincerity was unmistakable. “I mean-there's nothing I'm not telling you.”
“Listen to me,” he said, and to her dismay he stepped closer. “When I first met you,” he said, “I had no idea you were one of us. How could I? But I knew that you were different than that phony friend of yours. Not just another pretty girl, but somebody special.”
Pretty? He thought I was pretty? Cassie was thinking wildly. The clear, despairing calm was leaving her, and she clung to it desperately. Look cool and blank, she ordered herself. Politely inquiring. Let nothing show.
Adam's blue-gray eyes were flashing now, his odd, proud face clearly revealing his anger. But it was the hurt in the depths of those eyes that confused Cassie most.
“You weren't like any girl I'd met on the outside-you could accept mysterious things-even mystical things-without being afraid of them or trying to destroy them on sight. You were… open. Tolerant. You didn't automatically hate and reject anything different.”
“Not as tolerant as Diana. Diana's the most-“
“This hasn't got anything to do with Diana!” he said, and Cassie realized that he meant it. He was so completely honest and straightforward that betrayal had never even entered his mind.
“I thought,” he went on, “that you were someone I could trust. With my life, even. And when I saw you hold out against Jordan-a guy practically twice your size-I knew I was right. It was one of the bravest things I'd ever seen-and all for a stranger. You let him hurt you for my sake, and you didn't even know me.”
Show nothing, Cassie thought. Nothing.
“And afterward, I felt something special with you. A special understanding. I can't explain it. But I've thought about it ever since. I've thought about you a lot, Cassie, and I was just waiting to tell Diana about you. I wanted her to know that she was right, that there were some outsiders who could deal with us, who could be trusted. Who might be friends of magic. She's been trying for a long time to get the Club to believe that. I wanted to tell her that you'd opened my eyes-in a lot of ways. After I left you, I even seemed to see more when I went out on fishing boats looking for the Master Tools. I'd look for islands while we were out laying the lines, and all of a sudden I felt like I could see clearer-or as if the ocean was revealing things. Helping me. I wanted to tell Diana that too, and see if she could explain it.