“Only because people keep throwing this crap at me!” I said loudly. “If everyone would leave me alone, I wouldn’t have to do this stuff!” Ivy’s bathroom door creaked again and she moved to her room. Can’t I have one conversation without everyone listening in?

“The council will come after you now,” I said, feeling better for some reason. “They know you’ve been helping me.”

His gaze was in the rafters. “They’d do that anyway. I was never officially shunned because I was coven and it would’ve been embarrassing.Shortsighted pig farmers. That I dealt with demons in order to kill them meant nothing. What they think isn’t worth a picayune.”

Focus blurring, I thought about the very powerful charms, no, curses, that I’d seen him twist, and then the conversation we’d had at Nick’s place. How come I couldn’t not care about what the coven thought?

“Just exactly why were they so hot to kill you, anyway?” I asked. I had to know. I’d seen what he was capable of, and I had to know what he’d done.

Head bowed, Pierce looked at his hands. “My situation wasn’t much of a circumstance,” he said sourly. “I held trust with demons to kill them, but you can imagine that didn’t mean a hooter to the coven. They were a sight more skerry of demons than they are today.”

The coffee table was between us, but my skin was tingling. “That’s why Al thought you’d kill me,” I said. “Because you kill demons, and I’m a student of one?”

Pierce shook his head. “I wouldn’t hurt you, even if you were a demon yourself.”

The back door slammed behind Ivy, and I jumped, having forgotten she was in here. “Good,” I said, a tad more bitter than I had intended, “because I probably am one.”

But Pierce only touched his nose and smiled. “You’re feeling better,” he asserted.

Yeah, I was. Suddenly nervous, I stood.

“It’s not what you are, but who you are,” Pierce said, and when he stood as well, I started edging into the hall. “I saw you when you had just tipped the scales to womanhood, and I can tell you that you’re much the same in your mind now as you were then.”

“And what is that?” I asked from within the dark hallway.

Pierce was silent until he stopped right before me, his face showing an unreadable emotion. “You’re firm in will, pure in intent, strong in magic. But now it’s tempered with wisdom, and you’re more beautiful and brilliant yet.” I went to turn away, and he pulled me back. “You are shades of gray swirling, balancing needs and desires,” he added, watching me. “You are good, Rachel. No matter what your choices lead you to, you will remain such.”