"I'm sorry." She motioned to the photographs on the wall. "I assumed she was your mother.”

He shook his head. “That's my aunt. She raised me. I never knew my mom. She was an earth witch, I'm told.”

She pursed her lips together for a moment. "Did Crane kill your mother, Jack?”

His gaze snapped to hers. "Why would you ask that?”

She didn't know how close to home she was hitting. His mother had probably killed herself because of his father. The doctors had diagnosed her with postpartum depression, and that may have played a role in her suicide, but Jack would never know for certain. Regardless of the reasons, she'd killed herself and left him behind to suffer life with his father alone.

"I don't know." She shrugged. "I thought maybe Crane had done something to hurt you on a personal level.”

Jack glanced away. "He did, but it wasn't that.”

"Okay." She paused. "Is your father still alive?”

He could hardly blame her for peppering him with questions, and she deserved all the answers she could get. Jack only wished he could give her the whole truth. "He's alive." His lips twisted into a rueful smile. "We don't talk much.”

"If your mother was an earth witch, what element was your father?”

"Fire. I got my ability from him," he answered.

She bit her lip. He watched that pink bit of flesh caught between her white teeth with interest. "Been meaning to ask you. Where do witches come from? I mean ... you know, are we aliens, or what?”

He exhaled the breath he hadn't known he'd been holding. She'd navigated away from the personal questions. "We don't know. There are theories. Maybe we're a different race, or humans who have evolved a bit further. We know we date back to Sumer. We know that once we lived among the non-magickicals and were worshipped like gods and goddesses for our control of the elements.”

"So witches were out of the closet once?”

He nodded. "There's speculation that we were the reason Goddess worship was labeled evil. There were non-magickal factions who feared us, so they tried to destroy us. We were forced to go underground. Once in awhile one of us would be exposed and it would ignite an inquisition. We try very hard not to be exposed these days." He paused. "That's a point both the Coven and the Duskoff can agree on.”

"I always thought the inquisitions were all church politics, mass hysteria, or greedy people persecuting others for their own gain.”

"There was lots of that, but our own have been killed too. The Salem witch hunts were sparked by a case of demon possession. A demon the Duskoff birthed possessed the bodies of several young girls in a village. The hysteria that followed had nothing to do with us. No real witches were executed.”

"So our origins are mostly unknown.”

He nodded. "Cloaked in mystery.”