"Z! There you are." Jack came scampering over to me with Damien close behind him.

"Sorry. I hurried as fast as I could," I said.

Damien smiled. "Not a problem. Everything's ready for you." His smile faded a little. "Well, except Aphrodite. She's nowhere to be seen."

"I've seen her. She's coming. Go ahead and take your place." Damien nodded. He went back to the circle and Jack moved over to the audio equipment area (the kid is a genius with any kind of electronic equipment).

"Whenever you're ready, just let me know," he called.

I smiled at him, then looked back at the circle. The Twins waved at me from their places in the south and west. Erik was standing near the empty spot behind the earth candle. He caught my eyes and winked at me. I smiled back, but wondered why he was standing so close to where he knew Aphrodite was going to be. Speaking of... Annoyed that she had managed to make me wait for her, I glanced at the door in time to see Aphrodite twitch into the room. I watched her hesitate, and thought her face went kinda pale as she looked over at the circle of waiting Dark Daughters and Sons. Then she lifted her chin and tossed back her blond mane, and ignoring everyone, she strutted straight over to the northernmost part of the circle to stand behind the green candle. As kids caught sight of her, the easy talking was cut off like someone had pressed a mute button. No one said anything for a couple seconds, and then low whispering started. Aphrodite just stood there behind the candle, looking calm and beautiful and very stuck-up.

"Better get this thing started before you have a mutiny."

This time I didn't jump at the sound of Loren's deep, sexy voice coming from close behind me. I did turn around, though, mostly so that people (Erik) couldn't see what I'm sure was an inappropriate-for-public-consumption look on my face as I smiled up at him.

"I'm as ready as I'll ever be," I said.

"And she's supposed to be here?" Loren jerked his chin in the direction of Aphrodite.

"Sadly, yes," I said.

"This should be interesting."

"That's me and my life-interesting. As in a isn't-that-car-wreck-interesting kind of a way." Loren laughed. "Break a leg."

"To me that would happen literally." I sighed, settled my face, and turned back around to face the circle. "I'm ready," I said.

"I'll cue the music. You start your dance to the center as I recite the poem," Loren said. I nodded and concentrated on my breathing and settling myself. When the music started, the whispering circle went completely still. All eyes were on me. I didn't recognize the song, but the beat was steady, rhythmic, sonorous, reminding me of a pulse. My body automatically picked it up and I began to move around the outside of the circle.

Loren's voice complemented the music perfectly.

"I have been one acquainted with the night.

I have walked out in rain-and back in rain..."

The words of the old poem set the mood perfectly, somehow conjuring images of the otherworldliness that I'd begun to be comfortable with during my solitary trips away from campus.

"I have looked down the saddest city lane.

I have passed by the watchman on his heat

And dropped my eyes, unwilling to explain. "

I could almost feel the darkness of last night and how it seemed to seep into my skin. And I knew again the sense that I belonged more to it than to the human world that surrounded me. As I moved into the circle, I shivered and heard Damien's small gasp of surprise, and I knew that mist and magic had taken over my body.

"And further still at an unearthly height,A luminary clock against the sky Proclaimed the time was neither wrong nor right.

I have been one acquainted with the night."

Loren's voice faded away and I twirled around one last time, willing away the sense of mist and magic, so that I was now fully visible. Still filled with night magic, I picked up the ritual lighter from the riches-laden table in the center of the circle and realized that maybe for the first time I felt like a true High Priestess of Nyx, drenched in the Goddess's magic and complete with her power. All the stress I'd been dealing with was washed away by a wave of happiness. I walked lightly over to stand in front of Damien. He smiled and whispered, "That was really cool!"

I smiled back at him and lifted the lighter. The words that came instinctively to my mind had to have come from Nyx. I'd definitely never been so poetic. "Soft and whispering winds from afar, greetings be unto thee. In the name of Nyx I call you to blow clear and fresh and free, and call you here to me!" I touched the flame to the wick on Damien's yellow candle and was instantly surrounded by a sweet, caressing wind. I hurried to Shaunee and her red candle. Deciding to go with the special sense of priestess magic I was feeling, I began the invocation without lifting the lighter. "Warming and quickening fire from afar, with the warmth that brings forth life, and in the name of Nyx, I send greetings unto thee, and call you here to me!" I flicked my fingers at the candlewick, and it burst into a beautiful flame. Shaunee and I grinned at each other before I followed the circle around to Erin.