Where had he been during the attack and clean up the following day? Definitely not doing his job, because I had terrifying memories of a certain werewolf and the Old Wood to prove that.

Jack's words echoed in my mind as my doubt arose,

"Your little bloodsucker friend set fire to the Manor … his demon hordes destroy the city."

I chewed on my nail while my brain ran over every explanation that could clear up the sudden problem I'd realized. While I seriously doubted he was behind the attack on Old Wood, there was now a possibility. And when doubt enters a person's mind followed by possibility of their guilt…

When I tried to go to sleep and think well of Blaine in my dreams, it didn't exactly come easy. In fact, my dreams were nightmares after I closed my eyes.

First, I saw Fiona looking evil and then doing horrible things to me all over again, since I had just come from a near-death experience. I fought against my dream, then, and ended up making Fiona go away by shouting. When she disappeared, Blaine appeared. He was gentlemanly at first, but then his figure twisted from human-looking to a demonic form. His eyes glowed red and his skin sharpened and darkened. I wanted to run, but he came at me before I got away.

When I opened my eyes, a veil of terror cloaked my senses. It took awhile for me to completely calm down, like after a hot cup of tea from the kitchen.

I tried to rationalize with myself. Blaine couldn't be in league with the demon Fiona associated herself with.

But, if this were true, where had he been during the attack?

I sighed out a long breath over the steaming tea cup. I knew how to solve this problem- I would just ask him! He would give a good explanation and then I could sleep well knowing that Jack was a liar who was just being manipulated by Fiona.

Even then, I wouldn't sleep well. I had really started to like Jack, disregarding the part when he really tried to kill me, so it sucked to see him siding with Fiona. This situation was really lose-lose. I let out another sigh and made to leave the kitchen, nearly running into Jack himself. He and I stared at each other for what seemed like hours, before I apologized and quickly made my exit. Jack stared after me as I hurriedly made my way to the front door, and out into the yard.

Well, that had certainly been awkward. I glanced back at the front door, muttering something along the lines of stupid, brainwashed werewolves and made my way towards Twix's window. It was a good twenty feet above me, but that didn't matter much. Witches had a way of communicating from afar. As long as their familiars were close enough to each other, they could pass along messages; much like Crispin was doing now. His metallic form turned hot against my skin, almost scalding, and his eyes glowed red. A few moments later, I could just make out the shape of Gwen's feline form pacing along the windowsill, her icy blue eyes darting between the inside of Twix's room and me. It only took seconds before Twix's spiky head popped out of the window and she smirked down at me.

"Another crisis-talk, so soon?" she asked, half teasing. I rolled my eyes and shrugged helplessly.

"Just get your sarcastic butt down here," I snorted, tapping Crispin's head so that he could send the message to Josephine's familiar, Rupert. As I always did when I was in serious doubt of something, I ran for my friends. Twix was in the process of carefully climbing down the dried up vines that lined the Manor walls, and Josephine was just now opening her window.

She smiled down at me, looking very much like Juliet, or Rapunzel, or any other beautiful heroine of the past and raised an inquisitive eyebrow.

"Why don't we fly tonight?" Josephine asked softly. "I've done enough work on my feet this week that if I never walked again, it would be too soon."

Twix grunted softly as she jumped the last few feet to the ground, landing with the grace of a cat. Sometimes, I really envied her. She smirked at me, as if reading my thoughts, before turning her dark eyes on Josephine.

"Broom ride," Twix muttered, her voice calculating, after a few seconds she perked up. "Sounds fun."

I pursed my lips in concentration, trying to remember my summoning spell; once I got it down, my broom appeared. Literally, out of nowhere.

"Okay, Cali." Twix sighed, mounting her bright red broom stick "You talk, we ride."

"Sometimes I wonder why you weren't born human, Twix," Josephine said softly as she glided toward us- already on her broom, "You're certainly theatrical enough to be one."

"Yes," Twix agreed. "But I'm also magical, so in that case I should be a unicorn."

I snorted out a laugh. "You may be theatrical and magical, but you are certainly no unicorn. If I recall, unicorns are supposed to be innocent- something that you lack."

Twix's dark eyes snapped to me, there was something there, rolling just beneath their dark surface, and she smiled. "You're right." Twix said. "Cali would be the unicorn, I'd be the-"

"Succubus," Josephine put in. I laughed aloud as Josephine snickered, after a few seconds of Twix growling, she cracked a smile.

"Perhaps," Twix said after a while, laughing right along with us. "Now let's get out of here St. Josephine and Cali the innocent unicorn."

Josephine and I laughed, soaring higher into the sky. Hopefully, my friends would be able to put things in perspective for me.

"You're being an idiot." That was the first thing Twix said to me after I told her about Blaine. "We've already talked about this, Fiona is a manipulative bitch- yeah, it sucks that she got to werewolf boy, who is completely capable of ripping us to shreds when the full moon comes around, but it's not like we didn't see this coming. She's trying to alienate you as much as possible so that when it comes time to rat her out to the mother's no one will believe you."

I frowned at the witch resting like a snoozing cheetah on her broomstick. "Is that supposed to make me feel better?"

Twix raised an eyebrow and shrugged one shoulder disinterestedly. "Did it?"

"No."

"Then, no,"

Josephine rolled her eyes at our little exchange, and maneuvered her broom so the she was facing the manor. Right now, we weren't hovering above the safest of areas; we were actually about fifty feet above Lake Dread- for privacy mostly. No one ever wandered around in this area, but it was still unsettling.

My eyes flicked down towards the smoky water of the lake, and I could swear that I saw a giant shadow fall over the area of water directly beneath us. After staring for a few seconds, I realized that it wasn't a shadow above the water, but something underneath the surface. Something big, and dark. I continued to stare, and a large, yellow eye popped out. It stared intently at us.

"Let's go," I said hurriedly.

"Right behind you."

"Agreed."

Apparently I wasn't the only one who saw that particularly blood-curdling sea monster. Josie and Twix's eyes were the size of serving platters as the monster in the murky water let one of its grotesque, slimy tentacles emerge from the water and test the air. Expecting the worst, I tensed and kept my eyes on the moving part… But the appendage only moved lazily back and forth, as if the thing was actually waving at us. The three of us sighed. Our reflex for escape relaxed as the monster let a couple more of its disgusting arms surface above the water and dance around.

"It's cute even though it's so ugly," Twix said. We giggled and took our eyes off the yellow-eyed octopus-fish thing to continue our conversation.

Big mistake.

One moment I saw Josie right in front of me, the next, one of the monster's tentacles whipped up with lightning speed to knock the girl off her broom. My friend screamed as she was flung from her broom down into the depths of the water.

"JOSIE!" Quicker than I could, Twix and her agile reflexes swooped down, avoiding the slimy arms in order to catch Josie before she hit the water. A fifty foot fall was fatal!

Twix threw a spell out at Josie to slow her descent just long enough to catch her on the length of the broom. I shouted with victory as my friends safely swooped out of danger, but momentarily forgot about my own predicament. One of the monster's long arms wacked me in the back and sent me forward, but thankfully I grabbed the front tip of the broomstick and saved myself a perilous plunge.

For the moment, anyway.

I clung onto the stick for dear life, and swung back and forth to regain my seat, but also to avoid the trashing tentacle.

Twix's broomstick could support her and Josie's combined weight, so they had to retreat to the shoreline, which meant there was no one to call for backup as the repugnant creature wrapped its gross tentacle around my leg. When I looked down, the one yellow eye had since turned into an entire head with three eerie eyes and one large, dreadful-looking mouth. I was definitely screwed.

"Cali!"

I heard my name right as the creature yanked me down from the broomstick. I screamed as loud as I could as I was swung through the air like a rock in a sling. The world passed as a blur and I convinced myself I was as good as dead when I saw the creature's mouth coming close and closer… Or was I the one moving closer to it?

The wind was knocked out of me when someone intercepted my fall and cradled me tightly against their chest until we dove gracefully into the dark waters.

I took a moment to gather myself before I surfaced, then I felt relieved to see Blaine's face, which was all wet and matted with his dark hair. "Swim!' he commanded, and took my hand under the water before kicking with everything his vampire strength had. I didn't even look back this time, because I knew the monster was just one step behind us. Its large mass caused small waves in the lake as it flailed around, trying to grab its dinner and getting angry that Blaine moved faster than it did in the water.

As soon as it became shallow enough to touch, my protector picked me up and sped out of the water to the safety of tree cover, where Josie and Twix waited impatiently.

"Impeccable timing, vamp," Twix teased, but it was visible on her face that she'd been incredibly worried.

"Just doin' my job," he said smoothly. I shot him a look- and he offered a smile. "You know I would have rescued you regardless. You're too cute to be eaten by a smelly sea creature."

Yeah, right. I was soaking wet and probably had some seaweed stuck in my red hair after being in that lake.

Josie and Twix hugged me as soon as Blaine set me on the ground. I couldn't help but laugh at their drenched fronts after they released me. I hardly felt any shock or leftover fear from that entire situation… I knew I was safe because of the vampire behind me.

There was no way he could be involved with anything. Right?

Curse my doubt, again.

"Let's get back before anything else tries to eat you troublesome witches," Blaine said.

Twix shot some witty comeback at him while Josie twisted her arm around mine and walked ahead with me. "See? He just saved you. Doesn't look like he's trying anything to me," she whispered with hope.

I nodded, and looked back to catch a glimpse of Blaine running his fingers through his hair to comb out the soaking tangles. After he moved his hand from his eyes, they glanced at me and I saw an emotion that made my stomach doing a flip: regret.

The doubt infiltrated my mind again like a dagger through flesh.

After the four of us returned to the manner, with two less broomsticks then we left with and two soaking bodies, my mother happened to be in the foyer we entered through and noticed our peculiarity right away.

"Callista, a word."

My friends and Blaine all exchanged looks- from the strict, impatient sound of my mother's voice, everyone knew I was in some sort of trouble. I obeyed quietly and walked into another room with my mom. She shut the door behind us and let the strict-woman act fall.

"What in Hex Hollow happened? You have seaweed in your hair…" She carefully picked it out while I struggled with the words. I wanted to tell her everything. But we all agreed it wasn't time yet. I hated keeping all this information from my mom and the other mothers when they could be helping us.

"I- We- The three of us left to go talk somewhere private. We ended up over Lake Dread, and this thing in the water attacked us. Blaine was there to save me, thankfully."

"Good, but you should know better than to hover over that lake! Have I taught you nothing at all?"

I hung my head. "Yes, you have. I'm sorry."

"It's alright, my daughter. Your condition should be more than enough of a lesson to you." She wrapped her arms around me, but tried not to get wet. "Now, just what is it you all needed to talk about? Certainly my ear can be of service."

I swallowed my words back into my mouth. I couldn't tell her about Fiona and the demon… but maybe I could mention some other detail.

"Well, I've been confused about Jack. I spent an entire night with him in the Old Wood, where he hurt me, and yesterday he was acting as if I were the bad guy. It just really upset me, and he won't tell me why. Twix, Josie and I didn't want anyone to eavesdrop, so we took the conversation into the air."

My mother seemed too stiffen and quiet as soon as I mentioned Jack. Her eyes were glossy with memory, and I saw something similar in those eyes that I'd just identified in Blaine's. "Jack, acting weird? I see…" Her words seemed far-off, as if she were thinking about something else.

It was my turn to be concerned. "Mom, are you alright?"

"What? Yes, of course." She regained her animation after I tilted my head at her. I still wasn't all that convinced, but what right did I have to muscle a secret out of my mother when I held one too?

"Cali, if there's anything else you need to tell me, just let me know when you're ready."

"Funny, I was just about to say the same," I replied a little too coolly. I dodged from the room to go upstairs and change before she could say anything else.