Night World 02 - Daughters of Darkness by L. J. Smith

Author:L. J. Smith
Format: mobi
ISBN: 9780340689820
Publisher: Hodder Children's Books
Published: 1997-03-18T23:00:00+00:00

But Kestrel was speaking to Rowan, too. "No matter what they promise, how do we know we can believe them?"

Rowan considered, eyes roving around the clearing. Then she let out a long breath and nodded.

"There's only one way," she said. "Blood-tie."

Kestrel's eyebrows flew up. "Oh, really?"

"What is it?" Mary-Lynnette asked.

"A blood-tie?" Rowan looked helpless. "Well, it's a kinship ceremony, you know." When Mary-Lynnette just looked at her, she went on: "It makes our families related. It's like, one of our ancestors did it with a family of witches.:'

Witches, Mary-Lynnette thought. Oh ... gosh. So witches are real, too. I wonder how many other things are real that I don't know about?

"Vampires don't usually get along with witches," Rowan was saying. "And Hunter Redfern-that's our ancestor-had a real blood feud going with them back in the sixteen hundreds."

"But then he couldn't have kids," Jade said gleefully. "And he needed a witch to help or the whole Redfern family would end with him. So he had to apologize and do a kinship ceremony. And then he had all daughters. Ha ha."

Mary-Lynnette blinked. Ha ha?

"So, you see, we're part witch. All the Redfern are," Rowan was explaining in her gentle teaching voice.

"Our father used to say that's why we're so disobedient," Jade said. "Because it's in our genes. Because in witch families, women are in charge."

Mary-Lynnette began to like witches. "Ha ha," she said. Mark gave her a skittish sideways look.

"The point is that we could do a ceremony like that now," Rowan said. "It would make us family forever. We couldn't betray each other."

"No problem," Mark said, still looking at Jade.

"Fine with me,” Jade said, and gave him a quick, fierce smile.

But Mary-Lynnette was thinking. It was a serious thing Rowan was talking about. You couldn't do something like this on a whim. It was worse than adopting a puppy; it was more like getting married. It was a lifetime responsibility. And even if these girls didn't kill humans, they killed animals. With their teeth.

But so did people. And not always for food. Was it worse to drink deer blood than to make baby cows into boots?

Besides, strange as it seemed, she felt dose to the three sisters already. In the last couple of minutes she'd established more of a relationship with Rowan than she ever had with any girl at school. Fascination and respect had turned into a weird kind of instinctive trust.

And beside that, what other real choice was there? Mary-Lynnette looked at mark, and then at Rowan. She nodded slowly.

"Okay."

Rowan turned to Kestrel.

"So I'm supposed to decide, am I?" Kestrel said. "We can't do it without you," Rowan said. "You know that."

Kestrel looked away. Her golden eyes were narrowed. In the moonlight her profile was absolutely perfect against the darkness of trees. "It would mean we could never go home again. Make ourselves kin to vermin? That's what they'd say."

"Who's vermin?" Mark said, jolted out of his communion with Jade.

Nobody answered. Jade said, with odd dignity, "I can't go home, anyway.

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