nameâs Jessica Olsen.â Hold on, Jessica. Iâll find you. And Iâll keep your baby safe. Nothing will happen to Julie. As if sensing what I was thinking, Julie squirmed closer to me and we sat quietly, cloaked in the warm night. âTell me about the coven. Was your mom in long?â âNot long. Couple of months. She said they were worshipping a great goddess and weâd all be rich soon.â I sighed. When we found Esmeralda, she and I would have a nice long talk. âYou donât really get rich from worshipping. Especially not Morrigan.â âWhat kind of a goddess is she?â âCeltic kind. Old Irish. There are a few versions of her, so Iâll tell you what I think might be close to the truth. Morrigan is three goddesses rolled into one. She changes depending on what she wants to do. Kind of like putting on different outfits. Itâs called having divine aspects. Sometimes she is the goddess of fertility and prosperity and her name is Annan. Iâm guessing thatâs the aspect your mom worshipped. Annan also guides dead people to their resting place in the Otherworld. Thatâs the place where the Celtic dead live. The second aspect is Macha. She oversees kingship, governance, and horses. The third aspect is Badb, the great battle crow.â I paused. In light of Julieâs missing mom, mentioning that the Badb drank the blood of the fallen and reveled in the slaughter was not a good idea. âIâve forgotten what the first one is called.â Julieâs voice gained a slight sleepy thickness. Excellent. She needed sleep and so did I. âIt doesnât really matter. Theyâre all Morrigan.â âWho did she battle?â âFomorians. Thatâs the thing to remember about gods: they always have someone to fight. Greek gods fought Titans, Viking gods fought Frost Giants, and Irish gods fought Fomorians, the sea-demons. Morrigan kicked a lot of butt, and finally the Fomorians were driven into the sea.â My Celtic mythology was a bit rusty. Iâd have to brush up the first chance I got. Nobody could hope to remember all of the mythological heavyweights, so the trick wasnât to know everything. The trick was to know enough to figure out where to find the rest. âSo why canât you get rich worshipping her?â Julie yawned. âBecause Morrigan doesnât grant wishes. She makes deals. That means she always wants something in return.â Only fools made bargains with deities. She closed her eyes. Good. Sleep, Julie. âKate?â âMmm?â âHow did your mom die?â I opened my mouth to lie. The response was automatic: I hid my blood, I hid my magic, and I hid the truth of where I came from. But for some odd reason, the lie didnât come out. I wanted to tell her the real story. Or at least a part of it. I never spoke of it and now the words itched my tongue. Whatâs the harm? She was only a child. It would be like a twisted good-night story. She would forget it by morning. âI was only a few weeks old. My father and mother were running away. A man was chasing them. He was very powerful and evil. My mother knew that of the two of them my dad was the stronger one. She was slowing him down.â My voice shook a little. I didnât expect the words to be so hard. âSo my mother gave me to my dad and told him to run. She would delay the evil man as long as she could. He didnât want to go but he realized it was the only way to save me. The evil man caught my mom and they fought. She stabbed him in the eye, but he was very powerful, and she couldnât kill him. And thatâs how my mother died.â I tucked the blanket around her. âThatâs a sad story.â âIt is.â Itâs not finished, either. Not by a long shot. She patted the afghan still on my lap. âDid you make this?â âYes.â âItâs nice.