Samantha's head was spinning. Her secret boyfriend was a Warlock? She could stab people with her thoughts. It was a lot to take in.

"Do you realize you started with 'there's something you maybe don't know about me'? Maybe?" she stopped. A frown spread across her face. "You marked me without telling me what was going on. You lied to me. You tricked me." For some reason, he wasn't ready for this reaction. The look of betrayal on her face hit him like a punch to the stomach. He waited to see what she would do. Slowly her face changed and she started to smile again. "Yeah, that was kind of jerky, but kind of sweet, too. Thank you. The whole side effect part is pretty cool, too, so thanks for that as well." He loved this girl. In that moment of acceptance and openness, he loved her. He felt his heart swell. She thought his being a Warlock was cool. Well, he supposed, she also thought stabbing people with her mind was cool. So, he supposed he should keep things in perspective.

"I think we need to contact the Council to try to figure out what is going on."

"I think we should wait on that. My step-father has been begging for karma to visit and it just hasn't come along. Until now, Tyler. This is my only chance to get back at him."

"The Council really should know, Samantha."

"Will they stop me from hurting him?"

"My people are sworn to protect humans. You can't hurt him on purpose."

"But I'm not a Warlock."

"Well, no, you'll never be a Warlock.... A Witch, you mean."

"What?"

"You're not a Witch. Warlocks are just male Witches. That's what a Warlock is."

"I knew that," the twinkle in her eye lightened the mood. "So, I'm not a Witch, which means that I don't have to follow your rules. Humans are not sworn to protect humans. I can hurt him on purpose."

"Samantha, going down that road can blacken the soul. The consequences of using this kind of power to harm someone can have disastrous effects. On you. I can't let you risk it."

"Oh please. He has it coming. And he blackened my soul the first time he laid his hands on me. My soul is already dark, Tyler." Without another hesitation, she closed her eyes and started to relive her darkest fantasy. Just a few short milliseconds of it. Just enough to end that miserable excuse for a human being. That miserable excuse for a man. For a dad. Tyler saw her eyes move quickly beneath her eyelids. Before he even realized what she was doing she opened them again. She'd been so quick about it. He probably didn't suffer enough, she thought. "Okay, I won't do any more. I promise." Tyler, not understanding, only felt relief.

"Thank you, Samantha. I know it's a sacrifice for you and I truly appreciate what you're not doing." He saw a strange look flutter across her face, but misinterpreted it. "I know it's hard to let him continue his life, but trust me, you will be glad of it in the long run. Come into the living room. We can have a drink before we call the Council to get to the bottom of this." He held her hand and took her to the kitchen.

He reached up and got a glass out of the cupboard. "Is water okay? .... Sam? Water?"

"What is that?"

"What?"

"That. What kind of book is that? I've never seen anything like it. It's amazing!"

"Oh! Right. The Book of Histories. I was trying to find out more information about the Fabric that separates our worlds. I didn't get far before you came in with your rather morbidly fascinating tale." She ran her fingers along the page that was showing.

"The Fabric, eh? I wonder if you're right about there being a connection between our symbols, the Fabric and my new-found power. It kind of makes sense, actually."

"It makes more than sense, I'm afraid," a new voice startled Samantha so much that she screamed. She turned and saw a beautiful woman standing in front of her. She had shortly cropped dirty blond hair with blue eyes that almost matched Tyler's perfectly.

"Back so soon, Mother?"

"She's your mother?"

"I can't remember the last time I saw her twice in one day," he looked his mother hard in the eyes. He knew her repeated presence was not good news.

"She used her magic to kill a human, Tyler. This is serious."

"No, she didn't."

"What if I did? So what?" Tyler looked at Samantha, his eyes full of the disbelief he felt. Did she? When? How? Oh my god, when she closed her eyes. She killed him when she closed her eyes. He saw her nod ever so slightly, confirming his thoughts. He closed his own eyes, trying to think of a way out of this very dangerous situation. "I'm human. I'm not bound by your laws."

"You're a Witch. You've broken the laws and you will have to face the consequences."

"No," he said it so quietly, that both women looked to him. "She didn't know, Mother."

"Ignorance has never stood as a defence, Tyler. You, of all people, should know there is never a defence in cases like these."

"But I'm not a Witch. I've been normal my whole life. Trust me, if I'd had powers before now that guy would have been dead long ago. He didn't deserve to live. He worked to keep people that he knew were guilty of horrible crimes free to continue their atrocities, and brutalized women in his free time. All around bad guy."

"I'm sorry, but I need to bring you to the Council. They have to decide your fate. Witch or not, you used our magic to harm a human."

~~

Samantha felt a great deal of disappointment. She deserved a medal. Not a punishment. What was the point of having such an insane weapon if you can't use it? She briefly relived the amazing feeling she'd had when she'd heard him scream in agony. For once it was his voice that cried out in pain and it was deeply, deeply satisfying. When she had seen all of the blood, she was pretty sure that she had smiled. Her mother had looked panicked as she ran for the phone. Samantha still wondered why her mother had done that. She should have let him die first. Then called. It would probably have saved her this trip to some other world. At least she had Tyler with her. She glanced over at him and squeezed his hand. He squeezed hers back and she felt safe.

Tyler and Samantha sat in a room connected to the Council Chambers. It looked like any waiting room at a doctor's office in that chairs lined all four walls of the room. However, the room's grandeur let you know, without a doubt, that this was no simple service waiting room. The walls were made of intricately carved walnut. She looked carefully at the designs for a few scattered moments at a time. It was almost like a timeline through history. There were carvings of angels at what she thought might be the beginning of the timeline, at the top of the doorframe beside the door that led to the Council Chambers. Other parts of the room showed people being tied up and thrown into rivers. Some illustrated acts of great magic, storms and other natural disasters. Although she thought the carvings were marvellous, her attention was not at its best. She was feeling pretty nervous about what was about to happen. Nervous, because she didn't really know what was about to happen.

"So... you haven't said much, Tyler. I'm a little scared right now. What could my punishment be?" Tyler squirmed in his seat.

"We don't have a death penalty, or anything, so you don't have to worry about that, I suppose." Oh, that's super good, thought Sam with a bit of sarcasm. "But, they could take your powers away for the rest of your life. Making you ... human." Human, said with disdain.

"But I'm already human, Tyler."

"Well, that's part of what needs to be figured out, I guess. Sam, I'm sorry. This is really all my fault. I wasn't supposed to use my magic. I had mine taken away for a period. I made a bad decision a few years ago and I was still serving my sentence. I was so worried about you, that I had to put that symbol on you. I had to keep you safe. If I hadn't joined us like that, none of this would've happened."

"And I would still be living a nightmare. Nothing they do to me will make me regret what I did." She sounded so sure.

A man dressed in a dark suit opened the door to their waiting room. "You can come in now." Tyler and Samantha looked at each other and squeezed each other's hands. They both got up and walked into the Council's Chamber. If the waiting room had been grand, then Samantha didn't know how to describe this. It reminded of the half-gym at school with it's size. The walls were all made of the same beautiful walnut as the waiting room. They also appeared to be carved. The room was lit by several large, high windows around the room. There were also several lights placed along with walls. Samantha felt a shiver run down her spine. She saw twelve people sitting on the other side of a long table. There were two chairs on their side. "Please, sit down." They did.

"Samantha Storm, you are charged with using your magic to murder a human being."

"I am a human being. So, I guess I'm really just charged with, like, murder...?"

"No, I said it right," replied the woman in a steady voice. "What you did was worse than just murder." Samantha felt her body turn jiggly. "However, I think it's only fair that we get to the bottom of how all of this happened. I'm pretty sure we all know what happened. You don't try to deny that you killed someone. Or even that you used magic, somehow. But how did a human get such powers? In truth, few Witches have mastered telekinetic abilities. So how did you do it? We have only heard of humans developing magical powers. That's how long it's been since it's happened. So long that no one actually remembers it from their own experiences. Merlin was the last that anyone knows of."

"Isn't Merlin a myth?"

"Every myth has some truth to it, Samantha. Aren't Witches just a part of myths and legends? Yet, here we are."

"Does any of this matter if you're just going to take my powers away anyway?"

"Like I said, your powers are rare. We may need you. Regardless, we need to know the source before we can limit them."

"Lilith, does anyone have any theories about what could have triggered everything?" One of the men sitting at the Council table directed his question to the woman who had been speaking. She was obviously the leader of the Council, or at least speaking on its behalf.

"I have several people scouring the Book of Histories."

"I have been thinking a lot about this, Lilith," began Tyler. "I think that the joining symbol I used may have had something to do with Sam's powers developing. Everything seemed to happen within a few days of my drawing the symbol on both of our left wrists. It was only a joining symbol, though, nothing very special."

"There has to be more to it than that. But you're right, I think. So what is it about Ms. Storm that made her react to the symbol with the awakening of rather powerful telekinetic powers?"

In the brief moment of silence that followed, a younger woman entered the room. She looked as if she had just run some distance before gathering herself together and entering the Council Chambers. "I think we may have found something in the Histories, Lilith," she said. Lilith raised an eyebrow in a regal way. "It's a bit of a stretch, really, but we found her last name in the Book."