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"Darkness..." Jasmine's voice grew softer.

They fell silent simultaneously, their eyes opening as they released each other's hands. Both looked slightly dazed.

"That was..." Kyra began.

"So much more powerful than when we worked separately," Jasmine finished.

"Excellent," Amanda said with a grin. "The neural synchronization patterns are extraordinary. Your abilities aren't just adding together—together they're amplified exponentially."

"What did we see?" Kyra asked.

Amanda gestured at the envelope. "Open it and find out."

As Kyra lifted the picture to show everyone, it depicted exactly what they had described—a burial chamber in some desert location. Kyra turned it around to read the inscription on the back of the photograph. "This is a tomb site in China."

"It's exactly what the Clan Mother suspected," Syssi said. "There is a resonance between you."

Fenella shifted uncomfortably, acutely aware that she was supposed to be part of this magical family circle. The only problem was that she apparently didn't have anything to contribute.

"So where do I fit into this?" she asked.

Amanda turned to Morelle, who had been observing silently from Din's other side. "What do you sense?"

Morelle switched seats and sat next to Fenella. "May I?" She extended her hand.

"Sure." Fenella clasped the female's slender hand.

Morelle held on for a long moment before letting go. "There's definitely power there. I can sense it, and it calls out to me." She smiled. "I'm like a vampire smelling blood. When I sense power, I want to absorb it."

Fenella shivered at the predatory gleam in the female's eyes. Morelle hadn't been joking. She looked like she was hungry and wanted to drink up what she'd sensed in Fenella.

"Can you tell what kind of power it is?" Amanda asked.

Morelle shook her head. "To me, they all seem the same. Power is power."

Fenella frowned. "So, I supposedly have some mysterious power that no one can identify, and I can't access? That's helpful."

"We just haven't found the right trigger yet," Amanda said, undeterred. "Let's try a different approach."

For the next hour, they subjected Fenella to a battery of tests. She tried to bend spoons with her mind, which was utterly ridiculous, predict the order of a shuffled deck of cards, which was embarrassing, and guess the contents of a locked box, which was as pointless as all the rest.

Each failure only added to her frustration.

"This is a waste of time," she finally snapped, tearing off the electrodes for the third time. "I don't have any magical powers."

"Morelle sensed something in you," Kyra insisted. "And the Clan Mother believes you're meant to help us find Khiann."

"Based on what? The fact that we share a great-great-great-grandmother from eight centuries ago?" Fenella stood, pacing the small space between monitors. "That's hardly a mystical connection, or any connection for that matter. I bet most of the residents of my little town in Scotland have more recent shared ancestors."

Kyra watched her for a moment, then unclasped her pendant from around her neck. "Try this," she said, holding it out. "Maybe it will help you focus your power like it does for me."

Fenella stared at the amber stone with its etched symbols. "What am I supposed to do with it?"

"Just hold it," Kyra said. "Sometimes an object can help focus abilities."

"That's actually not a bad idea," Amanda said. "If your abilities are similar, the pendant might serve as a catalyst."

Fenella sighed but took the pendant, if only to humor them. The stone was warm from Kyra's body heat, smooth except for the etched symbols that caught against her fingertips.