The Secret Circle: Your Guide To Which Witch Is Which - And Their Secrets!

The CW's The Secret Circle premieres Thursday, Sept. 15, at 9/8c. Get an advanced primer on which witch is which....

Cassie Blake

(Played by Britt Robertson, Life Unexpected)

Freshly orphaned by an at-home blaze that killed her mom, Cassie moves to Chance Harbor to live with her grandmother (Heroes' Ashley Crow). There, she gets pulled into a "circle" of friends who are actually witches — as is Cassie, she soon learns. Among the new acquaintances is Adam (played by Thomas Dekker), with whom Cassie immediately strikes (an almost literal) spark.

"When she meets Adam, it's the strongest thing she's ever felt — and the scariest," says Robertson. Echoing a refrain from the series lore, "It's written in the stars," she adds. "It's in our blood, so it will definitely be a fun thing to play."

Now, about that Adam....

Adam Conant

(Played by Thomas Dekker, The Sarah Connor Chronicles)

Like almost all of the members of their circle, Adam has lost a parent (his mother), and as a result his father (played by Queer as Folks' Adam Harrington) is a bit of a drunk who speaks a bit too freely of the kids' secret: that they are witches, now made more powerful by the arrival of Cassie, their circle's missing link.

"Cassie and Adam are, as his father says, 'written in the stars'" — there's that phrase again — "even though we don't even know what that means at this point," says Dekker. "The idea is it's almost beyond physical or emotional; it's a literal pull between us, and we will learn more about why it's there — and where it exists in other pairings in the group as well."

Speaking of other pairings, that's kinda the fly in the ointment here. Because Adam, see, has a steady honey....

Diana Meade

(Played by Shelly Henning, Days of Our Lives)

The daughter of local legal eagle Charles Meade (played by Gale Harold), Diana is also Adam's girlfriend — and, awkwardly enough, one of Cassie's fastest friends. Soon enough, though, she gets a sense that something's brewing between her beau and the new witch in town.

"Diana is very intuitive, we find out. She knows what's going on with everybody," says Thomas Dekker (Adam). Referring to a pivotal scene in the premiere, he says, "When she finds out [Cassie and I] did magic in the woods, there's a little something about it that bothers her."

Diana, though, is a good girl (for now...) and the least of Cassie's concerns. No, that title instead falls to....

Faye Chamberlain

(Played by Phoebe Tonkin, H2O: Just Add Water)

Introduced to us as no less than "Faye, the resident bad girl," this almond-eyed brunette is precisely that. In fact, she would have no use at all for Cassie were it not for the fact that she has every use for Cassie, whose presence supercharges the circle's collective power.

Faye's mother, high school principal Dawn Chamberlain (Natasha Henstridge) — a member of the previous generation's circle — is hot to exploit that development for mysterious but assuredly ominous reasons. "Dawn is in a really interesting position with Faye," Henstridge says, "because she is willing to use anything to further her own agenda, and yet she loves her daughter very much."

At Faye's side, for better or worse, is....

Melissa Glaser

(Played by Jessica Parker Kennedy, Smallville)

Though she doesn't get much screen time in the pilot, Melissa's journey will be one of deciding just how complicit she wants to be in Faye's schemes, while coming to grips with her own amped-up abilities. "There's a pretty big arc in terms of my relationship with Faye, and with the boys, and who I am as a witch," says Kennedy.

Rounding out the "secret circle" of a half-dozen attractive youths is....

Nick Armstrong

(Played by Louis Hunter, Out of the Blue)

While the other circle members have lost one parent each — to a mysterious and seemingly horrific "incident" that rocked Chance Harbor 16 years prior — Nick saw both his mother and father perish, a detail that has meaning and ramifications to be explored further down the road. For now, Hunter promises "lots of love triangles that start heating up, lots of love scenes, spells that get more crazy, friendships that become closer, and enemies that become worse and more dangerous."

Little does Nick know, the youths' worst fear may be living right under their noses....

Charles Meade

(Played by Gale Harold, Queer as Folk)

Diana's father makes one of the best entrances in recent TV history when he slowly approaches the house Cassie's mom is in and uses but a few matches to turn it into a raging inferno — effectively setting in motion a series of events that will bring new power to not just the Chance Harbor teens, but apparently Charles and Dawn as well. "Our circle is gone," Harold notes. "So it will be interesting to see how they are planning on using their children to sort of reanimate all that."

Harold's fervent wish for Charles moving forward, after arriving in such epic style? "I'm hoping that he goes so dark that to cover his tracks he has to be even more charming. That would be the fun part, to do some really, really horrible things."

And last but not least, on the topic of doing horrible things....

Dawn Chamberlain

(Played by Natasha Henstridge, Species)

Think you had a beef with your high school principal? At least s/he wasn't using their own kid to resurrect a coven of powerful witches. "Dawn is very much playing the puppet master at this point," Henstridge asserts. "Whether that will change, I'm not sure, but she's overseeing all of what's going on — more so than Charles." Really, she's got the upper hand on the utterly badass barrister?! Henstridge scoffs at the suggestion, saying with a laugh: "He's my minion!"

Will you be checking out The Secret Circle?