“Yes,” Alyce said faintly.

“Bethany of Starlocket, are you in agreement?”

“Yes.” Her voice was more strong.

“Silver of Starlocket, are you in agreement?”

“Yes.”

“Daniel of Turloch-eigh, are you in agreement?”

“Aye.” His voice was like a rasp.

“No more shall he wake a witch,” Hunter said.

Silver, Alyce, Bethany, and Mr. Niall all repeated, “No more shall he wake a witch.”

“No more shall he know the beauty and terror of your power,” Hunter said, and they repeated it. I heard it echoing in my mind as I rocked myself back and forth on the cold cement.

“No more shall he do harm to any living thing.”

“No more shall he be one of us.”

“Ciaran MacEwan, we have met, and in the name of witches everywhere, we have passed judgment on you. You have called on the dark wave, you are responsible for untold deaths, you have participated in other rites of darkness that are abhorrent to those who follow the Goddess. Tonight you will have your powers stripped from you. Do you understand?”

There was no response from Ciaran, but the muffled clawing sensation in my head increased. I raised my voice from where I was. “He’s trying to break the binding spell,” I said.

“Strengthen it,” Hunter said gently, and I closed my eyes and did as he said.

When Hunter had stripped David Redstone of his powers, Sky had used a drumbeat to guide our energy. Tonight the five witches began chanting, first one and then another, and kept time with rhythmic stamping of their feet on the ground. Hunter’s voice was deeper and rougher than the women’s; Mr. Niall’s sounded thinner and weaker. Everyone looked sad. Their voices blended and wove together, but instead of the beautiful, exhilarating power chants I was used to, this one seemed harsh, mournful, more cacophonous. I felt the increasing energy in the air around me; goose bumps broke out on on my arms, and my hair felt full of static. I could feel that every animal and bird had left the area. I didn’t blame them.

When I looked down, I saw that the star, the pentagram, had begun to glow with a whiter light—their energy. I knew what was coming next, and my stomach clenched. I drew my knees up again and held them tightly against myself and felt that I would bear the scars of this night forever. As would Ciaran.

The chanting ended abruptly, and Hunter bent to touch his athame to the white lines of energy. The knife glowed briefly, and when Hunter raised it, it seemed to draw up a pale, whitish blue film, like smoke or cotton candy. Slowly Hunter walked around the pentacle, drawing this light around Ciaran, as if he were at the bottom of a slow, beautiful tornado. When the light reached the top of Ciaran’s head, Hunter gave me a sharp look.

“Take off the binding spell.”

Praying he knew what he was doing, I released my father. In a split second he sprang up, roaring like a tortured animal, and just as quickly he seemed to hit the barrier of light and drop like a dead thing to the ground, where he lay on his side. He could move now, and his hands clutched at his clothes, at his hair. His bare feet moved convulsively, and he drew in on himself like a snail, trying to avoid any contact with the light. His eyes were closed, his mouth working soundlessly.

A sob erupted from deep within me, then another and another. No longer having to concentrate on holding the spell, my emotions poured out, and I was so shaken and upset that I wasn’t even embarrassed. Through my tears I saw glistening traces on Alyce’s face, on Bethany’s. Silver looked deeply saddened. Mr. Niall looked calm, focused. Hunter looked grim, purposeful, not angry or hateful. Still chanting quietly by himself, he spiraled the energy around Ciaran, slowly and completely. When at last he lifted the athame away, it swirled around Ciaran unaided.

Then the images began, the images that defined who Ciaran had been, who he had become. Watching through my tears, still shaking with sobs, I saw a boy, handsome and happy, running across a green Scottish field with a kite. It was diving groundward, and with a flick of his hand, young Ciaran sent it back up to the clouds. I saw fourteen-year-old Ciaran being initiated, wearing a dark, almost black robe sprinkled with silver threads. He looked very solemn, and I felt that in his eyes there was already a glimmer of the witch he would become. Ciaran aged in the visions, and we saw teenage Ciaran courting girls, working on spells, having arguments with a man I thought must have been his father—my grandfather. Then to my shock, I saw a teenage Ciaran with a young Selene Belltower, just for an instant. I blinked, and there was Ciaran, being wed to Grania, her belly already round with their first child, Kyle. My breath stopped, sobs caught in my throat, as I saw Ciaran with the woman I recognized as Maeve Riordan, my birth mother. Maeve and Ciaran were wrapped tightly together, clinging to each other as if to be separated would equal death. Then Maeve was crying, turning away from him, and Ciaran was staring after her, his hands clenched. I saw Ciaran darkly silhouetted against the bright background of a burning barn. On and on it went, these images being born from the energy and floating upward to disappear into nothingness. On the ground, Ciaran lay jerking as if he were having a seizure, and I could make out a thin keening coming from him.

The images turned darker then, and I flinched as I saw Ciaran performing blood sacrifices, then using spells against other witches who cowered before him in pain. I felt ill as I saw him calling the dark wave, saw the exultation in his face, how he felt the glory of that power as before him whole villages were decimated, the people fleeing pointlessly. It grew to be too much, and I closed my eyes, resting my head on my knees.

When I looked up next, I saw myself and Ciaran hugging, I saw us turning into wolves, and even from over where I was, I felt Alyce’s and Silver’s surprise. And then we were at tonight, when I had used his true name and he had been bound. When the last image had floated away and no more were coming, I knew that we had seen his life unraveling before us, seen the destruction of everything that had made him who and what he was.

My blood father lay unmoving on the cold March ground. Hunter drew his athame, and slowly the swirling energy surrounded it and seemed to be absorbed by it. When the last of the energy had gone, Hunter sheathed the knife and went to stand over Ciaran.

“Ciaran MacEwan, witch of the Woodbanes, is now ended,” Hunter said. “The Goddess teaches us that every ending is also a beginning. May there be a rebirth from this death.”

With those words, the rite was over.

When David had been stripped, Hunter had brought him healing tea, and Alyce had held him as he cried. I knew no one would do that for Ciaran. I wanted to go sit next to him, but my guilt was too great. Then Alyce, softly rounded, dressed in her trademark lavender and gray, knelt down on the ground near where Ciaran lay crumpled.

Hunter came and sat next to me on the cement bench, carefully not touching me. He seemed much older than nineteen and looked like he’d been battling a long illness.

Bethany stooped, touched Ciaran’s temple once, then came to me and did the same thing. I felt her caring, her concern, and then she left through the woods. Silver Hennessey came to clasp Hunter’s hand, then she, too, left, after a sympathetic glance at me.

Mr. Niall strode over to us. “I’m off, lad,” he said in his odd, rough voice. “Good work.”

I gazed stonily at the ground.

“Morgan,” he said, surprising me. “It was a hard thing. But you did right.” I didn’t look up as he walked away.

Alyce stayed by Ciaran, and Hunter stayed by me. We were all silent. It was past four o’clock in the morning, and I felt that I would never sleep or eat or laugh again.