"No more shall he wake a witch. No more shall he know your beauty or your power. No more shall he do harm. No more shall he be one of us.
"David Redstone, the International Council of Witches has met and passed judgment on you," Hunter went on in a still, neutral voice. "You called on a dark spirit, and as a result a man nearly died. For that you are to be punished by having your powers stripped from you. Do you understand?"
David lifted his head and nodded. His eyes were shut, as though he couldn't bear to keep them open.
"You must answer," Hunter said. "Do you understand the punishment that is now passed on you?"
"Yes." David's voice was barely audible.
Alyce bit back a cry of dismay, and I saw Diarmuid grasp her hand.
"Anger has no place here," Hunter cautioned us. "We are here for justice, not vengeance. Let us begin."
Sky began to beat a slow, solemn rhythm on the drum. The drumbeats seemed to go on forever. Gradually I noticed something shifting in the room. The drum was guiding us, subtly working on each one of us so that our breath aligned with it, our pulses followed it, and our energy joined and began to travel along the sapphire blue light of the pentagram as a line of blazing white.
I saw David hunch in on himself, as if trying to make himself small so that neither the blue light nor the white light could touch him.
The drum beat faster, more insistently, and the light intensified. The energy of five blood witches was fully intertwined now. The energy flowing around the pentagram crackled with power. We all held out our hands, drawing on the power, and I almost wept to feel my energy pouring out, familiar and strong.
Hunter stepped forward and touched the hilt of his athame to the pentagram. For a second the knife lit with blue and white light. The light continued to define the pentagram, but now Hunter walked around it, drawing his athame in a spiral around David, and the sapphire and white light blazed in a spiral as well.
I watched as our power flowed into the spiral and the spiral began to whirl around David. He whimpered as a transparent, smoke like image of a boy I recognized as himself appeared and vanished on the whirls of the spiral. Next came images of David in his robe, athame in hand, casting spells; David finding a wounded bird, making the sign of a healing rune over it and watching in delight as the bird flew from his hand; David charting the phases of the moon and its effect on the tides; David scrying with a crystal; David purifying Practical Magick with cedar and sage; David and another man facing each other in a circle and chanting in perfect harmony. All of it was leaving him, flying up the spiral like escaping spirits. And with each thing that left him, he sobbed with grief, a man watching everything he loved being destroyed. These were the experiences that had shaped him, that he used to define himself. They had formed the fabric of his life, and we were unraveling it. When the very last of David's magick had vanished on the whirls of the spiral, Hunter held out the hilt of his athame, drawing the glowing spiral into it once again.
"David Redstone, witch of the Burnhides, is now ended," Hunter said gently. "The Goddess teaches us that every ending is also a beginning. May there be rebirth from this death."
The drumbeat finally stopped, and with it the sapphire light of the pentagram winked out. David lay collapsed on the floor, a hollow shell. I wanted to fall over, too, but I stayed upright, feeling if I moved, I would crack into a million brittle pieces.
Alyce bent down slowly and put her arms around David.
"Goddess be with you," she murmured; then Diarmuid had to lead her out because she was weeping uncontrollably.
Sky watched silent and stricken as Hunter cut the bonds on David's wrists and gently helped him to his feet. "I'm going to give you some herbs to help you sleep," Hunter told David. The stern Seeker was gone from Hunter now, and he seemed only tender and sad. "Come with me," he said, taking David by the hand.
David let himself be led, walking with halting steps, like a lost child in a man's body.
Sky ran her hand through her hair and blew out a breath. "Are you all right?" she asked me as they left the room.
"It wasn't what I expected," I said. "I thought it would be more like the braigh."
"You mean, physical torture?"
I nodded. "This was tender. And yet, much worse." I thought of how Selene had wanted to take my power for herself. Goddess, what would that have been like? It was unthinkable.
"I never want to do anything like it again." Sky walked to each corner of the room and extinguished the candles there but left the two on the altar lit. "Let's get out of here," she said with a shudder. "I'll come back in and do a purification ceremony in the morning."
Moving in slow motion, I followed her into the living room.
"We found out what happened, you know," Sky said. "The taibhs terrified Afton so badly that he wanted nothing to do with the store. That's why he forgave the debt. Then, later, the continued stress of the encounter led to the stroke. Receiving Alyce's muffins was what pushed him over the edge."
"You mean Alyce. ." It was unbelievable.
"She had sent them as a thank-you. But dark forces work in devious ways, and so her kindness resulted in a terrible event." Sky put a finger to her lips. "She doesn't know, and I hope you won't tell her. It would hurt her too much."
I nodded. Then a thought occurred to me. "What happens to the store now?"
"Hunter spoke with Afton. He's getting better, but he wants nothing to do with Practical Magick. And the bookstore deal fell through, so the building has lost its value." Sky shrugged. "I think Alyce will probably have to pay off the debt but Afton seems willing to work with her on the timing. She'll be able to keep the store running." She touched my shoulder comfortingly, and left the room.
I heard Hunter coming down the stairs and turned to look at him. "Morgan," he said. "You're still here." He looked exhausted and so much older than he had earlier that day. He came to stand before me. "Thank you. I know how hard that was for you."
I looked at him. He wasn't a monster. He had done what he had to, and through it all there'd been an undercurrent of compassion streaming from him, from Hunter to all of us.
"I have something for you." He reached into his pocket and took out a clear, faceted crystal.
"Quartz? ' I guessed.
He gave me a look that made it clear that was the wrong answer.
"Oh, Hunter, please, I'm too worn out for guessing games."
"Tell me what it is," he said softly.
So I tried, thinking of the stones I'd learned, trying to fit a name to it: Zircon? Danburite? Diamond? Albite? It couldn't be moonstone. Frustrated, I sent my energy into the stone, asking it to yield its name to me. The answer it gave made no sense.
I gazed up at Hunter, baffled. "What it tells me is beryl, but that can't be right. Beryl is either aquamarine or emerald, and this is—"
"Morganite," he told me. "Your name stone, another form of beryl."
"Morganite?"
"It changes colors with the sunlight. At different times of day it will be white, lavender, pink, even pale blue. It's a powerful healing stone. And there's something else it can do." His hand closed around the stone. He looked at me, and his green eyes were as fathomless as the sea. "If a blood witch holds it and sends energy into it, it will reveal what is deepest in his heart."
Hunter opened his hand, and in the very center of the crystal I saw myself.