Then they were gone, and I was alone. It was almost two-thirty in the morning. I put another thin log on the fire in the circle room and began to work through the forms again.
11. Morgan
“During the flu epidemic, a coven leader from Dover wanted to use a dark wave on her city. If Dover were leveled, it would reduce the chances of the disease spreading. Sound reasoning, but of course the council couldn’t approve it.”
— Frederica Pelsworthy, NOTABLE DECISIONS OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY, Adam Press, 2000
After ten minutes of holding Ciaran in a binding spell, I began to feel that I should have let him sit down first. Because I felt a little guilty that one of the most evil witches in the last two centuries, a man responsible for hundreds if not thousands of deaths, a man who had, in fact, killed my mother, was possibly getting uncomfortable having to stand still in one place for so long! I’m so pathetic, I just can’t stand myself sometimes.
I was leaning against a headstone, occasionally walking around to keep warm, when Hunter and his father arrived. I had never been so glad to see another person in my life. I felt them get out of Hunter’s car; then Hunter led his father through the woods to the Methodist cemetery. I hurried forward to meet them.
“Thanks for coming,” I said, wrapping my arms around Hunter’s waist and leaning my head against his chest for a second. I kept part of my concentration on Ciaran but knew he couldn’t budge that binding spell. I’d always been good at them. “Things got a little crazy.”
“What’s going on?” Hunter held me by my shoulders and looked down into my face with concern.
“Over here.” I waved my hand limply toward Ciaran, and Hunter took a few steps before he spotted him. Then he froze, his hands already coming up for ward-evil spells. “He’s under a binding spell,” I said quickly.
“Goddess,” Mr. Niall breathed hoarsely, having spotted Ciaran.
Hunter turned and looked at me like I had suddenly revealed elf wings on my back.
I shook my head, unsure of how to begin. “I just couldn’t stand the fact that all this was happening because of me. If I weren’t here, Amyranth would have left Kithic alone. I felt like it was all my fault. I decided to contact Ciaran, to try to reason with him.”
I glanced at Ciaran and almost shivered at the look in his eyes. He seemed less recognizable, his eyes glittering darkly, with none of the mild affection or warmth that they usually held.
“So you called him to meet you here?” Hunter asked, disbelief in his voice. “And he came?”
“Uh-huh. And he said that if I didn’t join him that he would have to take out our coven. Because I was too dangerous to live if I wasn’t on his side. Because I was the—the, um, sgiùrs dàn? Something like that. Then he put a binding spell on me—”
“Hold it,” Hunter interrupted. “Wait a second. He said you were the sgiùrs dàn?” He looked at Ciaran questioningly, but the older man’s face didn’t change.
“Yes. Then he put a binding spell on me, and I thought I was going to die, right here, tonight. But I distracted him for a second, and broke his concentration, and managed to put a binding spell on him.” I rubbed my hand across my forehead, feeling old and sick and tired.
“How did you distract him?” Hunter asked.
I glanced at Mr. Niall—I thought he’d been way too quiet. In the night’s darkness he almost glowed with a white rage. He was standing stiffly, hands clenched into fists. He looked like he might attack Ciaran at any moment.
“I created a pocket of steam, under that tree’s bark,” I explained, pointing. “It made the bark pop off hard, and it distracted Ciaran just enough for me to be able to use my hand and to speak.”
“What did you say that got you out of the binding spell?” asked Mr. Niall, his voice hard.
“I said... his true name.” The last three words tiptoed out of my mouth. I had never told anyone that I knew Ciaran’s true name, and part of me didn’t like telling anyone now.
Hunter’s eyes got so big, I could see white all around the green irises. His jaw went slack, and then he cocked his head to one side. “Morgan. You said what?”
“I said his true name,” I repeated. “Then I made him take off the binding spell.”
Both Hunter and Mr. Niall looked from me to Ciaran: they had suddenly found themselves in a situation that defied all reason. Ciaran’s eyes now seemed as black as the night, and considering that all he could do was blink, he managed to put a lot of scary expression into it.
“And I put a binding spell on him,” I finished. “Then I called you. I don’t know what to do now.”
Just then, with a hoarse cry, Mr. Niall launched himself at Ciaran. Using his shoulder, he butted Ciaran hard in the stomach, then followed him down to the ground and pulled back his fist. I was already on my way to them when Hunter’s father landed a hard blow to the side of Ciaran’s head. Hunter beat me there and tried to pull his father off, but finally it took both of us to drag Mr. Niall away.
“Da, stop it,” Hunter panted, pinning his father down with one knee. “This isn’t the time or the place. Get ahold of yourself.”
“I’m going to kill him,” Mr. Niall spat, and I got angry.
“No, you’re not!” I snapped. “I understand how you feel, but you don’t decide what happens to him. That’s the council’s job.”
“No, not the council.” Hunter shook his head. “They’ve bungled things twice with him already. No—it’s up to us. We have to strip him of his powers.”
Ciaran lay on the ground like a mummy where he had fallen. He hadn’t displayed much response when Mr. Niall had attacked him, but now, at Hunter’s words, real fear entered his eyes. I had seen a witch stripped of his powers once, and I’d hoped never to see it again. The idea of seeing it happen to Ciaran was stomach turning. Yet I knew, realistically, that there was no other real option. If we let Ciaran go, he would be exactly the same. He would continue to create the dark wave, killing anything that got in his way. He would always be a threat to me, no matter what kind of promise I could get out of him. Once more I met his gaze and saw the disappointment there, the rage, the regret. I looked away.
“Yeah, you’re right,” I said roughly, trying not to cry. “I guess you need five witches.”
“We have three here,” said Hunter. If he was surprised by my acquiescence, he didn’t show it.
“I can’t do it,” I said immediately. “Get someone else.”
Hunter took his knee off his dad’s chest and warily let him up. Mr. Niall slowly got to his feet and stalked off to lean against a weatherworn headstone. Hunter stood quite still for a couple of minutes, and I knew he was sending witch messages. Without looking at Ciaran’s face, I went over and pulled him into a sitting position, awkwardly propping him up. There was a lot I wanted or needed to say to him, but I didn’t trust myself to speak. In my heart, I knew we were doing the best thing. After he was sitting up, I sank onto a cement bench nearby and concentrated on the binding spell.
Then we had to wait. Hunter came to sit next to me. I felt like I had been out here about three years and wanted to go home, curl up in my comforter, and cry until dawn.
“Morgan,” Hunter said, his voice pitched for me alone. “You never told me that you knew Ciaran’s true name.”
It was a statement, not a question, but I knew what he wanted.
“I learned it the night we shape-shifted,” I said. “It was part of his spell. I don’t know why I never told anyone. It just felt... wrong to tell.”
“Or maybe you didn’t want Ciaran to be that vulnerable to anyone else. Because whatever else he is, he helped make you.”
I frowned, not wanting to acknowledge this fact at the moment.
“All this time you knew his true name,” Hunter continued, rubbing his chin with one hand. “You could have done anything you wanted with it. You could have killed him, controlled him, turned him in to the council or to me. You could have bound him and done a tàth meànma brach so that you would have all his knowledge, all his skill.”