WHEN IT WAS FINISHED, the ragpicker gave himself a moment to adjust to his new look. He hunched his shoulders and stretched his arms, testing the fit of his new skin, adapting to his new appearance. He walked over to the window and looked at his reflection in the glass. What he saw pleased him.

He was no longer the ragpicker. He was Skeal Eile.

But a better, stronger, more capable Skeal Eile, freed from the other’s mortal weaknesses and limitations.

The demon smiled. The Seraphic had served his purpose, but his usefulness was ended. What was needed now he could best accomplish on his own.

What was needed was an event so shocking it would bring the bearer of the black staff running right to him.

Chapter Twenty-five

WORD TRAVELED QUICKLY, AND BY THE END OF the day people were flocking to the village square in Glensk Wood to gather for the address that the Seraphic of the Children of the Hawk had announced he would deliver. They came not just from within the village proper, but from miles away, traveling by whatever means they could. It would be an announcement of cataclysmic proportions, it was rumored—one that promised to be life changing. No details were offered, not even to Pogue Kray and the members of the village council. The Seraphic had declared that all present would hear the announcement together so that there could be no mistaking its meaning. Those who could not come at once might hear of it later, but by then it would almost certainly be too late.

But too late for what? No one knew. They pondered those words, every last one of them, and then each determined individually to be in attendance and began making their plans on how they would do so.

Although curiosity brought some of them, mention of the Hawk brought many more. For the fate of the Children of the Hawk and of the sect itself was at the center of what the Seraphic would reveal, the rumors continued, and all those who believed must be present when that fate was announced.

By sundown, the village was filled with people who had come from everywhere, all of them crammed together in the village square and spilling out from there into the side streets and pathways. There was never any question of attempting to get all of them under one roof; there was no building large enough to house so many. The Seraphic would address them out of doors—outside, where the Hawk had always wanted them to make their homes. All in attendance would be able to hear the Seraphic’s words, no matter how far away they stood, no matter how much noise interfered with their hearing. It was a promise given by the head of the order, and as such it was a promise that would be kept.