“Don’t grieve, Morag,” Sheridan said. “The Summerland has sweet skies for a falcon to soar in.”

Hearing what he didn’t say, she was even more grateful that he’d spared her the sight of his body. So she didn’t grieve for him or any of the others she’d taken up the road to the Shadowed Veil. She grieved for the loved ones left behind.

Adolfo wasn’t pleased to have torches around the small clearing, but the fog and the cover of trees swallowed up too much of the moonlight for him to see without the extra light.

“Put the tether stake in the center and tie the prisoner to it,” he said, pointing. “Keep him bound and bridled. There’s no telling what abilities a man born of a witch might have.”

He smiled grimly as he watched the guards obey his orders—as he thought of the witch who had been his mother, who had betrayed her son’s love and trust in order to keep her own power a secret. He thought of the monster his father became when, spurred by his wife’s accusations, he tried to beat the magic out of the boy to regain his wife’s affection. Most likely, the man had been grateful when the boy, by then a youth, had run away to try to survive in the world on his own.

He hoped his mother’s spirit spent a hundred years drowning in one of the Summerland’s cesspools—if the Summerland had such places. He hoped his father’s spirit was also in a cesspool—a place made from the foul thoughts and feelings the man had harbored for his own flesh and blood. But not the same one. No, he didn’t want them to have the comfort of being together for any reason, even torment.

When the prisoner was in position, guards brought the witch into the clearing and bound her to the stool. Her wits hadn’t returned at all, and her body, despite being so young, was starting to fail. She would be no use to him after he channeled the magic through her this time, but she might live long enough for some of the men to use her. After all, being passed around from man to man was a fitting end for a witch.

“Leave now,” he ordered. “Stay away from the clearing. I am shaping a weapon to set against the enemy, and this clearing will be a dangerous place.”

He waited until the guards were gone, waited until he couldn’t hear even a muffled footstep. Then, using the witch as his channel, he began to draw the magic out of the land.