A pang of regret squeezed his chest as the memories came. Jack rubbed a silky tendril of Mira's hair between his thumb and index finger as he let remembrances take him for the millionth time.

He'd just turned ten, and his father had deemed him old enough to observe the casting of his first circle. His father claimed that Jack had too much of his mother in him and it was time to start his training. Jack's mother had died when he'd been five, so he didn't know if it was true, only that his mother's qualities were something his father believed needed to be driven from him. They were a taint, a weakness, a botch on his father's bloodline. His father hadn't been able to force the badness out any other way, so had decided it was high time that Jack begin his education in the art of dark magick.

That day Jack stood near his father's friends and watched as four bound witches were dragged from their holding area to the ritual room in his father's mansion. One witch for each of the elements. Jack could feel their abilities through his magick as they entered. Volatile, unpredictable fire, like himself. Smooth, cool, overwhelming water. Steady, deep, powerful earth. Finally, air. Air was a magick a witch couldn't sense until he or she was smacked with the full force of its strength. Like a tornado on a clear summer day. All of the witches were bloody and beaten, yet all of them still fought their destiny.

All of them except the elemental air witch.

She knelt on her place in the circle, her beautiful dark hair flowing over her shoulders, and focused her eyes directly on Jack. He'd never sensed such a depth of sorrow in a person. She was ready to die. She wanted it.

His father's friends whispered that the woman had watched her husband close a circle the day before and it had broken her will. They doubted her sanity. Of course, they didn't need her sanity for the closing of this circle. They only needed her magick.

Even in his young mind, Jack finally understood that his father sacrificed witches on the altar of dark magick in order to gain power. These were the shoes his father expected him to fill. These were the shoes his father said Jack might not ever be able to fill because he was so weak, so tainted.

If to be strong meant to do this, then Jack knew his father was right—he had too much of his mother in him.

Jack fidgeted and wanted to look away from the elemental air witch's empty eyes, but he felt like he needed to maintain a connection with her. What he really wanted to do was run away. Jack wanted to do something, anything to not have to watch the circle being cast. Instead, he held the woman's gaze while his heart thumped hard and his mind raced.