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the western boarding school where they’d spent the past year. Because of that conversation, and because her branch of the Mother’s power was water and her love was the sea, they had found a safe harbor here in the village of Sealand.
    But there hadn’t been any way to contact the family and tell them. They didn’t dare send a letter that named a specific place.
    If it was confiscated by any of the barons who had turned against witches or, worse, fell into the hands of one of the Inquisitors, they would forfeit the safety they had found. All Mihail could do was return to the port town that had been the agreed-upon meeting place and wait as long as he could.
    What if he waited too long? What if his ship was confiscated? What if he and his men were imprisoned until they could be tested by the Inquisitors to see if they served the so-called Evil One? What if...
    Jenny shook her head. No. Letting those thoughts grow only gave them power. She would focus her thoughts on this place, this safe harbor. She would focus on the house and the family who would live there with her soon. Soon.
    As she turned away from the sea, she saw the ponycart coming up the road, heading for her house. She saw the woman beside the driver and guessed it was Cordell, the witch who lived on Ronat Isle. And she saw the two small, slumped figures sitting in the cart.
    Guy and Kyle must have disobeyed her, again, and snuck down to the harbor to play with the young selkies. She didn’t blame them for their fascination with the Fae, but she didn’t like their confidence that they could disobey her whenever it suited them. She was their aunt, and their only kin here.
    And might always be their only kin here. And they might be the only family I have left. Please, Great Mother, please don’t let them be all that is left of the family.
    Annoyed with herself, Jenny walked back to the house. How could she expect obedience from the boys when she couldn’t obey herself? The Great Mother was the land, the air, the water. Ask for a sweet wind, and if you had the power and the will, you might get it. But compassion, kindness, tolerance ...
    those things lived within people or they didn’t. Magic couldn’t change what was inside the heart.
    But thinking of a sweet wind made her wonder if it might be possible to send a message after all. Not to Durham or Seahaven, but to Willowsbrook. Even if it was too risky to send a letter overland by human means, might one of the Fae be willing to travel through Tir Alainn and deliver a message?
    She would have to ask Cordell. The Crone would know if such a thing were possible. She hoped so.
    Just the thought of writing a brief letter to Breanna—and, perhaps, getting a message back— lifted her spirits.

 

     
     

Chapter 6

 

     
     

     
    waning moon
     
    Adolfo, the Master Inquisitor, watched two of his Assistant Inquisitors tie the old witch to the chair, then dismissed them with a sharp wave of his right hand. As soon as they left the room, he locked the door, something he’d never done before while softening a witch to confess. It wasn’t that he doubted his ability to contain her, despite his dead left arm, but he didn’t want anyone walking in and disrupting his concentration at a critical moment. Besides, the trembling crone was dependent on his mercy now and wouldn’t dare try to summon her power and use it against him.
    He’d already taken her eyes, her ears, her tongue. He’d taken her hands and feet.
    And still he heard whispers among the Inquisitors that Master Adolfo, the Witch’s Hammer, had become soft, had become diminished since he’d begun the extermination of the witches in Sylvalan. He drank too much. He’d ordered the witches recently captured to be brought to Wolfram, soiling the home country’s land with the presence of those foul creatures.
    Fools.
    Even Ubel thought he’d grown soft, and that betrayal of unquestioning loyalty enraged him more than the whispers of the lesser