Iona cackled. "On an island," she said triumphantly. "An island cloaked in fog and rain, where no one goes. An island where nothing grows, nothing lives, and every day is exactly the same as the day before it. Hunter has been there, suffering, all this time, since I pulled him there through the bith dearc. Because of you and what you did to my family."
"Alone on an island?" Morgan asked, clearing her throat and strengthening her voice. Alone for sixteen years on an island. Surely he was mad by now. The thought of her beloved Hunter, her muirn beatha dan, going through such unimaginable torment for sixteen years almost knocked her to the ground.
"No," Iona said, surprising her. "There are a few other witches there, those who had angered the MacEwans through the years. I don't keep track of them. Why bother? They are nothing."
"Tell us how to get there," Sky said, her voice like stone. "Or I will gouge your eyes out and feed them to what's left of your dogs." Her tall, slender frame was rigid with tension, her hands clenched at her sides. Her face was inscrutable, still, her black eyes piercing.
Iona blinked. Morgan felt Moira step back.
Iona seemed to think for a few moments. "North," she said, then smirked. "In the ocean."
Morgan let every ounce of menace rise up in her. She gave full rein to every hateful thought, every desire she'd ever had for retribution. Malignancy welled up inside her, and she let it flow outward toward Iona. It was grotesque, the antithesis of everything she had worked toward in her life. It was darkness, it was against the Wiccan Rede, it was power and threat and bleakness and a complete absence of love or life or hope.
When it reached Iona, an invisible miasma of the worst of human expression, she recoiled and started to gag, grabbing her throat with one hand, bracing herself against the stone wall. Her burning eyes seemed to start from her head; her tongue looked swollen.
Morgan watched her writhe in pain. How far am I willing to go? She would go as far as it took.
Sky took Morgan's arm and shook her gently, and Morgan swallowed hard and with effort squashed the feelings rushing deep inside her and crumpled them into a tight, dark ball, scratchy and painful, that she pushed to the bottom of her consciousness. Looking into Sky's troubled eyes, she nodded, Iona coughed and sank to the ground, gasping. She was shaking, her eyes wide and frightened.
"Where is the island?" Sky repeated with quiet menace.
"Between North Uist," Iona said, her voice sounding strangled and thin. Her white hands were shaking, fluttering around her uncontrollably. "And the Isle of Lewis." She choked on a sob and turned her face away, one hand clutching at the grass.
"Are we just leaving her here?" Sky asked Morgan as they turned away.
Morgan paused. They didn't have a braigh-a chain used to bind witches. There was no time to deal with bringing Iona with them, constantly having to watch over her. "We'll send a witch message to the New Charter," she decided. "Have them send someone to come get her right away." Morgan glanced back at Iona, who was bent over, moaning. "She's in no shape to do much anytime soon," she said.
They walked to the car, and Moira was silent and sad next to Morgan. Morgan knew she had changed her daughter's image of her forever. What would that mean in the coming years? What would it do to Moira's ideas about magick and about love? As they headed down the hill, Morgan heard Iona moaning. But she kept walking forward, always forward, toward the car. To turn back would be to set in motion something beyond reconciliation.
They passed the four Rottweilers on their way to the car. Morgan walked past them and got into the car, pressing her hand over her still-bleeding chest. She leaned her head against the window as Sky and Moira got in. Casting her senses, she realized that they were both on the edge of breaking down: frightened, sad, upset, anxious.
After they flew through Arsdeth, some color returned to Sky's pale face. "Hunter's alive," she said, looking at Morgan. "We're going to find him. That's what matters."
17. Moira
By the end of that day they had reached the Isle of Lewis. The drive had been tense, with no one speaking much until now. Moira's hands were still trembling, and no matter how many deep breaths she took, she couldn't seem to get her heart rate to slow down. She'd thought what she'd seen with Lilith had been incredible, but that fight between her mum and Iona… she'd never felt such sheer terror in her life.
And worse, she'd felt helpless. She knew she and Sky had helped a little, when they'd worked together to weaken Iona's binding spell on her mum. But that had probably been mostly Sky. What if Moira was just holding them back? Her power was nothing next to that of Morgan of Belwicket.
Morgan of Belwicket. Moira finally understood the awe she'd always heard in people's voices when they said those words. Her mum was a stronger witch than she'd even believed existed in the world. She'd thought the stories had to be exaggerated, but now… it was all so unbelievable. Had that really been her mum, whirling spells at Iona that had reduced her to a whimpering mess on the ground? "Let's just go now," Morgan said.
"No." Sky's voice was final. "It's dark. No one will rent us a boat at this time of night. And we're all exhausted-we need to be prepared for what's ahead."
Curled up in the backseat, Moira listened to them argue, torn between a strong desire to find Hunter as soon as possible so she could come face-to-face with the man she'd just learned was her father-and a terrible fear of it at the same time. There had been so many shocks, so many terrors in the past twenty-four hours alone. She was still consumed with the grief of learning that she wasn't really Colm's daughter, the horror of knowing that her mother was Ciaran's daughter, the intense disbelief of seeing for real what Morgan of Belwicket was capable of. And underneath it all-a fresh, piercing pain over Ian’s betrayal. How could she deal with meeting Hunter now, in the middle of all of this? But how could she not yearn to see him, to know him? To save him from whatever that terrifying woman, Iona, was doing to him?
Iona. Just thinking the name brought a bitter taste to Moira's mouth. She'd always known evil existed, but today she had seen it close up, alive. She shivered, pulling her jacket more tightly around herself.
"He's alive," Morgan was saying sharply. "We have to go now! Hunter's out there and he's alive, and we're going, right now!"
"Morgan," Sky said, her voice just as sharp. "We don't know what's waiting for us out in the middle of the bloody ocean. We don't know what kind of power or magick we're going to need to use out there. But I do know that I couldn't light a damn candle right now! And neither could you!"
"But-" Morgan began.
"You're Morgan of Belwicket! You may be one of the most powerful witches to walk the earth, but you're not a goddess!" Sky said, raising her voice. "You're not totally invincible, even if you think you are!"
Moira's eyes got larger. She propped herself on one elbow to see better. Her mother was looking at Sky with a shocked expression on her face.
"Is that how you think I see myself?" Morgan asked in a small voice.
Impatiently Sky shook her head and ran a hand through her fine, light hair. "No. I'm sorry. I didn't mean that. I'm saying that we all have limits. Look, Morgan, Hunter was-is- my cousin. I grew up with him. He's like my brother. We were best friends. Don't you think I want to find him? Don't you think I'm desperate to see if he's truly alive? Don't you think I'm desperate to get to him as soon as possible?"
Morgan didn't say anything, just looked at Sky. Her face was scraped and her hands still had dirt on them. She looked pale and wrung out and like she was about to cry.