Pel adds significant amounts of sugar to her tea. Comfort sugar because she's upset; otherwise, she leaves it black. She sips.

"I got...mixed up in a bad sort of group a while back. Mostly witches my age, wanting to really change things. At first it was just, I don't know, philosophy. Talking about things we already knew we agreed on. A little dark magic, but nothing daft."

A deep breath.

"Then someone found a spell so far above everyone's power it wasn't really ever going to work. I don't know how she convinced everyone it was a good idea. It was stupid. They were going to summon and sacrifice a fae. It was supposed to...you know, it doesn't matter what it was supposed to do, because it probably wouldn't have worked even if they'd been as powerful as they thought they were. And it's not the point, anyway. Point is, they were away in the head and I thought I needed to put an end to it before we all got murdered by the fae. So I went in and interrupted the ritual and freed the fae they'd summoned. Now they're all feeling scundered and want to make sure I don't tell anyone."

She huffs out her breath. There. It's not all that bad after all, is it?