For the first time in many years, he had dreamed of his mother. Eileen Prince had been a sharp, intelligent woman, a talented witch with a cruel tyrant for a mother that had beaten her within an inch of her life; little wonder then that she had flown into the arms of the first strong man who opened them. No surprise still that he would also beat her within an inch of her life, insistent on controlling her, terrified that her magic would render him unable to do so. 