"A cabal," Lydia repeated, trying it out. She supposed it fit.

"Well, I didn't have any choice. They wanted to treat Miss Lambe most horribly, you see. She was undergoing her transformation into the Witch Queen, and they didn't want a queen--which I suppose I can understand. But they wanted to use her as a power source instead. As a...a thing instead of a person. So I had to stop them, so I could get her away." Simple as that!