Fantasy is an exercise bicycle for the mind. It might not take you anywhere, but it tones up the muscles that can. Of course, I could be wrong. - Terry Pratchett

The figures looked more or less human. And they were engaged in religion. You could tell by the knives (it's not murder if you do it for a god).

No one is actually dead until the ripples they cause in the world die away...

Your average witch is not, by nature, a social animal as far as other witches are concerned. There's a conflict of dominant personalities. There's a group of ringleaders without a ring. There's the basic unwritten rule of witchcraft, which is 'Don't do what you will, do what I say.' The natural size of a coven is one. Witches only get together when they can't avoid it.