Once upon a time, witches used to guide the dead to the afterlife. These days, in the world of Witchmark, only Storm Singers matter: witches are either guaranteed to go mad and require confinement in asylums or, if highborn enough, to be enslaved to the Storm Singers, who will use them as magical batteries, and breeders of the next generation of magical batteries. And what happens to the dead? Most folk assume they find their own way, I would guess.