The Becoming

PROLOGUE

In the long ago, the worlds of gods and men and Fey coexisted. Through times of peace, through times of war, in times of plenty, in times of loss, the worlds mingled freely.

As the wheel of time turned, there came those who pushed aside the old gods for the gods of greed, for the lust of dominion over the land and the sea, for the glory of what some deemed progress.

In the dunghill of greed and lust and glory, fear and hatred bloomed. Some gods grew angry at the lessening of respect and homage, and some turned anger into a craving to possess and to destroy. More, wiser and more temperate, saw the wheel turn as it must and cast out those who used their great powers to murder and enslave.

As the worlds of man turned the gods into things of myth, those who called themselves holy persecuted any who chose to worship in the old ways. Such acts, once as common as wildflowers in a meadow, brought torture and an ugly death.

Soon, the fear and hatred aimed its brittle fingers toward the Fey. The Wise, once revered for their powers, became twisted into creatures of evil, as were the Sidhe, who no longer dared spread their wings for fear of a hunter’s arrow. Weres became cursed monsters who devoured human flesh, and Mers the sirens who lured simple seafarers to their deaths.

With fear and hatred, persecutions raged over the worlds, pitting man against man, Fey against Fey, man against Fey in a bloody, brutal time fueled by those who claimed they stood on holy ground.

So in the world of Talamh, and others, there came a time of choice. The leader of Talamh offered the Fey, all of its tribes, this choice. To turn from the old ways and follow the rules and laws of man, or to preserve their laws, their magicks by closing off from other worlds.

The Fey chose magicks.

In the end, after the windy and righteous debates such matters demanded, the taoiseach and the council found compromise. New laws were written. All were encouraged to travel to other worlds, to learn of them, to sample them. Any who chose to make their home outside Talamh must follow the laws of that world, and but one unbreakable law of Talamh.

Magicks must never be used to harm another but to save a life. And even then, such action demanded a return to Talamh and judgment on the justice of their actions.

So, for generation upon generation, Talamh held peace within its borders. Some left for other worlds; others brought mates from those worlds to settle in Talamh. Crops grew in the green fields, trolls mined the deep caves, game roamed the thick woods, and the two moons shined over the hills and the seas.

But such peaceful worlds, such green and rich land, plants hunger in dark hearts. In time, with vengeful purpose, a cast-out god slid through the worlds into Talamh. He won the heart of the young taoiseach who saw him as he willed her to see him.

Handsome and good and loving.

They made a child, as it was the child he wanted. A child in whom ran the blood of the taoiseach, of the Wise with more than a dollop of the Sidhe, and with his, blood of a god.

Each night, as the mother slept an enchanted sleep, the dark god drank power from the babe, consuming what it was to add to his own. But the mother woke, saw the god for what he was. She saved her son, and led Talamh in a great battle to cast out the fallen god.

Once this was done, and portals charmed against him and any who followed him, she gave up her staff, threw the sword of the taoiseach back into the Lake of Truth for another to lift, for another to lead.

She raised her son, and when his time came round, as the wheel decreed, he raised the sword from the waters of the lake to take his place as leader of the Fey.

And, a wise leader, he held the peace season by season, year by year. On his travels he met a human woman, and they loved. He brought her to his world, to his people, to the farm that was his and his mother’s and her family’s before her, and theirs before.

They knew joy, a joy that grew when they made a child. For three years, the child knew nothing but love and wonder and the peace her father held as firmly as he held her hand.

Such a prize was she, this girl child, the only one known who carried the blood of the Wise, the Sidhe, the gods, and the human.

The dark god came for her, using the twisted powers of a turned witch to breach the portal. He caged her in glass, deep in the pale green waters of the river where he plotted to keep her, letting her powers grow a bit longer. No babe this time he would have to sip from, but one he could, when ripe, gulp whole.

Yet she already held more power than he knew. More than she knew. Her cries reached beyond the portal, into Talamh. Her anger broke through the conjured glass, drove the god back even as the Fey, led by her father, her grandmother, raged into battle.

Even with the child safe, the god’s castle destroyed, and the portal protections reinforced, the girl’s mother could not, would not rest.

She demanded they return to the world of man, without magick she now viewed as evil, and keep their daughter there without memory of the world of her birth.

Torn between love and duty, the taoiseach lived in both worlds, making a home as best he could for his daughter, returning to Talamh to lead, and, in leading, to keep his world and his child safe.

The marriage could not survive it, and as the wheel turned, neither did the taoiseach survive his next battle, as his father murdered him.

While the girl grew, believing her father had left her, never knowing what she had inside her, raised by a mother whose fear pushed her to demand the daughter think herself less and less, another young boy raised the sword from the lake.

So they grew in their worlds from girl to woman, from boy to man. She, unhappy, did as she was bid. He, determined, guarded the peace. In Talamh, they waited, knowing the god threatened all worlds. He would again seek the blood of his blood, and the wheel would turn so the time would come when the Talamhish could no longer stop him.

She, the bridge between worlds, must return and awaken, must become, and must choose to give all, risk all to help destroy the god.

When she came to Talamh, innocent of all that had come before, she had only begun a journey into herself. Led there by a grand-mother’s open heart, she learned, she grieved, she embraced.

And awakened.

Like her father, she had love and duty in two worlds. That love and duty drew her back to the world where she’d been raised, but with a promise to return.

With her heart torn, she prepared to leave what she had known and risk all she was. On the knife’s edge, with the taoiseach and Talamh waiting, she shared all with the brother of her heart, a friend like no other.

As she stepped into the portal, he, as true as ever was, leaped with her.

Caught between worlds, between loves, between duties, she began her journey into becoming.

CHAPTER ONE

With the wind whipping a gale in the portal, Breen felt her grip on Marco’s hand start to slip. She couldn’t see, as the light had gone bright and blinding. She couldn’t hear through the roar of that wind.

As if tossed by the gale, she tumbled, with Keegan’s hand a vise grip on hers, and her desperate fingers barely clinging to Marco’s.

Then, like a switch flipped, she fell. The air went cool and damp, the light snapped off, and the wind died.

She landed hard enough to rattle bones. On a dirt road, she realized, wet from the soft rain still falling. And in the rain, she smelled Talamh.

Breathless, she rolled to hunker over Marco. He sprawled, limp and still, with eyes wide and shocked.

“Are you okay? Let me see. Marco, you idiot!” Searching, she ran her hands over him. “Nothing’s broken.”

Now she stroked her hand over Marco’s face as she whipped her head around to snarl at Keegan.

“What the hell was that? Even the first time I came through, it wasn’t like that.”

He shoved his hand through his hair. “I didn’t account for the extra passenger. Or all your bloody luggage. And still I got us back, didn’t I?”

“What the actual fuck?”

As Marco stirred, she turned back to him. “Don’t try to get up yet. You’re going to be dizzy and shaky, but you’re okay.”

He just stared at her, his brown eyes huge and glassy with shock. “Did all this crazy make you a doctor, too?”

“Not exactly. Just catch your breath. What the hell do we do now?” she shot at Keegan.

“Get out of the fecking rain, to start.” He pushed to his feet, a tall, irritated man with dark hair curling in the damp. “I aimed to bring us back in the dooryard of the farmhouse.” He gestured. “And wasn’t far off, considering what came with us.”

She could see the stone house now, the silhouette of it a few yards away and across the road.

“Marco isn’t a what.”

Keegan just strode over, crouched down. “All right now, brother, sit yourself up. Take it slow.”

“My laptop!” When Breen spotted it on the road, she scrambled up, sprinted over to grab the case.

“Well now, she will have her priorities.”

In the road, in the rain, she clutched it to her. “This is as important to me as your sword is to you.”

“If it got banged up, you’ll fix it. That’s the way,” he said to Marco, “slow and easy.”

The way he spoke to Marco—slow and easy—reminded Breen that Keegan could be kind. When he wanted to be.

She strapped on the laptop case cross-body, hurried back to them.

“You’re going to feel dizzy and weird. The first time I came through I fainted.”

“Guys don’t faint.” But Marco dropped his spinning head to his updrawn knees. “We can pass out, we can get knocked out, but we don’t faint.”

“That’s the way,” Keegan said cheerfully. “Let’s get you on your feet. We could use a hand here, Breen.”

“Just let me get my suitcase.”

“Women, by the gods!” Keegan whipped out a hand, and the suitcase vanished.

“Where did it go?” Marco’s voice hitched, this time his eyes rolled. “Where’d it go?”

“Not to worry, it’s all fine. Up you come now. Lean on me, and we’ll get you there.”

“I can’t feel my knees. Are they here?”

“Right where they should be.”

Breen hurried over to wrap an arm around Marco from the other side. “It’s okay. You’re okay. It’s not far, see? We’re going right there.”

He managed a few shaky steps. “Men don’t faint, but they do puke. I might.”

Breen pressed a hand to his stomach, pulled out some of the churning. It made her feel a little queasy, but she told herself she’d handle it. “Better?”

“Yeah, I guess. I think I’m having a really weird dream. Breen has weird dreams,” he told Keegan in a voice that sounded a little drunk. “Scary weird sometimes. This one’s just weird.”

Keegan flicked a hand, and the gate of the dooryard swung open.

“Like that kind of weird. Smells good anyway. Like Ireland. Right, Breen?”

“Yes, but it’s not.”

“That would be way weird if we’re standing in our apartment in Philly one minute and going splat on a road in Ireland the next. ‘Beam me up, Scotty’ time.”

“Those are good stories.” Keegan flicked the door open. “Here we are now. You’ll have a lie down on the divan here.”

“Lying down’s good. Hey, Breen, there’s your suitcase. It’s real homey in here. Old-timey homey. It’s nice. Oh, thank Christ,” he said when they laid him down on the couch.

“I didn’t faint, see. Didn’t puke either. Yet.”

“I’m going to make you some tea.”

He shook his head at Breen. “Rather have a beer.”

“And who wouldn’t? I’ll get that for you. Stay with him,” Keegan ordered. “Dry him up, smooth him out.”

“He should have the tea, what I had when I came through.”

“What goes in the tea can go in the ale.”

“Drugs, right?” Marco asked as Keegan strode out. “Because he slipped us lots and lots of drugs so we’re in this weird dream together.”

“No, Marco. It’s real.”

She held out a hand to the low, simmering fire in the hearth and had the flames rising and crackling. She lit the candles around the room from where she knelt beside the sofa.

She ran her hands down Marco’s sides to dry his clothes, then brushed them over his braids to dry his hair.

“I’m voting for crazy dream.”

“You know it’s real. Why did you jump with me, Marco? Why did you grab onto me and jump?”

“I wasn’t going to let you go without me into some hole of light in our damn living room. And you were all upset. You’d been crying. You—” He looked at the ceiling. “I hear something. Somebody else is in the house.”

“Harken—Keegan’s brother—lives here. He’s a farmer. This is their farm. It was my father’s. I was born in his house.”

Marco’s gaze tracked back to hers. “That’s what he told you, but—”

“My grandmother told me, and it’s the truth. I’m remembering things I didn’t. And I’ll explain everything, I promise, but—”

She broke off when Harken and Morena came down the stairs—in clothes obviously hastily dragged on, as Morena’s shirt was inside out.

“Welcome home!” Sunflower hair unbraided and tangled, Morena rushed down to drop beside Breen and grab her in a fierce hug. “We’re so happy to see you.” She beamed at Marco, blue eyes dancing. “And you brought a friend. Is this Marco then? My nan said you were a handsome one, and she’s never wrong.”

She grabbed his hand to shake. “That’s Finola McGill, my nan. I’m Morena.”

“Okay.”

“I’m Harken Byrne, and you’re welcome here. A rough come through, was it? We’ll fix you up.”

“I’ve got it.” Keegan came in with a tankard.

Marco darted his gaze back and forth. Brothers, sure, the resemblance was apparent in the strong cheekbones, the shape of the mouth.

“Ale, is it?” Harken considered. “Well then, as long as you remembered—”

“It’s a basic potion, Harken. I can handle the basics as well as any.”

“Potion?” Marco started to push up, and his rich, dark skin went a little gray at the edges. “I say no to potions.”

“It’s a kind of medicine,” Breen assured him. “You’ll feel better for it.”

“Breen, maybe they look real good, these three, but they could be sucking you into some cult. Or—”

“Trust me.” She reached up to take the tankard from Keegan. “We’ve always trusted each other. I know it’s all hard to believe, or even begin to understand. But of anyone I know, it’s going to be easier for you. You already believe in multiverses.”

“Maybe you’re a pod-person Breen and not my real Breen.”

“Would a pod-person Breen know we sang a Gaga duet while you got a tattoo of an Irish harp inked in Galway? Here now, take a sip. Or would she have packed the pink frog mug you made for me when we were kids?”

“You packed that?” He took a sip when she held the tankard for him. “This messed up my head really good.”

“I know the feeling. Drink a little more.”

When he had, he scanned the three who stood watching him. “So …you’re all, like, witches.”

“Not me.” Smiling, Morena spread her silver-tipped violet wings. “I’m a faerie. Breen has a bit of Sidhe in her as well, but not enough for wings. She wished for them when we were little.”

Morena sat on the edge of the couch. “We were friends, you see, good, strong friends—the same as sisters—when we were littles. I know you’ve been a good, strong friend to her—the same as a brother—for a long time on the other side.”

Sitting back on her heels, Breen let Morena take the lead with a cheerful voice and understanding eyes.

“She missed you through the summer, but more, she felt the weight of not telling you, her dear friend, all of this. Now, as her good, strong friend, you’ll stand with her, and by her and for her. As we all will.”

“That was well done,” Harken said quietly, and laid a hand on Morena’s shoulder. “You’ll feel steadier after the potion, and hungry with it. Such a journey empties you out.”

“I’d say that part goes for the lot of us. We didn’t come through the Welcoming Tree,” Keegan told him. “I had to make a temporary portal, and to add to it, only formed it to bring two.”

“Ah well, you’ll be starving then. There’s enough stew left from supper to fill the holes. I’ll warm it up.”

“Is everybody really, really pretty here?” Marco wondered.

Morena gave him a light punch on the arm. “Aren’t you the one. Well, I’m no hand in the kitchen, but I’ll give Harken what I have with the food. You’ll be staying what’s left of the night, I take it. There’s room enough.”

“I wouldn’t want Marco to have to go through again so soon, so we couldn’t stay in the cottage tonight. And I’d rather not wake Nan and Sedric.” Breen looked at Keegan. “I’d appreciate staying for the night.”

“You’re welcome, of course. Coming around then, are you, Marco?”

“Yeah, actually. I feel good. Better than good. Thanks.” Then he frowned at the tankard as he sat fully up. “What’s in here?”

“What you needed. Finish that ale, brother, then Breen will bring you in for the meal. Harken’s more than a decent cook, so you won’t go hungry.”

When Keegan left them, Marco looked down at his ale. “You and me, girl, we need to have a real long talk.”

“I know it, and we will. And the flash drive I gave you, everything’s there. I wrote it as it happened, right back to meeting Morena and her hawk at Dromoland.”

“She’s the hawk girl?”

“Yes.”

“Okay, let me borrow your laptop, and I’ll read what you wrote. Then we can talk.”

“The laptop won’t work here. No tech in Talamh.”

For a moment, he—a worshipper of technology—could only stare. “You are shitting me. You can travel the multiverse, light candles across the room, grow wings, but you don’t have Wi-Fi?”

“It’s a thing. I’ll explain everything. I promise. Tomorrow, we’ll go back through, and to the cottage—our cottage on the bay. And you can read, and call Sally. You’re going to want a couple of nights off. We’ll just—we’ll say you decided to come back to Ireland with me for a few days, get me settled in again. You can’t tell him any of this, Marco.”

His eyes filled with dread. “We have to go through one of those portals again?”

“Yes, but it’ll be easier. I promise. Come on, you need food, and you need some sleep. Tomorrow … we’ll deal with everything else tomorrow.”

“How much else is there?”

“A lot.” She stroked his face, his clever little beard. “A big lot of else.”

“You were afraid to come back. I could see that. If it’s all magicks and faerie wings, why were you afraid?” He looked toward where Keegan and the others had gone. “Not of any of them. I could see that, too.”

“No, not of any of them. It’s a long story, Marco. For tonight, let’s just say there’s a Big Bad.”

“How big?”

“Big as they come. I’d be stupid not to be afraid, but I’m stronger than I was. And I’m going to get even stronger.”

He took her hand when he got to his feet. “You were always stronger than you thought. If this place helped you see that, it gets some points.”

“This place, these people, and others I want you to meet before you go home.” She gave his hand a squeeze. “Now let’s eat, because I can smell that stew, and I’m starving.”

He let it go, mostly because he couldn’t fit any more in his head at one time. Though after he ate he didn’t expect to sleep, he dropped off the moment he rolled into the bed Keegan showed him.

The rooster woke him, which was strange enough. Added to it, he woke in a room not his own with a low fire simmering in a hearth, pale sunlight streaming through the lacy curtains at the windows, and the unsettling realization that none of the night before had been a dream.

He wanted Breen, and coffee, and a long, hot shower, and wasn’t sure where to find any of them.

He got up, and the fastidious Marco saw he’d slept in his clothes. Maybe one of the smoking-hot brothers could lend him something to wear after he got that shower.

He looked at his watch—one that let him keep track of his sleep, his steps, as well as the time—and frowned at the black display.

He crept out of the room—who knew what time it was—and tiptoed his way downstairs.

He heard voices—girl voices—and followed them into the kitchen he’d seen the night before.

At a little worktable that doubled as a small eating space sat Breen and Morena.

Breen popped up. “You’re awake. I thought you’d sleep longer.”

“There was a rooster. I think.”

“Well, it is a farm. Sit, I’ll get you some tea.”

“Coffee, Breen. My life for coffee.”

“Oh. Well.”

He could only cover his eyes with his hand. “Don’t tell me that.”

“The blend of tea’s really strong. Next best thing. Hungry?”

“I really need a shower.”

She sent him that sorry look again. “Oh. Well.”

Now he sat, put his head in his hands. “How does anybody get through a day here without coffee, without showers?”

“We’ve WCs—water closets,” Morena told him. “And nice big tubs.”

“Marco’s not a tub person.”

“You’re just sitting there in the dirt you washed off.”

“You’ve a point there, don’t you?” Morena decided. “I can do you a shower outside.”

“You can?”

“Faeries are connected to the elements. You want a spot of nice warm rain, I can help with that. Outside, of course.”

“Sure, of course. Outside.” He took the cup Breen held out, gulped down tea. Blinked. “I think the enamel just melted off my teeth. Any chance of borrowing some fresh clothes?”

“There’s less of you than there is of Harken, but I can get you a shirt and trousers. Let’s find a spot for your shower.” She opened a cupboard, took out a cake of brown soap. “I like your braids,” Morena said as she opened the back door. “I wouldn’t have the patience to do so many. The far side of the little silo, I think. Private enough.”

“I appreciate this.”

“The friend of my friend is mine. You’ll want the grass under you or you’ll end up standing in mud. So.” She put her hands on her hips. “How warm for you?”

“Hot. I mean, not burning, but good and hot.”

“Hot it is,” she said, and handed him the soap.

In her trousers and boots—her shirt right side out now—Morena lifted her hands, palms up. And she curled her fingers in the air as if drawing something to her.

A thin rain, light as feathers, began to fall. As she continued to draw, it came stronger, harder in an area no more than six feet square.

Marco knew his mouth fell open, but he couldn’t seem to close it.

“You can test it with your hand if you like, see if it’s hot enough for you.”

Marco held out his hand, felt the heat, the wet, the wonder. “Yeah, it’s good. It’s … amazing. Jesus, I don’t know how to handle all this.”

“I think you’re doing more than fine.” Morena stepped back. “We’ll get you some clothes and a towel.”

“Thanks. Um. How do I turn it off?”

“I’ve called it for fifteen minutes. So you’d best get started.”

After she strolled away, Marco wasted nearly another minute staring at the magick shower before he stripped down and stepped into its bliss.

Once he’d dressed in what he thought of as farm chic, fortified himself with a fried egg on toast, he felt almost normal.

“I know we need to talk,” Breen began, “and go over to the cottage, but I need to see my grandmother first. I need to see her, and I want to get Bollocks.”

“I want to meet this dog, and yeah, your granny.”

“She doesn’t live far. It’s a nice walk.”

“Okay. I’m trying to roll with this.” He stepped outside with her. “It looks like Ireland. They sound Irish. Are you sure it’s not—”

“It’s not. You tried to use your phone, didn’t you?”

Marco rubbed a hand on a pocket of the borrowed trousers. “Yeah. Nothing. And yeah, I took a faerie shower about an hour ago. Best shower of my life. It doesn’t feel real.”

“I know.”

“I mean there’s the bay, but it’s not the bay in Ireland where we stayed. And I see mountains way over there, but they’re not the same ones. Flowers all over, lots of sheep and cows. Horses. Horses on the farm. Did you learn to ride on one of those?”

“Yeah.” She decided not to point out the area on the farm where she’d learned to use a sword—poorly—under Keegan’s unrelenting training. “You have to know how to ride here. No cars.”

“No cars.”

“No tech, no machines. They chose magick.”

“No toaster,” he recalled. “Toast the bread on a rack in the wood stove. Water from a well—or a faerie. You were okay with all that?”

“I had the cottage on the other side for working. But there are ways to write over here—magick ways. And it’s pure, Marco. And peaceful, and alive. I guess I fell in love.”

“Sense memory—remember? You were actually born here, you said. Are those the hot bros out there in that field?”

“The hot bros? Oh.” She laughed, linked her arm with his. “Yes. Harken’s a farmer right down to his toes. Keegan’s more a soldier, but he loves the farm, and he works it when he can. He has so much responsibility as taoiseach.”

“As what, now?”

“It means leader. He’s the leader of Talamh, of the Fey.”

“Like King Keegan?”

“No, it’s not like that.”

So strange, she realized, to explain to him things she’d only learned—or remembered—a few months before.

“No kings here, no rulers. He leads. Chosen and choosing. It’s a long tradition with its roots in lore. There’s a lake,” she began, but Marco grabbed her.

“Holy fuck, Breen. Run. Into those woods there.”

“What is— Oh, no, no, it’s okay. It’s Keegan’s dragon.”

“His what the fuck?”

“Just breathe. They have dragons—but not like the virgin princess eaters in some stories. I rode that one.”

His arm stayed around her in an iron grip. “You did the hell not.”

“I the hell did, and it was glorious. They’re loyal—they bond with someone, and they’re loyal. And they’re beautiful. My father had one.”

“I might have to sit down. I don’t want to wimp out on you, girl, but my knees are going again.”

Before he could, right on the road, a joyful bark sounded. Bollocks, topknot and little beard bouncing, bounded toward Breen.

“There you are! There you are.” With a laugh, she stumbled back when he leaped on her, every part of him wagging, from that topknot to the skinny whip of his tail. “Oh, you’re bigger. You grew on me. I missed you, too. I missed you so much!”

She went down on the road with him for kisses and hugs and rubs. “It’s Bollocks.”

“I figured. Jeez, he’s sort of purple, like you said. Purple Haze so maybe you should’ve named him Hendrix. Aren’t you something, puppy! Aren’t you something else all over again.”

Dragon forgotten, Marco crouched down. Bollocks rewarded him with a lapping tongue and wags.

“He likes me!”

“He’s the sweetest dog ever. Nan knows I’m here. He knows, so she knows. Come on. Let’s go see Nan.”

Bollocks ran a few feet ahead, wagged, waited, ran back and forth.

“That’s one happy dog. So, your grandmother. She’s what now?”

“Of the Wise. A witch, with a little Sidhe. She was taoiseach once.”

“So it’s got, like, term limits.”

“No, she gave it up, so there was another. And then my father led. Now it’s Keegan. I’ll explain.”

“What about your grandfather?”

“He’s not here, and we want to keep it that way. He’s the Big Bad.” She took Marco’s hand, turned on the road that led to Mairghread’s cottage. “So much to tell you.”

“It’s sure piling up.”

“She let me go, though it hurt her. After my father died, she sent the money my mother hid from me. And for reasons I’ll explain, but one I can tell you now—because she knew I was unhappy—she worked it out so I found out about the money. After that, the choices were mine. To quit teaching, to come to Ireland. And she made me the cottage and sent me Bollocks. He led me here.

“She loves me, in a way I barely remembered my father loving me. The way you and Sally and Derrick love me. For me. And she opened my world.”

“Then I guess I’m going to love her, too.”

Flowers pooled and spread, spicing the air with autumn. The cottage stood, sturdy stone under its thatched roof with its bold blue door open.

Mairghread stepped out, wearing one of her long dresses in forest green. Her bright red hair crowned her head. And with her misty blue eyes going damp, she laid a hand on her heart.

“You look a lot like her,” Marco murmured. “And she don’t look like nobody’s granny.”

“I know. Nan!”

Marg stretched out her arms as Breen ran into them.

“Mo stór. Welcome home. Welcome. My sweet girl. You’re well.” She lifted Breen’s face in her hands. “I can feel it, and see it, too. My heart’s so full.”

She drew Breen to her again, and smiled at Marco over Breen’s shoulder. “And it’s Marco, isn’t it?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“You’re welcome here, always.” She stretched out a hand for his. “My door is open for you. You’ve had a strange journey.”

She held his hand a moment longer as she studied his face, the deep, dark eyes, the tidy goatee, the anxious smile.

“A good friend to my Breen Siobhan you are, and a good man as well. I can see this, and thank the gods for it. Come in and sit.”

She led them through the living room, with its simmering fire and sofa plumped with pretty needlepoint pillows, into the kitchen.

“Kitchens are for family. We’ll have some tea, and didn’t Sedric bake lemon biscuits just this morning?”

“Where is he?”

“Oh, around and about,” Marg told Breen.

“No, I’ll get the tea, Nan. You sit with Marco.”

“Then I will.” Marg sat at the small square table, patted her hand on it so Marco joined her. “And you’re a musician.”

“I try to be.” He saw Breen in her, and Breen’s dad—a man he’d loved. “I pay the rent tending bar.”

“At Sally’s. Breen told me all about Sally and Derrick and their place of business. Sedric says they have good craic.”

“He’s been there?”

“The silver-haired man you thought I imagined,” Breen said as she measured out tea leaves from one of the jars on a shelf.

“Oh. Sorry about that.”

“We worried for Breen, you see. In this last year or two, more and more we worried. Dragging herself to the classroom when she didn’t feel suited for teaching.”

“I wasn’t.” Breen filled the blue teapot with water from the copper kettle on the stove, then pressed her hands on it to steep the leaves.

“That you weren’t, but you were a good teacher just the same, and far better than you gave yourself credit for. This was a worry, you see,” Marg said to Marco. “She thought so little of herself, expected so little for herself.”

The resemblance had already cracked the ice for him. Her words melted it away. “Speaking to the choir.”

That made Marg laugh and lean in as if sharing secrets. “Cover her pretty hair with brown so as not to be noticed, and wearing such dull clothes to hide her fine body.”

“Sing it.”

Marg laughed again as Breen rolled her eyes. “Would the two of you like to be alone?”

Marco ignored her as Breen set the teapot on the table, went back for white cups and plates. “Her mom pushed her that way. Mrs. Kelly was always good to me, but …”

“You won’t hear me speak against her. A mother is a mother, and when she and Eian made Breen, they made her with love as true as any.”

“I loved him. I want to say how sorry I am he’s gone. He gave me music, he taught me. He gave me a guitar on my ninth birthday, and changed my world.”

“He spoke of you.”

“He did?”

“Oh aye, and often. I knew you as a boy as well through my boy. Such talent, he told me, such a bright light. And as good and true a friend to his girl as he could wish for. He loved you, Marco.”

When his eyes filled, Marg reached over to take his hand. “Breen will take you to where he rests while you’re here. It’s a holy place. I know your visit here wasn’t planned, but if I’m honest, I’m so pleased you came. I’m so pleased to meet Breen’s dearest friend from the other side.”

“I can’t get used to it.”

“Well now, it’s a lot to take in, isn’t it?”

“It all happened so fast, and I haven’t had time to tell him everything.” Breen set the biscuits out, started pouring the tea. “We’ll go over to the cottage if that’s all right.”

“Well, of course. It’s yours, isn’t it? Finola’s having it stocked for you right now. And she’s looking forward to seeing the handsome Marco again.”

He flushed a little. “She didn’t have to do all that. We could go into the village for supplies. Jeez, we have to change money, Breen. I don’t know how much I’ve got on me.”

“You don’t need any in Talamh.” She sat, took a biscuit. “They don’t use money here.”

“Well, how do you get stuff?”

“Barter and trade,” Marg said as she sipped her tea. “And it’s our pleasure to make Fey Cottage welcome for you.”

“Breen said her dad, then you, sent the money to her.”

“That we did. There are ways to come by coin. Trolls mine, and we’ve craftsmen and so on. We have those on the other side, in other worlds, who buy and sell.”

“Ma’am, it changed her life. Not just the money, but the knowing her dad looked out for her. That she could use it to stop doing what she didn’t love, and try doing what she did.”

He looked down to where Bollocks happily snacked on the biscuit Breen had given him. “The book she wrote about this guy? It’s just great. Did you get to read it?”

“I did. So bright and fun, like its namesake.”

“She’s got the other going, the one for grown-ups. She won’t let me read that one.”

“Nor me.”

“It’s not nearly finished,” Breen put in. “I still feel like I should take a walk and leave the two of you alone.”

“We’ve considerable catching up to do, don’t we, Marco?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Oh now, call me Marg, as most do. Or, as you’re a brother to my girl, you can call me Nan.”

As she spoke, the back door opened, and Marco saw, for the first time, the silver-haired man.

Breen jumped up to embrace him, and Marco recognized pleased surprise. “Welcome home, Breen Siobhan. And welcome to you, Marco Olsen.”

“You really are real. Sorry I didn’t believe you were.”

“Ah well, you wouldn’t be the first.”

“Sit. No, sit,” Breen insisted. “I’ll get the desk chair from my room. Is it still there?”

“It will always be there,” Marg assured her.

Breen got another cup, another little plate. “When I came back to Philadelphia, and went to confront my mother … It was hard.”

“I know, honey,” Marco said.

“I walked a long way when I left her house, trying to settle myself. She kept all of this from me, all of this, my heritage, my gifts, put me in a box. I know it was fear for me,” she added before Marg could speak. “But when I sat down, finally, at the bus stop, Sedric was there. He was there because I needed someone to be. I won’t forget that. And I won’t forget what Keegan told me. That it’s fear of me for her, too. Fear of what I am, what I have. And I think, one day, I’ll be able to forgive her because of that.

“I’ll get another chair.”

When she left, Marg sighed. “Her heart will be easier when she’s able to forgive.” She picked up the pot, poured Sedric’s tea. “Now, Marco, you came through without having a moment to bring what you might need or want during your stay. You’ve only to make a list for Sedric, and he’ll fetch what you like.”

“You can do that?”

“I can, and I’d be happy to.”

“Because you’re …a witch? Wizard?”

“Just a touch of that. I’m a Were.”

Marco’s hand froze as he reached for a lemon biscuit. “You’re a were-wolf?”

“Not a’tall, though I’ve the acquaintance of several. Who do not go mad for flesh and blood at the full of the moon, I promise you. A were-cat, I am.”

“Like a lion?”

Marg snickered, waved a hand. “Go on then, Sedric, show the lad.”

Sedric shrugged, smiled. And became a cat.

Under the table, Bollocks’s tail whipped with delight.

“Oh!” Breen carried in the chair as Marco goggled. “I’ve never seen you transform before. It’s so effortless.”

The cat became a man, who reached for his tea. “We’re one, the man, the spirit animal. For the traveling to worlds, the witch in my bloodline helps. Tell me what you need, and I’ll bring it over for you.”

Marco held up a finger. “We’re going to have really big drinks later.”

“We have some lovely wine,” Marg began.

“Thanks, but even with this, it’s a little early for me. Later, though, really big drinks. And what I’m going to need, I guess, depends. Breen was scared to come back. Damned determined, but scared. Keegan, there was stuff he said—it was all really fast, really confusing—but he said stuff about releasing her from her duty, her promise.”

“Did he?” Marg acknowledged.

“Yeah, and Breen told me there’s a Big Bad, and she’ll explain all that. But I don’t know what I’m going to need until I know why he wants to hurt Breen.”

“You haven’t told him about Odran?”

“Nan, I didn’t know he’d jump into the portal that way, and he was—you can imagine—shaken up and sick. I have it all written down, and want Marco to read it all, and I’ll tell him all of it.”

“This much he should know here and now, and early of day or not, a sip of apple wine hurts no one.”

Sedric patted Marg’s shoulder. “I’ll see to it.”

CHAPTER TWO

When I was young,” Marg began, “younger than you, I took the sword from the lake, took the staff, and was taoiseach. Odran came to the Capital, and I saw only what he wished I see. Handsome and kind, charming and romantic. And so I fell in love with this illusion, and we married.”

She spoke of their return to the family farm in the valley, of the months he deceived her and her family, of the birth of her son, and her joy in him.

And, when she broke from a drugged sleep, her discovery of Odran’s purpose. How he drank their son’s power from him in the night to increase his own. The war that followed against the dark god and his demons, his slaves, and everything that came after that, up to his abduction of the child Breen had been.

Marco found himself very grateful for the wine.

“But Breen’s more than her dad, right? She’s got her mom, too. Human, too.”

“You’re a quick one, Marco. Our Breen is the bridge between the realms of the Fey, humans, and gods. She broke free of the glass cage, this child of three, because of all she is. More than even Odran knew. More than still he knows, I think. So then Eian, as taoiseach, led the battle—the Battle of the Black Castle—and destroyed Odran’s fortress, blocked any and all portals from his world again, did all that could be done.”

“Mom wanted him to choose, between her, me, and Talamh,” Breen added. “How could he? But he gave the farm to the O’Broins—Keegan’s family. Their father died in the battle to protect me. They were best friends. He was in Sorcery—the band? From the picture Tom Sweeney gave us in the pub in Doolin.”

“We were meant to go there.” Marco sipped more wine. “Pretty clear we were meant to meet Tom and hear how your parents met.”

“They loved each other. I think they always did. Because he loved, they went to Philadelphia, and he tried to be what she wanted, what his people needed.”

“All those out-of-town gigs weren’t gigs. He was coming here?”

“Yeah, and she knew, of course, and it just built up resentment. She divorced him, and I think she must have said to him what she said to me when I went back to tell her I knew all this. The aberration—that’s what she called my gifts, and really, that’s what she called me—wasn’t allowed in her home.”

Marco reached over to give her hand a squeeze.

“She believed she protected me, she convinced herself of that, but under it, she protected herself. The world as she needed to see it.”

“I’m sorry, Breen.” Marco kept her hand, gripped it hard.

“Me, too.”

“She’s wrong. She’s been wrong all along, so I’m sorry for her, too. ‘Aberration,’ well, fuck that. Sorry,” he said to Marg immediately.

“No need, as I agree.”

“You’re a wonder, that’s what you are. I always thought so, just didn’t figure, you know, witch goddess.” He looked back at Marg. “How did Eian die? If you destroyed this Odran’s fortress and blocked the portals, how come he’s still a threat to Breen?”

“Not just Breen, but she is the key. Odran killed my son. With time, his powers, and the aid of the black magick of a witch who turned to him, he waged his war on Talamh again. This, I think, was a ploy to draw Eian out, to murder him. To kill the son who refused to bend to his father’s will.”

“Now he wants Breen. Okay, with all the respect I’ve got, and I’m sorry you have to fight these wars with some crazy god, but it seems to me like the best place for Breen is back home. Where he can’t get to her. I’m not agreeing with your mom. You need to be who you are, do what you love, but, girl, you ain’t no warrior princess.”

“I’ve been training for it—not the princess part—all summer. With a sword.”

He gave her shoulder a push. “Get out.”

“I can defend myself. And nowhere’s safe, Marco. Not for me. Not for anyone.”

“He’ll come again,” Marg said. “Another battle. More blood, more death. We will stand against him to the last of us. But if he defeats us, if he conquers or destroys Talamh, your world is next. And all the others to follow as he kills and burns. His powers will grow, and so will his thirst for more.”

“You mean he’ll destroy the Earth, like, everything?”

“Our world, your world, all worlds. Each in turn gives him more. Do I understand Jennifer’s drive to lock Breen away? I do. But what she would never believe, never accept, is Breen is the key to the lock. She can’t be shut away. He’ll find her, in time, or if she has a child of her own? A god has all of time.”

“I want children one day. But, Marco, I could never risk that knowing this.”

“Jesus, Breen.”

“It has to stop with me. These are my people. I know how that sounds, but—”

“It sounds right.”

“They’ll fight. But they need me.”

He nodded, took a long breath. “I watched Wonder Woman, I know the drill.”

“Four times. You watched it four times.”

He held up five fingers. “It takes a god to kill a god, that’s how it works, right?”

“The daughter of the son is the bridge between worlds.” Breen felt the words, the thoughts, the truth simply flow into and out of her. “The bridge leads to the light or to the dark. Her path is threefold. Awaken, become, choose.”

Marco waited a beat. “What was that? Like a prophecy? You do that now, too?”

“Sometimes. I’m still me, Marco.”

“Who said you weren’t? Okay then, it gives me a better picture on what I’m gonna need. If you’re okay with that,” he said to Sedric.

“It’s my pleasure.”

“It’s a lot, since there’s no telling how long I’m going to be here. I won’t be leaving until we kick that asshole god back to hell.”

“Marco—”

“I got choices, too, girl, and that’s mine.”

“You don’t have any powers. You have no idea what Odran can do.”

“I’ve been getting a pretty clear picture, and it scares the shit out of me. But I’m staying.”

He shot the index finger of each hand in the air. “That’s it, that’s all. If you start nagging on me about it, I’ll ask Nan here if she’ll put me up. Look me in the eye, Breen, look me right in the eye and tell me if we switched places, you’d just go on back to Philly and leave me.”

“If anything happened to you—”

“Same goes. So that’s settled. I guess I need to borrow something to write down this list.”

Breen didn’t argue with him—she knew better. But she hoped to gradually erode his determination to stay over the next handful of days. Marco, more than anyone she knew, was a creature of urban life and all its conveniences.

The more time he spent in Talamh, without technology, without the basics, the more … maneuverable he might be. Especially if she could convince him of something he could do on the other side to help.

At the moment, she couldn’t think of a single thing.

On the walk back to the farm, she pointed out a pair of dragons, with riders, gliding through the skies.

“Those are scouts.”

“Okay, so, uh, dragons come in all different colors. How about people? Any of my type here?”

“Yes, and of your persuasion. Love is love here.”

“That’s good to hear. Not looking for romance right now, but it’s good to know people around here have open minds.”

“And hearts. There are some, like anywhere, that don’t. They had a religious cult—the Pious. Didn’t start out that way, but they went, well, dark, you could say. And there have been Fey who’ve turned that way. Marco, I want to point out that if you stay, and you want to get anywhere, you’re going to have to learn to ride. A horse.”

“You think I can’t?” He hooked his thumbs in his waistband and strutted. “I can give cowboying it a try. And if you can learn how to do the sword thing, I can.”

“I’m pretty crappy at it.”

“Aw, now.”

“Just ask Keegan. He trained me, and would be the first to say so.”

Marco slid an arm around her shoulders while Bollocks trotted along with them. “You gonna snuggle back up with that fine example?”

“I’m not interested in romance right now either. And I doubt he is. There’s something in the air.”

“You going all—” He wagged his hands.

“I am all—” She mirrored the gesture. “I can feel something … pushing. He wants in. He’s not there yet, but he’s close.”

She shook it off. “But not yet. We’ll get my things, go to the cottage. I think it’ll be easier if you read what I wrote about everything. Then if you have questions, I’ll answer them.”

“Okay, so we just walk from here back to Ireland? Through another of those wind tunnels?”

“It won’t be like that. Not that dramatic.”

Bollocks let out happy barks and raced around. He leaped nimbly over the stone wall and bulleted straight for the two children and the big wolfhound who guarded them.

“Those are Finian and Kavan. And the woman in the vegetable garden? That’s Keegan and Harken’s sister, Aisling. Their mom.”

“So everyone is pretty here.”

They used the gate. Aisling, her dark hair bundled up, dusted her hands on her trousers, laid one on the mound of her belly, before walking toward them.

“Welcome, Breen Siobhan. Welcome. You came back as you said. I should never have doubted you.” She caught Breen in a hug. “I’m sorry for it.”

“Don’t be. I know how you worried, and why. This is Marco.”

“So I hear. You had a tumble into Talamh, I’m told. Are you doing fine now?”

“All good, thanks. It’s nice to meet you.”

“And you as well. Will you have some tea? Mab will mind the boys while we go in.”

“We’ve just come from Nan’s, where we had tea—and wine. I just need to get my things so we can get settled into Fey Cottage.”

“Oh, they’re sent over already. Morena saw to it, and your very handsome clothes, Marco, had a cleaning.”

“Thanks. I borrowed these from your brother. From Harken.”

“Not to worry. He has more.”

The older boy, Finian, raced over, with his younger brother scrambling in his wake.

“It’s almost my birthday,” Finian announced. “You’ll be here for my birthday.”

“On Samhain.” Breen crouched down. “I remember. You’ll be three.”

“Say your hello and welcome to Breen’s friend, Fin. This is Marco.”

He ducked his head. “Hello, and welcome.”

“A bit shy with new people, this one. But,” Aisling continued as Kavan reached them and immediately tried to climb Marco’s legs, “not a bit with that one.”

Marco hauled him up. “And who’s this?”

“That’s our Kavan,” Aisling said as the boy babbled at Marco. “Who’s never met a stranger.”

Kavan grabbed a handful of Marco’s braids, grinned at them. “Like!”

“Me, too.”

Then the boy dived to Breen, babbled at her.

“When are you due?” Marco asked.

“Around and about Imbolc. Early in February,” she explained at his baffled look. “I’m past the halfway mark as I figure it. Hoping for a girl this time, as you can see I’ve two heathens already.”

“I missed your heathens,” Breen said, and gave Kavan a nuzzle before she set him down. “We’ll be back tomorrow. I’ll work with Nan, as I did before. And if you’d tell Keegan I’ll train if he wants.”

“No doubt he will. He and Mahon—that’s my man,” she told Marco, “will be back by moonsrise. Come and see me when you can, the both of you are welcome. Come on, lads. Did we or did we not promise Harken we’d see to the kitchen garden? Blessings on you both,” she said as she herded her kids away.

“And on you,” Breen called. “Come on, Bollocks.”

She gestured as they went through the gate again. “The portal’s through that tree. Or the portal is the tree, I’m not sure which.”

He looked over, beyond the dirt road, another stone fence, a pasture of sheep, and up a hill.

The tree spread more than twenty feet wide as it rose out of a tumble of rock. Its thick branches curved down, some reaching the ground before they arched up again. The leaves Breen remembered as boldly green all summer had a wash of crimson.

“What kind of tree is that?”

“It’s the Welcoming Tree, and the portal—or the main one—between Talamh and Ireland.”

She led him across. Bollocks bounded ahead, scrambled up the seven stone steps on the hillside. Perched on a branch, he stopped, barked as if to tell them to hurry up.

“Okay. If I pass out, you can go get me the ale again, or whatever was in it.”

“I can, but you won’t need it. You’ll feel the change,” she told him as he followed her up the steps. “And there’s some wind—but not like the other. A change in light, just a flash. Then we’re over. Don’t be surprised if it’s raining on the other side. You never know.”

“I don’t think anything’s going to surprise me again. Ever.”

Standing above him, she reached back. She felt his anxiety, but it couldn’t compete with his loyalty.

“Take my hand. Go ahead, Bollocks. We’re coming. Step on the branch. It might feel a little like you’re falling, but …”

The light flashed, the sudden breeze blew through her hair.

“You’re not. See?”

“We’re through? Gut shook a little, but. Are you sure we’re through?”

“Yes. You just need to climb down.”

“Little shaky in the knees,” he admitted. “But not all whacked like before. And it’s not raining.”

“Lucky us, we won’t get wet. It’s about a mile’s hike to the cottage.”

“It looks pretty much the same.”

“It does, but it’s not. You didn’t get a chance to see last night because it was raining over there, and you were shaken up, but Talamh has two moons.”

“Two?”

“One waxes when the other wanes.”

“That is so way cool! I want to see that. But you know, Breen, I walked all over these woods when I was here getting my Irish on. I never saw that tree. How could anyone miss that tree? It’s huge, and it’s growing out of rock. Or there’s rock growing out of it.”

“You weren’t meant to. Look at your watch.”

He did, let out a half laugh. “How about that. Working fine.” He pulled his phone out of his borrowed pants. “Got a phone, too.”

“Sally first,” Breen told him. “The best thing to say is you decided to come back with me, and we flew out last night. You’re going to stay for a few days, and—”

“I don’t know how long I’ll stay, and that’s what I’ll say. Give that one up, Breen, you’re stuck with me. We’re going to be fine. We’re going to get each other right on through this. And I’m going to learn to ride a horse. Giddyup!”

“It’s not as easy as you think. My ass had bruises on bruises for days. And I hate myself for being glad you’re here.”

“You can stop that. Say, in all this you wrote down? Anything in there about sex with Chief Hotness?”

“I— Crap. Listen—”

“Too late. You said I could read all of it. And you two might not be in the mood for snuggling right now, but I saw how he looked at you.”

“Like I was one more pain in his ass?”

“No. Like I hope somebody looks at me one day.” Marco’s romantic heart gave a little sigh. “He didn’t even try to punch me back when I hit him, when I thought he’d hurt you. He could’ve mopped the floor with me, but he didn’t. Hell, he could’ve probably turned me into a kumquat or something. But he didn’t.”

“He respects loyalty and friendship.”

“Sally said he had class.”

“I suppose he does.”

“I remember this trail now. Son of a bitch! Walk that way, and you end up in the village. The bay’s over there. Hey, it was over there, over there. Wrong place. That’s— You know what? That’s freaking awesome.”

He sniffed the air. “Catch that? I can smell the bay, I think. And … smoke.”

“They lit the fires for us.” She gestured as the trees thinned. “See?”

The cottage stood, smoke trailing from the chimneys over its thatched roof. The gardens Seamus had taught her to tend spread as colorfully as ever. And the pots of flowers he’d shown her how to plant thrived still.

“It’s your place, Breen. Your grandmother said, and she made it for you. I get that more than ever now. I loved being here, too.”

“I know.” She looked down at the dog, who danced in place. “Go ahead.”

He all but leaped in the air before he raced out, across the green grass, down the slope to the shale beach, and bounded into the water.

“Sea dog,” Marco said with a laugh. “He’s something.”

“Let’s go in. I’m used to drinking tea over there—and God, you’ve got to try Finola’s lemonade. It’s magickal. But I sure hope they remembered to stock Cokes.”

It was like coming home, Breen thought as she grabbed that Coke out of the refrigerator. With the first sips, she scanned her pretty kitchen—the freshly baked bread wrapped in a white cloth on the slate-colored counter, the stoneware bowl of fresh fruit, the fresh flowers on the wide windowsill.

So much as she’d first seen it months before. So much as she’d left it.

“I’m going to make us a pasta dinner,” Marco announced as he poked around the kitchen. “Look at these tomatoes. They are prime!” He checked his watch, did the math. “I’ll wait about an hour to call Sally. If they’re sleeping in any, I’d rather they get some coffee in them before I tell them I flew the coop.”

“That works. I’ll set up in the bedroom down here for work.” She wandered that way and into the room that opened to the garden. “Scratch that. They’ve done it for me.” She brushed a hand over the laptop already on her little desk, noted her yoga mat—which she hadn’t thought to grab—neatly rolled and standing in the corner.

“Sedric’s already come and gone,” she told Marco.

“What? How?”

“You’ll sort of get used to it.” She walked back to open the door for Bollocks, who pranced his way to the living room fire, and after his habitual three turns, settled down with a contented canine sigh.

“Do you think my stuff’s up in the room I used before?”

“Let’s go find out. I want to unpack, then I’m going to get some writing in. I should probably do a blog, too, about coming back to the cottage. And you can set up wherever you want to read.”

They walked through the living room with its forest-green sofa, its candles, crystals, flowers, its views of the blue water.

The fire sizzled and snapped in the hearth.

Through the foyer, and up the stairs, where the dog scrambled up to follow them, Breen turned at the head toward Marco’s room.

His guitar stood on its stand, and the harp, out of its case, gleamed on a table along with his keyboard.

Because he was busy staring, Breen opened a drawer. “Sweaters, shirts.”

He opened the closet. “They put everything away.”

“It’s a kind of welcoming. I’ll bet your jackets and rain gear—and mine—are in the closet in the foyer.”

“You really think I’m going to get sort of used to it?”

“I hope you do.” Her heart squeezed a little. “This is who I am.”

“I’m always going to love who you are.” He moved over to the table, ran his finger over the harp strings. “I want to learn how to play this. It’s the best gift I ever got.”

“I remember a little, what my father taught me. I can show you, and I know you can more than take it from there.”

“Okay. Okay.” He walked around the room he remembered, looked out at the view he remembered. “Maybe we’ll have us a musical evening after dinner. Cooking and making music, that might help me with the ‘sort of.’ I’m going down, start that sauce so it can simmer its way to heaven, then I’ll call Sally.”

He reached out, ran a hand over her bright red curls. “You do what you do, Breen.”

She went down to do what she did, with Bollocks curled on the bed behind her. She’d do the blog first, she decided, just a brief one. And would wait to post it until Marco spoke with Sally.

How to begin? she wondered. She couldn’t write, not on the blog, about the taoiseach of Talamh, or Marco jumping through the portal with her.

She simply sat a moment, let it sink in that she was back, well and truly back. She’d enjoyed her solitude in the cottage over the summer, and finding herself by living on her own for the first time in her life.

But as she sat now, hearing Marco in the kitchen, singing as he did whatever he did to those prime tomatoes, she found his presence like a warm blanket on a chilly morning.

Simple comfort, like the dog napping behind her, or knowing outside the garden doors the flowers bloomed.

So she wrote about returning to Ireland. For the first time on the blog, she wrote about finding her grandmother, learning of the loss of her father. And how the grief of that balanced with the joy of finding family and friends.

How finding them helped her find herself.

Satisfied, she set that aside, and opened herself to the story.

She dived in, let it surround her.

CHAPTER THREE

When she finally surfaced, she found herself a little stunned. She’d worked well in the apartment in Philadelphia when she’d gone back at the end of the summer. But not like here, she admitted. Maybe it came from the initial burst of energy from being back where she’d really started this part of her journey, but she’d poured out ten pages.

Now, out of the writing haze, she caught the scent of Marco’s red sauce, noted the change of light as dusk crept closer.

And saw Bollocks had left his post.

She shut down, stepped out. She saw Marco sitting at the dining room table, his brow furrowed as he read on his laptop. Bollocks rose from his spot in front of the kitchen hearth to lean against her legs.

“Sally?”

“All good. He’s glad I came with you.” He looked up then, straight into her eyes. “What’s in here, Breen, it’s not good. It’s not good. Holy shitballs, you almost got yourself killed. Twice.”

“But I didn’t. And he doesn’t want me dead, Marco. What he wants is worse.” She walked into the kitchen to fill the dog’s food bowl. “I’m stronger than I was, and I’ll get stronger yet.”

“How are you going to fight him?”

“I don’t know the answers right now.” She chose a bottle of wine. “But I think it may come down to power against power.”

“He’s a freaking god. He’s Loki, girl, without the fun parts.”

“I’ve got his blood in me, and more. I have more. You’re not asking if I’m afraid.”

“You’re not stupid, you’re not crazy, so I know you are. Can’t Keegan take him down? Okay.” Rising, pacing, Marco waved a hand in the air. “I get he would if he could. I’ve got a better picture of him, of everybody over there now. I haven’t finished it all, but I’ve got a better picture. Your picture, anyway.”

“My father died trying to stop him.”

“I know, baby. I know. But that crazy witch lady with the two-headed snakes.” He shuddered before he took the wine Breen held out. “I’m with Indiana Jones on snakes.”

“Fool me once.” She toasted, drank. “She won’t catch me off guard again.”

He gave her a long look. “You’re not as scared as you were last night.”

“Maybe I had to come back to lose some of it. Not all because not stupid, not crazy. And I know I’m going to be really scared again. But what I’ve learned, what I will learn? The more I learn, the more I feel.

“I was afraid to try to write, but you pushed me until I did. And I’m good at it. I’m going to get better, but I’m good at it. And it gives me joy. I’m going to get better at the craft. I’ve gotten pretty good, and I’ll get better. It gives me joy.”

He walked into the kitchen, stirred his sauce. “Writing doesn’t put you in a death sleep.”

“Have you read about my vision—the boy on the altar, what Odran and his demons did to that boy?”

“Made me sick. Made me sick because it wasn’t like a movie where it’s all pretend. It was real.”

“How can I just walk away from that when I might be what stops it from ever happening again?”

“I don’t know, but the thing is, lighting some candles? That’s wild stuff, girl, but it’s not the sort of thing that handles all this.”

“Fire is often the first skill learned.”

She set down her wine, held out a hand. And brought the red flame over it. “It can burn hot.” In her other hand, she brought the blue fire. “Or it can burn cold.”

She sent them aloft, then brought them together with a clap like thunder before they sizzled, sparked, died.

“Air can stir.” She circled a finger. “A warm breeze.” Then held up her other hand, circled it. “Or icy wind.”

Both blew through her hair, tossed Marco’s braids before she vanished them as she walked to the doors and outside. There she laid a hand on the pot of flowers. “Earth brings life.” Buds not yet open bloomed under her hand. “Or takes it.”

And the ground trembled.

“Water comes soft for the earth to drink.” She lifted her arm, drew down. Held out a palm that cupped the rain she’d taken from the clouds. “Or lashes.”

She shot a hand toward the bay, whipped it into a waterspout.

And smoothed it out again.

“These four elements are connected in me with a fifth. The magicks those who came before me gave me. I learned, Marco. My father had what I have, except the human. But he tried, for her, to be human when he was on this side. And I think because he lost so much of his heart, because he was so torn, Odran found a way to exploit that. And killed him. I have the one thing Dad didn’t. I don’t know what it means, how to use it, if I’ll need to use it, but I have more.”

“Okay, okay. I need more wine. I need to fill this glass right up.”

He made it back to the kitchen, but his hands shook so hard he couldn’t lift the bottle.

Breen went to him, put a hand over his. “Don’t be afraid of me. I think it would break me if you were afraid of me.”

“Not. Pour that for me, will you? Not afraid. Awed. That’s a good word for it. Awed.” He gulped down the wine she poured. “You glowed. I mean like you were all lit up inside. I read about some of the stuff you learned to do, but seeing you do it …”

He wrapped an arm around her. It still trembled, but he held her against him. “Didn’t I always say you were special? It’s just going to take me awhile to get to that sort-of-used-to-it part of all this.”

“All you need. How about I do something totally normal and make a salad to go with your pasta?”

“That’d be good. I’m going to put the laptop away. I’ll read the rest later. I think I’m pretty full up on that for now. I’ll put some music on.”

Normal, she thought as she peeled and chopped. Would it be normal if she slipped some rosemary and crystals under Marco’s pillow to ensure he had a peaceful night’s sleep?

Her normal, she decided, so she’d see to that.

They’d have dinner and talk of normal things. And she’d go up for his harp—slide the charm under his pillow—then show him what she remembered. Maybe she’d bring down his guitar, too.

When he came in to boil the water for the noodles, it felt normal— their normal, she thought. With Marco checking her work on the salad, then walking her through some recipe for a dressing before he slid the spaghetti into the pot.

“Like old times,” he said, and she laughed.

“Borg mind. I was thinking the same. I’ll set the table, and we’ll feast.”

Bollocks let out a bark—not a warning, but a greeting. When she glanced over, she saw Keegan about to knock on the glass door.

She caught just a glimpse of Cróga’s gold-tipped green tail slashing as the dragon rose into the night sky.

She walked, plates in hand, to the door to open it.

“Sorry,” he said straight off. “You’re about to have your meal. I won’t keep you.”

“Hey, come on in,” Marco called from the stove. “Had dinner yet?”

“Ah, no, I was just—”

“You can have dinner with us. I made plenty. Grab another plate, girl, and let’s get the man some wine.”

“I don’t want to intrude.”

“You’re not.” She stepped back. “Marco’s right. He made more than enough.”

“It’s kind of you. It’s smells very good.”

“Hope you like spaghetti marinara.”

“I do. It’s been some time since I’ve had it.”

“You’re in for a treat.” Not quite sure what it meant for the normality of the evening, Breen went back to pour another glass of wine. “Marco’s a terrific cook.”

“I wanted to see that you’d settled in, and that I’d meet you, Breen, as usual tomorrow. It seems I’ve timed myself into a meal.”

“You earned it. Take off that really fine coat I lust for,” Marco told him. “Go ahead and put the salad out, girl. You can light the candles your way. I’m almost sort of used to that.”

Before she did either, she walked to Marco, hugged him hard from behind.

“She worries about me,” he said to Keegan.

“Friends will do that. You look steadied up right enough. Morena said you had. And you met Marg and Sedric.”

“Sedric’s a lucky man. Or cat. Met your sister and her two boys.” At home in the kitchen, Marco poured the pasta into a colander. “Saw some dragons. Don’t know what to think about that yet, but I read in Breen’s journal how she rode on yours.”

“You keep a journal?”

“Yes.” She concentrated on dishing the salad into bowls.

“We’re going to want another bottle of wine,” Marco decided. “How about you open one, Keegan? I’m going to mix the pasta and sauce up family style.”

Marco fussed, as Marco did, with slices of bread, dipping sauce, with placing basil just so on the pasta. When he sat, he lifted his wine. “It’s nice having company for dinner. Back in Philly we didn’t have room for many people, so we mostly hung out at Sally’s.”

“A good place for it.”

“The best.” Marco dug into his salad, sampled it. “Good job here, Breen. So, Keegan, you’re the head guy around here. Or there. Over there.”

“I’m taoiseach.”

“I read in the journal how that’s done. Jumping into the lake and all that. You found the sword, brought it up. And boom. Except you could’ve said, ‘Nah, not me,’ and doggie-paddled right away.”

“It’s a choice.”

“Not an easy one, I bet. And you were just a kid.”

“Old enough.” Keegan shrugged that off. “We’re taught and trained all but from birth to know the duties of taoiseach.”

“And Breen’s training and learning now. But not to be the head guy.”

“If I fall, she could choose to enter the lake and bring up the sword.”

“Don’t talk about falling.”

Keegan spared her a glance. “He asked. That’s the answer.”

“She could do that,” Marco continued, “even though she’s half-human or Earthling or whatever you’d call it.”

“She’s of Talamh as well, carries the blood of the Wise, of the Sidhe. What comes from her mother, her grandfather, is what makes her unique. Not other, if you understand, but—”

“Special.” Marco gave Keegan an approving nod. “I’m always telling her that. Her mom really tried to make her ordinary. Didn’t work.”

Taking it on himself, Marco dished up a huge portion of spaghetti for Keegan’s plate.

“Anyway, I’m glad you came by tonight, because I was going to try to find you tomorrow. Hey, I’m not supposed to call you ‘sir’ or ‘your highness’ or something, am I?”

“No,” Keegan said, with feeling. “Gods no.”

“A third of that, Marco. I mean it. Damn it.” Breen only sighed when he served her pasta. “He always gives me too much.”

“You’re seriously buffed up, girl. Those muscles need some carbs. You helped her get them.”

“Ah …”

“With training. I was going to be pretty pissed at you, chief dude or not, for knocking my girl down, bruising her up.”

“Marco, please.” Breen felt the redhead’s curse of a flush creeping into her cheeks. “Just eat.”

“I’m gonna. But I figured out you were tough on her because you needed her to fight back. To want to. Her mom—and I’m not going to dis her. When I came out, my family didn’t support me. My sister did, but my parents, my brother, different story. But Ms. Wilcox did, so I won’t slap at her too hard.”

“Where did you come out from?”

Marco laughed. “The closet, man. I’m gay.”

“Aye, Breen said that means you prefer men for sex and such. We don’t have closets for that in Talamh.”

While Marco just grinned, Keegan wound spaghetti around his fork, ate. “Well now, this is brilliant. Better even than I remember eating in Italy.”

“You’ve been to Italy?” Marco pointed at him. “I’m going to ask you all about that, but before I do, I’m going to finish my thoughts here.”

“Finish whatever you like. I’m eating this.”

“I want to say, it’s hard to learn to fight back, to want to fight back, when most of your life, basically all of it, you’ve been told not to. More, told you’d never win anyway because you’d never be good enough.”

Keegan nodded as he continued to eat. “Breen’s mother was wrong. Whatever her reasons, it doesn’t make her less wrong. You are what you are.” He looked at Breen then, straight on with those amber-flecked green eyes. “And you know what you know now. It doesn’t mean I won’t still knock you down or put bruises on you on the training field.”

“Because you want her to live.”

“I do, aye, I want her to live.”

“That’s why I decided not to be pissed at you. Plus, you saved her life. Twice.”

“It wasn’t her life so much in danger.”

“Try the dipping sauce. It’s my own blend. You swooped out of the sky on your dragon when some evil faerie dude had her. You— swipe!—cut off his head.”

“It’s good, your blend here.”

“And when the bitch witch’s snakes bit her, you got her through it.”

“She did much of that herself.”

“Not the way she tells it, but I’m going with you on it. Either way, and any way, she’s the world to me, so there’s nothing you can do— except hurt her—that’s going to piss me off very much. I guess I have to stay off the training field.”

“You choose your friends well, Breen Siobhan.”

“I’ll take credit for that. Marco, I don’t want you to have to think about any more of this tonight. You’ve had a day.”

“I’m almost done. I’m going to need you, or somebody, to train me. Other than a few lucky punches, I’m crap at fighting.”

“He says he’s going to stay,” Breen began when Keegan looked at her.

“I don’t just say it, I mean it. The world to me,” Marco repeated. “As long as she’s here, I’m here.”

“Well then, brother, we’ll train you up right enough, though you may not thank me for it. You should learn to fight—to defend yourself and others. But I’ll say there are more ways to help than with a sword or a fist.”

“Like what? I can’t poof up a handful of fire like some of us here can.”

“I’m about to ask for a second portion of like what. Not so much as the first, or even Cróga won’t be able to carry me home.”

“Cooking?”

“Warriors need to eat, and well. I’ll see you’re trained. Morena’d be a good one to start him with,” he said to Breen. “She’s steady and firm, but has more patience than I do.”

“Who doesn’t?”

“Haven’t found one yet,” Keegan said easily. “You have a gift for cooking, that’s more than clear, so it shouldn’t be wasted. And I’ll say, as one who knows, you throw a solid lucky punch, so I’m thinking—as with Breen—there’s more to you than you may know.”

Marco rested his chin on his fist. “You’re gorgeous and built, and now you say stuff like that to me. It’s going to be hard not to fall in love with you.”

Keegan laughed, ate more pasta. “If I liked men for that sort of thing, no doubt I’d come courting you, for your cooking alone.”

“A boy can dream. So tell me about Italy. Where did you go, what did you see, what did you do?”

They bonded. Breen sat, largely unrequired, and watched a friendship root, sprout, then bloom as Keegan spoke of art in Florence, fountains in Rome, of twisting roads along the sea and narrow streets in villages.

When they moved to the mountains and plains of Montana, she rose to stack dishes.

“No, sit,” she said when both men started to rise. “You cooked. And you can keep Marco entertained.”

Which he did, she admitted as she dealt with the dishes, telling tales of other worlds. Worlds of golden sands with mountainous dunes and lush oases, worlds of bustling cities where skyways soared and buildings pierced the clouds.

And the primitive where magicks thrived even as men hunted game with spears and built huts out of mud and straw.

It occurred to her she’d never seen Keegan quite so relaxed, or known him so willing to just sit and talk.

“How many are there?” Marco asked him. “How many worlds out there?”

“Who can say? We know of a score—twenty—but it seems there would be more than we would know.”

“Twenty? Have you been to all of them?”

“I haven’t, no. My duties don’t leave me enough time to travel so freely. Then there are worlds barred to us by law. Some are still evolving, you see, worlds of wild waters and fiery mountains. Volcanoes.”

“Whoa. Dinosaurs?”

“I’ve heard tales of great beasts.”

Breen left them to it. She went upstairs, slipped a charm under Marco’s pillow.

When she came down with Marco’s harp, Keegan rose. “I’ve kept you long enough,” he began, then stepped toward her to study the harp. “Now, that’s a true beauty, that is.”

“Breen brought it back for me.”

“She said you were musical. That’s a fine instrument.”

“I have to learn to play it. I don’t suppose you play.”

“A bit.”

Marco punched his arm. “Really? Show us.”

“I should get back.”

“I heard you play the violin.”

Keegan frowned at Breen. “When?”

“Right before I left.”

“Eian must have taught you to play. The man could make music from a hollow reed.”

“He taught me, but I’ve forgotten so much of it. It’d be nice to hear this played by someone who hasn’t forgotten.”

When he hesitated, Marco gave him a poke. “Consider it singing for your supper. Your next supper.”

“Well, that’s a hard thing to turn aside. All right then, one before I go.”

He sat in the living room, the harp on his lap, and trailed those long fingers over each string. “It’s well tuned.”

He paused a moment. Then began to play.

It seemed the notes simply wept from the strings. Beautiful and heart-wrenching so the air sighed with them.

“I know that song,” Breen murmured. “I remember that song.”

“As you should. It’s one of your father’s. He called it ‘Heart Tears.’ It’s made you sad,” Keegan said, and stopped.

“No, not that way. I can see him playing it. Sitting out in the backyard of the little house we had. Late at night, alone. I watched him out my window, and he seemed so lonely. I sent him butterflies.”

Remembering made her smile. “I wished for them, and they came, fluttered all around him. He looked up and saw me, smiled at me, put a finger to his lips. He played in the summer moonlight with butterflies all around him. I fell asleep with my head on the windowsill, and when I woke in my bed in the morning, it was like a dream.

“Play it again, please.”

When he had, he switched to something lively and quick to change the mood. Then he held the harp out to Marco. “Have a go.”

“We had a pretty good selection of instruments at the music store where I worked, but nothing quite like this.”

He plucked at the strings, shifted the harp, plucked a few more. And reached back for something he’d banged out on the piano at Sally’s on St. Patrick’s Day.

“Well, listen to you.” Keegan grinned at him. “You’re a rare one, Marco, or you’ve been pulling one saying you haven’t played before.”

“It’s trying to be ‘Black Velvet Band.’ It’s not quite there. I’m going to YouTube on this.”

“Instructions,” Breen told Keegan, “demonstrations online, on the computer.”

“You could, or you could bring it over with you. Aisling plays the harp, and she’d give you a lesson or two. What I’m hearing, you won’t need more than that.”

He rose. “Thanks for the meal, and the music. I’ve got to get back, as Harken will have me up before the sun breaks.”

“I live with one of those.” Marco wagged a thumb at Breen. “I’m glad you came by. We’ll see you tomorrow over there. I guess I’m already sort of used to it,” he said to Breen. “Or it’s the wine.”

“Drink some water, or you’ll be sorry tomorrow.” She got up. “I’ll walk out with you. Bollocks is already dancing by the door. He wants his nighttime swim.”

The minute she opened the door, he bolted toward the bay.

Keegan shrugged on his duster. “Good night to you, Marco.”

“Check you later.”

Breen stepped out in the cool as Bollocks splashed in the lake.

She didn’t waste time. “He’s determined to stay. You have to understand, he’s not built for this. For fighting, for dealing with what’s coming. I have to convince him to go back. You’re taoiseach.”

“And what, I could order him away? I have no sway there, and in any case, he’s a man grown, a man who values his friend. You should respect that.”

“I do respect that, damn it. But he’s powerless, and he’s—”

The hem of his duster snapped with his sharp movement—and so did his eyes. “You, of all, should know better than to deem him powerless. He stands for you, so stand for him. Quiet,” he ordered before she could object again. “Don’t lessen him.”

“I wouldn’t! I didn’t mean—”

“I’ll make you this promise. I’ll give my life to protect him as I would for you.”

“You’d do that for anyone. It’s the way you’re built. But, Keegan, if anything happens to him, I couldn’t bear it. I couldn’t.”

“I’ll see he’s protected, and you’ll do the same. Don’t make him less than he is. You of all people should know what it does to a mind, a heart, a spirit to be made less.”

“I don’t mean to do that.” She pressed her fingers to her eyes. “I am doing that.” She dropped her hands. “You’re right. Saying he’s powerless was stupid and insulting. But he’s human, Keegan. He’s fully human.”

“You have Marg’s protection.” Keegan tapped the stone she wore around her neck, the dragon’s heart stone she’d coupled with her father’s wedding ring. “Give him yours. Make him a charm. It’s not an impenetrable shield, but it’s from you.”

“I put rosemary and amethyst under his pillow so he’d sleep.”

“I think the wine will add to that. The man has a strong head for wine.”

He watched the dog jump from the lake, shake water from his dense curls. “I have something to say to you.”

“About training tomorrow.”

“Before that. I said it before, but it was rushed, and you were already upset. I’m sorry, truly, for going at you hard as I did when you had to go back, for not believing you, as I should have, that you’d return, even when you swore it.”

“It hurt me.”

“I know it did, as I meant it to.” When Bollocks raced back, Keegan bent to give him a strong rub, and dry him thoroughly. “I’m sorry for that, and it’s a fecking burden for me to be sorry over and over again, so I’m getting it done.”

“There’s more?”

“Before I left the Capital, my mother asked me to be diplomatic and patient with you, even knowing I have little diplomacy or patience. I’m sorry I didn’t do as my mother asked. I didn’t come at you to hurt you then, but I hurt you nonetheless.”

“You didn’t, so I’ll let you off there. I wasn’t hurt, I was terrified and twisted up with worry I’d never see Marco or Sally or Derrick again. That I’d never see my book published, or finish the one I’m writing. That I won’t be enough to stop what’s coming, and I’ll die when I’ve really just started to live.”

“Yet you came, your father’s daughter.”

She looked up at the moon, the lone moon of this world. And thought of the two in her father’s.

Both hers.

“If I don’t try to be just that, none of the rest means much of anything. You released me.”

“I did, and will again if that’s your choice.”

“It’s not. This is my choice.”

“Then come to the training field tomorrow as you did before. If I knock you down, you’ll get up.”

She looked toward the water and the reflection of the three-quarter moon that swam over it. “There’s not much time, is there?”

“Not as much, I think, as we’d like.”

“Will we be ready?”

“We will be because we must be. Leave your window open as before. If Odran pushes into your dreams, I’ll come.”

“He doesn’t know I’m back, not yet. He’s too busy pushing against the portal.”

Keegan gripped her arm. “You see this? Know this?”

“I feel it. Maybe I’m wrong, but—”

“You won’t be wrong. Put a charm under your pillow as well. Block him out. It gives us more time.”

“All right.”

She saw Cróga sail across the moon, then sweep over the water. “When did you bond with him, your dragon?”

“I was eleven.” Cróga landed on the grass, shaking the ground. “We were both smaller then.”

Keegan strode over, used Cróga’s tail to boost him into the saddle. He looked back at her, standing quietly, the moonlight showering silver on her hair.

“Oíche mhaith, Breen Siobhan.”

Dragon and rider soared up. She felt the wake of wind from the slash of tail before they flew over the woods, through the dark, and into Talamh.

CHAPTER FOUR

In the morning, with the first cup of coffee in her hand, Breen opened the bay-side door. Bollocks streaked out for his morning swim with his happy barks echoing through the silence.

She followed more leisurely across the patio, over the grass, spongy and damp from a rain that had come and gone while she slept.

She smelled roses and rosemary.

In her bare feet she walked down the slope of the lawn to the edge of the sand and shale beach. There she drank her coffee and watched her dog’s curly head bop and bounce through the pale gray of the water and the mists that rose, thin, smoky fingers, toward a sky just awakening.

Philadelphia felt like the dream now, those few weeks she’d spent there between the then and the now all blurred colors and movement.

Standing there in the misty dawn as night gave way to day, with the quiet disturbed only by the call of birds and her dog’s cheerful splashes, brought her a peace so complete she wished she could cup that moment in her hands and hold it.

And holding it, make it last to always.

She stood just a bit longer and watched a little red boat slide in and out of the mists, and those mists thin as the sun strengthened.

But there was work to do, and duties to uphold. She went back inside to fill the dog’s bowls and left the door open for his return before she started upstairs.

She lit the living room fire with a thought, did the same with the one in her bedroom as she changed for her morning workout.

Marco slept on as she went through her morning routine. Slept still as she settled in at her desk, the dog curled on the bed behind her.

And like the boat, she slipped into the mists of the story.

When she surfaced, craving a Coke, she felt the satisfaction of progress. She thought she might have another hour in her—once she got that hit of cold caffeine—so went out to get it.

Marco sat at the dining room table working on his laptop. He wore his jeans pressed, his red sweater trim, and his gorgeous braids tied back with a matching red band.

How, she often wondered, did he do it?

“Good morning. I didn’t even hear you.”

“I’m working on being quiet. Plus, the way you were clicketyclacking in there, I figure I could’ve blasted out some Beyoncé and you wouldn’t’ve heard it.”

“I had a groove going.” She went in the kitchen for the Coke, sniffed the air. “I smell bacon.”

“I got us a good, solid brunch warming in the oven.”

To see for herself, Breen opened the oven door to plates of omelets, bacon, breakfast potatoes.

“It looks amazing. I usually grab a piece of toast.”

“Not while Marco’s here.” He rose, went to the fridge. “We’ve got some mixed berry yogurt parfaits. I’m going to earn my keep, plus I figure you need some good, healthy fuel for all this training business.”

“I really didn’t want to be glad you’re here. You completely screwed that up for me.”

“Sit yourself down.” He handed her the parfaits. “I’ll get the plates. Sweet blog this morning,” he added. “Like a bonus since you posted one last night. Did you read the comments?”

“No. I wanted to get right back into the story.”

“A lot of people posted condolences about your dad. I’m not ashamed to say I teared up a couple times. Anyway, since we linked your blog to your website, and your website to the blog, got your other social media going, your followers have more than doubled.”

“Since you linked,” Breen corrected. “I’m so glad I don’t have to try to do all that.”

“You nagged me into the job.” He set the plates on the table. “Did you check your email since we got here?”

She winced. “Well, no.”

“Good thing I get copied on the New York stuff. But you need to do that more often, girl. Anyway.”

He sat, gestured for her to do the same, then angled his laptop so she could see the screen. “Got this attachment this morning. For your approval.”

He brought up an image that had Breen gasping.

Bollocks—or the artist’s version—seemed to prance across the screen in all his curly glory. His head turned toward her with his big doggy smile. BOLLOCKS’S MAGIC ADVENTURES arched in bright red over him. And below read: BY BREEN KELLY.

“Oh! Oh! Look at him! Look at you.” She turned the screen toward the dog doing his happy body wag beside her. “It looks just like him. It’s wonderful. Is it wonderful? Do I just think it’s wonderful because my name’s on it? It’s a book cover, Marco, with my name on it.”

“Wrote it, didn’t you?”

“Holy shit, I did. I love it. I just love it. Do you love it? Should I love it?”

“Take a breath. Eat some yogurt.” He nudged the laptop back so she could see it while she ate. “I think it’s fan-fucking-tastic.”

“You really do?” She scooped up some yogurt and berries. “I can’t trust myself because my eyes are just dazzled.”

“I’ve had some time with it. I’ve taught music to some kids in the age group you’re looking for here. You sure as hell taught plenty of them. First, who’s not going to fall for a dog who looks like that? It’s got plenty of happy and bright, but then they’ve got the woods here in the background, right? Like he’s happy-go-lucky heading there. What’s in them? Maybe something a little bit scary? Maybe something our hero here has to outwit?”

Nodding to himself, Marco picked up his fork, cut into his omelet. “They’re going to want to find out, right? And he shines in the story, Breen. The writing shines. And that’s going to pull the parents, the teachers right in.”

“You make it sound true.”

“That’s easy, ’cause it is. You eat now.”

“A year ago, I wouldn’t have believed any of this. But here we are, there that is.”

“They’re looking for a picture of you with Bollocks for the back cover. I’ll take some before we go over to, you know, the other place. But you’re going to do something fine with your hair, and get some makeup on.”

While he ate, he studied her pale blue sweater, dark brown trousers. “You need boots, and you can use my brown leather vest. Put on some earrings—little studs to keep it cas—and you’ll be good to go.”

“I need another hour. I focused on the adult book this morning. I need an hour on the next Bollocks adventure.”

“That’s fine. I’ve got plenty to do.”

She took her hour, then went up to deal with her hair. She considered just doing a glamour for her face, but admitted that was lazy.

When Marco came in with the vest, he nodded approval. “Hair’s good. It’s fun and easy—they wouldn’t want the fancy for a kids’ book. You need more on the eyes, girl.”

He hung the vest on the hook on the bathroom door, then picked up a brush himself. “Close ’em.”

She submitted, let him fuss with shadows and contour and liner.

“Need them to pop some for your first official author photo, right? And there you go.”

When he turned her toward the mirror, she let out a breath. “I look good.” She put on the vest he held out.

“I gotta hate it looks better on you than me. But I’ll put that away, since I think this is just the right look. Let’s go do our first photo shoot.”

She’d thought he’d take a couple, but it turned into a couple dozen. Standing with Bollocks with the water behind them, sitting on one of the patio chairs with Bollocks sitting beside her, sitting on the grass together.

Then Bollocks planted his forelegs on her thigh, lapped at her face. On a laugh, she hugged him to her.

“There’s the money shot! I’m gonna pick out the best five, send them. Don’t know why five, it just seems right.”

“We really need to go.”

“Give me five for the five, and we’re off.”

When they finally walked into the woods, Bollocks dashed ahead to chase a squirrel, then splashed in the little stream, shook, and raced back.

“There’s a dog who makes his own fun,” Marco observed. “So … what will I be doing over there?”

“I guess that’s up to Morena.”

“She’s not going to want me to do something with that big bird, is she?”

“Amish. I don’t know why she’d want you to train with her hawk.”

“What’ll you be doing?”

“I usually practice with Nan for a while. Magick takes practice.”

“Like yoga.”

“You could say.” Because she sensed his nerves, Breen slid an arm around his waist. “You could come with me today, just give the rest more time.”

“Might as well get started. It’s stopped feeling real again. Hanging out with Keegan last night—that’s like a usual sort of thing. Both of us working this morning. Thinking I’m going to go through a big-ass tree into another world? That’s the not-real part right now.”

“It’s about to get real.” She gestured ahead to the Welcoming Tree. “There it is, all right. Never seen anything like it. So they, ah, put it there?”

“Nan told me a millennium ago—or so—Birget the Wise, then taoiseach of Talamh, brokered a treaty with the other realms. As man turned from magicks, they became suspicious of them, condemned them and all who held powers. Many who didn’t.”

“Like Salem, and all that crazy shit?”

“Yes, like that, and before that, after that. Talamh chose to preserve what they were, what they had, so the Fey and the world of man used this tree as a boundary, and as a door when Talamh separated from Ireland. Not all respected the treaty, and most on this side of it simply forgot it existed. Most forgot other worlds existed. Talamh remembers, and preserves its peace. Fights for it when it must.”

“Like now.”

“Like now,” she agreed, and took his hand. “Are you ready?”

He sucked in a breath, and his courage with it. “We’re going to find out.”

He stepped onto one of those thick, curved branches with her.

Then another.

“Go ahead, Bollocks,” he heard her say. And with a happy bark, the dog bolted through, and vanished.

The light flashed, but it seemed less shocking. And the wind rose and died. He stood with Breen on a bright, breezy day with the dog deviling the sheep in the field below.

“Okay?”

“Yeah. Weird,” Marco admitted. “It’s probably always going to be weird. But I don’t feel all dizzy and shaky. It’s really a sight, Breen, the way it just rolls and rolls. There’s Keegan out there doing some farmer thing. No, that’s the other one. Harken. And I think that’s your friend Morena with those horses. There’s a house back there. I don’t think I noticed that before.”

“Aisling and Mahon’s cottage. Keegan’s sister—you met her and her boys yesterday. Mahon’s her husband, and he’s Keegan’s good friend. I guess sort of his lieutenant. A soldier. He’s of the Sidhe.”

“Okay. I’ll get it all straight.”

He started down the seven steps with her.

After they crossed the field, the wall, the road, Morena hailed them. She had her hair in a long tail with a blue billed cap over it, and the hawk pin Breen had given her on her jacket.

Breen wondered if she spread her wings and flew toward them to give Marco more of a taste of what was.

“I thought to see you about now,” she said as she landed. “I’ve horses saddled and ready for us, Marco.”

“Okay.” But he was too dazzled by the wings to register horses. “They’re beautiful. Can I touch—is that rude or, you know, creepy?”

“Not when you ask. Go ahead.”

He reached out, very gently touched his fingers to the silver edges of her lavender wings. “They feel like silk. They just … pop out when you want?”

“They do, aye.”

“Excellent.”

“I’m told Keegan enjoyed a fine meal from your hands, Marco. I’ll be looking for some of that.”

“Anytime.”

“I’m a terrible cook myself.”

“I could teach you.”

“We’ll see about that, but for today, I’ll be doing the teaching. You see there is my Blue, and the pretty bay mare is Cindie. You’ll ride her today.”

“I will?”

“Sure and you will. We’ll have you take her around the paddock a few times to get you acquainted.”

“How come I didn’t get to walk around the paddock a few times when I learned to ride?”

Morena’s blue eyes danced. “We’ll say Keegan and myself have different styles. Come now and meet our Cindie. You’ll see by her eyes what a sweet heart she has. And she’s tireless as well. She’ll go and go if you ask it of her.”

Breen went with her, and didn’t need to look into Cindie’s dark eyes to feel the sweetness, the loyalty, and the pleasure of having a purpose.

“I’m just going to watch for a few minutes.”

And as she stood doing just that at the fence, Breen watched Marco stroke Cindie’s cheek before he climbed over and stroked her neck.

“I’ve never been up on a horse.”

“First times are fun times now, aren’t they?” Morena claimed. “If you’d like to mount, I’ll check the stirrups, see if we’ve got the length right.”

“Here goes.”

He didn’t, as Breen had, try to mount from the wrong side, or complain about the lack of a pommel. He just boosted himself up, and grinned.

“Yee-haw!”

On a laugh, Morena showed him how to hold the reins, how to use them. “She’s a biddable soul,” she told Marco, “so you can use a gentle hand with her. Firm enough, of course, but she wants to please.”

“I like it up here. Who’da thought?”

“Go ahead, walk her around. Heels down now, knees in. That’s the way. Hands down as well.”

“I’m riding a horse. I’m rootin’-tootin’! Check me, Breen.”

“Can you turn her around now, walk the other way? Look at you. The man’s a natural.”

Clearly, Breen thought, more than she’d been.

“You can trust me with him,” Morena murmured to Breen.

“I can see that. You’ll stay close, though? If any of Odran’s people get through—”

“I’ll have a sword on before we leave the farm. Keegan and Mahon are out with the scouts right now. I’ll look after him, my word on it.”

“And yourself.” Time to trust, Breen thought. “Looking good, Marco. I’ll leave you with Morena, and meet you back here later.”

“Later. Hey, can we ride around out there?”

Breen left them to it, and with Bollocks racing back to her, started down the road to her grandmother’s.

She sent a wave to Harken, checked the sky for any sign of the scouts. She watched a falcon soar, but saw no sign of dragons. And no sign, she realized, of the children she’d seen running the roads or in and out of the woods through the summer.

In school, she thought, like children in other worlds.

Fall added a bite to the air. On the hills some of the hardwoods had donned their autumn reds and golds and oranges as they climbed up among the deep greens of the pines. She saw trolls standing outside of high caves, taking the air before they went back to mine the stones and crystals.

On the turn to her grandmother’s cottage, she saw a buck giving her a long, arrogant study before he melted into the woods.

A buck, not a Were, she thought. Keegan was right; she knew. She only had to look into the buck to know.

Marg’s cottage stood with its blue door open in welcome, and smoke curling from its chimneys.

She found her grandmother and Finola in the kitchen, adding herbs to jars.

“And welcome home.” Finola, her chestnut hair bundled back for the work, stepped over to embrace her. “It’s more than pleased I am to see you. And I should tell you, Seamus will be on his way soon to see to your gardens.”

“I’m sorry I’ll miss him.” She leaned over to kiss Marg’s cheek. “Do you want some help with this?”

“All but done. Would you be wanting some tea, or a bite to eat?”

“I’m fine, thanks. Marco made us a huge late breakfast.”

“Sure I’ve heard the handsome boy’s a brilliant cook.”

Breen shook her head at Finola. “Word travels.”

“In Talamh it does for certain. I’m looking forward to seeing him again. Is he with Morena now?”

“He’s with her, and doing better on a horse in five minutes than I did in five hours.”

“I hope I see him on my way back home then. I’ve got to get along. I just came by to give Marg some of our peach brandy. It has a good kick, it does. You come and see us now, Breen, and bring the handsome Marco.”

“I will.”

“Take this along.” Marg handed her friend a small jar. “Remember, just a pinch when you want to add a kick—like your brandy—to a stew.”

“Thanks for that, and thanks from Seamus, who does enjoy that kick. Blessings on you both.”

When Finola left, Marg went to the jar of dog treats. Bollocks’s ears perked up.

“And what will you do for this?”

“He can dance,” Breen told her.

“Is that the truth of it?”

“Dance for Nan, Bollocks. Boogie time!”

He rose up on his hind legs, wagging as he stepped right and left. On a long laugh, Marg tossed the treat so Bollocks snatched it out of the air. “Aren’t you the clever pair? Well now, will we go to the workshop?”

“Please. I’d like to make some protection for Marco, since I can’t talk him into going back.”

“Then we will. Come on, lad, bring your treat. It’s a fine, bright day for you to run about outside and splash in the stream. He’ll let you know, won’t he, when he wants to come in?”

“Yes.” They walked out, and since there was no one inside to welcome a visitor, Marg shut the door. “I can just feel him asking. Not words, not really, but a knowing.”

“You’ve bonded well and true.”

They walked into the woods, Bollocks prancing with the dog biscuit in his mouth, and to the bridge over the stream.

“You have a gift of connection with living things, and it serves you well.” She stopped there, on the arch of the stone bridge with the cottage workshop tucked into the trees ahead of them.

“Do you know the horse they put Marco on today?”

“Morena called her Cindie.”

“Aye, a good choice. Sweet-natured, patient, eager to please. Hold her name in your mind, as she knows it well. See her as you did in your mind’s eye. Bring her into you.”

“Call her?”

“No, no, mo stór. Bring her in, as you would with our lad here. Bring her in. Feel what she feels.”

She’d seen the mare in Harken’s fields before, of course, and had gauged her before Marco mounted, but to connect when she had no idea of distance or …

Distance meant nothing, Keegan had told her once.

So she held the name, the image, reached out. For a moment, it felt as if she moved outside herself, then all the deeper in.

“She’s content. She likes the human, and the smell of the air. She likes to walk with Blue. She … she’s mated with him before.”

Marg smiled into Breen’s eyes. “She has indeed, twice if memory serves. You did very well.”

“I didn’t know I could do it at all.”

“You can, and more. And how is our Marco feeling?”

“I can’t—”

“Don’t think, just feel. It’s not his thoughts, and it takes more, as humans and Fey have filters, you’d say, that horses and dogs and the like don’t. But your connection there is already strong. You’ve already done this without the knowing because you’ve had this bond with Marco for so long. What does he feel at the moment?”

“Excited.” Truly shocked at the clarity of it, Breen laughed. “Proud of himself. A little smug. Oh,” she corrected, “more than a little.”

“There you are.” Marg patted Breen’s arm before continuing to the cottage. “So when you worry, you can look. But remember your manners. Don’t intrude unless there’s cause.”

“I won’t.” Breen followed her grandmother into the cottage, where Marg set the fire to light. “Is it like when I saw the deer—a buck—when I turned to your cottage, and I knew he wasn’t a Were, but a buck?”

“It’s more. All Fey have this knowing. No one would loose an arrow on the hunt without looking and knowing. But not all have what you have. It’s one of Harken’s gifts as well. And Aisling in her way, the way of healing a wound or an illness. You have both.”

“Do you? I’ve never asked.”

“A bit of both. Your gift is stronger, but needs to be honed as yet.”

“I lost all that time. I could’ve been learning.”

“Time’s never lost, just spent on other matters. Now.” Marg gestured to her many shelves, the jars and baskets, the crystals and tools. “What manner of protection are you wanting for your friend?”

“I’d like to put him inside an impenetrable force field. I don’t suppose that’s an option.”

“With time and practice,” Marg said as she lit the little stove with its kettle on the hob.

“Really?”

“Such things can be prisons as well, can’t they, taking freedom away as well as giving protection. What I know of him? I’d say something …” She circled a finger in the air as if to find the word. “Stylish, that he can wear. Show off a bit.”

“You’re right about that. A necklace.” Breen toyed with her own. “Or a bracelet maybe.”

Marg gestured to the shelves. “See what strikes you.”

Breen wandered up and down, looking at, picking up, putting down cords and chains, stones, ribbons, strips of leather.

“Do the Trolls mine the crystals?”

“They do, aye.”

“And you barter and trade with them for them. I need to expand my stock. You’ve been more than generous there, but I should start getting my own. Will they barter with me?”

“Sure and they would. Nothing the Trolls favor more than a good trade. Other than a good meal with a large tankard of ale. It’s a good ride to the nearest mines and their trading post. Keegan can take you while he’s training you.”

“Hmm” was all Breen said to that.

“But you’ll choose what you like now for your friend, and mine. And the making of the protection is good practice for you.”

“I was thinking the leather. If I could braid some together for a bracelet. These different tones—the black, the browns. And work stones in. Um. Malachite for protection and support—and he’d like the color. Black tourmaline for safety and protection, obsidian for shielding, purifying, and for sending negative energy back to the source. Citrine for positive energy, spiritual cleansing. Amethyst and labradorite for protection against psychic attacks.”

She looked back at Marg.

“Good choices, all—you learn, Breen Siobhan. I think add a fire agate, a shield. Choose your stones then—tumbled ones would work best for a bracelet, I’m thinking. I’ve kept your wand and your athame, so be sure to take them with you when you leave for your training.”

Marg went to another shelf, opened a long wooden box. She took out Breen’s tools, set them on the worktable.

“Now lay out what you’ve chosen. The simple task first, to braid the leather with your own hands, with the thought of your friend and your intent in each twist.”

She could braid—Marco had seen to that—so she sat and began.

“Each twist, each fold, binding protection for the brother of my heart. Strong leather, dark and light, three into one. And this his pulse beats under.”

Marg nodded in approval. “Well done, well said. Lay the stones on the leather as you wish.”

Breen arranged them, rearranged them, changed them a third time. “Do you think that’s right?”

“It’s what you think, what you feel.”

“It feels right. He’ll like the colors and contrasts. It’s a strong combination.”

“Aye. Now bring the light, mo stór. Charge the stones with its energy, and yours.”

It seemed like yesterday, and a year from yesterday all at once since she’d done purposeful magicks. Her heart tripped as she drew her power in and up, as she pulled the light streaming through the window to bathe the stones.

In it, they pulsed.

“Your wand now. Merge them, stone to leather, intent with heart. Give them your power and your words.”

“This gift I make for one held dear, to shield him from harms both far and near. With my hands three became one, with my powers I called the sun. And here with these stones selected, I charge he be protected. Body, mind, spirit, three as one.”

She passed the wand over the leather and stones, once, twice, three times. “And so by wand and will, my charm is done.”

The stones sank into the braided leather, fused with it.

She felt the power tremble inside her another moment, then released it with a breath.

“It’s a strong gift.” Marg kissed the top of Breen’s head. “And a lovely one.”

Breen lifted it, turned it over, studied the smooth flat braid, then laid it upside over her wrist to examine the look of the stones. “I’ve missed this,” she murmured, and turned her head to look up at Marg. “And you. Missed all of this and you more than I realized.”

“We’ll sew a fine pouch for the gift.”

Breen took Marg’s hand before she could turn back to the shelves. “Odran doesn’t see me yet. It’s like a curtain, but there’s a chink letting in dark instead of light. It’s your curtain, your spell holding it.”

“For now. You need time yet, as do we all.”

“He’ll shove it open soon.”

“He will, aye, he will. But we have today.” Now she cupped Breen’s face. “He knows you have more than he thought, but he doesn’t understand you have more even than that. Neither do you know it, but you will.”

Marg walked back to the shelves. “A red leather pouch, I’m thinking, done with gold cord. Would that suit Marco?”

“To the ground.”

And because she sensed Bollocks patiently waiting outside the door, Breen rose to let him in.

“I won’t leave again until it’s done, Nan. That’s my promise, that’s my choice. Help me find the more in me to get it done.”

“I’ll always help you, mo stór, but it’s you who’ll find what you have and what you need.”

Soon, Marg hoped, as the tugs and pulls on the curtains grew stronger every day.

CHAPTER FIVE

After the sublime—an afternoon of conjuring, practicing, and creating with her grandmother—Breen walked to the farm for, if not the ridiculous, the most likely painful.

She felt a spark of hope when she spotted Morena giving Marco pointers in hand-to-hand on the training field. Keegan leaned back against the paddock fence watching. Harken, most usually busy in the fields or with the stock, sat on the fence beside his brother.

The resemblance struck her as Keegan, hands in the pockets of his duster, turned his head to say something that made Harken grin. They shared features with the man in the photo with her father, taken before she was born. The set of the jaw, the shape of the mouth, the plane of the nose.

But whatever the similarities, she’d detected wide differences in their personalities and interests. Keegan wore a sword at his side, and Harken had work gloves sticking out of his trouser pocket. Harken wore an old brown cap on his wave of hair, and Keegan the skinny warrior’s braid down one side of his.

The taoiseach and the farmer, she thought. If cameras had worked in Talamh, she’d have snapped a photo of the moment.

Harken lifted a hand in greeting as she walked along the stone fence to the gate. Keegan just tracked her with his eyes.

On the field, Morena feinted a left jab—slow enough for Marco to block, followed with a right hook she stopped a whisper before his jaw. He tried an uppercut, which Morena deflected with an elbow, and continued up until the back of her fist paused at his nose.

“It’s in the eyes as much as the hands, Marco darling, remember that. In the eyes and the stance. And you want your shoulder leading it now. We’ll go again.”

About the time she spoke, Marco spotted Breen. He grinned.

“Look at me. I’m—”

And ended with an oof as Morena swept his legs out from under him.

“On me, Marco.” Morena used two fingers to point to her eyes. “Distracted will put you on your arse every time.”

She offered a hand to help him up. “You’re doing well for a start, so we’ll take a few minutes.” She grabbed a skin of water, tossed it to him.

“I’m having a hell of a day,” he told Breen, and from his tone she interpreted a good hell of a day.

“How’d the riding lesson go?”

“Ask the teacher.”

“The man took to horseback like a duck takes to water.”

“Really?”

“I’ve got untapped skills.” After guzzling some water, Marco swiped his sweaty face. “Fighting doesn’t seem to be one of them.”

“That only means you’ve room to improve. But not today. We have to turn the field over.”

“Oh. I can wait,” Breen assured her.

“No need. Marco’s more than earned the cup of ale I promised him. At dusk then, Keegan?”

“For today, aye.”

He swung off his duster, tossed it over the fence.

“I wouldn’t mind a late supper,” Harken called out. “Dusk would give you time enough to cook it.”

Morena shot him a sweet smile. “Dream, my darling. A man should have his dreams. You can ride Blue,” she told Marco. “And we’ll go get you that ale, and the gingerbread my nan planned to make today.”

“I could go for it.”

“You’ll test those skills by saddling Blue.”

On their way to the paddock, Amish swooped down, landed on the gatepost. Marco jumped half a foot.

“Ah now, Marco, I’ve wings, don’t I now, and they don’t trouble you.”

“It’s not the wings so much. It’s the beak, and the eyes. The eyes that look right at you and I hear him thinking: I bet your tongue tastes real good.”

With a shake of her head, Morena pulled Marco into the paddock. “I’ll make you a solemn vow: He won’t eat your tongue or any other part of you.”

“Does he know that?”

“If I know it, he knows it.”

“Wait a minute, Marco. I’ve got something for you.” Breen pulled the pouch out of her pocket as she went into the paddock.

“I get a reward for not falling off a horse? Cool.” He opened the pouch, pulled out the bracelet. “Wow. Seriously rocking. Thanks, girl. Where’d you get it? I didn’t see any shops around here.”

“I made it.”

“You did not!” On a half laugh he looked at her, then blinked. “You made it?”

“Oh, and well done, Breen.” With her hands behind her back, Morena leaned closer to examine the work. “It’s brilliant.”

Harken swung off the fence to get a look for himself. “It’s all of that. You chose fine stones as well.”

“It’s for protection.” Breen took it, fastened it onto Marco’s wrist. “Mind, body, spirit. I’ll sleep better if you wear it. All the time.”

“I can do that. You mean it’s like magick? You made it with the woo-woo?”

“With the strongest spell I know for it. That doesn’t mean you won’t break your neck if you jump off a cliff, or Morena can’t knock you on your ass. But it’s protection.”

“And styling.” He leaned down to kiss her. “I love it, and you.” He blinked again. “Is that a knife? Is that a knife on your belt?”

“It’s my athame—it’s for rituals. I left it with Nan when I went back to Philadelphia.”

“She made that as well, and the wand,” Morena told him. “Show him, Breen.”

“You got a magic wand? Step off!” His uncertainty about the knife vanished in delight. “Let me see. Do something with it. Where’s a rabbit and a hat when you need one?”

“If it’s not too much trouble,” Keegan said dryly, “I’ve not all the time in the worlds to stand about while the lot of you admire Breen’s crafting skills.”

“A hard taskmaster is Keegan. Well then, Marco, show off your skills and let’s see you saddle up my big Blue.”

“I’ll see you in a bit,” Breen said as she walked back out of the paddock—and got a supportive squeeze on the shoulder from Harken.

While Morena supervised Marco saddling Blue, Keegan picked up a second sword.

“We’ll start with this, and a single wraith.” He handed her the sword. “And we’ll see how much you’ve lost and forgotten since you took considerable time off your training.”

Marco called out when Breen unsheathed the sword, “You said they won’t cut, right, bro? They’re all enchanted and like that.”

“They won’t cut or slash or puncture living flesh. But …”

Turning, Keegan circled his hands, drawing them up and down, up and down, stirring the air, swirling the earth through it. And conjuring the dark faerie.

Breen studied the familiar face of one of Odran’s followers, one who’d attacked her on her second day in Talamh at her father’s grave.

She kept her focus even when she heard Marco’s alarmed: “Holy shit. What the fucking fuck!”

“It’s a wraith,” Morena soothed. “It’s not real, not the way you think.”

“A training tool,” Keegan said without looking around. “All right then, Breen, let’s see what you’ve managed to bring back from your holiday. Defend!”

The faerie leaped, eyes gleaming, sword raised.

Breen blocked the strike, felt the all-too-familiar clash of steel shoot shock up her arm. She shifted, put her weight on her back foot, pumped a side kick into her opponent’s belly with her front. Then spun, gripping the hilt in both hands, and using the power of the spin, struck.

As it had on that bright summer day under Keegan’s sword, the head thudded on the ground and rolled.

“Shit! Shit! Girl, you go!”

Breen merely tossed her hair back, sent a disdainful stare into Keegan’s eyes. “I didn’t take time off or go on holiday.”

“Feel a little sick.”

She turned to see Marco bent over, hands on knees.

“Focus!” Keegan ordered, but she flicked her fingers at him.

“It’s not real, Marco. It’s like CGI.”

He lifted his head, breathing slow. “Like CGI. I can handle that.”

“It will be real,” Keegan murmured. “Soon enough.”

“I’m well aware, and I’m here to train. But he needs time to adjust. You’ll give him time, or I’m done for the day.”

She thought she heard a snicker from Harken as Keegan angled his head at her.

“Come back altogether full of yourself, haven’t you? All right then, take on two.”

Rather than conjure another foe, Keegan brought back the first, twinned him. When they rushed her, she shot a stream of fire at the one on the left, impaled the one on the right.

“Three-zip, Breen Kelly!” Marco made wild crowd noises.

“I trained every damn day. You’re not the only one who can conjure wraiths.” And since she’d anticipated something exactly like this, she’d already done just that, had it—to her way of thinking—on hold.

She released it, a burly, bearded, seven-foot Were. “Now you defend!”

It transformed into a snarling, towering bear as it charged Keegan.

“She made a bear!” she heard Marco shout. “Breen made a bear!”

Keegan drew his sword, pivoted. And didn’t quite evade the edge of slicing claws. But he leaped aside, struck out with his blade. As the bear screamed in pain and rage, began the next charge, Keegan opened the ground under him.

And sent fire after it.

Annoyance lost to fascination as Breen studied the mucky mess in the crater. “I don’t know that one. Show me.”

“Later.”

“You’ll be filling that hole, brother, or I’ll be helping Breen bloody your arse.”

Keegan just shrugged at Harken, used two hands and brought the earth back to level ground.

“I want to try that. Let me—”

“Later. Defend.”

She managed to block Keegan’s strike, but her arm sang all the way to her shoulder. She set her teeth as they eyed each other over the vibrating steel.

“You’ve improved.”

“I trained every damn day.”

He hooked a foot around hers, skewed her balance, and before she could regain it, impaled her. “And still you’re dead.”

Annoyed, she stepped back, set again. She feinted a strike with her sword, used her left hand and her power to shove a blast of air. It knocked him back, and down. She sent fire after it, turning it to water before it struck.

“That makes two of us.”

Something lit in those gorgeous eyes of his, she noted, but couldn’t tell if it was admiration or the spark of competition.

“Learned some tricks on your own, I see.” He got to his feet. “Mind your fire, as I’d sooner not go up in flames.”

“It harms no living thing—I bespelled it like the swords. You’ll get wet, but you won’t burn.”

“Well then.” He shoved a hand through his dripping hair. “Defend.”

They clashed, sword and smoke, fire and fists.

In the paddock, Harken pulled Morena in for a kiss. “I’ve cows to milk.”

As Harken wandered off, Marco pulled himself into the saddle, still craning his neck to watch the action.

He watched fire spew from Breen’s fingers, collide with a stream from Keegan’s, and burst into a flood of water. Swords sliced through it.

“Okay, I’m saying it right out loud,” he decided. “This is getting me hot. Is it like foreplay with them?”

“Sure and that may be a part of it. She’s worked hard, and it shows. Still, I can tell you he holds back. Well now, we’ll leave them to it and go have ourselves some ale and gingerbread.”

Morena spread her wings and rose up, and her hawk with her. “Along with me now, Marco. Blue knows the way home.”

Breen heard them leave, ignored them. She already hurt. The swords didn’t cut, but they sure as hell packed a sting. And every muscle in her body wanted to weep after ten minutes of sparring with him.

The fire wouldn’t burn, but God, her lungs did. And since he’d used her own trick with the fire to water (she’d thought that so very clever), she was soaked to the skin.

She could train with a sword, she knew, for a year—for ten years— and never match him there. But her magicks had grown, sharpened. More to find, more to learn, but if she could ward off his attacks with them, he might not kill her as often.

Still, even with that in her arsenal, she felt herself flagging. He didn’t even seem to be winded. Reinforcements, she thought. Why the hell not?

And brought back her were-wraith to charge him from the left flank.

When he shifted to defend, she went for him with fire and blade.

Acknowledging the killing blow, he stepped back. “That was canny.”

“You didn’t say it was against the rules.”

He pushed at his soaked hair. “The only rule in war is to defeat the enemy and live.” He lowered his sword, a signal for a break. “Where did you train in your Philadelphia?”

“In the apartment when Marco went out.”

“In that little place?”

“It’s what I had.”

“I mean to say it shows dedication. I reckoned on having to bring you back up to where you were when you left, but you’ve gained a step or two instead.”

“A compliment. Let me mark the day and the hour. Maybe the minute.”

Irritation flickered, visibly. “I’ve given you praise before.”

“In this area—pretty scarce.”

He dragged a hand through his hair, drying it this time. “Then I’ll say this. Your swordplay is weak.”

“That’s more familiar.”

“But,” he said, with the faintest edge of annoyance, “it’s better than it was, by a small margin. More, as you know it’s weak, you’ve found ways to … what is it? Compensate, using where you aren’t so weak. That’s a good trait and good tactics for any warrior.”

“I’m never going to be a warrior.”

“Bollocks to that. Apologies,” he said to the dog, who stopped chewing on a stick long enough to thump his whip of a tail. “You already are. Odran doesn’t know that. You must. You killed me a half dozen times this hour.”

She hated the fact his acknowledgment meant so damn much.

“I lost track of how many times you returned that favor.”

He shrugged at that. “When we started, you could barely hold the sword, much less use it. And though you’re not a clumsy woman, you tripped over your own feet.”

He glanced up at the sky, gauged the time by the sun. “Sure it’s too late to put you on a horse today. Did you keep up there after you left?”

“No. I didn’t have a horse or anywhere to ride.”

“Tomorrow then, we’ll work there.”

“If we’re riding, I’d like to go to the mines. I need to increase my crystal supply without always taking from Nan.”

He looked back at her, considering. “It’s a long ride, and not all of it what you’d think pleasant. Just the thing then, for getting you back in tune there. What do you have to barter?”

“I don’t know yet.”

“Trolls don’t have healers as such. They send a signal if there’s a serious hurt or illness, and there hasn’t been one. But they’ll have smaller hurts and ills. You can barter basic healing.”

“Very basic.”

“You’ve enough for it,” he told her. “And if there’s a need for more, I’ve enough to help. And food. Sweets, I think. Biscuits, cakes, pies. Meat pies as well. Anything of the sort. Ask Marco. If he bakes near as well as he cooks, you’ll make fine trades.”

He looked out, over to the mountains. “A good, long ride,” he repeated. “You need the training or we’d take Cróga. We’ll have to start an hour earlier than we did today to be back by moonsrise.”

“All right. If we’re done for today, I can get Marco and start baking.”

“Does it look like dusk to you?” He lifted his sword, and his smile came more challenging than friendly. “Defend.”

When dusk finally came, she felt like she’d been run over by a truck, then dragged behind it for a full mile before being run over by it again.

“You did well enough for the first time back at it.”

“Please.” Pride ordered her not to just slide to the ground and moan. “Such effusive praise will give me a big head.”

He ignored that. “Next for combat, I’m thinking we’ll start you with a bow.”

“I don’t suppose you mean and a fiddle.”

“I don’t. And here are Morena and Marco now. You pleased him with the bracelet, settled yourself some with the protection of it. When you’ve gathered your own supplies, you might make more of the sort— for different purposes. For gifts and bartering. You’ll want that when we go to the Capital.”

“To the Capital? You never said—”

“My mother comes to the valley in a few days more, to visit, to see her grandchildren. To be here for Samhain. And when she goes back in the next month, we’ll go with her. The people need to see you, and you them. The valley isn’t the whole of the world. For me, perhaps the best of it, but not the whole.”

“We don’t have until next month.”

Because he saw the puzzlement, and some fear, when what she had reached up inside her, he held out a hand to stop Marco and Morena at the gate.

“Let it come, mo bandia. It’s yours.” He took her hand to steady her. “Knowledge is as much a weapon as a sword.”

She curled her fingers with his, looked into his eyes. Steadied. “The curtain parts. It cannot hold. And when it clears, he sees. The child, the bridge, the key. The blood of his blood. Daughter of the Fey, of the gods, of man. When he sees, he knows. And they slip and slide through the cracks to bring the dark where the white robes worship, and plot and plan. Blood sacrifice, blood magicks. It begins there.”

“When the veil thins,” he finished, because he saw it, too. Felt it with her, through her, in himself.

She shuddered. “I don’t know what that means, except he’s coming.”

“No, not he, not yet.” Absently, Keegan pressed his lips to her forehead. “But he’s picked his time and his place, and the weak-minded among us who’ll follow him.”

“I couldn’t see, not really.”

“We’ll work on that, won’t we?” Keegan said in a tone as absent as the kiss.

“There was water—an ocean, I think—and cliffs, and a stone building on them. Not here, and not Odran’s cliffs.”

“Not here, no. In the south. South,” he said as he gestured Morena and Marco to come ahead.

“You okay, Breen? You’re so pale.” Instinctively, Marco put an arm around her. “What the hell, Keegan?”

“Sure she’s fine. Just not used to the seeing as yet. But she saw well enough, as did I.” He looked to Morena. “We know when and where he’ll try a strike, and so we’ll be ready for it.”

“South, you say? The Pious?” She bared her teeth. “Bloody fanatics. They’ve sworn oaths.”

“And some break oaths as easily as a twig underfoot. On Samhain. I need to send a falcon to my mother.”

“Amish will take your message. He’s faster than most. Should I get Harken?”

“And Mahon as well if you would.”

“War’s coming. Why are you smiling?” Breen demanded.

“It was coming in any case. But now we know how and when and where. You’ve given us a weapon, and we’ll use it. Ah, pity sakes, woman, he meant—or will mean—to send his demons against us with us unaware, and on a night, a holy night, where we honor those who came before us. When we reach out to them, and them to us. We’d be in ritual, in celebration, in homage. Instead, through your gift, the trap he means to set we spring on him.”

“My grandmother. I need to warn her.”

“Not to worry, we’ll see she knows. And she’s nothing to fear tonight, nor do you. Feck it all, woman, you did well. Be pleased with yourself. Now go back over, and help Marco with the baking.”

“We’re still going? To the mines?”

“And why wouldn’t we? Your training doesn’t stop, and you need what they mine, don’t you? Take her along, Marco. She could use some of the wine she likes.”

“Me, too.”

“Tomorrow then.” Keegan swung on his duster, picked up the sword she’d dropped without realizing it. “An hour earlier. Don’t be late.”

“He’s …excited,” Breen marveled.

“Okay. Come on, boy, I think we’re going back to Ireland. I think I get it,” Marco added as the dog scrambled up and raced ahead of them. “Sounds like the bad guys are planning a sneak attack, but now it won’t be a sneak because you had one of those vision-type things, so they know the plot. Samhain’s Halloween, right?”

“Yeah.”

“I’m going to google that, get more juice on it.” Marco glanced back when they reached the stone wall across the road. “Wow, man, look up there. Two moons. They really have two moons. I have to think about that later. Let me help you over.”

“I’m okay. I’ve got it. You’re right. He’s right. Knowing’s a weapon. And nothing’s going to happen tonight, or until Samhain.”

Except Odran would finally push Nan’s curtain aside and see her. She wasn’t sure how she’d handle that when the time came.

“Hell, I wasn’t thinking. We’re going to have to walk back through all those woods in the dark.”

“It’s all right. I can bring light.”

“She can bring light,” Marco mumbled as they climbed the seven steps. Then laughed when she tossed out all the pretty little balls of it. “You’re a wonder, girl. I’ve got so much to tell you. Just a whole crap-load. But I gotta ask …”

Distracted, he climbed onto the tree and through without thinking about it. Then stopped, stared. “If I wake up and this is all a dream, I’m going to be pissed. Anyway, I was going to ask before we walked through freaking worlds, what am I baking and why?”

She explained on the walk back to the cottage, and listened to Marco talk about his day. Learning to ride—his favorite part of it— and through to his visit to Morena’s grandparents’ cottage—his second favorite.

“Is every day over there this wild?” he asked as Bollocks headed straight to the bay.

“At first, I guess so. You just never know what you’re going to see or do.” She started the fire before heading toward the kitchen.

“Like that. Like watching my best girl start the fire from across the room. Let’s have really big glasses of wine.”

“Yes, let’s.”

“Enough leftover pasta for dinner. Good thing,” he decided while Breen poured generous glasses. “Since I’m going to be baking for Doc and Sneezy.”

“I’ll help. I’m completely on cleanup.”

“First things first. I’m going to take a long, hot shower, get me some pj’s on—you do the same. Then we’re going to drink more wine, eat pasta. Then we bake.”

“A shower and pj’s. Best idea ever. As soon as I fill Bollocks’s bowls.” But she leaned against the counter first, let the day drain away as much as it could. “How’s your ass?”

He turned, wiggled it. “High and tight and proud.”

“I meant from the saddle.”

“A little sore here and there, but nothing much.”

“God, I could barely walk after my first lesson. I could hate you if I didn’t love you so much.”

She pushed off to fill the dog’s bowls. Let Bollocks know his dinner waited.

“You and Keegan went at it hard. And hot.”

“The fire-to-water trick was my secret weapon—at first.”

“I don’t mean that, girl. I mean …” Rolling his eyes, Marco waved a hand in front of his face. “Hot.”

“Honestly.” When Bollocks raced in, she walked over to shut the door and saw the pixies had come to guard. “It’s not about sex.”

“I know hot when I see hot. And if you don’t tap that man again, I feel sorry for you, girl.”

“We’ve got a lot more to think about than sex.”

Another eye roll. “That’s why you gotta grab the good stuff when you have the chance.” He swung an arm around her as they started for the stairs. “And I’d bet my new harp that man brings the good stuff.”

“Maybe. Yes. But we’re focused on saving worlds here.”

“Not much point if you don’t grab that good stuff. I’m maybe going to need a cold shower now.”

She pushed him toward his room and split off to her own.

CHAPTER SIX

Always an early riser, Breen started her day before the sun. She watched the pixies flicker and flutter outside the garden door while she squeezed in a predawn workout. She expected Keegan to put her through her paces—in his unrelenting style—so she’d damn well be prepared for it.

By the time the sun streamed through the glass, she’d posted a blog and made some solid progress on Bollocks’s next adventure.

Taking what she deemed a well-earned break, she went out to greet Marco.

“You were up early,” she said as he guarded a pot of water on the stove. “I heard you puttering around out here on and off, but I was in the groove.”

“Me, too.” He reached into the pot with a slotted spoon, turned something. “I’m making bagels, baby.”

“I think you’re supposed to toast bagels, Marco.”

“From freaking scratch.”

“Come on.” She stepped over, saw the circles of dough floating in the boiling water. “You boil them? Did I know that?”

“A minute a side. Then you dip the wet top side into the poppy seeds or sesame seeds—I got both—and bake those suckers.”

She looked over to the counter beside him, saw the parchment-lined sheet half full of unbaked bagels.

“We did cookies and the petit fours last night, right, and I got this inspiration. Bagels. How many over there have had the glory of a toasted bagel? We had all the stuff in stock, so I thought why not see if I can do it.”

He spooned out three, tapped his watch to set the time, and dropped in another three.

Breen watched as he dipped each into his choice of the seeds in little plates, then put them back on the sheet.

“We’re going to split one once they’re baked,” he told her. “Quality control.”

“I’m for it. Do you need help?”

“No, I got this. It’s Mr. Science time.”

“Let me know when it’s testing time.”

Since he looked deliriously happy, she grabbed a Coke and left him to it. And made a note at her desk to put a musical bakery in Bollocks’s third book.

Bagels and Banjos? Cookies, Cakes, and Concerts? Pies and Piccolos?

With some effort, she pushed it aside and toggled over to her fantasy novel. She surfaced when Marco tapped on the doorjamb.

“You gotta eat, girl. And I got a drumroll going.”

“I’m there. Just let me shut down.”

She went out to find two places set on the table with the half bagel, some slices of baked apples drizzled with cinnamon, and a scoop of scrambled eggs loaded with chunks of ham.

“I’m going to have to add to my workout time if I keep eating like this.”

“Bagel first.” He nudged the butter at her while he coated his with cream cheese. “Never will get how you can turn away from the schmear. But anyway. On three, okay?”

She gave hers half a delicate coating of butter. “One, two, three!” And bit in. “God. Good!”

“Good texture.” He nodded as he chewed. “Just a touch of sweet from the honey. Chewy, but not tough. These are Troll-worthy bagels. They get a dozen. The other dozen are for Nan and Morena and the rest of them.”

“You made two dozen bagels?”

“Two baker’s dozens. We keep the extra one for us tomorrow.”

“I was thinking you should open a musical bakery, but you should open a musical diner. You’d rock it.”

Late in the morning, they carted boxes of baked goods through the woods and over to Talamh.

“This is never going to get old,” Marco decided when they stepped from sunlight into a thin, misting rain.

As they approached the road, Breen shifted her boxes and paused. She watched Cróga dive out of the clouds. Shimmering with wet, dragon and rider soared down to land in the center of the road.

The ground trembled, then stilled. “Jesus, oh Jesus. It’s big. It’s really big. I think I forgot something back at the cottage.”

“Just breathe, Marco.”

“What’s all this then?” Keegan slid down, running a hand over Cróga’s glistening scales.

“The baked goods for bartering.”

Keegan scanned the boxes as he walked to them. “And are you after trading for all the stones in Talamh?”

“I wasn’t sure how much I’d need. And this little one’s for Nan and Sedric. Marco’s got separate ones for the farm and for Morena’s family.”

“Well now, let’s have a look.” He flipped open one of the boxes himself. “What are these little pastries here?”

“I made mini cream puffs.” Marco kept his gaze focused like a laser on Cróga. “Is he just going to stand there looking over here?”

“He won’t do you any harm, brother.” Keegan took out a tiny cream puff, popped it into his mouth. “Sure and I swear, that’s fit for the gods. And you’ve little tarts as well.”

“If you’re going to sample everything, maybe we can get out of the rain.”

Keegan barely spared Breen a glance as he took out a tart. “’Tisn’t for me. Take this, Marco. Cróga’s got a taste for sweets. Toss that over to him.”

“Oh, you know, you go ahead.”

“Ah, sure you’ve more spine than that. Just toss it out.”

Trapped, Marco winged the tart. Cróga just whipped his head, caught it. Then made a sound a pride of lions might after a fine meal of antelope.

“Does that mean he liked it?”

“He did indeed. And it appears he’ll make the trip to the mines after all.”

“We’ll go there on him?”

“We’ll ride, but all this he’ll take, as we’d need a packhorse otherwise, and that’s too slow for the trip.” Standing in the wet, Keegan scanned the sky. “The weather should clear by midday, but it’s best if we leave a bit earlier yet. I’ll come round to Marg’s when it’s time.”

He snagged two cookies, and as he walked back to his dragon, broke one in two. Tossed half to Bollocks, the other half to Cróga. Ate the other as he swung back into the saddle.

“Sure the gods would weep, Marco.”

The dragon glided straight up with his wings sending the air into a whirl. Then they were gone, swallowed by the clouds.

“I fed a dragon a fruit tart.”

“Yay. Let’s get all this to the farm. I’ll take Nan’s after we drop them off. I might not see you until it’s time to go back.”

“I’ll be okay. I know the way to Finola’s if Morena’s not here at the farm. Plus, I fed a fruit tart to a big-ass dragon.”

She carried the box to Marg’s and spent the rest of the morning learning and practicing a barrier spell.

When the rain cleared as Keegan predicted, Marg led her outside and into the woods.

“Now, tell me what’s here.”

“Here?” Breen looked around. “Trees, the stream, your workshop.”

“You are one with the air, with the earth. You are always connected to the light, to the water. All is connected, all that lives. Open yourself to hearts that beat, to what reaches for the light, what spreads through the earth.

“Hear the beat of my heart.”

Understanding the first step was to quiet her mind, Breen closed her eyes, deepened and slowed her breathing. Opening herself to Marg had become as simple as that breathing.

“I hear you, Nan, your strong heart. I feel your light. And Bollocks. The thrill of chasing a squirrel—no, no, a chipmunk. Its heart beats so fast as it races up a tree. A chestnut tree. Old, the tree, it’s old, and its bark is deeply furrowed, but its heart is still strong. Its leaves have gone gold for the fall and have begun to drop as the wind stirs them. Year after year, decade by decade, birds sing and shelter and nest in those leaves, green in the spring.

“But the chipmunk’s young, and he scolds Bollocks from the safety of the branch. He doesn’t understand Bollocks wouldn’t hurt him. He only wants to play.”

Stunned, as she’d seen it all so clearly, knew it all so surely, she opened her eyes. “Nan—”

“What else is here?”

“The buck, the one I saw only yesterday. He’s deeper, so Bollocks hasn’t scented him. A doe and their fawn—still spotted—walk behind him. They cross the stream, and the fish scatter away as they pause to drink. Birds, so many. Nuthatches and jays, magpies and starlings and ravens and woodpeckers.

“A fox.” She gestured west. “Streaking from the field to the trees. He has a mouse clamped in his mouth. No heartbeat there. Under an oak, fiery red, a rabbit nurses her young in a burrow, keeps them safe from the hawk. Nearby, mushrooms sprout on a downed tree, finding life where death came.”

“There now, that’s enough. Too much at once can make you dizzy.” Marg reached out to take her hand.

“There’s so much, so much life. Beating and growing, sleeping and feeding, hunting and hiding. Can all the Fey do that, feel that?”

“No, no indeed. Elves have their bond with the trees, the stones, the earth, but it’s a different knowing than this. As Weres have this bond with their spirit animals. The Sidhe are closer to what you have, and those drops of their blood in yours enhances what you have from the Wise.”

“So you can do that?” Breen asked as they walked back toward the cottage.

“Not as quick or far or deep as you.”

“It was wonderful, the sensation of it.” Filling her, Breen thought. Lifting her. “Affirming.”

“It is, aye. And like the barrier spell you’ve learned, is both defense and offense.”

“Because I’ll know the heart—or intent—of an enemy?”

“As you didn’t before Yseult harmed you, as I hadn’t yet taught you the skill.”

“I wasn’t ready before. I wasn’t strong enough before.”

“She’s powerful, and wily. Her hunger for more, her desires drew her to Odran.”

“You knew her, before.”

“We were young together. Not friends, never that. I was for the valley, and she lusted for the Capital. A seat of power as she saw it.”

When they crossed the bridge, Bollocks leaped out of the stream to run ahead toward the cottage. Breen didn’t need power to know he anticipated a treat in the kitchen.

“She went into the lake that day, as I did. No one could have wanted the sword so much as Yseult. To rule, you see, not to serve, or to protect, or to shoulder the weight of it all. Even then I could feel her envy, the dark of it, when I brought the sword from the lake.”

Marg took off her cloak when they stepped into the house, then granted the dog’s wish by going straight into the kitchen and his treat jar.

“Such a good, fine boy you are. Ask politely.”

Bollocks sat, let out a quiet bark.

“We’ll have some soup before your journey. And treat ourselves as well to some of Marco’s sweets.”

Knowing this routine, Breen sliced bread from the round while Marg warmed the soup.

“Just the two of us today, mo stór. Sedric had business elsewhere.”

“When did she turn, Nan? Yseult. You’ve never said.”

“She hid it well, from me, from her family, from all. And all the while, from that day, she practiced the darker arts in secret. She went to him, through the portal in the falls, passing in and out without detection. Would I, could I have seen if I had looked deeper? I can’t know that, but I know she used her gifts, what she had done to her gifts, to help him come through, to help him blind me to what he was. As I know she helped him rebuild when I thought him defeated. She helped him amass his army, helped him take you on that terrible night.

“This much I’ve seen in the fire, and in the crystal,” Marg added as they began to eat. “These things she did for power, and to strike at me for having what she coveted.”

“Does she love him?”

“Ah, no. Such as Yseult don’t love. She might lust, but love is a different thing. She worships him, I think. She made him her god. And power—through and of him? That is her true god, her lover, her beloved child. He is the answer for her, you see. She believes in him, of course. Is loyal because she believes.”

“They’ll destroy each other if it furthers their goals. He was ready to kill her in the vision I had, after she failed to take me to him. He didn’t because he cooled off enough to see she was still useful. And she was—like you said—wily in how she played it.”

“Remember these things. They’re weapons as well. And be wily yourself with the Trolls today. They love a good trade, and a fair one, but won’t hesitate to take advantage if you let them. Loga is the chief of the tribe here in the west, and a clever one. His wife, Sul, is more clever yet.”

“Give me your opinion.” Breen opened the box and set several samples on a plate. “Tell me if these give me an edge on the trade.”

Obliging, Marg chose a petit four Marco had frosted a strong green. “This is good. Very good indeed. I’ve never known a troll without a taste for the sweet. Meat and mead, aye, but the sweet disarms them. You’ll do well.”

With the door open, Breen heard the sound of horses trotting toward the cottage. “I guess I’m going to find out.”

Marg rose with her, walked her out where Keegan waited. “It’s a fine day for a ride.” She glanced up, watched Cróga circle overhead. “So you take your dragon as well.”

“She brought enough sweets for the whole of the Troll clan to have their fill. Cróga carries the trade.”

“If it’s too much for now, see they give her the proper credit for what she might want in the future. A fine day,” Marg repeated. “I believe I’ll spend some time in the air myself.”

“I’ll saddle your horse for you,” Breen began, but Marg waved her off.

“No, be off with you. Keegan will want you off the mountain before dark.” She kissed Breen’s cheek. “Enjoy, and the view from Sliabh Sióg.”

Breen bent down to Bollocks. “You can stay here at the cottage or go up to the farm. Go play with the children, or find Marco and Morena. But I’m going too far for you to come today.”

He whined when she straightened, took a moment to stroke Boy, the buckskin gelding she’d ride.

“I’ll be back with the moons,” she promised. “And I’ll call out to you.”

She mounted, found relief she felt confident in the saddle. “I’ll send for him when we’re back, and we’ll come tomorrow, Nan.”

“Trade well, and blessings on you both.”

As they trotted down to the road, Breen did a mental review of basic horsemanship. Keegan would, she knew, sneer at any novice mistakes.

When they reached the road, Keegan shot her a glance. “We can make good time for now.”

So saying, he kicked his horse into a gallop. The big black stallion ate up the ground.

“Okay, Boy, let’s hope we both remember.”

She raced after him and found she did remember—and with the memory came the thrill of the speed, the power of the horse under her.

They’d never match the pace of Keegan’s Merlin, but it felt as if they flew down the stretch of road. The hair she hadn’t thought to tie back streamed behind her, and she found the cool whip of the wind on her face exhilarating.

A wagon drawn by a pair of horses clopped its way toward them. The man drove while the woman held a baby on her lap. The little boy in the back waved and shouted out greetings, first to Keegan—a good ten lengths ahead—then to her.

They neared the turn that led to the round tower, the stone circle, the ruins where the Pious had once prayed. And the graveyard where her father’s ashes lay under a garden she and Marg had brought to life.

But ahead of her, Keegan turned away, and rode toward the far curve of the bay.

There, she saw a mermaid sitting on a rock, her luminous jewel of a tail curled around her as she drew a comb through her long golden hair. In the water, blue now like the sky, young ones splashed, rising and diving, glittering tails whipping through the water.

The beauty and wonder had Breen slowing, and listening to the echo of young laughter.

The mermaid turned her head, and after a moment, lifted her hand in an easy wave.

Blessings on you, Daughter of the Fey.

Breen’s heart tripped as she heard the words in her mind. And her own formed a response.

And on you, Daughter of the Sea.

Full of the beauty and the wonder, she rode on to where Keegan had stopped to wait.

“Are they her children?”

“Two are, three are cousins. You can make their acquaintance another day. We’ve still far to go.”

“Boy would run his heart out, and it’s as big as Merlin’s. But he doesn’t have his stamina.”

“Right enough.” Keegan continued in an easy trot.

“I’ve only seen one mermaid before. A young girl. Ala. Bollocks likes to play with her.”

“If you bring him there, other young will come.”

“I’ll do that. When Marco feels confident enough riding, I want to take him to my father’s grave. He loved him, too. And he’d have a chance to see the Mers.”

“I saw him ride yesterday. He doesn’t lack for confidence. But when you take him, take a sword as well. The days grow shorter,” he said before she could speak. “He strikes for battle on Samhain, and we’ll be ready. But between now and then, spies and scouts slip through.”

“How will we be ready?” When he hesitated, she shifted. “How can I be so important to stopping Odran if I don’t know how we stop an attack I saw coming? Felt,” she corrected.

“Mahon and I flew south with some troops last night. He remains there for now with them. We have scouts and spies as well, and those who’ll watch and report on what this faction of the Pious plan.”

“If you’re massing troops, won’t they see, and catch on that we know?”

“They’ll see what we want them to see. Some fresh novitiates who wish for religious life, others who drink too much ale in the pubs or flirt along the shore, sail on the water, and so on.”

He shrugged as if speaking of war was just another conversation.

“My mother travels from the Capital, and some who come with her will veer south. We have barracks there, and this will appear as a troop exchange, but none will leave but to take to the woods or the caves or the fields, where they wait.”

“When will you go?”

“Mahon returns for Finian’s birthday. We fly south before sunset on Samhain. There’s a point,” he continued after a moment. “Tactics, you see. Crushing this attack swiftly, completely, taking as many of those who break the treaty or have turned on their own alive, and to the Capital for judgment, shows strength and resolve.”

“It won’t end it,” she murmured.

“It won’t end it, no, but it serves to demoralize Odran’s faithful, and to lift morale for the Fey.”

“You don’t want me there.”

“You have no place there. I don’t insult you. You’re not ready for such things, as well you know.”

“Will I be?”

“You must be, so you will.”

He glanced up, so she followed his gaze. She saw Cróga gliding like a ship over the sea. And with him a dragon of ruby and sapphire, and the rider on it.

“It is— That’s Nan! I didn’t know she had a dragon, that she rode a dragon. I mean, I did—I saw her in the fire, but what I saw happened years ago.”

“Sure she rides. Her dragon is Dilis, and has birthed more than a dozen young. Cróga is from her. A great—no, two greats—grandson.”

“She’s beautiful. They’re beautiful.” Then it struck her. “She won’t go south, so into this battle? Nan.”

“No. There’s no need. When there is, if and when there is, she’ll fly, and she’ll fight. Come, he’s rested enough. We have near an hour, then another for the climb to the post.”

This time Merlin adjusted his pace to match Boy’s, and the way stayed smooth and steady for a time even when the road climbed.

Keegan slowed when they wound through woods, under trees where leaves tumbled down as the air shook them free. Still so much color remained it was like riding within a kaleidoscope with the sun sparkling through.

Testing herself, Breen opened. She felt the heartbeats—deer, a foraging bear. Elves—three on a hunt. Then her own heart slammed as Merlin simply leaped from one bank of a stream to the other.

“I don’t know how to do that.”

“Boy does. I won’t let you fall. Ask him.”

“I could just go down, through, and up again.”

“Ask him,” Keegan repeated. “I said you won’t fall.”

Since she’d never known him to lie, she held her breath. She had only to think Jump and Boy sailed. Maybe the sound she made edged too close to a squeal, but she held her seat.

“Did you help?”

“Only a bit. You’re a better rider than you think. And you’ll soon need to be.”

It didn’t take long for her to understand the truth of that. The trail climbed steeper, grew rougher until it was more like the rubble from a small avalanche than a trail at all.

The woods gave way to the open and a kind of skinny, rutted road where the wind kicked higher.

She looked up, farther up, and her mouth went dry. Yes, the green of pines stacked up the hillside, but the way, switchbacks, ledges, seemed more suited to goats than horses.

“You’ve done this before, right?”

“Sure I have. Boy’s surefooted.” He turned in the saddle to look back at her. “And I won’t let you fall.”

She decided the very best way to handle it would be to keep her eyes directly ahead. Not to look down, or up, or sideways. Just trust her horse to put one sure foot in front of the other.

And following her own advice, would have missed it. But Keegan stopped, turned again, and this time turned Merlin as well.

“We call this God’s Palm. You rest in it, and from it you see Talamh.” He gestured out. “All the way to the south and the Sea of Sorrows.”

When she looked, her heart thudded. Not from fear, but from the sheer beauty.

Miles and miles, hills and fields, the patchwork of greens, the brilliance of fall woods, the gray of stone walls and old buildings, of cottages and villages, and under the clear sky to the stunning blue of the water.

“You brought fortune with you to have such a clear day. Often Talamh hides in the mists.”

“It’s like a painting, but a painting caught in crystal. So sharp and perfect. It doesn’t seem like anything so perfect could be real. But I can see movement. Life. Where’s the Capital?”

“East, but the mountain blocks it from here, as here is the edge of the west.” He put a hand on her shoulder to turn her. “You can see there, where the hills rise and the forest where game runs thick so none ever need know hunger. The high cliffs that slice down to the West Sea, and the sea that rides to the end of the world.

“Your world, as much as mine.”

“You needed me to see it, like this, the peace of it.” A painting captured in crystal, she thought again—and thought of how she’d wished to hold a moment in a misty morning cupped in her hands.

“The peace you’ll fight to hold,” she added. “I came back, Keegan.”

“No, no. Bloody hell, I don’t mean that at all, and I’m damned if I’ll apologize yet again. I wanted you to see it like this—which is different from need. I wanted you to see what you protect, as I do.”

“I think it’s the most beautiful place I’ve ever seen, or will see. And I feel whatever I’ve forgotten, whatever I remember I’ve forgotten, I’m tied to it. And always will be.”

She looked at him. “What god holds us here?”

“All of them.”

“Not Odran.”

“A fallen god is a god in name only.” He offered her a skin of water. “He wants you because you’re so much more.”

Am I? she wondered, and tipped her head back to drink. “There’s a goat! A—a ram. Right up there.”

He glanced up. “They like the high countries. We’re nearly there, and they’re expecting us now.”

“They are?”

“They’ve been watching us for some time. Visitors don’t climb Sliabh Sióg unnoticed. And if we were unwelcome, they’d have made that clear enough by now.”

“Isn’t the taoiseach welcome everywhere?”

Keegan took back the skin. “Trolls can be prickly.”

He turned away and continued the climb.

She saw more goats, more long-horned sheep, more breathless views.

Then a man with shoulders as wide as a truck, a warrior’s braid dangling to his waist, and a face nearly as nut brown as his hair dropped onto the track from above.

He wore a helmet of dull bronze and a breastplate that looked as if it had taken more than a few hits over the years. His eyes, a shockingly bright blue, stayed narrowed as he planted his feet, legs wide, and fisted big, gnarled hands on his hips.

“Greetings to you, Loga, and all your kin. We ask your permission to pass. We bring you trade.”

“Do ya?” He sniffed. “And is this the child of Eian O’Ceallaigh?”

“I’m Breen,” she said before Keegan could speak again. “And my father’s daughter. Blessings on you, Loga, on your wife, Sul, and all your kin.”

Loga’s eyebrows shot up. “Pretty thing, aren’t ya? Got the look of your da, and of Mairghread. I see Odran passed his eyes on to ya.”

Turning his head, Loga spat.

“I think of them as from my father, and they don’t look kindly on Odran or those who follow him.”

“Got some sass. I like sass. Rolled with this one a time or two I hear.”

When he jerked a thumb at Keegan, Breen struggled not to blush from embarrassment or insult. “That would be a private matter.”

He barked out a laugh. “Sass! You may pass and bring your trade. One pint of ale each you’ll have for hospitality.”

“She’s one for wine,” Keegan told him.

“Ah well, a cup of wine for her then.”

And like a goat—at least in Breen’s imagination—he leaped onto the rocks above. He took a curved horn out of his belt, blew three long notes.

Then seemed to vanish.

“We’re welcomed,” Keegan told her.

He turned Merlin around the last switchback.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Stone huts huddled together on the rocky plateau. Others stacked their way up the mountain like deliberately if precariously placed building blocks. The steps and ledges leading up looked as if they’d been hacked out of the rocky rise by axes.

Beyond the huddle, she saw some sort of stable or barn and the mules and husky horses sharing a paddock beside it. A couple of pigs grunted and rooted in a sty beside a narrow track while a handful of fat chickens squawked and pecked away outside a coop.

Small campfires burned inside circles of stones outside each hut. The thin, cool air carried the tang of peat smoke and roasting meat.

Breen was pretty sure she identified an unlucky rabbit rotating on a spit over one of the fires.

Young children played a game involving curved sticks and a small wooden ball that looked somewhat like field hockey. Some women had infants strapped on their backs or in snug slings across their chests. Another took a cup to an old one as he sat on a rough-hewn stone bench in the sunlight.

She saw every shade of skin: black, brown, copper, ruddy, creamy. Most activity stopped when she rode into the camp alongside Keegan.

Loga and two others—one male, one female—leaped down from the rocky point above.

“They have come to trade,” Loga announced, “and have permission. Welcome, Taoiseach. Welcome, Daughter of the O’Ceallaigh.”

Keegan dismounted. “Greetings to you and your community.”

Following his lead, Breen dismounted. “And thank you.”

“You’ll sit by the fire. Ale,” Loga called out, “and wine for the daughter. You, boy, take the horses to water.”

Loga led the way to the fire in front of a hut with a high, arched door, then sat on the ground.

“This much is hospitality,” he said when Keegan and Breen joined him. “The rest is trade.”

“Understood.” Keegan gestured up to where Cróga circled. “He carries containers of what the daughter wishes to trade. May he land?”

“He may. And my people will bring the containers.”

When Cróga settled on the rocky point above, several scrambled up to untie the boxes hitched to his saddle. A boy stroked a hand over Cróga’s scales, his face alive with longing.

“Your grandson. I would gift him a short flight.”

The boy looked down, and longing became wild hope.

“Try to soften me up for the trade, will ya?”

“I know the futility of such attempts. And the trade isn’t mine.”

Loga pointed at the boy. “Short. Once. So,” Loga continued as the boy let out a whoop and scrambled up Cróga’s side. “First we drink, then we trade.”

Breen took the cup a woman handed her, and hoped for the best. “It’s very good.” And very, very strong, she thought.

Like apple brandy filtered through battery acid.

The door of the hut opened; the woman all but filled it.

Tall, with arms like tree trunks, she stood in rough trousers, rougher boots, and a belted tunic. She had the tawny eyes of a lioness and hair of oak brown braided to her waist. A warrior’s braid ran down the side of her wide face.

“Welcome, Taoiseach,” she said as Keegan rose. “Welcome, Daughter of the Fey.”

As she got to her feet, Breen didn’t think about the words; she felt them. Spoke them. “Greetings, Mother of the Trolls.”

Sul inclined her head. “Bring wares to trade, do ya?”

“Yes. And also offer in trade my small skills as a healer to any who have the need.”

Breen picked up one of the boxes now stacked beside her. “Would you try a sample, to judge?”

Sul stepped forward, peered into the box. “Sweets?”

When Sul took out a cookie, Breen saw the blistered burn on her arm. She started to reach out, froze at Sul’s sibilant hiss.

“No one from the world of man touches a troll without consent.”

“I’m sorry.”

“The fault’s mine.” Keegan spoke easily as he drank his ale. “She doesn’t know the traditions, and I failed to teach her. She is also of Talamh, daughter of a taoiseach, granddaughter of a taoiseach.”

“And granddaughter of one who seeks to destroy us.”

“Yet she leaves the safety of the world she knew to defend you.”

“I apologize for the offense.” Breen struggled not to rush the words out through a throat that wanted to snap shut. “I’ve come to trade for the stones and crystals you mine, so I can use them in magicks to fight Odran.”

Sul’s eyes narrowed, glittered. “Fear him, don’t ya?”

“Yes, I do.”

“Yet you wear the word for courage, don’t ya? You branded it on your wrist.” Sul pointed to Breen’s tattoo. “Do you wear it only, or do you have it?”

“I have more than I did, less than I hope to find.”

Pursing her lips, Sul nodded slowly. “This is a good answer.” She looked down at Loga. “A good answer.”

She studied the cookie in her hand, sniffed it. Took a testing bite. Smiled. “You make them?”

“I don’t have that talent. A friend. I help a little—and clean up the mess after. But he makes the sweets. There are pastries and tarts, frosted cakes.”

Sul took another bite, passed the rest to Loga. Then held out her injured arm. “You have consent.”

Breen skimmed her fingertips lightly over the burn. As Aisling had patiently taught her, she opened. Slowly, slowly.

She felt the pain, the heat. Infection.

And something else.

“Your light and your heart are strong.”

She could ease the pain. Slowly. Slowly. Diminish the heat. Softly, softly.

It burned, just for an instant, in her own arm. But the blisters soothed away, and the raw redness eased to pink.

“There’s a balm,” Breen began.

“We have some at the post. I haven’t had time to worry with it.”

“If you would send for it? And if I could have a moment with you, in private?”

“We’ll fetch it when we go to trade.” Sul turned, walked to the door. She gestured for Breen to follow.

Inside, Breen saw a rough sort of comfort. Stools by a low fire, a pot simmering on it. A table and chairs, oil lamps and candles. A ladder climbed up to a loft.

“I have an ill?” Sul demanded, her face set, her eyes hard.

“I don’t think—”

“I tire too fast and too often. I feel off my feed. Heal me if you can, tell me if you can’t. I’m no coward.”

“It wasn’t an illness I felt. But a … a condition.”

“What’s the difference? You want to speak only to me. Speak.”

“I wasn’t sure you knew, or would want to let others know yet. I think you’re pregnant. I think you’re with child.”

Sula took a full step back. “Why would you say this?”

“I felt two heartbeats inside you. If I could look again to be sure? With your consent.”

Sul nodded, kept her tawny eyes on Breen as Breen laid a hand low on her belly, another on her chest. Breen thought of the lesson with Marg, how to open, feel life.

Closing her eyes, she let it come.

“I feel a heartbeat here.” She opened her eyes, pressed lightly on Sula’s chest. “And another here.” And against her womb. “The second is quiet yet, but strong. I’m not good enough to tell you how far along you are.”

Holding up a hand, Sula moved away to the back of the hut. She leaned on a long stone counter, and put her head out the window there to breathe.

“I thought it was the change when my courses stopped. Two courses haven’t come, and I’m near enough to the end of the fertile time, so this is what I believed. Then when I felt not good, tired, so often tired, the little pains I should have remembered were from making room for the new life.”

She turned back, those lion eyes glistening. “I have grown children, and they have children. Our youngest is fully twelve.”

“I’m sorry if this isn’t welcome.”

“Not welcome? This is a gift.” She pressed both hands to her belly. “You’ve given me the gift of knowing I make life again, and I weep in thanks.”

She came back, taking off the triangles dangling from her ears.

“Gold from our mines, hammered by our craftsmen. A gift for a gift.”

“They’re beautiful, and thank you. But I didn’t really have anything to do with it.”

On a whoop of laughter, Sul slapped Breen on the shoulder with such cheerful force Breen calculated she’d be sore for a week. “You have sass, don’t ya?”

“So Loga told me. I’m honored to wear them,” Breen said, and despite her stinging shoulder, put them on.

“Now we trade.”

The trading post turned out to be a large, deep cave lit by torch-light and guarded by trolls with thick clubs.

Aladdin’s cave, Breen thought, delighted and dazzled by the stones and crystals—some no bigger than a pebble, others bigger than her dog.

Another chamber held gold and silver and copper. Others weapons and armor forged from the metals, and still another held wares. Jewelry, pots, bowls, cups, chalices.

“Think of what you need,” Keegan said when she wandered and wandered. “Not of what you want.”

“Well, I want and need my own cauldron, so there’s that.” But she resisted the jewelry and trinkets—this time—and backtracked to select what she’d come for.

“Tell me when I hit the limits of the trade.”

Keegan let out a short laugh. “No worries there. Loga will certainly do just that.”

She filled a sack with stones, tumbled and rough, copper wire, silver dust. When she started on a second sack, she spared Keegan a look.

“I don’t know when I’ll be able to get back.”

“You’ve already enough for two life spans.”

“I’m almost done, so …”

Then she saw the globe, and everything else faded. Labradorite, a perfect circle, large enough she had to cup it in both hands.

When she did, she felt the vibration, in the stone, in her.

It swirled, blues and green, touches of golden brown. Storms and seas, she thought, grass and earth. And she felt she held the worlds in her hands.

In the stone, she saw herself, and then …

“Do you see?”

Because he’d already felt the power shimmering, Keegan set a hand on her shoulder. “What do you see?”

“The waterfall, and the river that runs on both sides, the forest, windswept. Two moons, one new, one full, riding the sky.

“Odran.”

When she spoke the name, some of the trolls who’d come into the post murmured against the dark and made the sign against evil.

“Do you see? The other side, his side. Yseult. White streaks through her hair. Leaching her power because she pushes and pushes, trembling as she shouts the words against the wind. I can’t hear them, not clear. I don’t know them. It’s a strange tongue to me. As she shouts, as the wind rises, he strikes with his sword. A black goat, a demon dog, a young girl crying for her mother. So the river runs red with their blood, and the red mists rise from it and stain the water from the fall.”

Her head spun; her power swelled.

“Rising, rising until the moons are stained with blood. Animal, demon, human in sacrifice. It bubbles and boils, the river, the falls. She drops to her knees, her hair more white than red now. And Odran glides over the boiling river, and with a clap like thunder, with a flash like lightning, his hand passes through the falls and into Talamh.”

Shaking now, Breen fought for breath. “Do you see?”

“Not clearly, no, and only through you, not the globe. The globe is yours.” With his hand sliding around Breen’s waist to keep her upright, Keegan turned to Loga. “I’ll trade whatever you need for it, bring it to you this night. My word on it.”

“No need. It’s hers. We aren’t fools here. Is this the now, the before, or the yet to come?”

“Not now. Not before.” Breen leaned against Keegan as she clutched the globe. “I don’t know when to come. I don’t know when, but he can’t see me. He still can’t see.”

“Get the daughter some wine,” Sul ordered.

“Water, please. Just water.”

“Summer,” Keegan said. “Leaves were full, and in Talamh, the foxglove and dog rose stood tall and blooming. The one coming, another after, I can’t say, but summer. We’ll start back when you feel able.”

“I can ride.”

“Then we ride.”

She tried not to think just how much trickier it could be riding down a mountain than it had been going up. And the fact she could actually see the trickier, the skinny trails or tight turns.

The long, long way down.

“You’ve learned how to cleanse and charge the crystals?”

“Yes.”

“You’ll need a proper place to keep them.”

“I have one. The table on the second-floor hallway that Seamus made.”

“That’ll do well enough. It was my fault,” he continued. “Not explaining to you about touching a troll. I didn’t think of it. And in truth, I didn’t expect it from Sul, who’s a clever woman, a cagey one, but sensible. Then, as I said, trolls can be prickly.”

“Pregnancy can make some even pricklier.”

He turned in the saddle so abruptly, her breath caught. “Look where you’re going!”

“Merlin knows. You’re saying Sul’s carrying?”

“If you want my heart to keep beating, watch where you’re going. Yes, she’s pregnant.” She let out a long, relieved breath when Keegan turned back around. “I wasn’t sure if she knew, or if she wanted anyone else to know.”

“Ah, so you wanted a private word. You came out wearing her earrings, so I take it she didn’t know, and was pleased.”

“She didn’t, and she was very pleased.”

“As Loga will be when she tells him. You handled that very well and proper, as you did the rest of it.”

“You’re talking to me—when you don’t usually do a lot of talking— and being nice because you don’t want me to panic going down this mountain.”

“I talk when I’ve something to say.”

“You can keep talking now because it’s working pretty well. You’re sure it was summer, what I saw? I was so focused on Odran and Yseult, and what was happening, I didn’t notice leaves or flowers.”

“I’m sure, aye. We have other seers, and with what I can tell them, they can look.”

“You don’t want me to look again.”

“You will whether I want it or not, won’t you? But more eyes are always helpful. It was entertaining, I thought, the way you explained to Loga how to toast and eat a bagel. I’ll have to try it myself.”

“You haven’t had a bagel? Ever?”

“I haven’t, no, but expect since Marco made them, they’ll be brilliant. So … the book you’re writing. Is it going well for you?”

He dug for conversation now, she thought, and found that touching. He kept her talking until they’d navigated the rocky trail down into the forest. They were losing the light, so she didn’t ask to stop and rest, though every cell in her body longed for ten minutes off the horse.

But when he stopped to let the horses drink from a stream, she stayed mounted. When she got off, she decided, she wasn’t entirely sure she could get back on again.

Instead, she ordered herself to relax, to just be.

In the stillness, just the whisper of air through the pines and the hardwoods. Leaves drifting down as their cycle ended, and berries not yet gathered or eaten by birds and bears like little jewels on scraggly bushes. The light going soft, and the shadows deepening and stretching.

The stream rippled as the horses drank, a quiet music that joined the brighter notes of the water tumbling over rocks from higher ground.

The faintest rustle as a fox slunk through the brush, and the barest clicking of talons as an owl woke for the night’s hunt.

It struck her that of all the gifts she’d found inside herself, this one, just learned, seemed most precious.

“Amish.” Breen gestured up. “Morena must have sent him to scout for us, to be sure we were on our way back.”

Looking up, Keegan caught the blur as the hawk swooped down, danced through branches before he chose one. From its perch he gave them a long, cool study.

After returning it, Keegan turned Merlin away from the stream. “You weren’t looking at the sky when you said his name. In truth, you looked half-asleep.”

“I wasn’t sleeping. I felt him. And the owl.” She held up a finger as they walked the horses. “Listen.” Then let out a laugh at the two-toned hoot. “Nan helped me learn to find the heartbeats and the breath. Can you feel them?”

“Not as you do, no. My power there doesn’t go so deep as yours, though there’s Sidhe in our bloodline.”

“Is there?”

“Aye, Sidhe, and Elfin, Were, a dash of Troll. My father swore a many-times-great-grandmother was of the Mer.”

“Basically all the Fey?”

“So it’s told.”

She barely noticed they’d reached level ground again as she considered it. “That could be important.”

“Such a mix isn’t unusual given a millennium or so. Others have the same as well.”

“But others aren’t taoiseach. Others aren’t leading the Fey at this time, against Odran. You’re all of them, ties to every tribe. It could matter. It feels like it should matter.”

“It always just was, so I never thought otherwise.”

“I wonder if you should try exploring those other aspects.”

“I’ve a notion if I could sprout wings and fly, I’d have done so by this time of my life.”

“You’re being too literal. There’s more to the Sidhe than wings, or to an elf than speed.”

“That’s true enough.” He kicked Merlin into a trot when the track widened into a path. “Still, I’m damned if I can outrun an elf.”

“Maybe, maybe not. Still, you may be faster than you think because you’ve never pushed at that part of you. Trust me, I know all about accepting limitations, or believing I have them. Lots of them.”

“It’s interesting. I’ll think on it.”

“If you were a Were, what would your spirit animal be?”

“It’s not a choice, it is.”

Literal, she thought. Always so literal.

“If you had a choice. I think I’d be a dog, like Bollocks, making everybody smile. It’s a what-if,” she pressed. “There’s no wrong answer.”

“A dragon. Because there aren’t any, so I’d be the only.”

“Ah, ego intact. No were-dragons in Talamh?”

“Or in any world I know. Still, when you have each other, Fey and dragon, it’s all but being as one. Have you got a gallop in you? We’re coming to the road, and I’m long past ready for a meal.”

She asked Boy, and he stretched into a gallop.

She wanted to ask Keegan how dragon and rider chose each other, how it happened, what it felt like. But the idea of a hot meal and a gallop to clear some of the fatigue won out.

When they reached the road, she felt Boy’s anticipation. He knew home was coming, and with it, food and rest. She couldn’t agree more.

The moons rose over the bay, and the stars began to wink on. She saw four dragons ride the night sky, riderless, two a quarter the size of the others.

A family, she thought.

She thought of Marg and Sedric in their cottage, and reached out to let her grandmother know she was back.

When they reached the turn, something slid over her, through her, and she slowed her horse.

“What?” Keegan demanded as he rounded back to her. “I’m after a meal and some ale.”

“The ruins. There’s …” She could just see their shadow dark against the night sky. “Not heartbeats, not breath, but something. Awareness?”

“What walks there isn’t of the living, and not for a long time.”

“Ghosts?”

“Some spirits won’t rest, some can’t.”

“The stones are singing. Not those, not those. The circle. Can you hear them?”

“Aye. I often do, but not from this distance. I expect I hear them through you. They’re a holy place, like the graveyard. Sanctified, purified.”

“But not the ruins,” she said as they walked the road again.

“When some of the Pious turned, they turned sharp and dark. Innocent blood spilled there as offerings to that dark. Rituals, long forbidden even then. And some of it leaves a stain. And some think what they invited in now traps their spirits.”

“Do you think it?”

“I’ve heard them, those damned, and those they tortured and killed who are trapped with them.”

She glanced back because fingers of ice scraped down her spine. “Have you gone in?”

“I have, and so have seen them as well, walking along their way, chanting to their false gods.” He shot her a look—cool and final. “Best you don’t.”

He urged Merlin back to a gallop. And, happy to leave the ruins behind, Breen joined him.

Even as she started to reach out for Bollocks, he came running. All the dark and cold that had seeped in vanished with the sheer joy in his eyes as he raced toward the horses, raced around them, leaping, barking, wagging.

“There’s one who’s had his meal, I’ll wager. We’ll feed the horses, give them a good rubdown, then have our own.”

Lamps glowed in the window; smoke curled from the chimneys. Merlin didn’t need a signal to leap over the stone fence. Breen held her breath, put her trust in Boy, and followed.

“And here are our travelers.”

Morena came out of the house, with Harken and Marco right behind her. “A long day you’ve had, and we can hope a successful one.”

“I got everything I need and more.” Beyond thrilled, Breen eased off the horse. Yoga, she told herself. A lot of yoga in the very near future.

“Go wash up,” Harken said, taking the reins. “And go in and have the chicken stew Marco made. Morena and I’ll see to the horses, as we’ve already been to heaven with the stew.”

“Thanks, as I’m more than ready for it. They’ve earned an apple, these two.” Keegan gave Merlin a slap on the flank. “Word from Mahon?”

“All’s well,” Harken told him. “And our mother should be here by midday.”

“That’s fine then.”

Marco put an arm around Breen. “Bet you’re ready for some wine and a hot meal.”

“Count on it.”

“I’m going to have that ready for you. What a day, huh?”

“You can say that again.”

She went back to the well with Keegan to wash the dust of it away.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Despite the stretching, Breen felt the long, challenging ride the next morning. Still, no one could see her hobble when she went down to let the dog out and bring in the stones she’d cleansed and charged the night before.

It took a few trips, but gave her such pleasure to see and hold and arrange all that now belonged to her on the table in the upper hallway.

The globe she took down to her office. She’d keep it there during her workday, and in her bedroom at night.

With the cottage quiet around her, she drank her coffee in the doorway, watching the mists rise off the bay as dawn broke.

She settled down to work, weaving the story with dark magicks, sleep snakes—and a dragon who melted a frozen lake with his fiery breath to drown demons.

She saw the battle as she wrote it, high, high in the mountains, where the wind whirled its ice and snow, where trolls battled to hold the line and demon dogs leaped for throats.

At one point she paused, wondered when she’d gotten so blood-thirsty. Then went right back to it.

By the time she walked with Marco and Bollocks into the woods, she’d worked out the kinks—body and story.

“Ready for more training?”

“Ready and able,” he claimed. “I kinda like the sword stuff. It’s sort of like cosplay. But I’m seriously digging on the riding. Wherever we end up, girl, we need to get us some horses. I meant to tell you, I’ve got a Zoom meet with your publicity people tonight. Well, our tonight. I need to be back and ready for it by seven. Trouble is, I’ve got no way to tell the time over there.”

“They do. Don’t ask me how. But I know sunset’s around five—I always check—so we’ll go from there.”

“Works. It all kind of works. Don’t ask me how.”

“I’m hoping to stay off horses myself today. But ask Morena if it’s okay if you and I ride to the graveyard tomorrow. I want you to see where Dad’s buried.”

“I’d like to.” He stopped at the tree. “Gets me every time.”

But he took her hand, and they passed through.

“Bright today,” he commented. “I was hoping.” He reached in his pocket, took out sunglasses. “Now I’m styling.”

“You’re always styling.” Before they started down the steps, she shaded her own eyes with the flat of her hand, looked east. “A lot of riders coming.”

“I’ll say. It’s a parade. Flags and everything. Oh man, dragons. Like half a dozen up there.”

“It must be Keegan’s mother, from the Capital.”

Even as she said it, he winged in on Cróga—from the south, she realized. He’d gone to the south. He leaped down as the dragon skimmed the road. Cróga rose up again to join the formation above.

Keegan strode to a woman on a white horse. He took the reins while she swung off, and they embraced standing on the road with two dozen horsemen and women behind and dragons circling the sky.

Her honey-blond hair formed a braided knot at her nape and left her face unframed. She wore slim pants, almost like leggings, with tall boots over them, a sweater the color of the October sky with a long leather vest.

“If that’s Mom,” Marco said, tipping down his sunglasses, “Mom’s a babe.”

After the woman kissed Keegan’s cheeks, he stepped over to take the hand of another woman, one with golden skin and ebony hair. He kissed her hand in a surprisingly gallant gesture.

“So’s her friend.” Hooking his sunglasses on his pocket, Marco started down the steps. “Let’s go say hi.”

“We ought to let them …”

She trailed off when Aisling’s two boys raced out of the house. “Nan!” they called, and laughing, the blonde ran to drop down and scoop them into her arms.

Aisling came out next, a hand on her belly as she hurried to the road. With the boys clinging to her legs, the blonde straightened to wrap Aisling tight.

Harken, coming in from the near field, vaulted over the stone wall and moved in for his own hug.

“Let’s just wait here,” Breen murmured. “It’s a family thing.”

“It’s nice.” Marco rested a hand on Breen’s shoulder. “It’s nice to see.”

But Bollocks lacked the willpower and dashed down the steps. For once he ignored the sheep, just sailed over the wall. Breen heard the woman laugh again as she bent down to greet him.

Then she turned her head, looked at Breen.

Breen felt her stomach roll into a single tight knot.

The woman said something to Harken, gestured to Keegan.

She started across the road with Keegan at her side.

“Jeez, she walks like a queen. The royal kind,” Marco elaborated. “You know what I mean.”

Because she did, Breen had to order herself to go down the steps.

“Blessings on you, Breen Siobhan O’Ceallaigh. And to your friend as well. It’s Marco, isn’t it?”

“Ma’am.”

“My mother, Tarryn O’Broin.”

“It’s pleased and more I am to meet you.” Tarryn held out a hand even as Breen wondered if she should bow or attempt a curtsy. “Your grandmother is a treasure to me, and your father, rest him, a good friend, and a father to my children when their own was lost. Keegan, find your manners.”

Tarryn swatted a hand at his arm. “Help the girl over the wall.”

“Sure she’s managed it on her own plenty.” He muttered it, but reached out, lifted Breen bodily over.

“I’d say his rudeness is my failure as his ma, but I won’t, as he’s earned it all on his own. I won’t keep you standing on the road, as you must be off to see Marg. Give her my love, will you, and ask if she’d come have a visit with me later today.”

“I will.”

To Breen’s surprise, Tarryn cupped her face, leaned in to kiss her. “You do your father proud,” she whispered. “Know that.”

Then she stepped back, smiled. “Eian had stories about both of you, and so I know you’re both musical. We’ll have a ceilidh tonight.”

“Ma—”

She waved Keegan away. “Wars and battles come soon enough. We take the good and the bright when we find it. Come back,” she told Breen and Marco, “for the good and the bright.”

“We don’t want to intrude,” Breen began as Tarryn crossed the road to lift Kavan onto her hip and take Finian’s hand.

“She wants you, she’ll have you. But you’ll train first. Don’t be late,” Keegan warned, and walked away to join Harken in the field, where the riders already set up tents.

“That was something,” Marco managed after a moment. “It still is something. They’re going to camp out here, and they’ve got all the horses in the field. There are dragons circling overhead. Oh Jesus, they’re coming down. Where are they going to put dragons?”

They landed, single file, on the road, shaking the ground as they lined up like planes on a runway.

Jewels, Breen thought. Magnificent jewels with men and women sliding or leaping off their backs.

The riders pulled off saddles, saddlebags, packs. And one by one the dragons lifted up, making Breen’s heart shake with wonder, and considerable envy.

The riders hauled their gear, nodding to Breen and Marco as they passed, talking idly among themselves.

One, a saddle over one shoulder, a pack on his back, gave Breen a nodding glance, and Marco a long look.

“A fine head of hair you have there, friend.”

“Ah, thanks. You, too.”

He stood a moment longer, well over six feet in his boots, a warrior’s braid to his shoulder and the rest of his deep blond mane waving down his back.

“And where from the other side are you from now?”

“Um. Philadelphia.”

“Phil-a-del-phi-a,” he repeated carefully, and smiled. “All right then.”

When he walked off, Marco kept watching. “Was he flirting with me?”

“I don’t know. I couldn’t really tell. Maybe. He sure wasn’t flirting with me.”

“I think he was flirting with me. It threw me off so I didn’t flirt back. He had really blue eyes. I should’ve flirted back. I didn’t even get his name.”

“Go train, Marco.”

“Right.” He put his sunglasses back on. “I’m going this way,” he said, but kept looking after the dragon rider. “Don’t forget I’ve got that Zoom, but then we’re cleaning up, duding up, and coming back to party.”

“I really don’t think we—”

“The queen—I know she’s not a queen, but she oughta be—the queen commanded it.” He gave Breen a light punch. “Catch you later.”

She didn’t have time for a party, and couldn’t think about going to a party where she knew a bare handful of people anyway. So rather than think about it, Breen called the dog and walked down to Marg’s cottage.

She found Marg in the back garden harvesting vegetables from her little patch.

And since she didn’t see a way out, she told Marg of Tarryn’s arrival, the invitation to visit, and the ceilidh.

“A ceilidh’s just the thing. I’ll walk to the farm with you to spill the tea with Tarryn.”

“Spill it?”

“Gossip, it means. And we’ll pick a couple of these pumpkins, enough for a pie and soup as well to take to the ceilidh.”

“You’re going to make a pie and soup out of an actual pumpkin?”

“Well, of course. I can’t claim to have the hand with them Sedric does, but no one’s yet turned up a nose to either. There’s magick in cooking, Breen, as you put your intent into it, and your work, and your love as well.”

For the first time in her life Breen carved out a pumpkin. She learned how to separate the seeds, how to toast them while the chunks of pumpkin simmered on the stove to soften.

Instead of a few hours in the workshop, she spent them with Marg in the kitchen with the scents of fall everywhere. She learned how to peel and grate a nut of nutmeg, how to grind cloves and cinnamon into powders with mortar and pestle.

And while she seriously doubted she’d put any of the skills to regular use, she found some pleasure in them.

Whatever they didn’t use they stored in jars for ingredients in future cooking or magicks.

In the end, they had a pot of soup, two pies, and two rounds of pumpkin bread.

“You’ve a fine hand in the kitchen.”

“Helping hand,” Breen qualified. “Our apartment kitchen’s so small I mostly stayed out of Marco’s way, but when he wanted a hand, mine did chopping and stirring.”

During the washing up—a chore that included hauling in water from the well—she asked about Sedric. She’d realized during the baking time he’d gone south.

“Are you worried for Sedric?”

“Where there’s love, there’s worry. Worry walks hand in hand with joy on love’s path, I think. He’s where he’s needed. As am I,” she added with a brush of her hand on Breen’s shoulder.

“Would you be in the south if it wasn’t for me?”

“Ah, but there is you, mo stór, and if there wasn’t, we might not know to be in the south at the ready. So the question’s a circle that has countless answers on its ring.”

Marg dried her hands, gave a nod to the tidy state of her kitchen. “Now that’s done, we’ll take our fine work up to the farm, but set by a round of the bread for Sedric on his return.”

Breen carried the pot of soup by its handle, and Marg the pie and bread in a basket.

Leaves scuttled across the road, colorful children whisked by the wind. Overhead, dragons glided, with rider and riderless. Breen saw actual children, the group of friends she thought of as the Gang of Six, race across a field toward the bay. Because she felt Bollocks’s longing, she glanced down.

“Go on and play awhile.”

When he raced off, she laughed. “It’s a tough call which he wants more, the kids or a swim.”

“And so he’ll have both. And how’s the new book on our boy there going?”

“Pretty well. I’m going back to it in the morning as a kind of palate cleanser. I’ve been working on the adult novel, and wrote a really violent battle scene. I’m taking a break from that and switching to the fun.”

“Isn’t it a gift you have both in you?”

“I’m surprised and grateful for it every day. And for the cottage, Nan, where I can write, and Marco can work. This time last year, I got up every morning to go to a job I never wanted because I thought, I really believed, I had no choice. Now? I get up every morning to do work I love, and it’s my choice. I know I have more to make.”

“And so you will.”

“I will. Just like I’m choosing to let Keegan push, kick, and shove me through another session of training.” She sent Marg the side-eye. “Not the favorite part of my day.”

“Well now, getting through it makes the good parts that much brighter.”

“I’ll try to remember that when he kills me half a dozen times. Still, I really enjoyed meeting the Trolls, and the views on the mountain— I’ll never forget. I know I couldn’t have done it unless he’d taught me to ride, and pushed me hard. I saw you riding your dragon. I won’t forget that either. How magnificent you looked.”

“Aren’t you the one?”

“Can I go up with you sometime?”

“Well and of course you can. Ah, I see Keegan’s setting up a target. So it’s the bow for you today.”

She looked over, saw Keegan in a field putting a target on a stack of hay bales.

“That won’t be so bad. I might even be good at archery.”

“Then go find out. Here, I’ll take the soup in.”

“Have a good time, um, spilling the tea with his mother.”

“Be sure I will.”

Breen split off at the gate. How bad could it be? she asked herself. She noted he had the sword set aside for her, so there’d be some of that. Which meant getting her ass kicked—not pleasant. But if he’d gone to the trouble of putting up a target, surely they’d spend most of the training there.

One hand resting on the hilt of his sword, he waited for her. She had the muscle for the weight of bow he’d chosen for her. He could hope she showed more talent there than with a sword.

It continued to baffle and frustrate him that a woman with her strength and her grace—for she had more than her share of both— would fumble so much with weapons.

She’d improved, he reminded himself as he dug out some patience. No question she’d improved. Though she’d never be a master or any sort of clever tactician with the blade, she’d hold her own.

Until someone cut off her arm.

And since it was up to him to see that never happened, Keegan felt entitled to some frustration.

To keep his mind focused on the task at hand, he told himself it hardly mattered her hair was brighter than the last fiery show of autumn leaves.

“As with the sword,” he said without preamble, “you aim the pointy end at the target.”

“I’ve got that part.”

He handed her a bow. “This weight will suit you well enough.”

“Weight?”

“The string, you see, the strength you need to draw it back. First watch.” He picked up another bow, took his stance.

“We won’t nock an arrow yet, but I would use my draw hand to do that, then grip the bowstring with three fingers, the bow I take with the other hand.”

He held up his palm. “You know the lifeline on the palm?”

“Yes.”

“I hold the bow with thumb inside up to that line before I lift my arm, keep my shoulders level. Level,” he repeated. “Then I draw, this way, you see?”

She watched him draw the bowstring smoothly back toward the right side of his face.

“And that eye, that same side—the right for you, for me, the left for others—you train your focus on your target. Now draw the blades in your back together, chest out—for the power, the muscle and strength of your back, you see?”

“All right.”

“Then you take your fingers from the string and loose the arrow, and as you do, your hand moves to the rear, under your ear.”

“More steps than I realized.” And she concentrated on keeping them in order in her head. “I figured you just pulled it back, aimed, let it go.”

“No. Try it as I said.”

She tried to mimic his stance, reminded herself to keep her shoulders level, gripped the string and the bow as instructed, drew back.

She barely moved the bow an inch, reset, put more muscle into it. When she released, it twanged, and the string slapped against her forearm.

Since she wore a jacket, it was more shock than pain.

“Again. Slow and smooth for now.”

She did it again, and again, and again until he deemed her ready for an arrow.

“With your draw hand”—he demonstrated—“you nock the arrow. Your three fingers hold the nocked end and the string.”

In what seemed like one fluid move, he nocked the arrow, lifted the bow, drew, and shot. And naturally, hit the center of the target.

Naturally.

She repeated each step in her head, followed them. When she released the arrow it took a shaky flight before hitting the ground barely four feet from where she stood.

“No,” he said simply, and handed her another arrow. “Shoulders level, and pulled back. The draw smooth, steady.”

This time the arrow flew a little farther—and a good three feet to the right of the target into a pretty hedgerow of fuchsia.

“No,” he said again, and this time moved behind her.

He took her shoulders, turned them. “It goes where you send it. It hasn’t a choice in the matter, does it? You do.”

He pressed his face close to hers to share her aim, his hands over hers to guide her. “Pull the energy, the power, into your back. Aye, now, release.”

The arrow hit the target—not the center, but it hit it.

She smelled of cinnamon, all but hazed his mind with it.

He stepped back.

“What have you been doing?” he demanded.

“I’ve been trying to shoot a damn arrow.”

“Before. What spell have you been working?”

“None today—not really. Why?” She rolled her aching shoulder. “We baked pies and bread, made soup from pumpkins, from the garden. Why?”

“You smell of them.”

And the oils from such spices could be used, he knew, in spells to stir lust, even love. Forbidden spells.

He handed her another arrow. “Again.”

“Does the smell of pumpkin pie piss you off?”

“No. The scent of the spices is in your hair, on your skin. These can be used for spells and potions as well as cooking.”

“I know. I’ve studied, practiced, used them that way. But today, it was for cooking.”

She started to nock the arrow, then it struck her.

Insulted her down to the marrow.

“Love potions? They can be used in love potions. You think I would do that? I know they’re forbidden, and I respect the craft. I respect my gift. I respect your choice to feel what you feel. I’m not so damn desperate I’d mix up a love potion so you’d want me again.”

“I only asked because … bugger it. I’m here to train you, to prepare you for what’s coming. There are Fey who will not come back home again after Samhain, and I must send them to fight knowing it. I’m not here to want you, and yet I do.”

“And that pisses you off. Your problem, Taoiseach.” Furious, she nocked the arrow. It ended up straight down in the grass barely a foot from her boots.

“Shit, shit, shit!”

He laughed, couldn’t help himself, and she whirled on him, shoved him.

Still laughing, he caught her close, lifted her to her toes. “Once, gods be damned, just once and we’ll be done with it.”

He brought his mouth down on hers, took what he needed. And felt the release of it even as the wanting quivered through him like the bowstring.

The scent of her, the taste, the feel, all these weeks without them, demanded that he take what he could, if only for the moment.

She gave him nothing at first, not even a fight. But he felt that wanting in her as in him. And she surrendered to it, taking as he took, wrapping around him in the quieting sunlight in a field that smelled of grass and sheep.

When he let her go, she put her hand on his heart. “Why once?”

“Because some won’t come back, and I have to give all I have to them. I have to think of them, not my wants, to think of those who fight knowing they won’t come back.”

She left her hand on his heart another moment, then let it fall. “All right. We’ll both think of them.”

She picked up the bow, the arrow, and tried again.

In the house, Marg stood at the window with Tarryn, watching Breen attempt to shoot an arrow.

“She favors you, Marg. Not just the hair—though, gods, it’s glorious—but the shape of her face, her build. I know what having her back means to you.”

“Such a narrow life Jennifer gave her. Pushing the roundness of the girl into a flat hole, day after day. I think one of the greatest joys of my life has been watching her wake. And the greatest sorrows knowing, now that she has, what she’ll face.”

“You told me her powers run deep, even deeper than your own.”

“Aye. She’s yet to tap the whole of them.” Marg let out a laugh as Breen’s arrow hit the ground. “How long do you figure Keegan’s patience will last here?”

“Never long enough. He trains her to fight, and must of course, but it won’t be the sword or arrow for her in the end.” Another arrow hit the ground, and Tarryn just shook her head.

“And thank the gods for that. Yet she tries, doesn’t she now?”

“There, if he’d guided her so in the first of it …” Marg smiled to herself as Keegan stood, hands over Breen’s hands, face pressed to Breen’s face. “They make a picture.”

“They do.” Enjoying it, Tarryn slipped an arm around Marg’s waist. “And there, she’s hit the target. I wonder why they seem so careful around each other when I’ve heard … What’s all this now? What’s the boy angry about?”

Frowning, Tarryn studied the scene in the field. “How could a man with such kindness in his heart have such a stubborn block of a head? She’s doing her best, isn’t she?”

Tarryn’s eyebrows shot up as, after Breen started to nock the arrow again, she turned on Keegan.

“Angry words,” she said. “You don’t have to hear them to know. Well, I’m pleased to see she’ll stand for herself.”

“That she does when her temper’s stirred.”

“Looks to me like she’s put him in his place. Good for her.” Then Tarryn winced as the next arrow struck the ground inches from Breen’s foot. “Ah, now the eejit’s laughing at her. You can’t train a body if you’re … There’s the way, give him what for!” She all but cheered as Breen shoved her son.

Then fell silent when Keegan yanked Breen against him.

“Well now,” Marg murmured, sipping her tea. “There you have it.”

“There you have it,” Tarryn agreed. “I’d heard he’d bedded her, but now I see why he no longer glides into the Capital now and again to go to Shana’s bed. He thinks I don’t know, but I know where my children are.”

“Ah, youth.” Marg shook her head as in the field Keegan and Breen stepped away from each other, and Breen again picked up the bow. “What a waste of heat.”

“He stepped back from Shana some time ago. Not long, not long a’tall after Breen came through. I’m not sorry to tell you I’m glad of it.”

Tarryn went back for the pot, and now the two women sat.

“I’ll say to you what I’ve said only to Minga, who’s a sister to me. I’ve great fondness for Shana’s parents. Her father is good council, and her mother strong and kind. But when the girl—and a beauty she is, Marg—set her sights on Keegan, I worried. I worried, as it wasn’t my boy so much as the taoiseach she aimed for. It was desire and ambition I felt from her, and never love for him. I want love for my children.”

“A mother does.”

“She’s angry now that he told her plainly, and I can hope kindly, he wouldn’t pledge to her. Ah, she puts a good face on it, and she’s spending her time with Loren Mac Niadh. A more handsome couple you’d be hard finding in the whole of Talamh. I’m hoping the charm of him, for he has it aplenty, will cool that anger I feel from her.”

“But you’ll worry. Only today I said to Breen that love is worry and joy together.”

“That’s the truth of it.” Tarryn reached out to squeeze Marg’s hand. “I’ve so missed you.”

“And I you, the daughter of my heart. I’ll say to you now what I couldn’t find the way to say before. After Eian and Jennifer ended on the other side, I had hope you’d pledge to each other, you and my boy.”

“I’ll say to you what I couldn’t find the way to say before. We would have, I think, if he’d lived. Near to ten years after we lost Kavan—my husband, my love, Eian’s dearest friend, a brother in all but blood to him—it bloomed between us. I’m blessed, Marg, to have loved and been loved by two such men.”

“I’m glad of it. I’m glad to know he had that with you before he died.”

“And now it may be his daughter, my son.” Tangled with hope and worry, Tarryn looked toward the window. “Surely it will be them at the head of the spear against Odran. We can hope they bring each other joy as well.”

“She may not stay, Tarryn. When, please the gods, Odran is destroyed and the worlds are safe, she may choose to go back to her other world.”

“She may, and must make her choice. Still, it’s good she’ll come to the Capital soon. She’ll see who Keegan is there. See more of Talamh. Politics and war,” Tarryn said with a sigh. “There will be much talk of both, but she should see and hear and know what we are and how we govern.”

She sat back, drank more tea. “It’s a pleasure for me to sit with you awhile and have no talk of politics and war. We can only sit and watch these matters of the heart unfold.”

“But we have the pleasure of talking of them.”

Tarryn laughed. “Aye. Such as when will Harken finally persuade Morena to pledge so the pair of them can give me more grandchildren?”

“Slow and deliberate is Harken, and a life today and tomorrow’s tomorrow is how Morena sees things. Young Finian might take the leap before those two. How fares her parents, and her brothers and their families?”

“All well. Her da stays at the Capital, as Flynn’s on the council. But both Seamus and Phelin flew south, and our light goes with them. Seamus’s wife, Maura, you remember, teaches and trains the youngers. Well, she’s her hands full with their oldest, who at ten argued hard to join the battle coming in the south. And Noreen’s carrying their first.”

They whiled away another hour talking of friends and family.

CHAPTER NINE

When Marg left, Tarryn went outside to gather flowers for fresh displays around the house. Something, she knew, neither of her sons would think of. She noted Keegan had Breen training with a sword, and hand-to-hand, using wraiths.

Though she stayed out of their way, Tarryn watched, and deemed Breen’s skill with a sword acceptable for a novice. But her skill with magicks and her strategy with them were well over that mark.

It brought her relief to see it, and gave her more hope. Much depended on Eian’s daughter. Too much, she thought, but the fates were so rarely fair.

As she filled her basket, she heard hoofbeats.

She lifted her hand in greeting as Morena and Marco rode toward the paddock.

“You’ve a fine seat, Marco,” she called out, “and a credit you are to your teacher and your mount.”

“I got to gallop.” The thrill of it still lived in his eyes as he leaned over to rub the mare’s neck with both hands. “Man, we flew!”

“I can’t take much credit, truth be none a’tall.” Morena swung off Blue. “The man was surely a centaur in another life.”

He laughed as he dismounted. “You guys don’t really have those, right?”

“A smallish tribe in the far north,” Morena said easily. “Their home world is known as Greck, but some have migrated here and settled.”

He poked her shoulder. “No bull?”

“Not a bit of it. Let’s see to the horses now, as you have your meeting—and a cake you promised to bake for tonight. Marco has to talk to people on the other side, in New York City, over the computer.”

“Isn’t that a wonder? Is this your work then?” Tarryn asked.

“Some of it, yes, ma’am. It’s for Breen’s book.”

“Marg told me she has a story about her dog.” Tarryn glanced over to where Bollocks, who’d come around at the end of the archery segment, deviled the cows. “She says it’s a fine one.”

“It really is.”

“And with the apples Grandda gave him, he’s going to make an applesauce cake, so he says, to bring to the ceilidh.”

“It will be welcome, as its baker is.”

As he groomed the horse, Marco glanced toward the tents. “We saw the soldiers training on the ride. Ah … do they come to the party?”

“Of course, more than welcome.”

“That’s good.”

“Will you come to the Capital with us, Marco?”

He jolted, blinked at Tarryn. “Me? The Capital?”

“I’m sure Breen would particularly like your company, and so would we all. Sure I’m hoping you’ll join us.”

“Wow, thanks. Thank you. I’d really like to see it.”

“And you, Morena, will you come? I know your mother misses you.”

“I’d be pleased to go for a day or two. That’s about all the time I can handle the noise and the crowds, even for family, but not this time. This one,” she added, wagging a thumb at Marco, “he likes the noise and the crowds.”

“I like the quiet, too. But yeah, I’m a city boy.” He winced when he saw one of the wraiths, one that looked like something out of a horror movie, swipe at Breen with three-inch claws. When she went down, flat on her back, he started to vault over the paddock fence.

“She’s fine, Marco,” Morena told him. “Give her a moment.”

From flat on her back, she shot out what he thought might be sharp darts of ice. Right from her fingers. The wraith screamed, started to leap on her. Then went poof.

“See what she did? You see that! She is awesome!” Marco did a little victory dance as Breen scrambled up and went after the remaining two wraiths with sword, fists, feet, and—jeez!—lightning.

“Awesome!” he repeated. “The only time I ever saw her fight before? We were, like, ten and I was puny. I mean puny, and this asshole— twenty pounds and two years on me—jumped me on the way home from school. Guess he figured I was too gay to live. He’s pounding me into the sidewalk, and my Breen, she comes running. She jumped on his back and started wailing on him. He tried to shake her off, but she latched on, man. He hurt her, bloodied her nose, but she wouldn’t stop.”

He let out a breath. “I always figured she got in a lucky punch that flattened him, but maybe it wasn’t. Maybe it wasn’t luck at all. Anyway, her house was closer, so we went there. Breen with her bloody nose, me with the nose, a split lip, a black eye, bruises where he’d punched my guts out. Her mom doctored me up and took me home so she could tell my mom what happened. But she grounded Breen for a week for fighting.”

“Grounded?”

Marco looked back at Tarryn. “It’s a punishment, pretty popular with parents where I come from. It means you can’t go anywhere, well, except for school. Just school and home. No hanging out. That wasn’t right. It wasn’t right her getting grounded that way.”

“Where was Eian?” Tarryn asked him.

“On a gig somewhere. No, I guess he was probably here. We didn’t know about here.”

It hurt Tarryn’s heart to think of it. “He didn’t know. If he’d known, he would never have let it pass. He’d never have allowed Breen to be punished for coming to the aid of a friend.”

“What happened to the bullying git?” Morena wondered.

“He never bothered me again. He got his ass whupped by a girl, and for his type? Nothing worse.”

He shrugged. “I don’t know much about gods and all that, but it seems to me this Odran’s pretty much what Morena said. A bullying git. My money’s on Breen.”

“You’re a wise one, Marco.” Tarryn looked back to where Breen took a break, bent over, hands on knees. “And she’ll have the whole of Talamh with her.”

“She’s got me, too.” He lifted his bag of apples. “Hey, Breen! We gotta boogie.”

She nodded, straightened. Then she pushed her sword on Keegan and started toward the paddock.

“You’re not done.” Keegan came after her. “You’ve an hour more.”

“Not today.” Her ears still rang from her head slapping the ground; her arm still stung from phantom claws. “Marco has work he has to do from the cottage.”

“So he can go do it, sure and he knows the way by now. You have another hour of training.”

“I’ll make it up.”

“We’ve got to get our party on,” Marco reminded him. “Girl’s gotta change her duds.”

“Why? She’s fine. You’re fine,” Keegan insisted. “It’s a ceilidh, not a palace ball.”

“Dude,” Marco said, with pure pity.

“I’m filthy,” Breen snapped. “And I smell like demon dust. So do you. I’m going back, having a really big glass of wine and a really long, hot shower. Deal with it.”

She turned, realized she’d completely forgotten Tarryn stood right there. “I’m sorry, Ms. O’Broin.”

“No need for that, and Tarryn, if you will. We’re not formal in the valley as you’ve noticed. I’d apologize for my son, but the fact is, he’s a man. So there you have it. We look forward to seeing you tonight, and I hope for a song from both of you.”

“Thank you. I’ll make up the hour,” she said to Keegan, and walked away.

“Well now, it’s off I go,” Morena said brightly, and took Blue’s reins. “I’ll be back with my dancing shoes on. Tell Harken to be ready for it.”

“Be sure I will,” Tarryn said, and as Morena walked the horse to the road, turned to Keegan, grinned at him. “I like her.”

“She’s likable enough, but—”

“She trains hard, Keegan.”

“And needs all she can get. Another hour—”

“Makes little difference in the whole of it, as you know. She’s not a soldier, mo chroí.”

“All the more reason she needs to … And you’re right, as ever. An hour makes no change in it.”

“And she was right as well. You smell of demon dust.”

Frowning, he sniffed at his arm, then had to shrug in agreement.

“You’ll have a scrub. But first, you’ll have an ale by the fire while I fix my flowers, and I’ll tell you a story of her that Marco told me.”

Breen would not, no matter how Marco wheedled, wear the fancy green dress Sally and Derrick had given her before the first trip to Ireland. Or the fancy shoes that went with it.

Not appropriate, she insisted as she poured her wine and Marco put his apples on the stove to cook.

While he set up for his meeting, she took the wine outside to sit in the fresh air. She put her feet up, sighed with relief as she watched Bollocks splash in the bay.

She sat, even when the dog came back to rest his head on her leg. Sat, even as dusk settled, as it deepened.

She finally stirred, reminded herself Bollocks needed to be fed and she remained filthy and smelly.

When she walked in, Marco stood in the kitchen pouring batter into a Bundt pan.

“Girl, I thought you’d gone upstairs! You’ve got to get your ass up there, get that shower. We’re going to discuss wardrobe after I get this cake in the oven and get my own shower.”

“We can discuss, but I’m not wearing the sparkly dress.”

She filled the dog’s bowls, then accepted the beater Marco offered. Licked batter from it. “God, that’s good. Musical bakery or diner, Marco Polo. That’s the answer.”

Though parties where she didn’t know everyone made her anxious, she forbade herself another glass of wine before heading up to shower.

She dealt with bruises under the hot spray, and realized tending to bruises and scrapes equaled another return to the routine of her life here. Add blisters she just noticed.

Archery sucked, she concluded.

By the time she got out of the shower, she’d mired herself in self-pity. And felt entitled. Even as she wished she could just drag on pajamas, pull out a frozen pizza, drink more wine in front of the fire, she did her duty and started on her hair and makeup.

No point in looking tired and out of sorts, she told herself. She’d stay for an hour, be polite and friendly, then slip away. Party-hearty Marco could stay as long as he liked—someone would bring him back to the cottage, or he could just bunk at the farm for the night.

She stepped back, studied herself, and decided she’d pass Marco’s critical review. Maybe just, but she’d pass it.

Her good black pants, a sweater, boots, she decided as she cleaned up the hair and makeup debris. She’d put on some earrings, maybe a nice scarf.

And that would have to be good enough.

Then she stepped out and saw the dress on the bed.

It was deep blue, like it had been dipped into the sea under moonlight. Simple, she thought, with its long sleeves and scooped neck. And of velvet, soft to the touch.

She picked up the note beside it, and felt stupid, and more than a little guilty over her self-pity.

“Of course it suits,” she murmured.

Simple, no fuss, soft. How could it not suit?

When she put it on, it fit as though made for her, which she realized it surely had been. It fell in an easy drape to just above her ankles, and made her feel loved.

She chose the earrings Sul had given her, and with her dragon’s heart stone and her father’s wedding ring on the chain around her neck thought she hit the mark with jewelry.

As she considered her choices of footwear—which didn’t amount to much given her hasty packing—Marco knocked on the door.

“Come on in.”

“Let’s get down to business,” he began, then stopped and stared at her. Without a word, he circled his finger in the air so she’d do a turn.

“Where’d you get that dress, girl? It’s a killer.”

“Nan sent it. It’s a killer?”

“The body in it’s the killer, and that dress knows how to show it off.”

“Oh.” Immediately distressed, Breen turned back to the mirror.

“In a classy way, Breen. Jeez. The opposite of a trip to Slut Town— not that there’s anything wrong with that. You want the cool boots— the black ones with the stubby heels and the fake laces up the front.”

“I do?”

“Yeah, you do.” He got them out himself. “Don’t want the tall ones or the walking boots with that.”

“I’ll bow to your far superior fashion sense. Speaking of, you look great.”

“I’m rocking it,” he agreed, and posed in her mirror.

He wore snug black jeans, black high-top Chucks, a turtleneck sweater the color of aged bronze with his leather vest over it. He sported a single silver hoop in his left ear, and the protection bracelet she’d made him.

“Put those boots on so we can get a load of our smoking selves.”

Obediently, she sat down, put them on, tugged up the zippers on the sides. When she stood beside him, she stuck a hand on her hip and struck a runway pose to make him laugh.

“There we are, and we are lit! It’s gonna be hard for us not to get lucky tonight.”

“I’m not looking to get lucky tonight.”

He heaved a sigh. “Girl, there you go making me sad right before a party. Come on. I’m going to get my guitar.”

He detoured to his room, arranged the guitar’s colorful strap cross-body to carry it on his back. As if he knew a party was in his future, Bollocks wagged his way down the steps.

“We just have to figure the best way to carry the cake over there.”

“Marco, it’s beautiful!” He’d drizzled thin, glossy glaze over the golden-brown dome. It sat on a cooling rack scenting the kitchen. “That’s it, decision made. You’re going to open your own place.”

“Right now, it’s getting it there in one piece.” Carefully, he transferred it from the rack to a plate. “I guess we put a cloth over it.”

“I can do better.” She pointed at him. “I’ve got this.” She dashed into the laundry room, came back with a cardboard box.

“Good idea. It won’t be pretty, but it’ll be safer.”

“I’ve got this,” she repeated. She ran her hands over the box, sides, top, bottom, over and over as she visualized what she wanted.

Slowly, the brown turned red, faint at first, then deeper, brighter. For a flourish, she scattered silver stars over it.

“Holy crap! How’d you do that? How’d you do that just touching it?”

“It’s more. It’s intent and visualization and will. It’s just a glamour, so it won’t last more than a few hours. Maybe less, since I’ve never done it on an object before. But long enough to get your cake there in style.”

“You’re the eighth, ninth, and tenth wonder of the world.” He set the plated cake inside, cut some kitchen cord to secure the lid.

“I don’t suppose you could do a fancy ribbon.”

“Challenge accepted. Silver, I guess, to match the stars.”

Now she ran the cord between her fingers until it widened, flattened, began to shine silver. “I’ve never been really good at tying bows, but maybe this way …”

She laughed, ridiculously pleased, when she turned the tiny corded bow into an elaborate one.

Marco picked up the box. “My BFF’s an honest-to-God witch. We gonna ride your broomstick to the party?”

“Clichéd much? Let’s go, Bollocks. I’m actually in the mood for a party.”

She brought light to guide them through the woods, with owls calling and Bollocks racing ahead.

“When I’m ready to go, you don’t have to. They can put you up at the farm—or in my room at Nan’s—if you want. Or someone will bring you back over.”

“We’ll see how it goes. No point thinking about leaving before you even get there.”

“Give me the cake,” she said when they reached the tree. “Go ahead, Bollocks, we’re right behind you.”

When they passed through, Marco put a hand on her shoulder to balance himself, then left it there as he looked across the road.

Light gleamed in every window of the sprawling farmhouse, and campfires dotted the field where the tents stood. Music poured through the air—from the house, from the field.

She could see movement behind the windows. People danced there, and on the grass. Others sat on the stone walls or on bales of hay with plates of food or cups or tankards.

“Now, that looks like a party. Sounds like a party.” Marco tugged her down the steps. “Let’s go get us some of that.”

It didn’t matter how many people (so many!) would be there, she told herself. Nan would be there, and Morena, and others she knew. All she had to do was find a safe spot, drink some wine with a friend, listen to the music.

Those seated on the wall shouted greetings as they walked to the door. Marco started to knock.

“They won’t hear it anyway,” he decided, and opened the door.

Warmth rushed out. The fire crackled, Harken sawed something lively on a fiddle while others played an accordion, a mandolin, a bodhrán drum. Kids sat on laps, babies bounced on them. People danced as if their feet could fly.

Through the melee, Finola hurried up to them. “There’s my handsome Marco. I’ll have a dance with you before the night’s over.”

“Only one?”

She laughed, patted his cheek. “And how pretty you are, Breen. Ah, Marg will be so pleased the dress suited you.”

“It’s wonderful. Is she here?”

“She is indeed, in the back now helping Tarryn with the food. Enough for two armies we have, and it’s good we do, as we’ve at least that.”

“I’ll take the cake back and give them a hand.” Having tasks generally put her at ease at a party. “Dance with Finola.”

As she walked away, Breen heard Finola ask, “And are you going to play for us, my darling boy?”

Try to stop him, Breen thought.

On her way to the back, Breen spotted a few familiar faces, and that helped, too.

In the kitchen she found Tarryn and Marg setting out yet more food, there and in the dining room, on tables already groaning under pots and plates and bowls and dishes.

Aisling sat, one hand on her growing belly.

“And here’s Breen now, bearing gifts. I haven’t seen enough of you since you came back.”

“I’ve been selfish with her.” Nan walked over, took Breen’s shoulders. “I’m so pleased the dress suits you.”

“It’s beautiful. Thank you.”

“You’re more than welcome.”

“Thank you for inviting us,” she said to Tarryn. “Marco baked a cake. I’m not sure where to put it.”

“Well then, hand it over.” Tarryn, looking resplendent in russet despite the cloth tied around her waist, came over to take the box. “Marco’s kitchen skills are already far-famed, so let’s see what we have here.”

Tarryn made room on a table and opened the box. “Sweet Brigid, the scent alone! And see how lovely.” She lifted the cake out to show it off. “If it tastes half so good, it won’t last more than a minute.”

“From personal experience, I can promise it tastes even better. He’s dancing with Finola now, but if we could save a slice for her and Seamus? He used their apples.”

“We’ll see to that. Marg, why don’t you tuck two slices away safe?”

“What can I do to help?”

“You can have some wine to start. No, no, you sit awhile longer,” Tarryn told Aisling. “The baby likes the music, it seems, and has been dancing in there all evening.”

“This one will be musical, I’m thinking.” Aisling smiled as she stroked her belly.

Tarryn handed Breen a cup of wine and a plate of cheeses and bread. “Eat a bit. There’s plenty where that came from. The cheeses Harken and Aisling—and Keegan and myself when we’re about—make here on the farm.”

“It’s good,” Breen said after she tried a piece. “It’s really good.”

“Cheeses from the valley are the best in all of Talamh.”

Tarryn turned when Morena burst through the back door. “The kids have run me to the ground, so I’ll beg for wine. Mab and Bollocks are on them now, and a few of the growns as well.

“Hello to you, Breen,” she added as she grabbed for wine.

“You’re wearing a dress.”

“As are you. I’ve been known to don one on occasion.”

She’d donned one of violet, like her wings, that stopped just below her knees. She’d paired it with tall boots of deep purple, and left her hair long and wavy.

She spotted the cake.

“Is that Marco’s? I’m having some.” She cut a generous slice, ate the first bite out of her own hand. “Well gods, this is brilliant. Here.” She broke off a piece and, to Breen’s surprise, fed it to Tarryn from her fingers.

“It’s all of that. Ah, Minga,” she said as the door opened again. “Come meet Breen, and have a slice of Marco’s cake, as you’ve never had better.”

“I will. I’ve dragooned some of the older children into the washing up, as we’ll need more dishes.” She walked to Breen, pressed her gold-dust cheek to hers. “The traditional first greeting of my tribe,” she explained.

“Minga is my dearest friend. She came from the desert world of Largus to Talamh for love.”

“And my love is now out in the field playing dice and telling tall tales. They’ll be sending a runner before long for more food, so be warned.”

She took the slice of cake from Tarryn, still smiling at Breen. “I’ve never been to your world, but I know there are places in it not unlike my own of golden sands and heat, and cities rising from it.”

“Yes. I’ve never actually seen. That is, I’ve never been. I’ve never really been anywhere until I came to Ireland. And here.”

“Not a traveler then? I’m not one myself, or not very much. I’m glad Og was. I met my love when he traveled. I must meet the one who bakes like a god. Introduce me, won’t you?”

Smoothly, Minga guided Breen out of the kitchen. And sent Tarryn a quick wink over her shoulder.

“Minga will ease her into things. Now.” Tarryn whipped off the cloth. “We’ve done our duty here, again. So, Morena, pry that fiddle from Harken and get the boy to dance.”

“I’ll do just that. I’ll clear a chair for you, Aisling.”

“No need.” She hauled herself up. “I’ve rested enough, and since this one wants to dance, I’ll oblige.”

The woman from yet another world, in her bold red dress, introduced Breen to a dozen people so their names and faces and words rattled around in her head.

Marco joined the musicians, somehow catching the rhythm and notes of songs she’d never heard. Having the time of his life, she thought, and since everyone was so friendly, she didn’t feel awkward.

Then Marco called out to her. “Come on, Breen, let’s do one.”

“You’re doing fine.”

But Morena shoved her forward, and people started clapping and stomping. Marco just grinned when she sent him a you’ll-pay-later look.

“We don’t know any Talamhish songs yet,” Marco, the natural MC, announced. “We’ll do one from our world. Let’s do ‘Shallow.’”

She tried to think of something else—something fast and quick and easy—but he’d already found the opening notes on his guitar. The room had already hushed.

When he began to sing, she tuned herself to him as she had hundreds of times before. So when it came to her part, she slid into it, stopped thinking about anyone watching or listening.

She barely noticed when Harken picked up the violin again, filled in some notes, and the mandolin player did as well.

By the time she hit the key change, it was only the music, and the pleasure of making it.

When they finished, voices twined, eyes on each other as the song demanded, the hush held another moment.

Then the applause erupted, and shot her back into herself so a flush rose up into her cheeks. But she saw Marg standing with Tarryn, saw the tears in Marg’s eyes.

Her grandmother crossed her hands over heart and, her heart in her eyes, held them out as if giving it to Breen.

“Take a bow, girl,” Marco ordered, and took an elaborate one himself. Though she rolled her eyes at him, she dipped into a curtsy that brought more applause.

And calls for more.

“We’ll do one more.” Marco leaned close to her ear. “Then I’ve got to get my flirt on.”

She glanced where he grinned, and at first saw only Keegan, standing in his leather duster, his hair windswept, his eyes on hers. But the dragon rider Marco had spoken with that morning stood beside him.

They did one more, then yet another by popular demand before Marco managed to pull away. Breen intended to head straight for Marg, but Keegan stepped in front of her, held out a glass of wine.

“Thanks.”

“You should sing more.” He took her arm, steered her toward the kitchen. “And they’ll see you do if you don’t move away. Your dog is entertaining those still among the tents.”

“I should call him, go back to the cottage.”

“Why?”

“I …” She decided to just come out with it. “I’m terrible at parties where I don’t know people. And I met I don’t know how many already, and I’m never going to remember the names.”

He nodded, drank some ale. “They’re crowded and noisy, and I need breaks from them myself.” He sliced a hunk of bread, slapped some cheese and cold meat on it. “Come outside in the air for a bit. I only came back myself as Brian wanted to find Marco.”

“Brian? Oh. I didn’t know his name.”

“Brian Kelly,” Keegan said as he nudged her outside. “He’s your cousin. His great-grandfather times four or so and yours were brothers, though his traveled to the north, met a north woman named Kate, and settled there. Yours stayed in the valley.”

“How do you know all that? How do you remember all that?”

“It’s part of my duty, and I suppose some luck with it. He’s a good man, is Brian, so you’ve no worries about Marco.”

“All right.”

He looked across to the tents, the campfires. “Some will go south tomorrow, some the day after. Not all at once, you see. And some will remain to guard after Samhain, after we break the back of what comes for us that night. And some we’ll mourn.”

He shook that off, had to. “And some will travel with us to the Capital.”

“How long am I supposed to stay there?”

“A few days only. You need to see and be seen. And my mother will have another shagging party.”

“A party? At the palace?”

He looked severely pained at the term. “It’s not a bleeding palace. A castle is a different thing, which you should know. A castle is for defense, to protect and house and fortify. And don’t be packing a case full of things this time. It’s a few days, and we’ll want to travel straight through, so quickly.”

He turned to her, eyes direct and intense. “You look very fine tonight, and you might as well know it’s hard for me to keep my hands off you. We’ll go back in, as my mother will roast me for keeping you out too long.”

“I like your hands on me.”

“Gods. Not now.” He took her arm, pulled her back inside.

CHAPTER TEN

While Breen went back into the party, Marco sat on the stone wall out front drinking an ale with Brian Kelly.

“You’re telling me you and my best girl are cousins?”

“We are, on our fathers’ sides, and well back. My many-times-great-grandfather traveled to the far north for the adventure of it, it’s told. There he met my many-times-great-grandmother. They fell in love, pledged. They had eight children, and lived to a ripe age.”

“Eight kids?”

Brian smiled and sipped his ale. “Nights are long and cold when winter comes to the north. So I spring from that, and Breen from her many-times-great-grandfather who was mine’s brother, who stayed in the valley, worked this very land where we sit, and with his woman had nine children of their own.”

“So you live in the north.”

“My family’s there, or the most of them. I make my place in the Capital for now, or wherever the taoiseach needs me. You’re traveling there with Tarryn after Samhain, I’m told.”

“Yeah. I’m grateful for the invite because I need to stick close to Breen.” Brian’s eyes, Marco thought, had a sparkle in them. An actual sparkle. “You’re heading back, too, right?”

“I will, aye, once we’ve settled things in the south.”

It struck Marco that settled things meant going to war.

“You’re going to fight the bad guys?”

“It’s what we do when they threaten the peace. We’re a world of peace, and laws that hold it for all.”

“Are you scared of going south, of, you know, going into battle?”

“Those who don’t fear battle seek it. We don’t seek it, but we prepare for it, and won’t turn from it.” Shifting, Brian smiled fully into Marco’s face. “Keegan tells me you planted your fist in his face when you believed he threatened your friend.”

“Yeah, well, that happened. But I’m not much on fighting.”

“Are you for walks? It’s a sight to see the moons over the bay on such a night.”

Happy butterflies swarmed in Marco’s belly. “Sure, I’m big on walks.” He rose, and like Brian, left his tankard on the wall. “We walk a lot in the neighborhood where I’m from.”

“Philadelphia.”

“Lots of shops and restaurants and clubs you can walk to. We don’t have a bay, but we’ve got a river. Only one moon, though.”

“I’ve seen the one moon,” Brian said as they walked. “In Ireland and Scotland, and in France when I traveled.”

“You’ve been to France? Like Paris?”

“Aye, I went to Paris.”

“Was it wonderful?”

“It was. Full of color and sound, the old and new mixed together. I liked the art, also the old and the new. I like to paint.”

The butterfly wings beat even faster. “You’re an artist?”

“Ah well, I like to draw and to paint when I can.”

“We have art galleries in Philadelphia, one of my favorite things. I can’t draw or paint worth crap, but I sure like looking at art.”

“When we’re in the Capital, I’ll show you some I’ve done, and you can judge if it reaches art. I can judge your music, as I’ve heard it now, as brilliant. The song—the first I heard when I came in—was passionate, romantic, and your voice mated with Breen’s gripped my heart. I’m not musical myself, but admire those who are.”

“I could teach you. It’s something I do—did, anyway. Taught people to play instruments, did some voice coaching. Oh wow.”

Marco paused as he saw the moons, one waxing, one waning, over the bay. “It’s awesome.”

Still starry-eyed, he pointed. “Look. Mermaids!”

“Merpeople,” Brian corrected, taking Marco’s hand to draw him toward the beach. “As there are mermen as well.”

“They’re singing. Hear that?”

“Mers are musical, it seems, by nature, and their voices are part of their powers. They can call other Mers, other creatures of the sea, from far, far distances. And spellbind with a song when threatened. Fierce fighters they are as well. Some of these will go south.”

“So, like Aquaman?”

“I don’t know this.”

“Oh, it’s a character, a superhero character, in stories. The guy who played him in the movies is total.”

All Marco could think was he stood on a beach watching merpeople swim under two moons while he held hands with a smoking dude who rode a dragon.

Over his head and sinking fast.

“So …are you—do you have magickal abilities? Like Breen?”

“None have what she has. I have some Wise from ancestors, but I am of the Sidhe.”

As Marco watched, Brian unfurled wings as bold and bright blue as his eyes.

When his heart jumped, Marco reminded himself beaks, not wings but beaks, weirded him.

“Does this trouble you?”

“No. I mean, it’s all just fantastic and strange, and fascinating, too. I can’t get used to it. I don’t want to get used to it,” he realized. “Because you can end up taking beautiful things for granted if you get too used to them. And all this, it’s beautiful.”

You’re beautiful, he thought, as those butterflies beat their wings all the way up to his throat. “Look, I have to ask, because I’m real new around here, so I don’t know if things work the same. I need to ask if I’m reading the signals right. If there’s a thing happening. A spark happening with you and—”

He didn’t finish, as Brian simply wrapped arms around him and answered the question with a kiss.

Long and deep, and with a tenderness that melted the muscles in Marco’s legs. The Mers’ song lifted into the air with the water lapping the shore, and the moons sailed in a sky dazzled with stars.

Sinking fast, sinking fast. Sunk, Marco thought when Brian eased back. Those blue eyes sparkled, the blue wings shimmered.

“You read very well,” Brian said, and kissed him again.

“I saw you from above, and something stirred in me.” Gently, Brian ran a knuckle down Marco’s cheek. “Then on the ground, closer, I saw your eyes, I saw the heart in them—its loyalty and its courage. And you so handsome, such hair. I thought, I’d like a moment or two with that one.”

“I was thinking the same thing at the same time.”

“But then I heard your song, and knew a moment or two wouldn’t be enough. I hope we’ll have more.”

“I want more.” Pressed close, Marco took Brian’s lips again. “I want a lot more.”

“We’ll have what we want when I return.”

Going to war, Marco thought. It seemed impossible he was falling for a man with wings who was going to war.

“Come back with me now. We’ll go over to the cottage.”

“I cannot. None of the Fey can travel outside of Talamh until after we settle things on Samhain. Will you wait for more, Marco, as I need to wait? I want more walks with you, more words, more time. I want to lie with you. But first, I ride for Talamh, for the Fey, for your world and all.”

“I’ll wait.” He held Brian close, felt the brush of wings on the backs of his hand.

Breen finally managed to slip away from the ceilidh. She’d done a quick search for Marco, then decided he’d take one of the options they’d discussed. Maybe she’d enjoyed herself more than she’d anticipated, but—no, she admitted, no question she had. Still, she found herself exhausted from talking to so many people, from drinking wine, from dancing (because no one gave her a choice). She really wanted bed.

Then she had Keegan to think about. Or not think about, she corrected, and she would think about him if she stayed. She didn’t want to think that in two days, her prophecy of the battle in the south could become reality.

She didn’t want to think, at least for a few hours, and if she slept, she wouldn’t.

It wasn’t hiding from that reality, she assured herself. It was more, right now, recharging to prepare for it.

When she started across the road, Bollocks let out a greeting bark. Glancing over, she saw Marco walking with the dragon rider—who was apparently also her cousin.

Holding hands, she noted, and felt her heart melt a little.

“Are you going back?” Marco called out.

“I’m partied out. Go ahead and stay. Your guitar’s still in there, and they’ll absolutely get you to play it again.”

“No, I’ll go back with you. I can get the guitar tomorrow. You haven’t actually met Brian.”

“That’s Cousin Brian.” He stepped up to Breen, kissed both her cheeks. “I liked your songs, very much.”

“Thanks. It’s really good to meet you. I didn’t know I had family here besides Nan.”

“Mairghread the Powerful is family enough for most, but you’ve quite a number of cousins across Talamh, and on the other side as well. And all are glad you’ve come, and I’m glad you brought Marco with you.”

He glanced toward the Welcoming Tree. “It’s sorry I am I can’t escort you back over. It’s not permitted until after Samhain.”

“I didn’t realize.” Then she did. “You’re going to the south.”

“Before the day breaks. But I’ll see you soon after at the Capital, and we’ll have more time to talk.” Smiling, he turned to Marco. “And walk. And more. Sleep well.”

Breen had to hold back a sigh when they kissed.

“Stay safe.” Marco squeezed his hands as Brian drew away.

“To a warrior you say, fight well, stand strong.”

“Okay, fight well, stand strong.”

“And so I will. Good night to you both.”

“And stay safe,” Marco whispered when Brian walked away toward the field of tents.

“You’ve got heart eyes, Marco Polo.” Breen grabbed his hands. “And I want to hear all about it on the way back.”

“Am I walking?” He went with her across the road. “Because it feels like my feet are way above the ground.”

“Your feet are walking. The rest of you’s floating. First let me say he’s charming, and he’s definitely smoking, and I’m pretty sure I saw stars in his eyes when he looked at you.”

“They sparkle.” After he climbed the wall, Marco sighed for both of them. “They really do. We sat on the wall out front for a while, just talking.”

Breen kept his hand because he still looked dazzled. “About?”

“Oh, about the party, the music, the cousin thing. That’s a hell of a thing, right?”

So dazzled, Breen noted, he moved from Talamh to Ireland without the slightest reaction.

“It is. He lives in the north?”

“Not right now. He’s in the Capital. Maybe it’s like being stationed there. And we walked down to the beach, and there were Mers swimming and singing, and the moons, and he has wings. Blue wings, like his eyes.”

“He’s of the Sidhe?”

“Yeah, that.”

Bollocks pranced along beside them instead of running ahead. He kept his head cocked, and his eyes on Marco as if taking in every word.

“I was feeling all I was feeling, but I wasn’t sure if it worked the same in Talamh, you know? So I thought I needed to ask rather than screwing it all up by making a move. And he kissed me.”

“You’re killing me, Marco. On the beach, with the Mers, the moons?”

“I know, right? And we just kissed and kissed, and he said we needed to wait until after this stupid battle because stuff. And he’s an artist, and he’s been to Paris. And I think I might be in love. I know I just met him, but I never felt like this. It’s more than the lust haze. It’s more.”

“Then I’m going to love him, too.”

“Maybe I’ll feel different when we’re out of Talamh, back in Ireland.”

“Marco, we’ve been back in Ireland, and we’re nearly back to the cottage.”

“What?” He tried to look everywhere at once in the light Breen had brought to guide their way. “Wow. Jeez. I don’t feel different, so that answers that. He’s going to fight those crazies, Breen. What if something happens to him? What if—”

“Don’t. Don’t think that way. I know it’s hard, but we can’t think that way.”

Fretting now, Marco rubbed a hand over his bracelet. “Can you make him something like this, something like you made me?”

“Yes, and I will. I have everything I need right here in the cottage.”

“I know it’s too late for tomorrow, but when he gets back … Can I help? I know I don’t have the woo-woo, but can I help make it?”

“You can pick the leather and the stones.”

“Thanks. Can we sit out for a few minutes? I just need to settle a little.”

“Sure. Bollocks wants his bedtime swim anyway. We’ll sit, and we’ll have one more glass of wine. I was too busy talking, singing, and dancing to drink very much. And you were too busy getting kissed in the moonslight. We’ll toast those who fight well, stand strong.”

He caught her in a hug as they reached the cottage. “No one ever had a better friend than you.”

In the morning, Breen got in as much work as possible before she heard Marco in the kitchen. Knowing keeping busy didn’t do away with worry, but could cut it back, she shut down.

He stood at the door with his coffee, looking out at the bay. And thinking, no doubt, of the bay on the other side.

She hugged him from behind.

“Did you eat?”

“I think I’m lovesick. Kills the appetite.”

“Tell you what. I’ll make us a late breakfast.” She went into the kitchen, got a box of cold cereal from the cupboard. “My specialty.”

It made him laugh. “That’ll work.”

“And after we eat, we’ll make Brian’s bracelet.”

“It can wait. I know you want to write.”

“I’m in a good place to stop, and this is priority.”

“Thanks.”

“And when we’re done?” She glanced up as she poured cereal into bowls. “We’ll go over early. We’re going to take that ride—our first ride together—to Dad’s grave. I told Nan last night we’d stop by on the way back, before I have to go train.”

She kept up the chatter as she brought over the bowls, the milk, another bowl with berries. “Let’s have pizza tonight, pop some corn, stream a movie. Then tomorrow’s Finian’s birthday, and I’ve got an idea for a gift.”

“You’re trying to keep me busy.”

“And me, too. I’m worried, too; afraid, too. And … I have powers, Marco, but they’re not enough. They don’t want me in this because I’m not enough yet.”

“I don’t want you in it ever. I guess I don’t get my way on that.”

“I don’t know what I need to do yet, or have yet, or be yet. It’s hard to know what I don’t know. But whatever I have?” She tapped a hand on her heart. “Is going south. Here, tomorrow night—or in Talamh—there’ll be ceremonies, rituals. Samhain’s a sabbat and important. You can’t really be part of that, but you can be there, watch, and send your heart and mind, too.”

“Okay. Okay, we’re going to do all of that.”

“And pack for a few days at the Capital.”

“Brian’s going to show me his art.”

She shook her spoon at him. “Is that a euphemism?”

“Don’t need one. I’m going to see his art, then we’re going to get each other naked. Or it could be the other way around. What do they wear in the Capital?”

“I haven’t the faintest idea.”

“I’ll ask Nan. And you take that new dress.” He smiled at her. “You’re making me feel better.”

“That’s my job. And since I fixed this elaborate breakfast, you get to do the dishes while I get what we need for your gift for your boyfriend.”

“Don’t be calling him that yet. You could jinx it.”

She rose, spoke solemnly. “I saw what I saw, I know what I know.”

When she came back, she set out leather strips, selected protective stones.

“He’s a big guy.” Marco studied his choices. “Can we do a six-strip braid?”

“I have no idea how to braid six together.”

“I do. I can show you.”

“You do it.”

Instantly, Marco snatched his fingers away from the leather. “I don’t want to, like, dilute anything.”

“You won’t—the opposite. You’ll add yourself.”

“Okay, if you’re sure. It’s more like weaving, see?” He chose five brown strips of varying hues and a black for the center, and in his practiced way wove them snugly together.

“That’s good, already impressive. You choose the stones, place them where you want them.”

“Tell me what they are, okay, and what they do?”

As she tutored him, he set stones in a wide zigzag pattern over the leather braid.

“That’s not too many, is it?”

“No, and damn it, it’s better than the one I made you. It looks like something you’d buy in a high-end arts and crafts shop.”

“Don’t you insult the bracelet my best girl made me.” Satisfied, he sat back. “What’s next?”

“Magick.” She picked up her wand. “Put your hand over mine on the wand.”

He hesitated. “I really can? I won’t screw something up?”

“The power’s from me, but the heart’s from you—so we weave them like you wove the leather.”

“That’s chill.”

“So let your heart and your intent lead. Think of him.”

She called the light, said the words, and with Marco’s hand on hers trailed the wand over the leather and stones. Once, twice, three times.

“They just … They just sort of melted into the leather. I could feel it, Breen.” Dazzled, thrilled, he looked over at her. “I could feel the energy just pouring out of you.”

“From you, too. Your faith, your heart.” She tipped her head to Marco’s. “He better appreciate you, or I’ll burn the skin off his ass.”

“Bet you could. I hope he likes it, and it’s not too much, too soon.”

“He will, and it isn’t. Now you get to sew the pouch. Pick a color. I brought leather because dragon rider.”

“I like the blue, like his eyes. Is that completely lame?”

“It’s adorable.”

Since Marco sewed better than she did, Breen left him to it and put the unused stones and leather away. She pulled on boots, a jacket, added a scarf since the day—at least on this side—held cool and damp.

By the time they left the cottage, the stacked clouds overhead sent down a thin, chilly rain.

In Talamh, they stepped into fresh fall air and sunshine.

Because Aisling’s boys played near the kitchen garden, watched over by the patient wolfhound Mab, Breen sent Bollocks ahead.

Finian strutted up to them. “In one more day, it’s my birthday.”

“I heard that.” Marco crouched down so they’d be eye to eye. And Kavan immediately climbed onto his knee. “You’re going to be fifteen, right?”

Obviously thrilled, Finian grinned before holding up three fingers. “I get to ride with Harken on his dragon because I don’t have wings like Kavan. But one day I’ll have my own dragon like Harken and Keegan.”

Now Breen hunkered down. “Your gift is of the Wise, like your mother’s.”

He studied her. “Ma says that, but I can’t do anything.”

“You will. Good things and great things. I see it. I feel it.”

His eyes rounded. “Do you swear it?”

She touched a hand to his heart, and felt that pulse of light, that soft, young power. “I do. I swear it. Your dragon is only this big now.” She held out her other hand, measured the distance. “He needs his mother for a while longer. He’s green as your fields, with blue like the bay on his wings.”

Finian gasped. “You’ve seen my dragon?”

“I see him in you. You’ve named him Comrádaí in your heart, for brother, and he’ll be, like Kavan, a brother to you.”

“I picked his name! I did! But I haven’t seen him. I have to tell Ma. Come on, Kavan, I have to tell Ma about my dragon.”

Kavan stopped playing with Marco’s hair, smiled, and scrambled down to run after Finian.

“Did you really see all that?”

“Yeah. I didn’t expect to. I—the longing is so strong in both of them. It was all just there. God, I hope it’s all right I told him all that.”

“You know what I think?” Marco pushed up, took Breen’s arm to draw her up with him. “I think if you saw and said all that, you were supposed to. And you sure made that kid happy.”

Since Mab followed the boys, and Bollocks stood vibrating, watching her with hope, she stroked his topknot. “Go ahead. I’ll call for you when we’re ready to ride.”

“Is it like that with the dragons, you think? Like it is with you and Bollocks?”

“That’s what they say. Now, I guess we should find Harken, or check in the house to let them know we’re getting the horses.”

She led the way to the stables first and found Harken crooning as he ran his hands over a mare. The mare, Breen realized, she’d watched Keegan’s stallion impregnate on a rainy summer day.

“Good morning to you both.” Harken murmured something to the animal, rubbed his cheek to hers.

“It’s Eryn, isn’t it? Is she all right?”

“More than fine. Just giving her a once-over before I let her have a run in the field. She and the foal are both well. And how are you faring after the big night?”

“More than fine,” Marco answered. “Is it okay if I pet her?”

“Sure she likes the attention. You’ve just missed Morena, who left to take Amish hunting. And my mother as well, as she and Minga are off for a ride.”

“It’s still all right if Marco and I ride to the gravesite?”

“It is, of course. I’ll get your tack.”

“We’ll get it. I know where everything is now.”

Marco stroked the mare another moment. “I guess some of the soldiers left for the south already.”

“Before the sun broke the night, and Keegan with them. He and Mahon will come back for Finian’s birthday celebration, then off they’ll go again.”

Breen laid a hand on his arm. “And you?”

“Not this time. I’m here, as Keegan wants me close to our mother and sister, the boys. They’ll not get past them, but we take no chances.”

“Will you go to the Capital?”

“No, and thank the gods for that. I’m not one for the crowds and the noise. The farm needs tending, the valley protecting, and that’s for me. Well now, you’ve a fine, fresh day for a ride, so enjoy it. Come on there, Eryn, my beauty.”

Without halter or reins, the mare followed him dutifully out of the stables.

“He’s a lot like you,” Breen said as she watched Harken go.

“Harken? Like me?”

She tapped a hand on her heart. “In here. The kindness, patience, loyalty. I think now that’s why I felt comfortable around him so fast.”

They gathered the tack and hauled it out to the paddock, where Harken already had Boy and Cindie waiting.

The man himself hooked his muscular plow horse to a plow. As she saddled Boy, Breen watched him walk along behind the horse as the plow turned the earth in a fallow field.

What would he plant there, she wondered, and at this time of year? Or did the plow just aerate the soil? She didn’t know the first thing about farming—though her father had been a farmer.

“He doesn’t strike me as the, you know, warrior type,” Marco commented as the song Harken sung while he worked carried back to them.

“Harken? He’s a farmer at his heart, a witch in his gift. He’d rather use a plow than a sword, but you can believe he knows how to use both. His father trained him, then mine continued the training after his died.”

She dealt with the gate, then mounted. She called for Bollocks, waited while he ran toward them. Then grinned over at Marco. “What would our friends in the Gayborhood think of us now?”

“They’d think we look sharp, and we look sexy on these horses.”

They walked to the road, where Breen tossed her hair back, sent him a challenging look. “Are you up for a gallop?”

“Up for one? Yee-haw!” With the shout, he raced off.

“Urban cowboy,” she said to Bollocks. Laughing, Breen clicked to Boy and gave chase.