The House of Gaian

Chapter 3

Breanna grumbled as she gathered up her bow and quiver of arrows from the corner of her wardrobe. She continued to grumble as she walked the corridors of her family's manor house to reach the kitchen door.

The trouble with men was that they saw the world in a way that was too rational to be wrong . . . but also just wasn't quite right. And a man who was a baron as well as an older brother was the most stubborn, ornery creature in the world—especially when his argument that she should know how to handle weapons was supported by a Fae Lord who was the Lord of the Hawks.

"The featherheads," Breanna muttered as she opened the kitchen door and stood on the threshold. She looked down at Idjit, who was laying to one side of the doorway, busily gnawing on a soup bone Glynis, their housekeeper, must have given him. "They're both featherheads, even if only one of them has the ability to change into a form with actual feathers. And where are they? Tell me that. They're both so keen for me to interrupt my day, and then they don't even show up. They're probably off doing important man things—like molting in the case of the Fae featherhead. Or doing whatever barons do as an excuse for being late to an appointment they made."

The small black dog rolled his eyes, waved his tail, and kept gnawing on the soup bone.

"You're no help," Breanna said sourly. "Of course you're not. You're male, too."

She closed the kitchen door and headed across the extensive sweep of grass that was the manor house's back lawn. Since the cousins who had escaped from the eastern part of Sylvalan had arrived earlier that summer to stay with her family at Willowsbrook's Old Place, there were too many animals around the stables and paddocks and too many children running and playing on the back lawn to set up practice targets in those areas. So Clay, who was in charge of the horses, had set up bales of hay near the kitchen garden.

It wasn't that she objected to target practice. In truth, she often did it as a way to settle her thoughts and regain the balance between mind and body. What she objected to was the assumption that she needed target practice. Mother's tits! She could shoot as well as most men, had been bringing home game for several years now. Even Clay had told Liam and Falco that she didn't need to learn how to hit a target. Had the Baron of Willowsbrook and the Lord of the Hawks listened? No, they had not. The featherheads.

Breanna stopped and looked at the men and older boys who were cleaning out stables or grooming horses, looked at the women hanging wash on the lines, looked at the youngsters playing some kind of game on the lawn, looked beyond her kin to the woods that bordered the lawn and thought of the Small Folk who lived there. She pulled her shoulders back, trying to ease the tension in her chest.

"A copper for your thoughts."

Breanna turned toward the voice. Her cousin Fiona stood a few feet away, her hands filled with another bow and quiver of arrows.

"You're doing target practice too?" Breanna asked.

Fiona shrugged.

Breanna turned away, focusing on the woods again. "Do no harm," she said quietly. "That's the witch's creed. There are good reasons for that creed, good reasons why we should use the power within us only to help, to heal, to maintain the balance between the Great Mother and all the creatures who live on her bounty."

"And to protect?" Fiona suggested softly.

"And to protect." Breanna sighed. "I keep thinking that I don't need to learn to use weapons against other people, that I already have a weapon inside me more destructive than anything a man could create. Then I wonder if all the witches who have died at the hands of the Inquisitors had thought the same way and learned their error too late. Or had they been so hobbled by our creed that they hadn't even tried?"

"Could you kill a man, Breanna?"

She felt something settle inside her, something that had been haunting her sleep lately. She turned to face her cousin. "Yes, I could. If that's what it took to protect my family or the Old Place or the Small Folk . . . yes, I could." She lifted the hand that held the bow. "It would be easier to do that using a weapon made by human hands than break the creed I live by and use the power inside me to do harm. But I would do that, too, if there was no other choice."

"We're of one mind about this," Fiona said. "I've lost my mother and my grandmother. My father, too. And too many aunts and uncles. We're a large, sprawling family. Or we were. Sometimes I think we should have fought back, should have stood up to the baron when he started making decrees that took away so much. But we couldn't have done that without doing harm, and the elders held by the creed—and didn't understand the cost until it was too late for them to do anything but save those they could by sacrificing themselves."

"It was more complicated than that," Breanna said gently.

Fiona sighed. "I know. But some days it's easier to blame those I loved for dying to save the rest of us than to admit that breaking the creed wouldn't have made any difference. Not then. Not there. The Inquisitors already controlled the baron, and the baron controlled the people. What good would it have done to wither the crops in the fields or make the wells dry? All that would have done is hurt the common folk and prove witches are the evil creatures the Black Coats accuse us of being."

"You don't know the elders are dead."

"Breanna."

Fiona's voice held so much knowledge and pain. But not acceptance. If the Inquisitors rode into this Old Place, at least some of the witches here would use everything they could summon to fight back.

Breanna took a deep breath, let it out slowly. "My primary branch of the Great Mother is air. Yours is earth. It would help to have fire and water as well if it comes down to a fight here."

"Not everyone will break the creed. Even with what they know, with what they've seen."

"I know." Breanna tucked some strands of dark hair back into her loose braid. She looked at the bow in her hand. Even if they didn't use their power as a weapon, there were still ways for the witches to fight back. "Do you know how to use a bow?"

Fiona made a rude noise. "Of course I do."

"We might as well get some practice in before our 'instructors' show up to give us some practice."

Fiona laughed, but there was an edge to it. "I imagine Baron Liam and Lord Falco just want to be sure you're available and waiting so that you can protect them when they show up."

"Protect them from what?" Now that Fiona had said that, she realized Liam did tend to stay close to her when he visited, and when he wasn't with her, he spent his time with his mother Elinore, who, along with his little sister Brooke, was also living at Old Willowsbrook for the time being, or with her grandmother, Nuala. And Falco tended to head for any group of men if he couldn't be with her. What would two adult men need protection from that they would behave that way?

Breanna felt laughter bubbling up, threatening to burst free. It was the look on Fiona's face that made her force the laughter back. "Jean? You think they're going to that much effort to avoid Jean? Mother's tits, Fiona, the girl is only sixteen."

"And flirts outrageously with anything in trousers that has a handsome-enough face."

"All right," Breanna said, uncomfortable with the anger rising in Fiona, "she flirts."

"You make it sound as if she's too young to think of men and beds," Fiona said fiercely. "And perhaps she is too young to think of men in that way, but she's already become a predator where men are concerned. She wants, and expects, male adoration. She wants, and expects, men to fulfill her every wish and whim."

"Didn't we all want that at that age?" Breanna asked cautiously. The anger and contempt in Fiona's voice worried her as much as the word predator. "Didn't we all want the romance of being special?" Don't we still want that?

"You were never sixteen in that way. Neither was I. You never would have . . ." Fiona pressed her lips together until they were a thin, grim line. "She doesn't always live by the creed when she feels slighted by a man's lack of attention."

A chill raced up Breanna's spine. That spike of fear sharpened her voice. "What are you saying?"

"That Liam and Falco have a good reason to be wary of being alone with Jean—especially when it's clear to everyone but Jean that neither of them are comfortable with her interest and don't want to play the ardent lover."

"You can't be serious. You actually think she would use magic to harm them because they aren't interested in her?"

Fiona nodded slowly. "Because they aren't interested in her. . . and because they are interested in you."

Breanna stared at Fiona, too stunned to speak.

"Oh, not in the same way. I don't mean that," Fiona continued. "But you're the one they both inquire about first. You're the one they look to in order to understand our way of life. Jean resents your 'power' over them because she wants it for herself."

Breanna shook her head, not to deny what Fiona had said but because she still couldn't accept that Jean might be a danger to Liam and Falco. It was one thing to consider breaking the witches' creed in order to defend her family and home; it was quite another to break that creed and do harm simply because you could do it. "Have you any proof that Jean ever harmed a boy because he wasn't sufficiently attentive?"

"Proof? No. Suspicions? Oh, yes. But she always acted the darling around the elders, and they wouldn't believe sweet, pretty Jean has the heart of a cold-blooded bitch. There was nothing serious, you understand. Just little spiteful things that could have been easily explained as simple accidents if they hadn't occurred soon after a boy she wanted showed a preference for another girl." Fiona sighed. "I didn't want her to come with us. Even knowing what she would have faced if she'd stayed, I didn't want her to come with us. All during the journey, I was afraid she would do something that would call too much attention to us, make the guards in the villages we had to pass look too closely at where we were coming from. Make them look too closely at us."

"But she didn't do anything," Breanna said. "Perhaps, with Nuala keeping an eye on her . . ."

Fiona shook her head. "I told you, the elders only saw what Jean wanted them to see—and that's the face she shows to Nuala, too. Pretty, sometimes pouty in a teasing way, fluttery feminine Jean. She was fearful enough of the people the Inquisitors have turned against our kind to behave on the journey here, but the only reason she didn't do anything more damaging back home was because. . ."

"Because?" Breanna prodded.

Fiona looked uncomfortable. Finally, she said, "She was afraid of Jennyfer. And she hasn't stirred up much trouble here because she's afraid of you."

"Me? Whatever for?"

"You and Jenny . . . you're . . . different. . . from the rest of us. I don't mean that in a bad way, but. . . there's a strength in both of you that runs so deep. A strength that comes from here." Fiona shifted the quiver to her bow hand in order to press a fist against her heart. "I remember the last time you came to visit the family and stayed for the summer. Do you remember?"

"I remember," Breanna said quietly.

"There was a brutal storm one night—wind fierce enough to uproot trees and rain that beat down hard enough to bruise skin. The rest of us huddled inside the house, but you and Jenny . . . I heard you sneak out of the room the three of us were sharing that summer. When I crept to the window and looked out, the two of you were outside in your nightgowns, dancing in that storm, celebrating it and . . . changing it. Air and water. You embraced that storm, took it into yourselves, made it part of your dance, gave it back as something gentler. You tamed a storm, Breanna. You and Jenny." Fiona smiled. "The look on your face right now. As if I've suddenly started speaking some strange, incomprehensible language."

"You are." Breanna shook her head. She remembered that night. Remembered extending her hand at the same moment Jenny extended hers so that they stepped out into that storm with their hands linked, feeling the Great Mother's power swirling around them, rushing into them while they danced. Yes, they had celebrated that storm, had acknowledged its strength, had connected to it in a way that had been so natural it had required no words, no thought. What was so strange about that?

They are deeply rooted in the Mother's Hills.

She remembered overhearing one of the elders say that the morning after the storm. Since she had kin in the hills, she hadn't thought it odd. But she also remembered that, while Fiona, Rory, and some of her other cousins had come here a few times to visit after that summer, she had never been invited back for a visit to their family homes. Except Jenny's.

Confused and self-conscious—and irritated with herself and Fiona for feeling those things—she shrugged dismissively. "Let's get some target practice." I'm in the right mood to shoot something.

Breanna had taken only a couple of steps toward the kitchen gardens when a hawk flew overhead, screaming a warning as it passed by her. At the same moment, a boy from one of the farm families who had escaped with Breanna's kin burst from the woods, running toward them as fast as he could.

"There's a man in the woods!" the boy shouted. "A man wearing a black coat! Coming this way."

"What were you doing in the woods?" Breanna snapped as soon as the boy stumbled to a halt in front of her. None of the children were supposed to go into the woods on their own. There were still some of those nighthunter creatures out there somewhere.

"Jean wanted to look for some plants," the boy said, panting. "She told me I had to come with her since we weren't supposed to go into the woods by ourselves and—" He glanced nervously at Breanna, then at Fiona. "And she didn't want to ask one of the other witches to go with her."

There wasn't time to consider what kinds of plants Jean was looking for that made her not want the company of another witch—or what she intended to do with the plants if she found them.

"Go—" Breanna looked toward the stables. The men, warned by the hawk's cries, were already in motion, saddling some horses, stabling others, gathering weapons that were always close at hand these days. "Go to the house. Warn Nuala. Go!"

As the boy raced for the house, Breanna and Fiona looked at each other.

"Get the children into the house," Breanna said.

Fiona started to protest. Then she noticed Clay and her brother Rory hurrying toward them—and the hawk flying ahead of them. Nodding, she ran toward the children, who had stopped playing and were now anxiously watching the adults.

Trusting Fiona to take care of the children, Breanna set her quiver on the ground and grabbed a handful of arrows. She pushed the heads of four of them into the ground in front of her to make them easy to snatch if they were needed. The fifth she nocked in her bow, keeping her fingers light on the bowstring. Facing the woodland trail, she waited.

Sensing movement on her left, she started to draw the bow and turn when she realized it was Falco. He had changed from hawk to man, but he'd forgotten to use the glamour to hide the pointed ears and feral quality of the Fae behind the mask of a human face. Or else he had a reason for not hiding what he was.

"Black Coat?" Breanna asked softly.

Falco shook his head.

That would have been reassuring if Falco hadn't looked uneasy, even nervous. Whoever was in the woods wasn't an Inquisitor, but also wasn't a friend.

She'd just turned back toward the trail when Jean ran out of the woods. The girl looked flustered, exhilarated. But not frightened.

When she was a few feet away from Breanna, Jean stopped running. She shook out her skirt, ran her hands over her hair to smooth it, licked her lips to wet them, and pinched her cheeks to bring more color to her face. "How do I look?"

Breanna stared at her. "Get in the house. There's an intruder in the woods. Possibly an Inquisitor."

"Is that what he told you?" Jean said, giving Falco a look that was equal parts pouty and scalding.

Any reservations Breanna had about Fiona's suspicions and feelings were destroyed by that look.

"It isn't an Inquisitor," Jean said. "It's a Fae Lord, and he's so handsome."

Breanna saw something cold and mean in Jean's eyes when she realized Falco didn't notice she now considered him an inferior specimen of a man.

"Breanna," Falco said quietly.

Looking at the trail, Breanna saw the man coming out of the woods. He was handsome, with his black hair and fair skin. He was too far away to see the color of his eyes.

"Jean, get in the house," she said quietly.

"So you can impress him?" Jean replied nastily. She gave the man a sweet smile of welcome.

The man stopped and gave Jean a long, considering look. When he resumed walking toward them, the look he gave Falco was as scalding as Jean's had been.

"So this is where you've hidden yourself," the man said harshly, stopping a few lengths away from them.

"This is where I live now," Falco replied.

"Where you live? Have you forgotten what you are? Have you forgotten your duty to your Clan?"

"I'm needed here."

"To do what? To be what? A witch's pet?" The man looked angry, disgusted. "When they told me you were down here, playing the tame Fae, I told them they were wrong. I told them Falco knew his duty to his Clan, and if he was cozying up to a witch here, it was only to seduce her into trusting him. Then he would persuade her to go back to Brightwood with him, and we would have a witch again to anchor the magic, to hold the shining road open. We would have a witch again who would perform the duty to the Fae she was meant to perform and free my sister from the burden. That's what I told them. Now I see they were right. You've abandoned your Clan, abandoned your own kind. For what? Does she even spread her legs for you, or are you so pale a man that you don't even demand that much for whatever favors you bestow here?"

Incensed, Breanna raised her bow, drew back the bowstring, and took aim at the center of the man's chest. "Who do you think you are?"

"Tell her," the man commanded, pointing a finger at Falco.

Falco hesitated. Then he said, "This is Lucian. The Lord of the Sun, the Lord of Fire. The Lightbringer."

Perhaps it was because the two men expected her to be intimidated, awed, maybe even frightened about confronting the male leader of the Fae that power rose in her as sharp, sizzling temper.

"Well, good for him," Breanna said. "You may see the Lord of Fire, but all I see is an intruder I'm going to shoot if he doesn't get off our land."

"Breanna." Falco sounded shocked, almost breathless.

"Breanna!" Jean said, sounding equally shocked. "How can you say such a thing to our guest?"

Mother's tits! She'd forgotten about Jean. "I told you to get back to the house," she said sternly. She didn't like the calculating look on Lucian's face, as if he were considering a filly he wanted to add to his stables.

"I'm not a child, Breanna," Jean snapped. "You can't—"

Breanna let power follow the path of temper. A wind suddenly whipped around Jean, turning the girl's hair into a tangled mess and blowing her skirt up. Shrieking in dismay, Jean grabbed the front of the skirt, holding her arms down to prevent the men from seeing everything she wore—or didn't wear—beneath her skirt.

Breanna drew the power back into herself. The wind died as quickly as it had appeared. "Get back to the house, Jean. Now."

"You'll pay for that, Breanna," Jean said before running to the house.

Breanna's arms were getting tired from keeping the bowstring drawn back for so long. But she didn't dare ease back, didn't dare give a moment's appearance of yielding in any way. Not when Lucian was watching Jean run back to the house.

If the girl had stopped and talked with him in the woods, it would have taken so little effort on his part to convince Jean to go with him. A promised visit to Tir Alainn? Oh, Jean would have loved that. And then what? If he got her to Brightwood and then abandoned her, what would happen to her? What would happen to anyone living near that Old Place who had to deal with her? No matter how you turned that stone, there was a sharp edge that would cut someone. So she had to get him to leave and not come back.

But how?

"Listen to me, Fae Lord, and listen well," Breanna said. "You aren't welcome here. If you ever come back and try to persuade any of my kin to go with you—"

"What will you do?" Lucian snapped. "Shoot me?"

She heard a horse galloping toward her. A muffled sound. There was only one horse she knew that sounded like his hooves barely touched the ground, and that was Oakdancer. Which meant Liam was riding toward her. Fast.

"You won't shoot me," Lucian said sneeringly. "Do no harm. Isn't that your creed?"

"That is our creed," Breanna agreed. "But we make exceptions."

That startled him. Unnerved him. He regained control quickly when he saw Liam rein in and dismount.

"This is no business of yours, human," Lucian said.

Liam strode toward Breanna, stopping beside her. "I may be gentry, and I may be a baron, but"—as he yanked one of the arrows out of the ground and held it up, the top half of it burst into flames—"I'm also a Son of the House of Gaian, so any intruder on my sister's land is my business."

"You threaten me, the Lord of Fire, with fire?" Lucian laughed nastily.

The man had a point. Liam's gift, which had come down to him through his mother, had awakened just recently. He could draw power from the branch of fire easily enough, but he still wasn't adept at controlling it or extinguishing what he'd created.

Before this could turn into a pissing contest that would, most likely, burn down part of the Old Place if it didn't kill someone outright, she lowered the bow, chose a new target, and released the arrow. Having an arrow go to ground between his feet startled Lucian.

Breanna took that moment to snatch the burning arrow out of Liam's hand. Using her own connection to the branch of fire, she banked the flames as she drove the arrow into the earth, doing it so smoothly that not so much as a blade of grass caught fire.

When she straightened up, she noticed how warily Lucian watched her.

Not so sure of yourself now, are you? she thought. Well, she'd give him more reason to think twice about her.

"The House of Gaian created Tir Alainn out of dreams and will. We created the shining roads that anchor that land to the human world. If you, or any other Fae, try to force or seduce or remove any of my kin from Willowsbrook, I will gather the rest of my kin, both here and in the Mother's Hills, and we will turn Tir Alainn into a wasteland. And then we will close the shining roads and leave you there."

Lucian paled, staggered back a step. There was fear in his eyes now. "You couldn't."

"Oh, but we could. As I will. . ." Breanna let the words hang in the air. "I suggest you go back to your own world, Fae Lord, and let us be."

"I'll make sure he gets there," Liam said quietly. Turning away, he mounted Oakdancer and waited.

Lucian stared at Falco, his expression cold and bitter. "You've made your choice, Falco. Don't come crawling back to us when she turns on you. Her kind will always turn on you."

He walked back into the woods, Liam following on Oakdancer.

Breanna watched them disappear into the trees. If the Lightbringer turned on Liam, would her brother be able to protect himself? Had she been a fool to make an enemy of so powerful a Fae Lord?

"Breanna?" Falco said softly. "Breanna, you're shaking."

"It's not every day I threaten the Lightbringer," Breanna snapped. "I'm entitled to shake." But facing down the Lord of Fire wasn't the reason she was shaking. If something happened to Liam because of it, how could she expect Elinore to understand and forgive her? How would she be able to forgive herself?

Falco cautiously reached over and tugged the bow from her hand. "Come sit down on the bench under the tree. Can you walk that far?"

There was something queer and strained in Falco's voice, but she couldn't think about that yet. Her legs didn't feel like she had any bones left, and she really did need to sit down. She didn't argue when he cupped a hand under her elbow to help her walk.

"Do you want some water?" Falco asked once she was sitting on the bench.

Breanna studied him. He'd been nervous when the Lightbringer showed up. He looked terrified now. "What's wrong?"

"Breanna . . ." Falco looked away. A shudder went through him before he regained control and looked at her again. "Breanna, could you really do that?"

Breanna's attention was caught by seeing Clay and Rory. They'd been hurrying toward her before Liam galloped up to stand beside her. They'd probably held back to remain unnoticed while she held the Lightbringer's attention.

Clay lifted a hand and tipped his head toward the woods, turning the gesture into a question.

If she asked Clay or Rory to follow Liam, would she be putting another person she cared about in danger? She shook her head, then watched the two men head for the house to report to Nuala.

"Breanna? Could you do that?"

Confused by the question, she turned back to Falco. "Do what?"

"Could the witches really close the shining roads and leave the Fae trapped there? Could they really destroy Tir Alainn?"

"How should I know?"

Falco sat next to her. Puzzled, he studied her. "You were bluffing?"

"It was a good bluff," Breanna said defensively. "It got him to leave, didn't it?" It was a good bluff only if Lucian doesn't retaliate by harming someone. "Hasn't he ever met a witch before?"

Falco shifted uneasily. "Ari. . . Ari wasn't like you. She was . . . she wasn't like you."

You and Jenny. . . you're . . . different. . .from the rest of us.

"I need to talk to Nuala," Breanna said, pushing herself to her feet. When Falco remained seated, she hesitated, then said, "There isn't anyone here who could do what I told Lucian we could do." But there may be some Mother's Daughters who live in the Mother's Hills who could do exactly that.

He didn't respond, so she walked back to the house. Alone.

Liam followed the Fae Lord through the woods. He hadn't liked the man on sight, and he might have dismissed that feeling as nothing more than a brother's natural reaction to seeing his sister confronted by a stranger. . . except Oakdancer was making it plain that he didn't like the man either. It couldn't be because the stranger was Fae. The bay stallion had been bred and raised by Ahern, who had been the Fae Lord of the Horse before he was killed in a fight with some Inquisitors. So it had to be something about this man the horse was reacting to.

He saw the golden light through the trees and knew they were close to the shining road the Fae used to reach this Old Place. When Falco had shown the road to him, Clay, Rory, and Breanna, he and the other two men had seen nothing more than a wide band of sunlight that looked a little more golden than usual. If he'd ridden past it on his own, he never would have known what it was. Breanna, however, saw it as thick, golden air. Still translucent, but definitely recognizable as something created, in part, with elements of the natural world but not part of the natural world. Then again, she'd already known where to find the shining road.

The Lord of Fire stopped in front of the shining road and turned to face him.

"Your sister is a fool to challenge the Fae."

"My sister is many things, but a fool isn't one of them," Liam replied coldly. "If she drew a weapon against you, she had a reason. If she threatened you and your people, she had a reason. And that is reason enough for me to stand with her and stand against you."

"We are the Fae," the man said angrily. "We are the Mother's Children."

"The Mother's spoiled children," Liam snapped. "Mother's mercy! In the next few weeks, we will all, most likely, be embroiled in a war against the Inquisitors and the eastern barons they control, and many good people will die in the fighting. We don't have time for a race that sits above it all in their lofty world and only comes down to our world to play games and amuse themselves. We don't have time for the temper tantrums of spoiled, useless children. So go back to your world and stay there. And stay out of our way."

The man's expression changed, his face now full of understanding. He raised his hands in an open, giving gesture. "I understand how it feels to care for a sister. I understand how it feels to want her to be safe and happy." His voice was deep, smooth, soothing. "Don't you want your sister to be safe? If she came to Brightwood with me, she would be safe. The Fae would protect her from all harm. She would be cherished . . . and safe."

Liam swayed a little as he stared into the Fae Lord's gray eyes and that voice wrapped around him. Safe. Yes, he wanted Breanna to be safe. There were nights when he had nightmares, when he saw again the things he'd thought were fever dreams during the days when Padrick, the Baron of Breton, had helped him get home after the Inquisitors had tried to kill him. There were nights when the nightmares were the same except that the faces belonged to women he knew—Breanna, Nuala, Fiona. Even his mother, Elinore. Yes, he wanted them to be safe. Wanted. . . With a little help, the Fae Lord could take them someplace safe, someplace . . .

"Don't you want her to be safe?" the Fae Lord said in that so-persuasive voice.

Oakdancer suddenly reared. Thrown off balance, Liam struggled to keep his seat. He felt strange, as if the world had been muffled for a moment and now reappeared with painfully sharp intensity.

That persuasive voice was still talking about safety, still promising to keep Breanna safe.

Persuasive. Persuasion. Wasn't that one of the Fae's gifts, the ability to use persuasion magic to convince people to do what they might not do otherwise? That bastard was using it on him in order to have Breanna, was using his own fear for her safety as a hammer against his will.

Liam's temper flashed. Heat flooded through him beneath his skin. He knew what it was now, knew he was drawing power from the Great Mother's branch of fire. The heat cleared his head, burned clean in his heart. When he looked at the Fae Lord, that voice was no more persuasive than the eastern barons had been at the council meeting when they'd tried to convince the rest of them to follow their example and vote for the decrees that would turn all of Sylvalan into a horror for every woman who lived there.

"What happened to the other ones?" Liam asked, breaking the Fae Lord's repetitious assurance of safety.

The Fae Lord studied Liam's face and didn't seem pleased by what he saw. "The other ones?"

"If Brightwood is an Old Place, what happened to the witches who were there?"

The man hesitated a moment too long.

Liam leaned forward, the power filling him becoming uncomfortably hot. "Where were the Fae when the Inquisitors showed up at Brightwood the last time? Where was this protection in the other Old Places where witches have died? If it didn't inconvenience the precious Fae, you wouldn't give a damn if they died or not. No, Fae Lord, I wouldn't trust my sister to a man like you. So go back to Tir Alainn and stay away from us."

The man glared at him. Then he disappeared and a black horse, with flickers of fire in its mane and tail, reared, wheeled, and galloped up the shining road.

Liam took a deep breath and blew it out. He gathered the reins carefully, too aware that if he lost control of the power now, he could burn himself and Oakdancer. He didn't dare try to ground the power out here in the woods. He didn't have the skill yet to do it safely. Which meant doing it the only way he knew wouldn't harm anyone.

"Well," he said to Oakdancer as he turned the stallion and headed back to Breanna's house, "there are a lot of people living in the Old Place these days. Someone is bound to need hot water for something."

"What do you think?"

Perched on a stool in the pressing room, Breanna watched her grandmother fold camisoles and pantalettes, finding comfort in the familiar. Nuala always seemed to know when talking required her undivided attention and when giving hands a simple task made it easier to find the words. She'd taken one look at Breanna's face, led her to the pressing room, and shooed the girls who had been folding clothes out the door.

"About what?" Nuala asked, folding another camisole and putting it in the stack. "You've given me a great deal to think about."

Too restless to be idle, Breanna plucked a camisole out of the basket. With so many people living in the house now, there was always laundry to be done—and plenty of hands to do the work. No one was idle in Nuala's house, and even the children had assigned chores. No one resented doing their share of the work.

Breanna's hands curled into tight fists.

Except Jean.

Nuala tugged the camisole out of Breanna's hands. "It's a good thing this one is yours. You can't complain about the creases in it since you made them."

Breanna shrugged. Nuala calmly continued folding clothes.

"Do I think you were wise to threaten a Fae Lord?" Nuala said. "I don't know. Based on what you told me, he looks at us and sees a surplus of witches in one Old Place and sees nothing wrong with selecting one or two to take elsewhere to suit his own purpose and the needs of his own family. While I sympathize with his desire to help his family, thinking of us as servants or tools for the Fae's use is unacceptable."

"You think my threat was excessive."

Nuala hesitated. "You frightened a powerful Fae Lord. What he will do with that fear is something we can't know. Did you act rashly? Yes. Did you act honestly?" She reached over and rested a hand against Breanna's face for a moment—and smiled. "I would have been surprised if you'd said anything more . . . tactful."

Breanna snorted softly, then reluctantly returned Nuala's smile.

"As for Jean," Nuala said, returning to her folding, "I'm not blind to the girl's faults. I can tell when sweetness is a deep well and when it's nothing more than surface water. So I'm troubled by Fiona's suspicions. More troubled by the fact that Jean was hunting for plants and didn't want any of us to know." She sighed quietly. "Her mother was a hedge witch, and that kind of magic is connected to plants and charms rather than the branches of the Great Mother. Like any gift, it can be used for good or ill. In Jean's case, she has enough connection with earth to draw some power from that branch of the Mother. That's a dangerous combination in someone who believes her every wish and whim should be indulged and becomes resentful when it isn't. Fiona's always been able to see people clearly, so her suspicions that Jean has used magic to cause mischievous harm can't be dismissed."

"Does she see me clearly?" Breanna asked, not sure if she wanted the answer.

Nuala folded clothes for a minute, saying nothing. Finally, she said, "We are not all the same, Breanna. We do not all have the same skills, the same abilities, the same strength. For some, the power we can draw from our branches of the Great Mother is no more than a trickle. For others, it is a small brook, or a deep stream, or a strong river. I am a deep stream, but you and Jenny . . . you are rivers, fast and strong. So, yes, you are different from our kin from the east—but you are not so different from many who live in the Mother's Hills. Power runs deep there, and it runs strong."

Thinking of Jenny, Breanna asked, "If Jenny and I are rivers, are there any witches who are the sea?"

Nuala hesitated. "If there are witches that strong, they would be very dangerous if provoked." She made a visible effort to push that thought aside. "Enough talk with me. Go on now and find out what's troubling Falco."

"The threat I made frightened him. That's what's troubling Falco."

"That is not the only thing."

"What else could be troubling him?"

Breanna squirmed as Nuala turned and gave her That Look.

"That," Nuala said, "is what you need to find out."

He was still sitting on the bench under the tree, looking lost and lonely.

As she walked toward him, Breanna wondered just how much he had given up in order to give whatever help and protection he could against the Inquisitors. She knew he'd been shunned by the Clan whose territory was anchored to Old Willowsbrook, but had he just forfeited his family as well?

When she sat down beside him, Falco said, "Liam returned. He said he needed to soak his hands in water."

Breanna sighed. "He needs more work in learning to ground the power."

"The women in the washhouse were glad to see him."

She let out a huff of laughter. "I'm sure they were. They'll have plenty of hot water for laundry without having to stoke fires and sweat. Still, it will be easier on him when he learns to ground his power in a more traditional way."

Falco smiled, but the smile faded quickly.

"What troubles you, Falco?" Breanna asked. "Do you miss your home?"

He shook his head. "It isn't a happy place. Hasn't been since. . ." He sighed. "Dianna resents having to live at Brightwood to anchor the magic."

"Dianna?"

"Lucian's sister."

"I see," Breanna said. But she didn't see, didn't understand. "She's from that Clan?"

Falco nodded. "There's something about her that allows her to anchor the magic in the Old Place to keep the shining road open—as long as enough Fae stay in the Old Place with her."

"So that Clan doesn't really need a witch."

He made a frustrated sound. "She's the Lady of the Moon, Breanna. The Lady of the Moon. The Huntress. She wants to live in Tir Alainn. She doesn't want to be burdened with staying in the human world."

"But she's doing this for her family."

He studied her, an odd expression on his face. "If it were your family, and you had to give up something special in order for the rest to have it, you would do it, wouldn't you?"

"Of course," Breanna said, puzzled. "They're family. I'm not saying it would be easy, or that there wouldn't be times when I would wish it could be otherwise, but, yes, I would do it."

"That's what makes you different from the Fae. One of the things, anyway."

"Falco—"

He shot to his feet, paced a few steps away from her, then returned to the bench. "I don't understand your ways." Frustration shimmered in his voice. "If this was a Clan, I would know what was expected of me, but I don't understand your ways."

"What don't you understand?"

"I don't know if you expect me . . . if your female kin expect me . . ." He slumped back down on the bench. "I don't like Jean. I don't want to bed Jean."

Breanna felt her jaw start to drop. "Whoever said you had to?"

"Since I'm visiting your . . . family . . . and you haven't said you want me for yourself, I'm obliged to. . . to . . ."

He was on his feet again, pacing in front of her.

"It's not that your female kin aren't fine women—most of them—but I—"

"Don't want to bed them."

"Yes!"

"You want to bed me."

"Yes!"

"Why?"

He stopped pacing and looked at her as if she'd just asked him to count every leaf on every tree in the Old Place.

"Because . . . you're you."

Breanna blew out a breath. What was she supposed to say to that?

"Breanna?"

She patted the bench. "Sit down, Falco."

He sat. Perched was a better word, since he looked like he was going to jump up again at any moment.

"When I was nineteen," Breanna said, "I visited my kin in the Mother's Hills during the celebration of the Summer Moon. A full moon, wine, lots of laughter and dancing. There was a young man there, older than me by a few years, who was staying with friends. We danced and talked and laughed. . . and when he asked me to go walking with him, I went. It was romantic and exciting, and he was experienced enough with women that I didn't regret him being my first lover. But in the morning . . . Well, he didn't seem quite so wonderful without the moonlight and the wine. I decided after that visit that I needed to like a man in the daylight before I gave in to the lure of moonlight."

"I see," Falco said thoughtfully. "Do you like me?"

"Yes, I like you," Breanna replied. "I like you very much. But I don't know you well enough yet to invite you to my bed."

Falco nodded. "What about kisses?"

He was persistent. "Kisses?"

"Do you like kisses?"

"Well. . . I. . . Yes."

Something about the way his gaze focused on her mouth before he raised his eyes to look into hers made her palms go suddenly damp. Watching her, he leaned forward slowly.

Just before his lips touched hers, she felt a prickle along her neck. She pulled back, turned her head.

Liam was leaning against the washhouse doorway, watching her.

Clay had his arms over the back of a gelding. He had a grooming brush in one hand, but he wasn't making any pretense of grooming the horse.

Looking around to see what had distracted her, Falco cleared his throat and eased back.

"Ah. . ." Breanna wasn't sure what to do. Go back in the house? Pretend nothing happened? Pick up her quiver of arrows, march over to the washhouse, and smack Liam over the head with it?

Quiver. Arrows. The bow leaning against the bench where Falco had set it after her confrontation with the Lightbringer.

"Target practice," she said, bouncing to her feet.

"What?" Falco blinked.

"You were supposed to help me with target practice." She brushed past him, picked up the quiver and bow. "Come along."

"You want target practice now?"

"The bales of hay are stacked as tall as I am," Breanna said patiently.

"So?" His puzzled expression turned to understanding. "Oh." He took the quiver from her and smiled.

As she and Falco started walking toward the kitchen garden and the bales of hay, Breanna glanced back at Liam. Which part of him would win the inner struggle—brother or man? She suspected she already knew, but she hoped the man would struggle long enough for her to try a kiss or two before the brother joined her and Falco for target practice.