“How are ye going to get him here without Fand—or without her knowing?”
“I know a selkie who has his ear.”
“Oh, aye,” he said, and snorted. “Everybody knows a selkie, lad.”
“It’s true. I’ve used her to contact him on the sly before, when I was trying to keep my whereabouts secret from Aenghus Óg.”
“How long will that take?”
“I don’t know for sure. While I’m gone, would you mind getting the bonfires prepared for the ceremony?”
“Fine.”
“Oberon will keep his eyes out for faeries and let you know if he sees or hears anything.”
We might get some extra observers. Up in the trees, down low in the undergrowth, who knows. If you sense them, don’t bark, but let Owen or me know.
Bidding the two of them farewell, I stripped and shape-shifted to a sea otter before using an aspen to shift to Tír na nÓg. Once there, I took a deep breath and shifted back to earth, to an underwater location: a small kelp forest growing off the southwestern Irish coast that Manannan had bound long ago. Anybody capable of shifting planes could shift there, of course, but very few would want to. It appeared to have no purpose other than birdwatching and tourism, for you surfaced at the base of Goat Island with a spectacular view of the famous Cliffs of Moher—also known as the Cliffs of Insanity in The Princess Bride. Razorbills and puffins and all sorts of birds nested there, whirling in the sky and diving into the waves, and the ocean was protected from fishermen to make sure the birds had sufficient feeding area. I had no intention of swimming to the surface, however; I swam straight for the base of Goat Island, where another forest of kelp and a slab of Namurian shale concealed an entrance to a subterranean passage, which opened onto a grotto the size of a ballroom.
When I broke the surface, a small titter of surprise greeted my ears. A dark-haired woman with deep-black eyes sat at an easel set upon a beach of sea-smoothed glass and gravel. Her brush was poised above a canvas of stormy blues and grays and forbidding rocks frosted with crashing surf. She was unconsciously nude and regarded me with curiosity more than alarm. Behind her, carved steps led to a raised platform of rock, where stone furnishings were softened by furs and pillows and accented by golden candlesticks, all of them blazing and lighting her living area; large torches illuminated the beach. The combined effect was impressive—her candle and fuel budget must have been enormous.
“A sea otter?” she said, her light Irish lilt floating to my ears. “Who is that? It can’t be Siodhachan?”
I shifted back to human and waved at her from the frigid water. “Hello, Meara. It’s been a long time.”
She put her brush down and rose from the fur-covered stool upon which she had been sitting, throwing her arms wide. “It is you! Indeed it has been a long time, far too long! You’re probably freezing. Come out of there and I’ll get you a fur.”
I swam over and crawled onto the beach, teeth chattering, while she fetched me something with which to dry off. Her smile was bright as she brought it to me and insisted on throwing it over my shoulders, and once I was enveloped, she hugged me and gave me a peck on the cheek. One of the many nice things about selkies is that they can do that and not dissolve to ash: Unlike most other Fae, they’re perfectly fine around iron, since they’re born in the seas of earth, or on its shores, at least.
“What brings ye to me grotto?” she said, cupping a hand behind my head and swirling her fingers through my hair. “You’re not wantin’ me to be lovin’ ye again, are ye?”
“Much as that would delight me, I’m here on other business. And I’m hitched these days.” Meara and I had been lovers for a brief time in the nineteenth century. She had a thing for art, and when I told her that I had once met Rembrandt and a brilliant up-and-comer named Vincent van Gogh, our relationship turned into a monthlong celebration of color and beauty and the kiss of brush on canvas.
“Married?”
“There hasn’t been a ceremony, but it’s settled in my mind.”
Meara’s smile was brilliant. “Ah, congratulations, then! She’s human, not Fae?”
“Yes, but she’s a Druid.”
“Now, that’s good news, to be sure!” She let go of me, stepped back, and put her hands on her hips, cocking her head to one side. “So what’s this other business?”
“I need you to contact Manannan Mac Lir with utmost privacy and ask him to pay me a visit. He can’t be followed or accompanied by anyone except you. It’s urgent.”
Her pleasant expression darkened, but she didn’t ask for the specifics of the matter. She knew I wouldn’t bother her or Manannan if it weren’t important. “Where should he meet you?”
“Can I show you?”
“Aye, just let me fetch me skin.” She dashed up to her living area and retrieved her sealskin from a heavy stone trunk at the foot of her bed, then blew out all the candles in her living area, leaving only a few bright torches blazing on the beach. I dropped the fur and thanked her for the temporary warmth, then waded into the chill lagoon with her. I shifted back to a sea otter, and she threw her skin around her shoulders and tumbled, twisting, into the water, shifting to a seal in a very different process from mine. Together we swam out of the grotto and back to the kelp forest, where we traveled the planes back to the cabin in Colorado.
Seals do not belong in high-elevation forests, but Meara didn’t need to spend any amount of time there. I triggered the charm that would let me shape-shift back to human, and then I told her, “We’ll celebrate Samhain here tonight. We’ll have the proper fires and everything. But please tell Manannan that we have news for his ears only, with the exception of yours. He cannot be followed by anyone.”
Meara gave an affirmative bark and then disappeared, shifting back to the sea and thence to find Manannan.
I sent out a mental call. Oberon?
Yeah. Where are you?
I’m back at the cabin.
I didn’t hear my archdruid’s response to this, but he must have voiced some sense of betrayal, because I heard Oberon’s reply:
That’s enough, Oberon.
You don’t need to finish that thought. Clearly I had made a mistake by inviting Owen to bind with Oberon and then leaving them alone. I needed to get my archdruid settled somewhere else as soon as possible.
I heard Oberon coming before I saw him. He was barreling downhill above the dirt road that led to Yankee Boy Basin, tongue flapping in the wind of his own turbulence and completely happy—also completely unprepared, once he crossed the road, to crash into the back of Manannan Mac Lir, who shifted in from Tír na nÓg precisely in Oberon’s path. The two of them fell to the ground in a tangle, making various sounds of surprise.
And he had arrived much more quickly than I would have thought possible. Meara had shifted in as well, dressed now in a long blue tunic with her sealskin draped over her shoulders like a cloak. Her initially widened eyes crinkled into laugh lines once she saw Oberon scampering away from Manannan, tail between his legs.
Oberon asked.
It was an accident, buddy. “Sorry, Manannan,” I called to the god of the sea, who had already sprung back to his feet, scowling. “Unfortunate timing there.”
Manannan slapped away some dirt on his knees and said, “A surp
rise but not a terrible bother. Now, what is so urgent that you have to call me away on Samhain?”
“We need to take precautions before I talk about it,” I replied. “I’m sure you and Meara were very careful in coming here, but it would be wise to bind the air with a bubble of silence and maybe employ the Cloak of Mists as well.”
“Easy enough.”
Owen wasn’t back yet—I didn’t know why he’d gone uphill to gather firewood in the first place—but I didn’t need to wait for him. When Manannan had drawn his cloak around us, wrapping us in mist and concealing us from outside eyes, and had bound the air so that no sound would carry past our own bodies, I pressed a big metaphorical red button and waited to see what would happen.
“Since it’s Samhain and the veil between this world and the lands of the dead is at its thinnest,” I said, “I’d like your help tonight in speaking to one recently departed: Midhir of the Tuatha Dé Danann.”
A line appeared between Manannan’s brows as he frowned. “Leaving aside the question of how you even know he’s dead, why do you wish to speak to him?”
“I’d like to ask who killed him.”
Manannan studied me in silence and then, quieter than I expected, replied, “No.”
“Fine, then you tell me who killed him. I’m sure he told you when you came to usher him to the next world.”
“No.”
“We can play charades if you want. One word, one syllable—”
“No.”
“Are you hiding his death because the name Midhir gave you is Fand?”
That did it. Meara gasped and Manannan’s stone expression cracked. He pointed a finger at me as he growled, “Be very careful what ye say.”
“Manannan, we have known each other for centuries. You know I love and respect you. I am talking about this with you first because of that love and respect. You have never been one to ignore facts.”
“You have no facts.”
“Midhir was killed by someone in disguise, and he claims that someone was Fand. That’s a fact.”
“How do you know this?” he replied, confirming for me what had been Owen’s guess about the death.
“I found his body, Manannan. And the manticore chained up in his pleasure hall.”
“Ah, so ye spoke to the manticore?”
“After he tried to kill me, yes. He was also placed there by someone in disguise.”
“And you told no one?”
“I told Granuaile and Owen. How about you?”
“No, I’ve told no one yet.”
“When were you going to inform Brighid that one of the Tuatha Dé Danann is dead?”
“I’m trying to learn more. I can’t take this to Brighid until I know who killed him. It’s the first thing she will ask, and I have no answer.”
That was a poor excuse to shirk his duty, but he may not have realized it. “Fand has covered her tracks too well, Manannan. She knew you would be the first to know about it and took steps to cover her trail.”
“It simply can’t be true, Siodhachan!” he ground out, his voice taut and worried. “Why would she ever have reason to do such a thing?”
“Maybe I can illuminate that for you.” I explained that to someone who loved the Fae so much, the possibility of another Iron Druid—maybe three, if Owen wanted to become one too—would be anathema. “She was trying to kill Granuaile and me, using Midhir to help her and to keep everything hidden from the rest of the Tuatha Dé Danann. When we escaped her net and Midhir became a liability, she killed him. I truly can’t blame her for what she’s feeling, you understand. There’s no doubt that I deserve what she’s feeling. But I do want the attacks to stop.”
Manannan shook his head. “If it was Fand—and I don’t think it was—I can’t imagine how she hid this so well from all of us.”
“Is it so very difficult?” I waved a hand toward Meara. “You have your trusted Fae who are loyal to you above all others. She has just as many, if not more. And Midhir and Lord Grundlebeard had significant resources as well.”
“Lord who? Oh, yes, I remember now. He was in charge of the rangers.”
“Right. He probably told the rangers what to do, and I wouldn’t be surprised if they never knew the true reason behind the orders. I’m not sure how aware you are of what happened to me in Europe recently. When you hear it, I don’t think you’ll be able to point to anyone else.”
I recounted the series of attempts on my life that all began after I presented Granuaile at the Fae Court and announced my intention to bind her to the earth. The Fae assassins and the yewmen at the base of Mount Olympus. The vampires who on several occasions knew where I would be—not because Leif truly could trace me, as I’d originally feared, but because either Fand or Midhir had divined Granuaile’s location and sent a faery to tell Theophilus. The squads of dark elf mercenaries, and, eventually, collusion with the Romans to trap me on this plane and hunt me down—which Manannan did know about, since he had been instrumental in helping us escape the continent via swimming the English Channel. The sudden and strange appearance of Ukko, the Finnish god, to spring Loki out of his entrapment so that he’d be free to mess with me some more. The Fir Darrigs who attacked Owen and me after he left the Time Island—a clumsy attack that Fand had arranged on the fly, right after she’d healed Owen.
“Now, those mercenaries must have cost quite a bit of gold, Manannan,” I said. “And I’m sure she had to pay Midhir and Lord Grundlebeard for their services as well. Did you notice any large expenditures recently, perhaps explained away as necessary upgrades to the estate or something else …?”
Manannan’s face, up to that point a mask of defiance and disbelief, slowly crumbled and fell like a weathered bluff sliding into the ocean after an earthquake. He pressed his palms into his eyes, as if to prevent them from seeing the truth, and when he dropped his hands, he looked shattered and desolate. He swayed, and Meara placed a steadying hand on his shoulder.
“I think I need to sit down,” he said.
“Of course. We can sit inside or outside.”
“Outside, but no more talk of this for a while. I’m going to remove the cloak and think.”
I led him and Meara over to the camp chairs that Owen and I had occupied last night, and as Manannan dispelled the mist and air, it revealed Owen standing nearby with an armload of wood.
“Ah, there ye fecking are,” he said. “No doubt the hound was plotting something against me involving pudding.”
Oberon said.
Don’t let him goad you, I told Oberon.
“Have ye told him, then?” he asked, nodding toward Manannan.
“Aye, he’s taking it in.”
“Is he, now? I figure that should take a while. Might as well fetch more wood. Where would you like to do this?”
“Down by the river.”
“O’ course ye would.” He kept walking past us, down to the banks of the Uncompahgre River. I still didn’t understand why he’d gone so far uphill to fetch wood, but since I was relatively certain he wanted me to ask about it, I didn’t.
Manannan rested his elbows on his knees and hid his face in his hands, and I knew that there was nothing I could say at this point to make him feel any better. I fell back to the standard UK position for awkward social situations. “Tea. I’ll make some.”
The few minutes that it took to boil water and make tea gave Manannan some time to deal with his emotions and think of how best to proceed. When I emerged from the cabin with cups and saucers, he was sitting up straight and ready to talk again.
“We need to speak to Flidais,” he announced.
“Agreed,” I said, handing him a cup.
“Meara, will you see if you can bring her here as discreetly as possible?”
“Yes, Manannan. What if she wants to bring her thunder god?”
“That’s fine with me. But no Fae.”
“As ye say.” She vacated her seat, walked with liquid grace to the aspens, and shi
fted away. I sat down next to Manannan in the chair Meara had just left, and the god of the sea took a cautious sip from his cup before placing it back down with a small porcelain clink.
“Midhir told me it was Fand who killed him, but he couldn’t prove it,” he said, finally confirming what we had suspected all along. “Whoever it was, they were masked head to toe. I saw the afterimage in his eyes, but there was no proof. It could have been anyone. So I didn’t believe him.”
“But you believe me?”
“No. Because you have no proof either. You have told me she had motive, means, and opportunity, and you have raised my suspicions and worried me that ye may be right, but I will not act without proof and cannot condone any action ye may take either.”
It was at this point that Owen returned, though he didn’t interrupt our conversation. He simply stood, listening, with his arms crossed. I continued without pause.
“You can’t condone any action at all? What if we get the proof you need?”
“And how are you going to do that?”
“We might not be able to get proof that she killed Midhir, but there’s a simple way to find out details of her scheming: Bring Midhir’s shade back, like I suggested, and ask him why he was killed. What was he doing for Fand?”
“Pointless. We could not trust whatever he’d spew out.”
“I didn’t say we should trust him. But we should investigate what he says, try to confirm or disprove it. He might be able to lead us to proof that Fand has been trying to kill Granuaile and me.”
“To nine hells with it,” Owen cut in, “let’s just bring it to Brighid and let her sort it out.”
That elicited an explosive reaction from Manannan. He erupted to his feet and shouted, “No! You will not bring this to Brighid! She may overlook Fand’s other trespasses, but she cannot ignore the death of Midhir.”
Pretending I didn’t hear the tacit admission that Manannan believed Fand was guilty, I asked, “Do you want Brighid to ignore the death of Midhir?”
“No, but I want solid proof before there are public accusations. If Brighid makes any move to imprison Fand pending an investigation, do you know what the Fae will do?”