“I’m not—”
“Sleep now.” Brigid merely tapped Riley’s shoulder. Riley dropped off. “Carry her back up, Doyle, there’s a good lad.” Brigid stroked a hand over Riley’s hair, smiled and nodded. “She’ll do. She’ll do well enough now.”
• • •
The sun streamed when Riley woke again, and a sweet breeze scented of flowers and forest wafted in the open doors of her balcony.
For a moment all the rest seemed like some ugly dream until she shifted to sit up, felt that wave of weakness that came from a hard illness or injury.
And Sasha stepped in from the balcony.
“Wait.” Immediately Sasha hurried over to pile pillows behind Riley’s back. “Take it slow. God, you look better. You look so much better.”
“If you tell me I slept another five days, I’m going to belt you.”
“Not even one. A little more than half of one.” Voice cheerful, Sasha mixed something from a vial with something from a bottle into a glass.
Riley’s eyes narrowed in suspicion. “What is that?”
“A restorative. Brigid said you were clear for it when you woke naturally.”
Now Riley eyed the glass with more interest. “Like the one Bran made for Sawyer?”
“Brigid tamed it down.”
“Spoilsport.” But Riley took it, drank it. “How long does it take to— Okay.” The dragging hangover from long sleep faded off, and at last—at last—her head felt clear. “I’d like a few samples of that for the next time I go on a tequila binge.”
“Riley.”
“Don’t start again, Sash. I may have been half off last night, but I remember enough. This isn’t on you.”
“I need to get it out.” Sasha eased onto the side of the bed. “Do me a favor, okay? Let me.”
“Okay, but if you wander off into stupidville, I’m cutting you off.”
“I know it could have been anyone who walked out of the house alone—that it was random and opportunistic.”
“So far, you’re in the right lane.”
“But it was you. I know any one of us could have been used as a false face to draw you away from the house, into the woods. But it was me. It horrifies me, and it enrages me to know you have an image of me attacking you, hurting you, almost killing you. Switch places for a minute, and tell me it wouldn’t do the same to you.”
Grateful her mind was clear, Riley took a moment to organize her thoughts—and feelings with them. “I thought it was you. When you called me, when I went with you. I thought it was you when you knocked me like a sledgehammer into what felt like a concrete wall. I thought it was you,” she repeated even as Sasha’s lips trembled. “And you’d been possessed, taken over by Nerezza. My bell had been rung, and hard, and right then, lying there, looking at you, I thought she’d gotten into you somehow. I tried for my gun—I remember that—I remember if my arm hadn’t been useless and I could have, I’d have shot you. I’d have tried to hit you in the leg, but I’d have shot you, thinking it was you.”
“Defending yourself against—”
“It horrifies me, and it enrages me to know I’d have shot you. We’re both going to have to get over the horror and the rage, Sash. That’s it. Move it away, or they’ve won this round.”
“I want the rage.” And it burned in the blue of Sasha’s eyes. “I want to give her pain, and misery, and horror for making you think, even for an instant, I’d hurt you. For making you have to choose, even for an instant, to hurt me.”
“Okay.” Riley nodded. “Rage is good. We’ll keep it. But we’re square, you and me.”
“We’re square.”
“Excellent. I have to get up.”
“You still need rest.”
“I really have to pee. I mean seriously pee.”
“I’ll help you.”
“Let me just try to get up on my own. I feel reasonably okay.”
She managed it. A little wobbly maybe, Riley considered, but the room stayed steady and her vision didn’t waver. “So far, so good. It’s not about modesty—I don’t have that much at the best of times— but I’m going to try to empty my now desperate bladder by myself. Stand by.”
She didn’t bolt to the adjoining bathroom, but moved briskly, and felt grateful she could. But no amount of gratitude could match what she felt when that desperate bladder emptied.
“Success! Could a hot shower be next?” She stepped out first, held out her bandaged hand. “How about taking this off first?”
“Let me get Bran or Brigid.”
“Why?”
“They’re so much more experienced.”
Riley just lifted her eyebrows. “I’m on my feet. I’m lucid. I pick my own healer. Take it off for me, check it out.”
Understanding—the creature with her face had mangled the hand; the woman, the friend, would judge its health—Sasha unwound the treated bandage.
“Hold it still,” Sasha soothed as she cupped Riley’s hand between hers. “It feels . . . clean. Sore, stiff, but clean. You can wiggle your fingers.”
Feeling them, watching them move brought Riley such intense relief she nearly couldn’t speak. When she did, her voice shook. “I was afraid I’d lose use of it, or at least some use of it.”
She made a fist, opened it, closed it. “Sore, yeah. Maybe one and a half on a scale of ten.” Emboldened, she rolled her right shoulder, flexed her biceps, tested range of motion. “Maybe two on the scale, but that’ll ease up with use.”
For the major test, she walked to the cheval glass. Hollow-eyed, gaunt, she thought. Weak. “Jesus, I look puny.”
“Other than the soup last night, you haven’t had a solid meal in nearly a week.”
“I’ll make up for that. Any of it left? The soup?”
“Yes.”
“I want that—after a shower, real clothes.”
“I’ll stand by.”
The shower ranked as miraculous, as did being able to use her hands, her arms with minimal discomfort. As she dressed, she noticed Sasha’s easel on the balcony, and the painting in progress of the forest.
“I was angry with the forest, too,” Sasha told her. “Ridiculous really, but that’s how I felt. I thought painting it would exorcise that, and it’s helped. Seeing you on your feet finishes it.”
“Wait until you see me eat. While I do maybe you can fill me in on what’s been happening while I was out of it.”
“Bran’s made real progress on the shield he’s creating. Doyle’s been cracking the whip when he hasn’t been at the books.”
The idea of Doyle researching without prodding had Riley stopping short. “At the books?”
“Translating mostly. Some passages in Greek, others in Irish or Latin on the stars, and the island. No definitive answers yet there.”
As they came down the back steps, Sawyer walked in from the mudroom. “Hey! I was just going to head up to check. Look at you!”
“Don’t look too close,” Riley advised, but he wrapped his arms around her in a hug. “Aw, you missed me.”
“Did. Nobody around here wants to discuss the details, small and large, of the cinematic pastiche that is A New Hope.”
“You’ve really suffered.”
“Tell me.” Though he was subtle about it, he kept an arm around Riley’s waist to walk her to the table. “But you’re looking for food.”
“Damn skippy.”
“I’ve got this,” he told Sasha. “Bran’s still out with Doyle at target practice. Annika’s out there with Brigid—Brigid’s teaching her to knit,” he told Riley as he took the container of soup out of the fridge.
“Knit?”
“Yeah, they’ve bonded over yarns. Anyway, they’d like to know the prodigal’s returned.”
“I’ll go out.” Sasha took a last glance at Riley, went out.
Curious, Riley sat back. “Okay, you got rid of her.”
“Just wanted you to know she’s worried you’ll look at her different.”
“Don’t, won’t, and we settled all that.”
“Knew you would.” While the soup heated, he cut her a generous slab of bread, deftly sliced up an apple, cubed some cheese. “Appetizer.”
“Thanks. Missed you, too. I guess the search for the star’s been on hold.”
“Not altogether. We talked about maybe diving, since Brigid was here for you, but it didn’t make sense—and didn’t feel right. It needs to be all six of us, so we tabled that. Unanimously. Doyle and I mapped out some areas on land. Annika says he’s a little bit stuck on you.”
“What sort of areas . . . What? What?”
Obviously amused by her reaction, Sawyer smirked. “Could be because Sasha gave her Pride and Prejudice to read to you. Annika thinks Doyle’s like Mr. Darcy.”
“Oh, please.”
“What I said.” He jabbed a finger in the air. “She’s romantic. Bonus for me. Still, Doyle’s been pretty messed up about what happened to you. We all have been, but . . .”
He glanced at the door—just in case—as he ladled soup into a bowl. “I guess I noticed some myself. We had to hold you down.” Blowing out a breath, Sawyer set the soup in front of Riley. “Don’t like going back there. Seriously horrible, every level. But we had to hold you down while Bran and Sasha worked on you, when we got you back upstairs. I was pretty focused on you—had your legs. Doyle’s behind you on the bed, propping you up so Bran could get some potion into you, holding your shoulders.”
“I don’t remember . . . exactly. It’s all jumbled.”
“That’s probably a good thing. Leave it jumbled. Anyway, he looked rough. He doesn’t let a lot show, you know? But he looked rough. I guess we all did. I didn’t think much of it until Annika started with Darcy and all that, but Doyle, he kept talking to you—mostly in Irish and low, so I don’t know what he said, but it was the way. Just speculation, take it for what it’s worth. I just figured you’d want to know.”
“Anni’s rubbing off on you.”
“Every chance I get.”
Laughing, Riley dismissed it, applied herself to the soup. “You know what I said to you when you were brooding and sulking about being weak and hurt?”
“I wasn’t sulking.” And Sawyer sulked a little at the idea. “Maybe brooding, marginally.”
“Just throw it back in my face if I do the same.”
“Consider it done.”
“How close was I to buying it? Don’t hold back.”
He gave her a long study first, gray eyes assessing. “You were pocketing the receipt, telling dead relatives calling to you from the light to keep the change.”
Nodding, she ate. “Then I won’t brood and sulk much, because hey, alive.”
“A fine attitude,” Brigid said as she came in with Annika. “It will serve you well. Let’s have a look.” Stepping around the table, Brigid took Riley’s chin in one hand, laid the other on top of her head. “Clear-minded, a bit weak, a bit sore. You’ll tire more quickly than you’d like for another day or so. Rest and the restorative will help there. The soreness will pass, as will the weakness. Red meat for you tonight, girl.”
“And my gratitude knows no bounds.”
“Can she have the biscuits? Móraí showed me how to make them. They’re very good.”
“A couple of sugar biscuits never hurt a soul, and some tea with it, my angel,” Brigid added. “With two drops only from the vial. You’re a sweet boy, Sawyer King, and a brave one. You nearly deserve her.”
“I’m working on it.”
As the others came in, Riley tried to block out Sawyer’s speculations, return Doyle’s gaze casually. It helped when Bran walked to her, repeated his grandmother’s gesture. “Nearly back altogether. I’d say rare steak for you tonight.”
“Already got that bulletin.”
“We’re having tea and biscuits,” Annika announced.
“And I’m all about both. Sasha caught me up a little on what’s been going on the last few days. She said you’d made progress.”
Bran sat, stretched out his legs. “We’ll be ready for her should she come at us as Sasha foretold. We may have lost diving time, but it’s given me more time for my own work. And Doyle and Sawyer made use of that time scouting out the land hereabouts.”
“A few possibilities we should check out,” Sawyer added. “Annika found a couple more caves farther up the coast, so there’s that.”
Riley picked up one of the cookies from the tray Annika put on the table. “I hear you’ve been librarian,” she said to Doyle.
“I haven’t found more than bits and pieces, and nothing that adds to the whole. You’re welcome to the position now that you’re back on your feet.”
Riley sampled the cookie, found it excellent. “Doesn’t anyone think it’s odd we haven’t been attacked while we were a man down?”
“The ravens came,” Annika said, still busy with the tea.
“More ravens—you said something last night. I’m vague on it.”
“They hit two days after you were attacked.” Doyle remained standing. “Shortly after dawn. The day after, we didn’t go out.”
“Bran sent for Móraí.” Annika set the pot on the table. “You were hurt so much, and we needed to help you, so we didn’t have calisthenics or training.”
“But when you did, she sent ravens?”
“A couple dozen.” Doyle glanced out the window, as if checking for more. “More nuisance than attack.”
“She’s weak.”
Attention turned to Sasha.
“Don’t be afraid of it,” Brigid murmured.
“I’m not. Only that she’ll find a way to use me. But I can feel . . . she’s weak. Growing stronger, but . . . Ah. Transforming Malmon, the illusion to disguise the creature, it took all she had. He failed. Even with all she gave him, he failed. She wants to bleed him. But she needs him. He feeds her; he serves her. He loves beyond reason. He has no reason. She is all. And the Globe of All . . . Wait, wait.”
Sasha held out both hands, palms out. “She drinks a bloody brew. It sustains her. And the Globe of All is murky, clears only for moments, and at such a cost. She sees the house on the cliff, and what was before. Oh, if she had destroyed what came before, there would be no now. There would be no guardians. Why did he not finish the woman, the wolf? Take one, take all. Why did he not finish before the immortal came? Bring me her dying body, bring me her blood. The blood of the wolf, the blood of a guardian. Their blood, my blood. I will gorge on it, and take the stars into the dark.”
Letting out air, Sasha sat.
“A drop in Sasha’s tea as well, darling,” Brigid told Annika.
“I’m all right. She felt me, and she pushed back, but she’s still too weak. He—Malmon—wasn’t meant to kill you, just nearly, and bring you back to her. You or whoever he was able to get to. To drain you, to bring her back to full strength—to restore her youth as well as her power. To keep you alive, draining you slowly. Blood of the living is more powerful than blood of the dead.”
“So it has always been in such matters.” Brigid picked up her tea. “Nasty business.”
“Almost enough to put me off this cookie.” Deliberately Riley bit into it.
“It’s the first I’ve been able to get past her defenses since you were hurt. I don’t know if that means I’ve been too distracted or if we just needed you back. Either way.” As deliberately as Riley, Sasha chose a cookie, bit in. “We’re back now.”
“We’re back,” Riley agreed. “Now let’s fuck her up. Sorry,” she said to Brigid.
“It’s a sentiment I’m behind altogether. I’ll be on my way in the morning and leave you to it.”
“Oh, don’t go, Móraí.” Annika wrapped her arms around Brigid from behind.
“I’ll come back when you’re done with this, and I expect you all to find a way to visit me and mine. But I want my own bed, and my man. More?” She patted Annika’s hand as she looked into her grandson’s eyes. “This is for you. For the six of you. All I am will be with you. Drink your tea,” she told Riley. “And have one of this lot go out with you for a bit of a walk. It’ll do you good.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Móraí,” Brigid corrected. “For I’m yours as well.”
“Móraí.” Grandmother, Riley thought, and drank her tea.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
As was his habit, Doyle took a last patrol after midnight. A soft rain fell, obscuring the waning moon, turning the world into a dark, quiet mist. It cushioned the slap of the sea so that its steady beat became the pulse of the world.
At his back, the house stood behind the thin curtain of rain with lights shimmering through here and there to give it life.
Though his route around the house had become routine, he remained alert and ready. And when he saw the hooded figure standing among the gravestones, his sword leaped into his hand.
Not Nerezza, he thought as he moved closer, silent as a cat. Too slight for that. For a moment, he thought: Riley, and his temper spiked at the idea of her standing in the rain when she’d barely gained her feet.
But the figure turned. His first jolting thought was: Ma.
The spirit of his mother rising out of the mist. To comfort? To torment? At times one felt the same as the other.
Then she spoke, and he knew her for flesh and blood.
“You move like the air,” Brigid commented. “But your thoughts are a shout.”
“I took you for Riley, and more than my thoughts would have shouted. You shouldn’t be out here either, in the rain and the dark.”
Rain beaded on her hood, forming a dark, wet frame for a face of strength and enduring beauty.
“I’m an Irishwoman, so rain doesn’t trouble me. And what witch is worried about the dark? The sweet girl leaves tributes for your dead.”
Doyle glanced down. Annika had added shells to the stones, brought fresh flowers. “I know.”
“They live on in you, and in the others as well. In me and in mine. You favor my uncle—my father’s brother, Ned. A rebel he was, and died fighting. I’ve seen pictures of him when he was your age.”
“I’m more than three hundred years old.”
Brigid let out a hooting laugh. “You hold up well, don’t you? From what I know of Ned, he lacked your discipline, though he believed in his cause, gave his life for it. I’ve tried to see if your lives will be given, and I can’t. I don’t have the power that Sasha holds.”
Seeing his surprise, she smiled. “Myself? I’m for the science of magicks. I like to think Bran took that from me. And I’m for healing. The cards can guide me to some answers, but Sasha is the most powerful seer I’ve known in my long life, and she’s yet to tap the whole of her powers. And you, my boy, I know only that you won’t reach the whole of your own until you break down the borders you’ve put up yourself.”
“I don’t have powers.”
Brigid ticked her finger in the misty air. “There you are, that’s one of your borders. Each of you has what you were given, willing or not. I’ve loved a man more than a half century. That may not be such a thing for one of your great age, but it’s no small business. I’ve borne children, known the joys and sorrows, the frustrations and delights, the pride and the disappointments children bring with them into a mother’s world. I can tell you, standing here on this holy ground,