IT MIGHT HAVE BEEN AN ORDINARY GATHERING OF FRIENDS AND FAMILY ON A RAINY NIGHT. The little fire simmering in the kitchen hearth, with the big dog snoring in front of it. The wine Connor pulled out, uncorked, and poured generously into glasses. Volunteers dutifully peeling and chopping small mountains of potatoes and carrots, mincing garlic and onions while the hostess busied herself dredging chunks of beef in flour, browning it in a big, sturdy pot on the stove. The scents rising up, teasing of what was to come, and the mix of voices all talking to or over one another.
It might have been just a gathering, Iona thought while she chopped carrots, and the parts that were warmed her, gave her so much of what she’d come to understand she’d yearned for her whole life. But it wasn’t just a friendly gathering, and the undercurrents tugging and pulling beneath the surface were deadly.
Still, she didn’t want to spoil the moment, send ripples over that surface. After all, she stood hip to hip with Boyle—who unquestionably had a more competent hand than she with the kitchen knife—and he seemed more relaxed here than when they worked together at the stables.
And he smelled wonderful, of rain and horses.
Better to say nothing, she decided, than say the wrong thing. So she watched and listened instead. She watched Connor reach over to flick a tear from Meara’s cheek as she minced onions, and caught the easy flirtation in the gesture in his eyes.
“If you were mine, Meara my love,” he said, “I’d ban onions from the house so you’d never shed a tear.”
“If I were yours,” she shot back, “I’d be shedding them over more than onions.”
He laughed, but Iona wondered. Just as she wondered when Fin topped off Branna’s wineglass and, at her request, handed her oil for a skillet. Their polite tone remained as stiff as their body language, but under it—oh yeah, undercurrents everywhere—there boiled such passions, such wild emotion she’d have had to have been both blind and heartless not to feel it.
It was Connor, she thought, who kept it all going, tossing out comments, questions, knitting the group together with relentless cheer and encompassing affection.
The man struck her as next to irresistible. So why did Meara—
“You study everything and everyone,” Boyle put in, “as if there’s to be an exam within the hour. And your brain’s full of questions and conclusions.”
“It feels like family.” She spoke the first thought that popped from the tangle of them in her mind. “It’s something I always wanted to feel, be part of.”
“Sure it is family,” Connor told her. “And yours.”
“You’re generous with people. It’s your nature. Not everyone is, or at least they’re more cautious before opening the door. I’m the newest here, on a lot of levels. Observing gives me a better sense of that family. Even just observing Boyle peel and chop a lot faster and better than I do.”
“Well now, he’s no Branna O’Dwyer,” Fin told her, “but he’s a passable cook. It’s just one reason Connor and I tolerate him.”
“If a man can’t toss a few things in a pan, he’s too often hungry. Here, put the palm of your hand on the tip, fingers up, out of range.” Boyle took Iona’s hand, to show her. “And the other on the hilt so you can use that to steer the blade.”
She let him guide her hands to produce nice, neat rounds of carrot, and appreciated the light press of his body to hers.
“I’ll have to practice,” she decided. “And figure out what to do with them after I chop them. It’s probably just as well I didn’t get the chance to ask you to dinner.”
She glanced up and around at him, caught the surprise on his face, and the hint of embarrassment as the room went quiet.
“You’re better off with Branna doing the cooking,” Iona continued. “I’ll have to figure out some other way to get you on a date.”
When Connor failed to disguise a chuckle with a cough, she shrugged.
“Family,” she said again. “And more, family with the kind of problem and mutual goal that means we could all get our asses kicked, or worse, tomorrow or anytime after. So I figure there’s not a bunch of time to waste or circle around what might make us happy. Speaking as someone who’s lived her life with half the happy, I’d like to finish it out—especially considering potential ass kickings—with a great big armload of it.”
From where he stood, leaning against the counter, Fin smiled at her. “I believe I’m already half in love with you myself.”
“You don’t have half to spare.” Then she sighed. “Now, let’s see. Who else can I embarrass?”
“You haven’t me,” Fin told her. “And as for love, deirfiúr bheag, there are no limits to it.”
“I’ve always hoped that. What does that mean, what you called me?”
“Little sister.”
“I like it. I should learn Irish. Do all of you speak it?”
“Branna, Connor, and Fin.” Finished with her mincing, Meara walked over to rinse her hands. “Boyle and I have enough to get by, wouldn’t you say, Boyle?”
“Enough.”
“Is magick more powerful, do you think, with it? Sorry,” Iona said immediately. “I shouldn’t keep bringing that up and screwing with the mood. And I shouldn’t have put you on the spot like that,” she said to Boyle.
“You just disconcerted him, as he wouldn’t be accustomed to a woman who speaks her mind and feelings right out, without filtering. Connor,” Branna continued, “I need a Guinness for the pot, and I’d say another bottle of wine for the rest of us. And you’re right as well, Iona, to speak of the rest of it. We can’t know if we’ve a day or a year before we’ll face what’s coming, but logic says a day’s the closer to it. And all that said, I’m damned if any one of us will have our ass kicked. So we’ll get this stew on the simmer, have more wine, and we’ll talk of it.”
She turned, face flushed from the steam, eyes glittering with a determination so fierce Iona couldn’t believe it could be defeated.
“Well then, let’s have those vegetables. They won’t cook themselves.”
11
IT STILL MIGHT HAVE BEEN ANY GATHERING OF FRIENDS AND family—all crowded around the kitchen table with glasses of wine, and the dog still sprawled at the hearth.
But Iona recognized it for what it truly was.
A power summit.
“I’d like to say something first,” Branna began, “to Meara and to Boyle. ’Tisn’t your blood mixed into this, and you’ve neither power of your own as weapon or shield.”
“To begin with insulting us doesn’t make a strong first step,” Boyle told her.
“Sure it’s not meant like that, but to acknowledge what it means to the rest of us to know you’re with us. In truth, I don’t know how Connor or myself would have fared without you. You’re the truest friends I’ve ever had, or ever will. I don’t know if, as Fin claims, love has no limits, but I know I’ve yet to reach the limit of mine for either of you. And there, that’s said.”
“We don’t have power, but we’re not helpless. Far from it.” Meara looked to Boyle, got his nod.
“We have our brains, our fists. He’s never shown interest in us, and that’s his mistake.”
“That may be, and we should find a way to use it. But he’s taken a strong interest in Iona.” Connor gestured toward her. “Branna and I agree he’s hoped to do her harm—and worse—and by doing that, take her power, increase his own. It cost him, we think, to set the trap for her a few days ago, then fail.”
“What trap?” Boyle demanded. “Were you hurt?” he grabbed Iona’s arm. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“It isn’t easy to talk about this kind of thing at the stables. And I wasn’t hurt. Branna and Connor saw to that.”
Fin spoke quietly. “What happened? Be specific. Iona, you tend to be just that. Tell the rest of us.”
“It was the day I gave Sarah her first lesson. When I was walking home.”
She told them, specifically, and didn’t gloss over her fear.
As she spoke, Fin rose, strode to the window looking out over the back gardens. On the table, Boyle’s hands balled into fists.
“You’ll not walk to work or home alone from now on.”
Iona gaped at Boyle. “That’s ridiculous. I have to—”
“You’ll not. And that’s the end of it.”
Before Iona could speak again, she caught Meara’s eye, and her friend’s subtle shake of the head.
“Connor can walk with her to the stables.” Branna spoke smoothly. “They go the same way, and you and Fin have only to see their schedules mesh close enough.”
“It’s done,” Boyle said definitely. “And I’ll see her home. It’s done,” he repeated.
“I appreciate the concern. Is someone going to be with me every time I take a step out of the house, or want to go into the village? And you’d better start sleeping with me, too,” she told Boyle. “Because he’s poking around in my dreams. I’m allowed to be afraid, but I’m not allowed to be helpless. And no one else is allowed to think I am.”
“Far from helpless,” Connor soothed. “But precious. And necessary. We need you, so a few precautions, at least for now, will ease our minds.”
“Precious. Necessary.” Fin turned, his face cool. “I agree with that. And yet you didn’t call me when the precious and necessary was threatened.”
“It was quick,” Connor told him. “And in truth I only thought to get to Iona, and to bring Branna as fast as we both could. So you’re right, the fault’s mine there.”
“Could you have done more?” Branna asked Fin.
“We can’t know, can we? But you have to decide, all of you, if I’m to be a part of this, or if you’ll hold me outside.”
Rather than answer, Branna changed angles. “Can you read him? Sense his thoughts?”
“I can’t, no. He’s blocked me out. He knows I’ve chosen my side. Sure he believes I can be turned still, and he’ll pull at me. In dreams, and in waking ones.”
“You don’t block him.”
Fin bit off a curse. “I’ve a life to live, don’t I? Other thoughts in my head. He’s got only the one purpose for his whole existence, and I’ve more than that. And if I block him altogether, if I could, there’s no chance then, is there, none at all that I might learn something that could help us end this. If you don’t believe I want that, to end it, to see even the thought of him destroyed, I’ve nothing left to convince you.”
“I don’t doubt that. I don’t.” Branna rose to go over, stir the soup. “She needs the horse. Iona needs her guide.”
Sheer frustration flicked over Fin’s face. “He’s been hers since the first I saw him. You’ve no place to keep Alastar here, so he’s with Boyle and me. If you don’t trust that, I’ll sign his papers over to her tomorrow.”
“No!” Appalled, Iona pushed to her feet. “That’s not right.”
“Nor is it what I was saying or meaning. It’s you who have to tell her he’s hers. You and Boyle, as you brought him here, and you’re keeping him for her. I only meant that.”
“Even without any magick to it, the horse was hers the minute they set eyes on each other.” Boyle lifted his hands, let them fall. “And Fin’s the right of it. You’ve no place here to keep him as he needs to be. We spoke of it the very night Fin came home again.”
“I’m grateful to you, both.” Branna’s tone softened. “And I’m sorry, truly, if it seemed I wasn’t.”
“I’ve never wanted your gratitude or your apologies,” Fin told her.
“You have them, wanted or not, and can do what you please with them.” Setting the spoon aside, Branna came back to the table.
Iona, like Fin, remained standing.
“Thank you.”
“You’re entirely welcome,” Fin told her.
“And thank you,” she said to Boyle. “Since he’s mine, I’ll pay for his food and lodging. And that’s the end of it,” she said as Boyle opened his mouth in obvious protest. “I haven’t had much that was mine that mattered, but I take care of what belongs to me.”
“Fine then. We’ll work it out.”
“Good. I also know what it’s like to be held outside. There’s no colder place than right outside the warmth. None of you know what that’s like but me, and Fin. All of you have always been a part of something, even the center of it,” she added, looking at Branna. “So you don’t know what it is to feel you’re not wanted or accepted or understood. I think what’s between you and Fin, and what stands between you is personal. But there’s a lot more here to consider. You said I’m part of this, that this is family and it’s mine. So I want to say that Fin’s my family, too.”
On impulse she picked up the wine, and though he’d barely touched his, added a few drops to his glass. “You should come sit down,” she told him.
He murmured something in Irish before he came back, took his seat. And lifted his wine to drink.
“He said his heart and hand are yours,” Branna told her.
“Oh. Back at you, and that’s why we’ll win.”
“You’ve shamed me in my own house.”
“Oh, oh, Branna, I didn’t mean to—”
“And it’s good you did. I earned it, and it seems needed, the same sort of unfiltered thoughts and feelings you gave Boyle. We’re a circle or we’re not, and a circle with chinks in it is easily breached. So a circle we are, from here till it’s done.” She lifted her glass, held it toward Fin. After a moment, he tapped his to it.
“Sláinte.” Connor tapped his own to Fin’s, then his sister’s, then around the table. “Or better yet, may all the gods who ever were bless us, and help us send the bloody bastard to hell.”
“I’m good with that.” A little exhausted from the emotion, Iona sat again. Under the table Boyle took her hand in his. Surprised, she looked at him, met his quiet, steady gaze.
She all but felt something spill into her heart, something full of warmth and light, and hope.
“Well,” Meara said from across the table, “now that we’ve settled all that, what the hell do we do next?”
Plenty of ideas shot around the table with arguments for and against. At some point Meara got up and, obviously at home, put together a plate of crackers and cheese and olives to keep hunger at bay as the stew simmered.
“We’re not ready to confront.” Connor popped an olive as he ticked off reasons against Boyle’s push for a frontal attack. “We don’t have a solid plan, with the contingencies we’d surely need as yet, and more, Iona isn’t as well armed as she needs to be.”
“I’m not going to be responsible for holding anyone back.”
“Then study and practice more,” Branna ordered.
“Nag, nag. Didn’t I stop the rain?”
Brows lifted, Boyle pointed to the window where it lashed in wet whips.
“Temporarily and in a limited location. I’m better with fire.”
“It controls you more than you controlling it,” Branna corrected.
“Harsh, but true. Still, I’m better. And . . .” She focused, managed to levitate the table a few inches, then cautiously set it down again. “Getting air pretty well, and I’ve done the flowers in the workshop, so earth’s coming along. If I could try a couple spells . . .”
“You’ve not worked with her on spells?” Fin asked.
“She’s barely getting her grip on the elements.”
“Caution has its place, Branna, but as you’ve said yourself, we don’t know how much time we have.”
“Push me,” Iona begged. “At least a little.”
“You might regret the asking of it, but that’s what I’ll do.”
“I think if there’s any of this prodding into dreams, you should all write them down.” Meara spread a cracker with cheese, handed it to Branna. “They stay clearer that way, and you could compare them. There might be something there.”
“That’s a sensible thing,” Connor agreed.
“What about the place in the woods?” Iona asked. “Where the first dark witch lived. When can I see it?”
In the beat of silence that followed, Iona felt tension, fury, grief. Once again, Boyle took her hand under the table.
“You’re not ready,” Branna said simply. “You need to trust me there.”
“If I’m not ready to go there, why can’t you tell me why?”
“It’s a place between.” Fin spoke slowly, frowning at his wine. “Sometimes it’s simply a place with the ruins of an old cabin, and the echoes of the life lived there, the power wielded there. A gravestone where that power lies under the earth. It’s the trees and the quiet.”
“And other times,” Connor said, “it slips away, and it’s alone. It’s not tightly bound to the world, to the here. Without the knowing, a person might be caught there, in that other, that alone. And it’s there he might come, stronger for it, and take what you are.”
“But you go there, have gone there. I have to know how to go, and how to stay.”
“It’ll come,” Branna promised.
“He took me there in a dream.”
“Not him, I think, but her. Teagan. To show you, and still keep you safe. Be patient here, Iona.”
“He marked me there.”
Silence fell again after Fin’s words. “I knew of him, but not that I’d come from him. And there, in a place that had been a kind of sanctuary, at a time when there was joy and promise, he laid his mark on me, and the burn of it seemed to sear down to my bones. He slipped the bounds, took it all adrift, and marked me. And he came in the form of a man, and I could see myself in this man. He told me he would give me more power than I could imagine, that I would have all and more anyone could dream of. I was his blood, and all this I would have. I had only to do one thing for it.”
“What?”
“Only to kill Branna as she slept beside me. Just that.”
A shudder wanted to rise out of her, but Iona fought it back, kept her gaze on Fin’s, quiet and steady. “But you didn’t.”
“It’s him I’d’ve killed had I known how. One day I will, know how and get it done and finished. Or die trying. So it’s best you wait a bit longer before we take you there. And all of us will take her when that time comes. That’s a firm line, Branna. I’ll not be shut out of it.”
“When the time comes,” she agreed. “For now, we wait and watch. We learn, and we plan.”
“And talk more than we have,” Connor added. “We’ll be stronger for that.”
“You’re right. We close no one out.” Branna touched a hand, briefly, to Fin’s arm. “I was wrong. Will we say Fin and Connor will use their hawks to patrol—if that’s the word—the woods? We’ve Meara and Iona leading the guided rides most days, and keeping their eyes and ears open there. Boyle’s seeing Iona home, so I’ll make a charm for you, Boyle, for protection.”
“I’ll see to it,” Fin told her.
“Fair enough. I’ll work with Iona, and there I may call on all of you from time to time for help. If we dream, we write it down, all the details of it.”
“There’ll come a time it’ll take more than protecting ourselves,” Boyle said.
“I know it. What I don’t know is what it will take, and how to get it.”
“It’s time to find it.”
Branna nodded. “We can hope with six of us looking, we will. Now, as has been said, we’ve lives to live. We can start that by setting the table while I see to the stew.”
“And I say we live it well.” Connor pulled his sister up, kissed her. “For that’s surely a boot up his fucking arse.”
“All right then, well it is. Put on some music, Connor, and we’ll start living well right now.”
They set the dark aside, for the moment, with Connor and Meara arguing over the music until Connor tapped in some sort of fast jig with lots of fiddles and drums, and pulled her into a dance.
“Wow,” was Iona’s reaction. “They’re really good.”
“They’ve both of them wings on their feet.” Boyle took the bowls Iona held, set them around the table. “Always have.”