He didn’t finish, just escaped from their company as quickly as possible. Izzy watched him go, unable to think of a single thing to say that might stop him.
‘Then they know everything.’ Jinx was pacing again. Like a caged animal. True to his nature, she supposed. Always moving, always watching, guarding her whether she wanted him to or not. They were bound, Brí had said. He was hers to command, her slave.
Her stomach twisted at the thought. Not in a good way. ‘You don’t have to stay.’
‘Yes, I do.’ He didn’t even hesitate. He didn’t pause. His eyes scanned the windows, the garden beyond.
‘I mean, you don’t have to if you don’t—’
‘Yes,’ he interrupted, his voice more forceful this time, ‘I do. You don’t get a say, Izzy. You don’t get to be the magnanimous lady of the Sídhe or whatever you imagine you’re trying to be. I have no choice. And neither do you. I must protect you. If I don’t, your mother’s revenge will be the least of my worries.’
Her reply was almost automatic. ‘She isn’t my mother.’
He ignored that, charging onwards in his explanation. ‘If I do, my matriarch will never forgive me. And if I don’t, even if I manage to evade both of these nearly all-powerful bitch-queens from hell with goddess complexes, if I don’t protect you, fate itself will take a hand and feck me royally over. A geis works that way. It’s like karma. Only much more of a pisser.’
‘So you’re protecting me because of what might happen to you if you don’t?’
He studied her face and then looked away far too quickly. Hiding something else. Always hiding something. That was Jinx through and through. What was it this time? ‘I’m protecting you, that ought to be enough,’ he muttered sullenly.
Change the subject, she decided. Quickly. ‘They were angels, at the door?’ The question earned only a brief, silent, nod. ‘And the angel in me—’
‘Sorath.’
‘Sorath. I … I felt fire.’
‘Yeah, angels are all about fire. Usually in the “razing things to the ground” with it variety. But that one, Sorath, she’s retribution and anger burning with all the fires of the sun. She fell for a reason. And she chose you. She timed it so you’d be near. Which means she’s up to something. I hate it when they’re up to something.’
Like you are? Izzy didn’t say it and it didn’t seem quite fair. But she couldn’t help but feel it. Reason, that was what she needed to use now. Logic and reason.
The angel had helped her, though. She’d saved Dylan, had driven the other angels away. Just as she’d promised.
Outside, Dylan’s phone rang. He answered quickly, his voice subdued. Jinx closed the door over to give him privacy. As he turned back, Izzy rounded on him.
‘An angel who fell in time to pass her spark to me. Heaven, hell and all your Sídhe hierarchy after me. My dad hurt. And the only way to save him, or me, a grail. Where do I get a grail, Jinx?’
He shrugged. ‘I think Holly has one.’
Izzy could only stare at him. ‘You what?’
‘It’s not like a big deal or anything. Not the Holy Grail. The angels would never leave something like that kicking around, would they? But Holly used to have one. It’s a cup. Very shiny. It heals people. She used to use it in battle. Any time some warrior of hers was hurt—’ he snapped his fingers ‘—pow! Back and ready to fight again.’
‘And this would be Holly who wants to kill me, and who will torture you as a punishment for helping me. The same Holly? Not some other psychopath of your acquaintance I haven’t been introduced to yet?’
Jinx gave a brief laugh. ‘The sarc becomes you, you know?’
A compliment? What the hell? Oh, no time for that, she decided. Not now, no matter how good it felt. An unexpected compliment, if it was truly a compliment, was no reason to get off track now.
Ah hell, she couldn’t help it. ‘Becomes me?’
A smile crept across his lips – gentle, almost mocking but not quite, almost fond. ‘It gives you fire of your own.’
Like Brí. Deny her mother as much as she wanted, she could see the similarities. And yet Izzy’s fire was all her own. She could summon it at her fingertips. Sometimes. Not when she wanted to, of course. She sighed before returning the smile. Half-hearted though it was. Because even a mention of all this madness robbed her of wonder in it all. ‘Sorath’s too much. If she hadn’t let me go, I’m not sure I would have been able to … I couldn’t have …’
‘Fought her?’
All fire and passion, anger and rage. There was no fighting that. It was like a tsunami sweeping over her, and nothing could stand against it. ‘I wasn’t strong enough. I was so scared. I couldn’t help but give in and let her do what she wanted. And then … she was so … she consumed everything. I couldn’t get away.’
Jinx reached out and took her hand, his long fingers wrapping around hers, his touch so tender. ‘But she wasn’t strong enough either,’ he replied. ‘She couldn’t hold you. And she needed your permission, didn’t she? She said you had to ask for her help.’
Izzy frowned. She had asked for help, he was right. But strangely that wasn’t a comfort. She had known, as clearly as she knew her own identity, that something dangerous was coming, something none of them could ever hope to handle.
Izzy’s strength had returned, the angelic energy dispelling her need for sleep, her need for food. Everything had changed. That, more than anything, confirmed what she already knew, that she wasn’t entirely human.
But that was the problem, wasn’t it? She wasn’t entirely human anymore. She didn’t know what she was right now. Was the angel changing her? Or was it her own blood, whatever made her Grigori? What was she becoming?
And while an angel didn’t sound bad, the way Jinx reacted to the thought of one, of any angel, what she had felt when the angel possessed her … it was disquieting.
Dylan’s voice rose from outside the door and Izzy winced at the pain riddling it. She could still see the phone clutched in his white-knuckled hand.
‘So, this grail … where is it?’
A shadow passed over Jinx’s expression at that question. ‘Ah. Holly holds court in the Market. In Dubh Linn, you understand. Not here. In my city rather than yours.’
‘Your city,’ she sighed. ‘How does that work? The two coexisting, the Sídhe-ways popping in and out of reality all over the place, and no one knowing about it all?’
He was still holding her hand. He didn’t appear to have noticed that. She didn’t want to stare at their hands for fear he would, but her skin tingled against his and the mark on the back of her neck made her feel like she was bathed in sunlight. It was blissful, like coming home.
God, I’m completely losing it. Answer the question, Jinx. Answer the damn question!
‘It’s a very long story. Your ancestors …’ He paused and then carefully disentangled his hand from hers. Izzy cursed inwardly, but pushed that from her mind, listening to the soft cadence of his voice instead, trying to absorb as much information as she possibly could. ‘Your human ancestors, when they came here, found mine already occupying the island. It had been given to us, you understand, our one refuge in all the worlds. Exiled angels have few places where they can rest. But here … here, we had a place, a place to fight for. Given all we had lost by not fighting, what other choice was there? It was a terrible war and many died on both sides. Our elders, who remembered the war in heaven, were sickened, disgusted to see such horrors again. Eventually a truce was called and it was agreed to divide the island between us. But the Sídhe hadn’t reckoned on the cunning of humankind. We learned that from you, learned it all too well, sad to say. The enchanters divided the island all right, but on planes of existence rather than with borders. So you got the sunlit realm and we got the shadows. And while we can travel between the two, we don’t belong in your world any more than you belong in ours.’
‘Then how do I even exist?’
‘Because your father is a representative of hi
gher powers, an ambassador, if you will, a unique mix of bloodlines. There should only be one Grigori at any time, or so I understand. You’re dangerous, all of you, a mix of all the bloodlines – angelic, demonic, human and fae. A delicate balancing act which needs correction from time to time. That’s why your father and Brí … Well, yeah.’
‘Why Brí?’ she asked, although the question wasn’t really for him. But there was no one else to ask.
‘Brí’s … special. Old. The members of the council are the last, strongest of those cast out. But Brí stood highest amongst them when they were still angels. She might even have been a Dominion, highest of the second sphere, the kind that almost never come to the horizontal plane in case it sullies them. I can’t say for sure. But powerful, much more than an angel or an archangel. But they never speak of the fall, not anymore. It hurts them too much. There are stories about her, about her home, about the Hill itself and why she stays there. That there’s a thing of power buried there, that she’s hunting for it, or guarding it, or … It doesn’t really matter. She’s Aes Sídhe now, one of the oldest and the highest among us. Her touchstone – that thing around her neck – they say it was once fire from around the throne of heaven but she took it with her and turned it into stone. And fire dances to her will. No one knows her mind and she doesn’t share. Her reasons are her own. And she always has reasons.’
His voice had softened to a murmur, as if he wasn’t telling her anything at all but repeating fond stories to himself. His eyes filled with such longing that she wanted to tell him that everything would be all right. But she didn’t know that. Not anymore.
This was her mother he was describing. Her birth mother. And if Brí could control fire, maybe she could as well. She remembered the sparks, the little useless flames that she’d conjured in panic. She stared at her fingers, willing it to happen now, but it didn’t. If anything her hand felt even colder.
So much for maternal blood then. Her mother hadn’t given her that much.
Strangely enough, it didn’t matter. Not so much anymore. She knew it should and perhaps later it would. Later when she could talk to Dad, get his side of the story. Perhaps the fact that Mum knew helped. Perhaps the fact that Izzy wanted nothing to do with Brí made it easier to accept. Later, she promised herself. Later and later she would sort it out. If there was a later.
‘It was Mum,’ said Dylan, entering the kitchen and heading straight for the fridge. He pulled out a bottle of beer and opened it. Without a moment’s pause he drained it and slammed it down on the counter. ‘I need to go home. I need to let them see I’m okay.’
Jinx glanced at Izzy, but she didn’t know what to say. Dylan looked far from okay. He looked like someone with a death-wish. And that thought alone terrified her.
‘You should.’ She tried the words even as she said them and found they didn’t ring true. Some selfish part of her didn’t want him to leave. But she didn’t want him to be any more involved than he already was. The price was high enough already and Dylan … she just knew he’d do something stupid. Really stupid. He was in so much pain, and no one thought when they were in that sort of internal agony, did they? She ought to know.
Dylan chewed on his lower lip. ‘I don’t know what to do.’
The jangle of his ringtone cut the silence again and Dylan fumbled in his pocket, cursing it until he brought out his phone. He frowned as he flicked it open. ‘Silver? Where are you?’ The frown deepened as he turned to Jinx and offered him the phone. ‘She wants to talk to you.’
Jinx took it from him, the size of the thing ridiculous in his large hand. ‘Silver?’
They all heard her voice – unnaturally tinny and distant – but carrying so much pain and distress. ‘I’m at our hollow. With Holly. She’s furious, Jinx. I’ve never seen her so angry. I don’t think I can reason with her this time. You’re the only one I can trust, Jinx. The only one. You have to help me.’
Chapter Twenty-One
The Merrow’s Kiss
It hadn’t taken Jinx long to find another gate to the Sídhe-ways.
‘They stand out in your world to us,’ he said, as he strode along the footpath. ‘Like a patch of icy air in an otherwise warm room, or that sort of shudder you get when … when … how do you say it?’ He fumbled for a phrase.
‘When someone walks over your grave?’
‘That’s it. Yes. Morbid lot, humans.’
Well, Izzy thought, if you had to worry about age and death maybe you’d be morbid too. But she didn’t say it.
Had Mari thought about death? Had she even imagined it might happen to her, years from now, let alone when it did? Izzy’s chest squeezed itself more tightly around her insides and she tried to push the thought away. Maybe she was right to be feeling morbid. Maybe she should be thinking about death a whole lot more.
A short walk took them down through leafy suburbs to Sandycove, past the squat Martello Tower to a point where the rocks were swallowed by the angry sea. It was still early morning and there were no cars on the road, no sign of life at all. The real world was asleep and dreaming. Blissfully unaware.
Izzy trotted along beside Jinx, determined to keep up with his long strides. He didn’t slow and that, as much as anything else, told her he didn’t want her there. The kindness was bleeding away from him again. Frustration, fear and the nightmare of what might have happened to Silver had robbed him of that. The threat to her own family kept her going, made her stay with him, because he was the only chance she had to help them right now.
‘You don’t have to do this.’ He used exactly the same words as he had the dozen or more previous times. She’d lost track of how often he’d said it, or how often she had given the same answer.
‘Yes, I do.’
This time though, that wasn’t enough for him. ‘As Brí’s daughter—’
‘I am not Brí’s daughter.’
‘—you are Holly’s enemy. She’ll use you against Brí, or kill you, or …’ He broke off with a frustrated growl and picked up the pace, as if he could leave her behind by just outdistancing her, as if she wouldn’t follow him. ‘With both the spark and the identity of your mother, your blood-mother, Holly will do anything to take you. Please, Izzy, let me do this alone.’
‘I need the grail. For Dad.’
He paused on the street corner as a car roared by them.
‘And the timing of his accident doesn’t bother you?’
The way he said ‘accident’ told her he thought it nothing of the kind. And he was right. The one person she would trust to protect and guide her had been taken away at the very moment she needed him most.
She dug her fists into her pockets. ‘I need the grail. More than ever. Don’t you see? If I can heal him, he can explain, he can help, and he can—’
‘Be your father.’ There was a ripple of compassion in his voice. She reached out for his hand and he took hers without protest. Her fingers felt very small and cold in comparison to his. Her skin looked too pale against his patterned skin, marking him as Cú Sídhe and her as … as what? Not like him, anyway. She glanced up. Silvery eyes glinted at her from beneath the black hair that had fallen over his face, and the metal piercings he wore – so much a part of him that she barely noticed them anymore – caught the sunlight, gleaming. He looked so fierce, and yet somehow not fierce at all. Vulnerable.
The sea crashed onto the rocks, a roar of invincible nature.
‘What happened to your dad, Jinx?’
‘He died.’ His hand slipped rapidly free of hers and he stepped back. ‘Come on then, if you must.’
‘Holly killed him, didn’t she?’
His shoulders stiffened and he looked into the distance, unwilling to meet her eyes as he spoke. ‘He was Brí’s man, trespassing in Holly’s stronghold, probably with the intention of killing her. That’s what they all say anyway. And he was a thief. He ran off with Holly’s daughter. I don’t know if that makes him a thief, but that’s all they ever told me – a thief and an assass
in. He went back for my mother. I don’t know. I presume Holly caught him, executed him. And claimed me in recompense, as part of the einechlan due to her for the insult.’ She stared at him blankly. ‘The honour price,’ he explained and then gave another of those little growl-like sighs of frustration. ‘I don’t remember much before that. I was too young. It’s ancient history I’ve done my best to forget and I don’t want to talk about it.’
Dylan’s phone, tucked in Izzy’s pocket, chimed, filling the silence and giving him an excuse to stop. Dylan had insisted she take it before he left for home, for a confrontation with his parents, for the grief that awaited him.
Mari’s name came up and Izzy’s heart nearly stopped. Her hands shook as she brought up the message.
‘It’s Dylan,’ Izzy told Jinx as she read the text. He’d found her phone. Tears stung Izzy’s eyes at the thought of what it might have taken out of him to use it. ‘Are we there yet?’
‘Yes. Over there.’ He pointed towards the shore and when she squinted against the morning sun, she could almost make it out, like a heat haze around the top of a large boulder which loomed over a wide, shallow pool. The blue of the sky reflected in the water. The gateway shimmered, slightly distorting her vision, and around its edges faint sparkles crept outwards until they bled into the human world.
Izzy sent one word – yes – back to Dylan and tucked the phone away. ‘Let’s go then.’
It was further than it looked. They scrambled over rocks, skirting deep pools and the soft mush of stranded seaweed, slick and glossy, treacherous underfoot. The wind rose, pulling at their hair and clothes, and the previously fine summer’s morning could have been a lifetime away. Jinx cursed almost continuously now, a litany of obscenities as they edged closer to the rock. The sea roared back at him.
‘They’re trying to stop us,’ he told her as the wind rose to a scream around them. Back on the road, the trees barely moved and the sun shone. But here, at the foot of the boulder, they’d entered a localised hurricane.