by Nora Roberts
“Tell me the truth. If I go to Talamh, I could die there.”
“Everything I have, everything I am will fight to protect you.”
She looked at him; she drank some wine. “I believe that. But I could die.”
He fisted a hand on the table, but didn’t pound it. “As I could, as all could. And if we fail, as all here could in time. Odran won’t stop with Talamh.”
“I see the land burning. I smell the smoke and the blood. I hear the screams.” She set down the wine.
He closed a hand over hers. “Will you do nothing, and let that happen?”
“No.” She rose, looked toward the stage at Sally, then at the bar and Marco. After pressing a hand to her heart, she started toward the door.
“I have a flight on hold for next week,” she said as Keegan came after her. “I told everyone who matters I was going back—to Ireland.” Outside, she began to walk quickly. “I needed to tell them, needed to say goodbye. Now I have, so I’ll see if I can book an earlier flight.”
“You were coming back.”
She rounded on him. “I said I would.”
“I apologize.” He grabbed her arm as she turned and hurried on. “I’m sorry. Truly.”
“Doesn’t matter.”
“Sure and it does. I questioned your word, insulted you there, and that hurts you. I’m sorry for it. And three times sorry, so it should be enough for anyone.”
“I’m afraid.” She looked straight ahead as she spoke. “Everything here is what I know, and I have something I always wanted with writing. It’s like, here’s your chance to be happy, Breen, really happy, to finally find your place.
“But it’s not my place, or not my only place,” she continued. “When I think about the cottage in Ireland, or the way the air feels on my face in Talamh. What it’s like to watch Morena’s wings spread, or the scents in Nan’s workshop, her kitchen. How her door stays open.”
She sighed, closed her eyes. “And I miss it like a heartbeat. And I miss having a place there, being a part of something the way I’ve never felt here. I want the magicks, want to feel that joy inside me.
“And I’m afraid.”
“You’d be foolish if you weren’t afraid.”
She paused outside the door to her building. “Then I guess I’m not foolish.”
She went inside, started up the stairs. “I have Marco, Sally, Derrick, friends from Sally’s, and they matter so much. But I don’t fit here now. And I’m afraid if I want or need to come back, I won’t fit. That’s assuming I live through what’s coming.”
She got out her keys, unlocked the door. “Do I have to give up what I love here?”
He wanted to touch her, reassure her. And for truth, did neither. “I don’t know the answer.”
“Neither do I. Go ahead and sit down. I’ll try to book a seat on your flight. When is it, what airline?”
“You think I came on the airplane? Why would I do that? Bloody awful things, they are. I’ve opened a portal, a temporary one. Opening it again from here, now with you joining, will be a much simpler matter.”
As he spoke, he picked up his sword, strapped it on.
“How did your sword get—Here?” she realized. “You opened a portal from Talamh into my apartment?”
“It seemed the best place for it.”
“What if Marco had been here?”
“He wasn’t.”
“What if I’d had company, or I’d been in the middle of a damn orgy?”
“You didn’t,” he said simply. “You weren’t. And since you spoke of a quiet sort of life here, I didn’t consider the possibility of an orgy. Do you have them often?”
“People knock before they come into someone’s private home.”
He fought for patience, and felt himself losing almost before he began.
“Considering the circumstances, I set good manners aside. You can flay me for the lack of them once we’re back. You’ve said your goodbyes, so let’s be at it and gone.”
“I need to pack.”
“Bloody fucking hell, there are clothes in Talamh.”
“I’m going to pack. I’m not leaving without taking what I need. Go if you’re in such a damn hurry, and I’ll take the bloody awful plane when I’m ready.”
She strode into her bedroom, and going with priorities, packed up her laptop, notebooks, research materials first.
“I need my work,” she shot out because he’d followed her. “It may not seem important to you, but it is to me.”
“Never did I say it wasn’t important.”
“You might as well have. Hurry up, Breen, don’t inconvenience somebody else by taking time for what you need.”
He watched her wrap a shirt around the photo of their fathers, another around the scrying mirror. She packed them, and the spell book he recognized as one Marg had written.
She pulled things out of the closet, out of drawers, and her movements were jerky. Not with temper, no, not temper now, but something more fragile.
He felt her grief as he opened himself to it.
And how, he wondered, could a man who’d believed he understood women as well as any have blundered so badly with two within a week?
“I’m entitled to my own damn clothes, not just things someone has to spare. And if I want the frog mug Marco made me in middle school, I’m taking it.”
She dumped pens and pencils into the suitcase, then wrapped what might have been a grinning pink frog before adding it to the rest.
“And I’m taking my own toothbrush, if it’s all the same to you.”
He heard the tears in her voice as she crossed the hall, swept things into a small bag.
“My own stuff, however frivolous that may be. Because I’m going to have what’s mine for however long I can have it. I don’t know when I’ll get back, or if I’ll ever get back, if I’ll ever see Marco or Sally or anyone here who matters to me again. And I’ll do my duty, goddamn it, when I’m packed.”
She started to cross the hall again, but he stepped in front of her.
“Stop now.”
“I’m not finished!”
“I’ll find another way.” He put his hands on her shoulders, on the trembling. “This is wrong. I’ve been wrong, and I’ll find a way, as it’s for me to find it. The duty’s mine, and has been even before I took up the sword and the staff. I’ve had my life knowing, and you’ve had only weeks. I’m charged to weigh the right and the wrong of things, to find the fair way, the just one. And this isn’t fair or just.”
He lowered his forehead to hers a moment. The weight belonged to him, he thought, and always had.
“You’ll stay here in the world you know, the world that has your heart. I’ll find another way to hold Talamh.”
Because her legs went weak, she slid down, spilling out what she’d swept into the little bag.
He went down with her, crouched as she sat with her back against the wall.
“You’re saying I don’t have to go. And don’t say it’s a choice.”
“Well, a choice it is, but we haven’t given you much room for it, have we? And no doubt if you’d come back, I’d have driven you just as hard, more, than I had before. That’s the way of it. The way of me. But it’s not your way or your world.”
“My father—”
“Died for it. I loved him like my own. I don’t think he’d be thanking me for dragging his daughter back to risk all. This is for me.”
He pushed up, started to reach down to help her up.
The door swung open.
Marco saw Breen on the floor, tears on her cheeks, and to his eye, Keegan looming over her.
“You asshole! Get away from her!”
Leading with his fist, he flew at Keegan. Breen heard the crack of knuckles against bone before her shock broke, and she shot to her feet.
“Stop, stop! Don’t you hurt him,” she ordered Keegan, and just flung herself at Marco to keep things from escalating.
“Get out of the way, Breen. Nobo
dy’s going to treat you like that. You think you can go around knocking women down, fucker?”
“He didn’t.” Breen clung tighter. “He didn’t knock me down. He didn’t hurt me. It was the opposite. I was emotional; he was being understanding.”
“Didn’t look like that to me. And I saw how you looked when you left Sally’s. You were upset. You’re still upset. That’s why I came after you.”
“I was upset. I am upset. But not with Keegan. I promise. Go close the door, okay? Before the neighbors call the police.”
After giving Keegan another hard look, Marco stomped over, slammed the door.
“I want to know what the hell’s going on.”
“I was packing.” She hunkered down to pick up what she’d spilled, and to avoid eye contact. “And I got emotional. Keegan said things—kind things—and I got more emotional. He didn’t hurt me, or threaten me, or . . . anything like that.”
“Okay.” But that wary eye remained. “If it wasn’t what it sure as hell looked like, I’m sorry I hit you.”
“No matter. Friends stand for friends. And it was a good punch, well delivered.”
“Yeah well, I’m pretty sure your face broke my fist.” He looked down at Breen. “And this isn’t the whole story. What the hell’s going on, Breen? And don’t try to bullshit me. I know you, girl.”
“You do.” She murmured it as she pushed up. “I’m going back.”
“I know. We talked about it.”
“I’m going back pretty much now.”
“Now? You said next week.”
“I know.” She looked down at the bag in her hand, the one filled with things that had seemed so important only moments before.
Now, important meant the two men in the room, and the two worlds they belonged to. She stepped into her bedroom to set the bag down.
“Let’s get out of the hall.”
She walked into the living room, turned to Keegan first. “I’m not leaving until I pack. I’m not leaving until I tell Marco the truth.”
Keegan only shook his head and paced to the window.
“Wait. Is that a sword? Why does he have a sword?”
“Let’s just sit down for a minute.” After urging Marco to a chair, she perched on the arm of another. “I wasn’t just in Ireland this summer. It started there. Or no, here. It started here, sort of, after I saw Sedric on the bus. The man with the silver hair, remember?”
“Breen—”
“But I started to feel more in Ireland. Morena—with the hawk? How I felt so connected so quickly. Then at the cottage, I felt more and more. And I followed Bollocks through the woods, and he led me to the tree. I went through after him and into Talamh. Where my father was from. Where he and my mother got married. Where I was born. I met my grandmother.”
“I thought she gave you the dog. Your grandma.”
“She did, but I didn’t know she did until she told me. When I spent time with her, I learned so much. I learned, and could feel, how everything’s connected. How there’s a power, two-sided—the dark and the light—that connects everything and everyone.”
“What, like the Force?”
“No, Marco, not . . . Well, sort of,” she decided. “And there are worlds—remember when you wanted to be an astronomer? How you used to say we couldn’t be alone because we were too small to be the only? You were right.”
“So, what, you’re going to tell me he’s from the planet Tulip, and you’re going through the space-time continuum?”
“For a storyteller,” Keegan said without looking around, “you’re bolloxing this.”
“I know it. Think multiverse. There’s more than one world. We’re one. Talamh’s another. There are portals that connect some of them, like the tree connects this world and Talamh. Wait. I wrote it all down.”
Marco got slowly to his feet as she rushed back into the bedroom. “You’ve been messing with her head. What did you give her?”
“She found her birthright, her birthplace. She found her history, and her destiny.” Keegan glanced at Breen as she came back in with her computer case and a flash drive. “You said you wouldn’t go without giving him the truth, so you mean to go. But you leave him more confused and angry.”
“Read this.” She pressed the drive into Marco’s hand. “I wrote it out as it happened. I wrote down my thoughts, my feelings. It’s all there. All about Talamh, the Fey. How they chose magicks over technology.”
“Okay, great, so he’s—what—a wizard now? He’s Harry freaking Potter with a sword?”
“Enough. I am of the Fey, as she is. I am of the Wise, as she is. Breen Siobhan O’Ceallaigh, I, taoiseach of Talamh, release you from your vow to return. Your choice is here and now. Make it.”
“I’m going back.”
“Breen, this guy’s a lunatic or a con job trying to get your money. I’m calling the cops.”
“Stop.” Breen shot out her hands, and every candle in the room sparked to flame. “This is who I am,” she said as Marco dropped back into the chair. “Daughter of the Fey, a witch who carries the blood of the Sidhe and the curse of a dark god.”
She snapped her fingers and held a ball of blue light. Waved the other hand and called the air to stir.
“This is what was kept from me all my life. This power, this gift, this duty.”
“Okay, okay, did we all do a whole lot of drugs?”
“You know we didn’t. This is who I am, Marco. Who I really am. And if you’re afraid of me now, I think it’ll break my heart.”
His breath came fast as if he’d run a few blocks, and his legs shook. But he got to his feet. Then he stepped to her, wrapped his arms around her.
“You’re a little scary,” he managed. “And I’m whacked out, okay? I’m pretty freaking freaked. But you’re still Breen. You’re still my best girl.”
She vanished the ball of light, then held him hard. “I love you so much. This, all this came from my father.” She pulled back. “There’s too much to explain. Read what I wrote. I need to go. I’m going to get my things,” she said to Keegan.
When she hurried into the bedroom, Marco turned to Keegan. “I know what I just saw. I don’t understand it, but I know what I saw. I still don’t trust you.”
“You’ve no reason to I can see. I’ll tell you I mean her no harm. More, I will give my life to protect her. As you would.”
“Do you love her?”
“She is the key to the lock” was Keegan’s answer. “A lock that holds back the dark. One that would consume my world. And yours.”
“Maybe you don’t want to hurt her. Maybe. But somebody does. I know my girl. She’s scared. I want to know why.”
“Read the file,” Breen said as she rolled the hastily packed, disorganized suitcase behind her. “It’s everything. I’ve left things. I know I have. I can’t think straight.”
“Sedric can come for whatever you want, but we need to go. Give me that.” Impatient now, Keegan grabbed the suitcase, shouldered the computer case. “If we join, the portal opens faster, easier.”
“Bullshit on portals. Breen—”
“I’ll call you from the cottage as soon as I can. The cottage is on this side. We’ll talk.” She hugged him again. “I’ll answer all your questions. But I need to do this.”
She turned away. “I don’t know how to open a portal.”
“I do.” Keegan took her hand. “With me.”
He focused, drew from her, and began to open what he’d already conjured.
Behind them, Marco watched light, a pinprick, spread into a ball. And grow, grow. He saw dark behind it, but a dark sprinkled with stars, a pair of moons, their light a kind of shimmer over shadowed hills.
“What the actual fuck!”
Breen looked back. “I love you, Marco.”
She stepped forward.
Marco didn’t think, only felt.
He leaped forward and, grabbing Breen’s free hand, tumbled through the light and dark with her.
“Oh God, M
arco. Keegan, stop, pull back!”
Caught in the flash of light, the whirling wind between worlds, Marco only gripped Breen tighter. “You go, I go.”
“It’s too late to stop.” Risking a shift, Keegan pushed out power he hoped would cushion the fall as he glanced at Marco. “Hang on, brother.”
And with no time, no choice, Breen clung to the hand of the friend who drew her to one world, and the hand of the man who pulled her into the other.
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