He didn’t undress, but lay back to consider the ceiling and think how best to help her control her visions.
By the fire, the dog circled his bed three times, as they were wont, then settled down to sleep.
A long time passed before Keegan found his own.
They worked on a nightly spell to help Breen recognize and fight off illusionary dreams. Rain or shine, night or day, she left a window open.
She didn’t think it was the curse of self-doubt telling her she’d reached her pinnacle in sword-fighting skill. She felt she’d qualify as solidly above average under most circumstances in that area. But if it ever came to actual combat, she knew she’d have to stretch high to reach the average mark.
She didn’t think it was wishful thinking she’d improved—vastly—in spell-casting and other magicks, or in focus and control.
And she came to realize she had more skill in bed than either of her two previous lovers had given her credit for. Then again, neither of them had been Keegan. Undoubtedly having an exceptional bed partner made a difference.
Confidence in her writing went up, went down, but the joy of it never abated.
When she shut down after a productive morning, she sighed, content. She could see the end of the book—weeks off yet, but she could see it. And Bollocks’s next adventure had started to take shape.
How lucky was she? she thought, to be able to bounce from one story to the other, from one world to the other. From one life, really, to the other.
When she started to get up, prepare for that other world, her tablet signaled a FaceTime.
Though it wasn’t their usual time, she accepted the signal from Marco.
“Hey! You just caught me before I . . . went for a walk.”
“I was hoping.” He grinned at her. “Girl, you look fine!”
“I feel fine. It’s really early for you.” So early, she noted, he still wore the Spider-Man T-shirt he often slept in. “What’re you doing up?”
“I couldn’t wait. Breen, I think I found the house.”
“The house?”
“You wanted something with some land so you could have a garden—and now you’ve got yourself a dog. I’ve been poking around at it—not real hard, but this one just sort of boom! It’s got four bedrooms, so you could have a writing space, and maybe we could have like, a music room. A really nice kitchen, too, and that whole open- concept deal. It’s not right in the city like now, but hey, a freaking acre.
“You still want a garden and all, right?”
She had to talk over the flutter in the back of her throat. “Yes.”
“I can commute into work, no problemo. It’s in a nice neighborhood, too—no Gayborhood, but there’s only one of them. Not one of those Stepford developments or anything either. Derrick’s cousin’s bestie’s a real estate lady, and she gave me the heads-up. It’s not on the market yet. They had a deal, but it fell through, so they’re juggling whatever, then tossing it back up in a few days.
“I’m gonna send you a link for the listing and pictures so you can see it, think about it, maybe talk to the money guy about it. You’re going to be home in a week, so I thought, well, shit some bricks, this is like meant.”
“A week.” She knew that, in her head, but she hadn’t said it out loud. She hadn’t made it real.
“You take a look. Maybe I’m off the mark, but I think I bull’seyed.” Then he frowned. “You still want a house, right?”
“Yes. Yes, I want a house.”
But where?
“Kinda ambushed you with it, I guess. I just got really juiced up. I know you’ve had one hell of a good time over there, but, girl, I miss you like a limb.”
“I miss you, too.” There, she could speak in absolute truth. “I really miss you, Marco. And Sally and Derrick, and everyone at Sally’s.”
“Don’t you go falling in love over there.”
Too late, she thought. She’d fallen in love with an entire world.
“But you should have yourself some hot Celtic sex.”
“Actually . . .”
“What?” He lifted his arms, did some jazz hands. “Tell me, tell Marco all.”
“When I get back.” Some things, like hot sex and selling a book, needed the face-to-face.
“Just a tiny little detail. I know you, so it’s just one guy. Is he gorgeous?”
“Yes, ridiculously.”
“Oh, my heart and balls! Send me a picture.”
“I don’t have one.”
“Jesus, girl, take one.”
“We’ll see.” She had to stop talking or she’d say too much. “I need to take the dog out.”
“You go on then. I’ll send you that link.
Seven days, my best girl.” “Seven days. I love you, Marco.”
“Love you back, squared. Text soon.”
She ended the call, then sat back.
Seven days.
She worked harder, studied longer, practiced obsessively. With Keegan and her grandmother she devised a spell to help her control her visions and dreams. Because it involved a potion, a charm, and an incantation, she worried about the complexity.
“You fight for the reins with a god, mo stór,” Marg told her. “You need more than power and skill. You need faith, in the light and in yourself.”
They sat, alone now, in Marg’s workshop, and Breen thought how much she’d miss this, just this when she returned to Philadelphia. Just sitting with her grandmother on a quiet afternoon, doing what she thought of as elemental magicks.
She carefully mixed a potion for settling nerves while Marg finished a balm for aching joints. The air smelled of herbs and candle wax.
And peace, she thought. If peace had a fragrance, she found it here.
“I believe in the light. I’ve seen and done too much this summer not to.”
“And yourself?”
“More than I did or ever thought I could. I know the reasons, even understand them, but I still regret and resent that I didn’t know you until this summer. I didn’t know myself, or Morena, Talamh, everything, everyone. I didn’t know what my father was, what he did, what he did for me.”
Marg sealed the lid on the balm, labeled it. “Now that you do?”
“I’m pulled in two directions, by two worlds.”
With a nod, Marg rose. She set the balm on a shelf, then walked to the stove to brew tea. That, Breen knew, signaled the pause in work, the time for talk.
“You’re of them both, have loyalties to both. This alone makes you unique. And troubled.”
She wore a dress today, a long one in pale, pale blue with a white apron over it. With her glorious hair a curled crown, she looked like a picture in a history book. A woman out of time.
But she wasn’t out of time, Breen thought. I am.
“And so,” Marg continued, “will you speak with me now? The last days you’ve buried this trouble with work and training, but I feel it.
“You’re mine,” Marg said as she brought the tea to the worktable. “And I feel your troubled heart and mind.”
“Nan.” Breen shook her head, stared into her tea.
“The summer is ending. Soon the light changes, the spice of autumn wakes, and harvest begins. The wheel turns as it must.”
“Whatever I do will hurt people I care about.”
“Those who care for you will honor your choices.”
Anxiety spiked in her voice and drenched her eyes. “I have to go back. I can’t leave so much undone. If I’m from two worlds, I have to find the way to do what’s right for both.”
“But what is right for Breen?”
She would ask that, Breen realized. She would think that—and want that.
And that was love.
“I don’t know yet. I have to figure it out, and there’s so much . . . I sold my book. Bollocks’s book.”
“Oh!” Marg’s face lit, and the tears that rushed to her eyes glittered with pride. “Mo chroí!” She reached over to grip Breen’s hands. “This is t
he happiest of news. I’m so proud.”
“You’re part of it. You pushed that dog on me.”
She let out a laugh, full of delight. “I did, aye, that I did, but this is yours. This comes from your heart and mind and skill, and your courage. When the time comes, we will have your book in the great library in the Capital, and I will have one here. Young Bollocks will be famed, far and wide. In two worlds.”
“I want that. To write, to be read, to have my book—my books,” she corrected, “in libraries and homes and schools. I want it more now than I did when I started. For that, I need the other world. I have people I love on the other side, Nan, and I can’t cut them out of my life. I have to go, do what I left hanging. And I have to go to be sure.”
She tightened her grip on her grandmother’s hands. “But I promise you, I swear to you, I’ll come back. To you, to my friends here, to Talamh. I’ll come back for love and for duty.”
“Your father swore the same to me, and kept his oath. I have no doubt you’ll do the same.”
“I will. I have two favors to ask you.”
“What would I not give to the child of my child?”
“Will you keep Bollocks until I come back? I don’t want to take him away from here. He’s happy here, and free here. And, well, there are a lot of practical reasons why taking him with me wouldn’t work.”
“I will, of course. He’ll miss you keenly. As I will. As all will.”
A weight dropped off her shoulders. “Thank you. I just couldn’t keep him in the apartment, in the city. Marco’s been looking at houses . . . One of those things I left undone. Can you keep the cottage for me, for when I come back? I don’t know exactly when, but—”
“My darling child, the cottage is yours. I made it for you. It will always be yours. Your dog, your cottage, and all of Talamh will wait until you make your choice. And I promise you I will never stand in the way of that choice.”
She rose again. “I have a gift for you.”
“You’ve already given me so much. You’ve made such a difference in my life.”
“This is a gift for me as well.”
She brought Breen a mirror, silver-backed with a dragon’s heart stone in the center.
“A scrying mirror, your great-grandmother’s. When you need me, wish to speak to me, to see me, you have only to look into the glass and call me.”
Magickal FaceTime, she thought. “It’s beautiful. I do need you, Nan.” She stood, wrapped her arms around Marg. “And I won’t let you down. I’ll find a way.”
“Now you must find a way to tell others who care for you as you’ve told me.”
Breen only sighed. She didn’t count on anyone else being as understanding as her grandmother.
She expected Aisling to come close—and was wrong.
“You will do what you will do,” Aisling said briefly as she carried a pail of water from the well to the kitchen. “My father died so you would be free to do what you will do.”
“Aisling—”
“The father of my children fights and flies to keep Talamh safe,” she barreled on as she poured water into a pot. “And one day while you live on the other side where you get water from the turn of a knob and ride in the cars that foul the air, my children may be asked to do the same.”
“I’m not going back for cars or water from the tap. I have obligations there, too.”
“Is it life and death, your obligations there?” Aisling demanded. “Is it light or dark, slavery or freedom?”
“No. I’m not important there. I’ll come back. I promised Nan, I’m promising you, but there are loose ends . . .”
She trailed off as Harken came in.
“She’s leaving,” Aisling snapped out, and began to ferociously peel a carrot.
“Ah well.” He took off his cap, simply stood looking at Breen.
“I’m coming back. I swear it. But I have to—” The hell with it, she thought, and gripped his hand. “Read me, mind and heart. I’m not going because I want to leave, but because I need to try to do what’s right. And I’m coming back to try to do what’s right.”
“It hurts you. Having love and duty pull so hard from both sides hurts.” He glanced at his sister. “Mahon often feels this pull when he must leave his family for duty. I wish you safe journey, Breen Siobhan, and a safe return to us.”
He touched his lips to her forehead. “Morena stopped outside to speak with the children. Keegan even now prepares for today’s training. You must tell them both.”
“I know. I will.” She looked over at Aisling. “I’m sorry.”
“She leaves most of her heart here,” Harken said when Breen went out.
“Most of her heart isn’t enough to stand against Odran.”
He just went to her, wrapped his arms around her. Aisling stiffened, started to push him away, then leaned in.
“You can’t open or close a lock without the key, Harken.”
“She’ll be the stronger for it when she comes back.”
“If.” Through the window Aisling watched Breen walk to Morena. “If she comes back.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Like swallowing medicine, Breen thought, get it all over with at once.
But she waited while Morena adjusted Kavan’s arm so he could call the hawk to glove.
That magnificent flight, Breen thought, that majestic spread of wings as the hawk flew from high on a tree branch to the arm of a little boy.
Then tolerated, stoically, the boy’s happy squeals.
“Sure and it’s fine falconers you’ll both make one day. We’ll have another lesson next I come, but now Amish is after hunting.”
“Da says if I learn well I could have a hawk for my next birthday.”
Morena smiled at Finian. “If that’s the way of it, I’ll be pleased to help you train one. Go on now, Kavan, let him fly.”
“Bye! Bye! Bye.” Kavan lifted his arm as taught.
“Well done, well done indeed, the pair of you.” She helped them remove the child-sized gloves she’d made for them. “Now put your gloves away, right and proper.”
They ran toward the house. Finian’s face still shone as they reached Breen. And Kavan, as always, lifted his arms. As Breen picked him up, she realized she’d miss them beyond imagining.
“Morena made us gloves of our own,” Finian told her. “We flew the hawk. We took turns. I’m going to get a hawk for my birthday.”
“When’s your birthday?”
“On Samhain. Ma says I chose that day so my soul and my grandda’s could meet when the veil thinned. Come on, Kavan, we have to put the gloves away.”
“Bye!” He shouted it as Breen set him down. “Bye. Bye.”
“Fine boys they are,” Morena commented. “I know Aisling pines for a girl, but she and Mahon make fine sons.”
“They really do. You’re so good with them.”
“Ah, that’s easy enough. And good practice as well for when I decide to let Harken plant one in me.”
“Oh.”
“I’m more about the babies, I’m thinking, than the whole handfasting business right now. And he’ll be wanting both, of course. So, well, there’s time yet to see how the wind blows me. And are you ready for today’s training?”
“Do I have a choice?”
“Not in Keegan’s mind, no. Still, you’ve been working at it like a mad thing the last few days, so either you’ve come to like it or you just want to bruise his fine arse.”
“Well, I haven’t come to like it—not the sword or the fist anyway. I’ve been . . . can you walk over with me? I need to talk to you.”
“Sure and I planned to watch a bit—and throw insults at the man, in any case. What do you need to talk of?”
“We’re friends. You were my first friend, and even if a lot of that’s still blurry, I feel it.”
“You’re troubled, and I can feel that without Harken’s gift.”
“I have friends on the other side. I have one who’s like a mother to me, w
ho’s given me kindness and understanding and support when my own didn’t, or couldn’t. I have Marco.”
“The one my mother met. Handsome, she said, and with a good heart and charm.”
“He’s all that. He’s been a constant in my life. A friend, a brother, a wailing wall, a cheerleader as long as I can remember. It’s been hard not to share all this with him, not to tell him the truth. To know I can’t tell him the truth.”
“I know that.” Sympathizing, Morena draped an arm over Breen’s shoulders as they walked. “It was hard over the years when I visited the other side not to go to you. But real friendship doesn’t always take the easy way, does it?”
“No, and I’m not taking the easy way now. Morena, I have to go back.”
“Go back? Go back to . . . But you’re needed here, and you’re happy here. You awakened.”
“Yes, yes, yes. But I have to go, there are so many reasons why I must. There are things I have to do and say and resolve. I can’t just turn away from the people I care about and who care about me.”
Her face blank, Morena lifted her arm away. “But you can with those here?”
“No. That’s why I’ll return. I need time first. I need to work out things I haven’t. I need to see all of it again knowing Talamh exists, knowing everything I’ve learned.”
“You spent most of your life there before coming here. You should know where you belong.”
“I need time,” she repeated. “I’ll come back. For friendship, for all that calls to me here, for my grandmother, and for duty.”
“When? When do you go?”
“I have three days. Two more,” she corrected, “after today.”
“And when will you return?”
“I don’t know, not exactly. But I will.”
“The last time you said this, more than twenty years went before you came.”
“It won’t this time. This time I make the choice, this time I’m not a child.”
Morena looked out over the farm, then turned to face Breen. “You may not know as yet, but I do. This is your true home. So you will come back. Have a care, Breen, you don’t take too long at it. You told Marg?”
“Yes. And Aisling, then Harken, as he came in while I was.”
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