by Megan Chance
“Grace?” Patrick asked.
I didn’t see any other way. “Yes. We go ahead.”
Patrick looked at Diarmid. “What about you?”
“Aye,” Diarmid agreed.
Patrick turned to Iobhar. “We thank you for your help. I trust we’ll have no more need of you.”
“Oh, you have need of me. You’ve no vater. Someone must forge the connection with the Otherworld. Without me, you’ve no hope of appeasing the old magic.” Iobhar’s gaze was both threatening and seductive as always. “You are far from done with me.”
“Good news,” Diarmid said cheerlessly.
From the counter, Roddy proclaimed, “’Tis disaster.”
I could not help shuddering. “Pay him no mind. He’s mad.”
“Quite mad,” Iobhar said. “Or perhaps he tells the truth. Who can say?”
We went back to the carriage in silence. When we were inside, Patrick said, “I think it would be best if we didn’t speak of this to the others. I don’t want them to take matters into their own hands.”
“Are you saying you don’t trust your precious Fomori?” Diarmid asked.
“Do you trust Finn to do what’s best for Grace and Aidan, whatever it costs the Fianna?” Patrick replied.
Diarmid glanced away.
“We keep it secret.” Patrick’s voice was firm. “Agreed?”
We all nodded. The weight of that decision filled the carriage. Prepare to die and hope you will live. The ritual had to be started. I still had to make the choice between the Fianna and the Fomori, between Diarmid and Patrick. And perhaps none of it would matter.
Once we were back at the stables, Aidan kissed my forehead and said, “We’re together in this, Grace.”
I hugged him. “I know.”
Patrick held out his arm for me. Diarmid said, “A moment, lass. Alone. Please.”
Patrick and Aidan said “No,” at the same time.
“It’s not up to either of you, is it?” I said, though the thought of being alone with Diarmid troubled me as much as I wanted it.
Aidan looked annoyed. “Grace . . .”
“Yes,” I said to Diarmid.
He jerked his head toward the stable. “In there.”
“We’ll be only steps away,” Aidan warned. “And you’ve only a moment, Derry, I mean it.”
I was tense with anxiety and longing as we went inside. Out of sight of my brother and Patrick, Diarmid turned, cupping my face before I knew his intention, fingers gentle against my cheekbones, holding me still. His gaze sent a shiver deep inside me.
“I’m asking you again, mo chroi,” he said, his voice deep and husky. “Come away with me.”
I grabbed his wrists to pull his hands away, but instead, I held onto him as if I might fall were I to let go. “I can’t. You know I can’t.”
“We don’t know what will happen. Be with me until then. Please.”
It was all I could do to say, “I left you because I didn’t want how I feel to influence my choice. That hasn’t changed.”
“Grace, please.” His thumb brushed my mouth, a flutter-like touch. “I’m not afraid of dying, but to think of not holding you again . . . that terrifies me. You keep my heart in your hands. If you won’t come away, at least spend the night with me. It may be the last time we have together.”
Lying with him again, touching him the way I yearned to. Just a night . . . Oh, how I wanted it. What could it harm?
But then I thought of Patrick outside, and everything he wished for. The Fomori and the Fianna, and everything at stake. I already loved Diarmid too much. If I had to choose against him, how would I bear this?
“You’re not giving me the same chance you give Patrick,” Diarmid went on, his fingers tightening. “He’s your protector. You live with him. You haven’t broken your engagement, in spite of what I know you feel for me. What is it you’re thinking, Grace? That if we survive this, you’ll need him? He’s rich, and I’ve got nothing to offer you, I know, but—”
“That’s not the reason,” I insisted.
“Then prove it. Come with me. Give me an hour, if nothing else. Just an hour.”
“You’re not being fair. I can’t. Derry, I can’t. You have your honor; I have mine too. You’re asking me to be selfish, the way the Fianna once were. The veleda exists so that doesn’t happen again. How can I be true to myself and my duty if I go with you, no matter how I want to?” I gripped his wrists harder. “We have to trust that this will work. No one’s going to die. Not you. Not me.”
It was as if we were in that storehouse again, and he was telling me his stories as I searched for truth in his eyes. But now I saw his soul in a new way. I saw how my words spoke to him, and the anguish they wrought, his own struggle between honor and love. I’d already known he loved me, but this . . . the force of his feeling stole my breath.
His fingers trembled. He pressed his forehead to mine and whispered, “You’ll do what must be done, I know. And I won’t keep you from it. But whatever fate has in store for us, whatever happens . . . what I said before is true. I love you. I always will. Nothing can change that.”
His words settled into me like a familiar, precious song. I could have stood there forever, my fingers circling his wrists, his breathing, his heartbeat, echoing mine.
“Derry? That’s long enough. We have to get going. Finn will wonder where we are.” My brother’s voice was far too loud.
Diarmid lifted his head. Aidan and Patrick stood in the doorway, frowning.
“Aye.” Very deliberately, Diarmid kissed me—and this was not like our other kisses had been. It was chaste and sweet, but so powerful it rocked me. He pulled lightly from my hold. He smiled regretfully, that long dimple creasing his cheek. “Until Samhain, mo chroi.”
He strode over to Aidan. My brother blew me a kiss, and then the two of them walked away.
Later that afternoon
Patrick
Patrick said nothing as he and Grace walked back to the house. Her hand was tucked under his arm; he felt her warmth at his side. She was safe, and she was with him, and all he could think about was the way Diarmid had kissed her.
It shouldn’t matter to him. What mattered was Samhain and the ritual. It seemed a century ago that Patrick had put these things in motion. So much had seemed possible then. And now . . . everything would come down to one night. One night, and all he’d ever wanted would either be realized or destroyed.
It was impossible.
At the house, the servants bustled about, readying for dinner. In the parlor, his mother argued with Lucy. Grace drew her hand away. “I think I’ll go to my room for a bit.”
He said, “Might I have a moment?”
An echo of Diarmid’s words, he realized when she winced. “I’m sorry, Patrick. Truly. He should not have—”
“You told me the lovespell had faded. Was that a lie?”
Her gaze was frank and honest, and he knew before she spoke that he wouldn’t like what she had to say. “I was in love with him before I saw the ball seirce.”
It was a blow; he didn’t pretend it wasn’t.
She glanced away as if she felt his pain. “Would it help if I told you that I love you too?”
His heart leaped, but fell just as quickly. “Not in the same way, I think.”
“Your dreams are as important to me as his are. I can’t bear the thought of destroying either one of you.”
“Perhaps you won’t have to. You heard Iobhar. Perhaps no one will die, and there will be no power to bestow, and the Fianna and the Fomori will just have to learn to get along.”
“Do you think they could?”
“I can’t speak for the Fomori. But as for me . . . I called the Fianna first, remember. I’d like them on my side. Diarmid too.”
“And you think Ireland is worth all this?”
“If you could see it as I have, you would want to help too.”
“But there are Irish here, Patrick, and they’re suffering,” she said.
“There’s no work. Their children play in sewage. They need heroes too. You could be that for them.”
“We mean to be. They left Ireland because they were oppressed, but once we win independence, there will be jobs for them there, and money. They can return.”
“What if they don’t want to go back?”
“Why wouldn’t they?” he asked. “It’s their home. It’s where they belong.”
She was silent and thoughtful for a long moment. He felt she saw something that eluded him. “You’re a good person, Patrick. One of the best I know.”
She started up the stairs, and he let her go. He didn’t know why her words bothered him. He should be happy she thought of him that way.
He went to the parlor, stopping just before the door. He didn’t feel like being with his family tonight. Instead, he went back outside. He was halfway to the Fenian Brotherhood clubhouse before he realized where he was going and why. He wanted back his faith, which had been shaken lately, not just by Grace’s words today, but by the Fomori themselves. By Aidan. Even by Diarmid. Ireland was the right fight. He knew it in his soul.
Still . . .
At the club, the doorman told him, “There are several members upstairs, sir.”
Bres and Miogach and Tethra, along with Simon MacRonan, Jonathan Olwen, and Rory Nolan. At the sight of them, Patrick felt a burst of relief.
Bres smiled in greeting. “We’ve just been speaking of you.”
“We’ve discovered the Fianna plan,” Miogach explained.
“’Twill begin with the longshoremen,” Tethra said, smoothing the ends of his huge and curling mustache. “The Fianna will call for a strike the day before Samhain. With that, the battle will begin. The city will see it as worker unrest, another riot. Which will nicely disguise both the ritual and the opening of the veil between worlds. It will end with the veleda’s choice, and the unleashing of her power to us, and victory.”
Patrick looked down at his hands. “Do you think the ritual will work, even with the split?”
Bres said, “We believe so, if the three parts—eubages, brithem, and vater—are there.”
The protector in Patrick roused violently. “All three? But Grace’s grandmother is sick.”
“You will have to transport her carefully.”
“Transport her? To where?”
“The ritual must take place at the edge of worlds,” Bres said patiently. “The warehouse where the strike will begin is on the waterfront. The perfect place.”
“The prophecy will seek to be whole,” Miogach put in. “If ’twas broken into three by a lie, it can be mended by the truth, just as Cormac’s Cup was mended. When she chooses us, the truth of our worthiness will bind their power together again.”
It was what Iobhar had said in different words. The magic might take all three lives, or none. But to think the truth could mend it—that was something new, and Patrick felt a tug of misgiving. If the truth was all powerful, did that mean the vater’s lack of free will didn’t matter? He asked Simon, “Have you done a divination?”
“There are many things in play, of course, but I think we will prevail,” Simon answered him.
“You should congratulate yourself, Devlin. Thanks to you, there will be the rise of a new dawn, where the Irish will be triumphant.” Bres’s smile was wide and self-assured.
Patrick smiled back, hoping the Fomori king didn’t see how strained his was. Iobhar had told them the sacrifice couldn’t be made without free will. Was it possible the archdruid was wrong, and the Fomori were right?
He started when Tethra pressed a glass into his hand.
“To success!” Tethra toasted.
Patrick raised his glass with the others. “To success.”
But his voice sounded hollow in his ears, and when Patrick thought of victory, he no longer saw the green hills of Ireland and British flags flung down.
He saw the honest admiration in Grace’s eyes.
October 29
Diarmid
Today ’twill be the final day of training,” Finn told them. “Then it begins.”
Diarmid knew his leader was not as confident as he pretended. None of the others knew of the veleda split, and Finn meant to keep it that way. “They need faith more than worry,” he’d told Diarmid that morning. “The fates will play as they will. All we can do is be ready.”
Even Finn didn’t realize how uncertain it really was.
“We have to trust that this will work. No one’s going to die. Not you. Not me.”
Diarmid knew better than to believe it. He knew this kind of magic too well. But to be released from the burden of the geis, to have hope . . . it was hard to ignore how much lighter he felt. That morning in training, he laughed with Oscar as he hadn’t laughed in a good while, so that his best friend wrapped an arm around his neck and tousled his hair and said, “’Twill feel good to be in the midst of a real battle again.”
Diarmid grinned. “And even better when ’tis over.”
“That too.” Oscar lowered his arm. “You’ve come to terms with it, Derry?”
“You’ll have no cause to worry. Just mind yourself, will you? I don’t want to have to be rescuing you every five minutes.”
Oscar laughed, his green eyes bright.
Diarmid strode to the back door where Finn stood with an anxious-looking Aidan. Diarmid drank a dipperful of water from the bucket just as Finn said to Aidan,
“She’ll be there? And she’s prepared?”
“She’ll be there. But as for prepared . . . how does one prepare for the unknown?”
“By preparing for what’s known,” Finn said tightly. “And you, Diarmid. Are you ready as well?”
Diarmid did his best not to meet Aidan’s eyes. “I am.”
“Good.” Finn clapped them both on the shoulder before he walked off.
“You’ve said nothing?” Aidan asked.
“I promised I wouldn’t, didn’t I?”
“One never knows where your loyalty lies.”
“You do know,” Diarmid told him irritably. “You’d just rather question it.”
Aidan sighed. “Yes, that’s the problem, isn’t it? I do know where your loyalty lies—with the Fianna. It’s actually what I admire most about you. But it’s also what makes me most afraid for Grace.”
“If the geis becomes forfeit—”
Aidan silenced him with a shake of his head. “It’s not just that. It’s also because of the life you’ll ask her to lead if we survive this. Even if we win, it won’t bring us riches or fine homes, and that’s what she should have. I know it’s stupid to be talking about this, but if I don’t now, and we live through this, it will be too late.”
Diarmid tensed. “I don’t understand you.”
“If this all works out as we hope, promise me you’ll leave her alone. She needs someone who can take care of her.”
“That’s fine talk, coming from you,” Diarmid said. “She’s the one who’s been taking care of your family—without your help.”
“Things are different. I’m not as I was.”
“Neither is she.”
Aidan’s eyes glowed vibrant blue, the stormcaster within rising with his temper. “And that’s thanks to you, I know. She needed you once, but she doesn’t need you anymore.”
“How do you know?”
“I’m asking you to do what’s best for her, Derry. Leave her to Patrick.”
Diarmid felt everything he’d hoped for crumble. He clung to the one thing he knew was true, the way Grace looked at him, the way she kissed him. “What if that’s not what she wants?”
Aidan said firmly, “She will, if you walk away. Grace does love Patrick. She would have married him if not for you—she wanted to.”
“If Grace tells me to go, I will,” Diarmid said. “But I won’t make the decision for her.”
“Well, that’s a safe bet, isn’t it? You showed her the ball seirce. What are the chances she’ll say no? But how can you be sure that she really lov
es you?”
Another truth. Diarmid hated that Aidan had seen it, that he couldn’t just say: she loves me as I love her. She claimed she’d loved him before the ball seirce, and he wanted to believe it. But you don’t really, do you? It looked so real. It felt so real. But it had looked and felt that way before. Other girls—Grainne, for whom he’d destroyed everything. All because of a spell that didn’t hold. That couldn’t. In the end, she’d gone back to Finn and there was nothing. Nothing.
Aidan went on relentlessly, “How can you know if her feelings are real? Why would you hold on to her knowing it? What kind of love is that?”
Diarmid heard himself say, “The only kind I’ve ever known.”
“And when she wakes up from it only to find herself living this life? A pauper in a slum? Is that what you want for her, Derry? Let her go. Let her find something real with Patrick. If you love her as you say, you’ll want what’s best for her.”
Diarmid couldn’t breathe through the pain in his chest. “’Tis a pointless conversation. None of us might be alive.”
“That’s true. But in case we are . . . think about it. You and I are allies now, but if you keep pursuing my sister, we won’t be. I’d rather we not be enemies, Derry, but I’ll do what I must to keep the two of you apart.”
Diarmid struggled to find his voice. “I understand.”
Aidan left him.
Diarmid stared down at the mud beneath his feet. He felt as he had when he’d gone off with the first Grainne so long ago, as if everything conspired against him. What he wanted was the least important thing of all.
Fate is ever-changing, he told himself.
Change mine.
That night
Grace
We will be with you every moment.” Lot took my hand between her velvety white ones. “’Twill be frightening, I warn you. Such things as come into the world when the door is opened . . . you should not listen to them. They can be terrible liars. Trust what I say and know we are with you. And when ’tis over, I will come to you in the Otherworld and bring you home.”
Across the room, Lucy’s fingers stumbled over the pianoforte keys, and she laughed with Miogach as he turned the pages of sheet music. Flirting, as I hadn’t seen since . . . well, since Diarmid had shown her the lovespot. It was a relief to think that I no longer had to feel guilty, that maybe we could be friends again—