The Web (Fianna Trilogy Book 2)

by Megan Chance

  “I don’t believe that,” I said. “Patrick’s no idiot, and neither am I. I couldn’t see evil in them, and I tried. I’ll admit Balor is intimidating, and I don’t really like Lot, but she’s not wicked—”

  He laughed. “Refuse her sometime.”

  “Refuse her? You mean . . . what did you refuse her?”

  He was quiet.

  “Dear God, is there no one who doesn’t want you?”

  “You,” he said.

  But he had to know that wasn’t true. He’d made certain of it. Another lie. “They said they wanted to help me. They want to find a way so that I don’t have to die.”

  “So you don’t have to die?” he repeated.

  “If I’m the veleda, I have to die. Isn’t that so?”

  Now he seemed wary. “That’s the prophecy.”

  And I have to be the one to kill you. I waited for him to say it, to tell me the truth. When he didn’t, I said angrily, “They think there might be another spell. Another ritual.”

  “There won’t be another spell.”

  “Why not? They’re looking for an archdruid. They think he might know.” And then I realized what I’d just said. Derry—Diarmid—was my enemy. The Fianna needed the ritual, too, didn’t they? I surely didn’t know it. They needed this archdruid as much as Patrick and I did. “Now I suppose you’ll run to Finn and tell him all about the archdruid.”

  “He already knows. We’re searching for him ourselves.”

  “But not to save my life.”

  “I never thought of it,” he admitted. “Nor did any of the others.”

  “How surprising. The truth at last.”

  “I think they’re lying to you about wanting to find another spell. I think they just want the ritual and the incantation. Unless . . . maybe you know it already? The veleda is supposed to.”

  “I don’t.”

  “Nothing in the stories you heard? Or maybe your dreams? ’Twould be like a song, I’m guessing. Music.”

  My dreams. Wars and screaming and lightning. Darkness crashing down. My brother’s voice: Come. Hurry. The sun shone blindingly on the deck, the water beyond sparkled, and the side-wheel beat a steady, soothing rhythm, but all I could see was darkness, shadow, and pain. Derry leaning to touch me, and my yearning—

  “Not in my dreams.”

  “Then it must be the ritual they’re looking for.”

  “How cynical you are. You’re so certain there couldn’t be another spell.”

  “I know this magic, Grace. ’Tisn’t . . . kind. It always asks blood for blood. It’s tangled in . . . in a man’s desires and it means for suffering to be the cost. Once Patrick called us, he put the magic in play. There’s no other way. The Fomori know it, too, and they’re lying to you. They’ll tell you what you want to hear to make you choose them.”

  “And you wouldn’t.”

  He shrugged. “I’m just telling you there’s another side. Maybe it’s not something you want to know, but you have to. You owe the world that.”

  “The world.” I laughed harshly. “You realize how ridiculous that sounds, don’t you?”

  “Aye. But ’tis nothing less. If the Fomori win, they’ll destroy or enslave every Irish man, woman, and child. They won’t rest until they rule the world.”

  “I don’t think they want to, Derry. And even if they did, the Fenian Brotherhood won’t let them. This isn’t the same world. This is America, not Ireland—”

  “But America’s full of Irish, isn’t it?” he countered. “I’m guessing more than half of Ireland is on these shores now. The Fomori see a new world they can corrupt and despoil. Why take only Ireland when they can have America too? They’re already on the police force. The Fenians are putting them in power all through the city government. What happens when they decide not to listen to Patrick and his friends anymore? D’you think anyone will be able to get rid of them?”

  “Things have changed. Patrick says—”

  “Patrick never fought them. I did.”

  “In a world of horses and spears. We have a government now, a democracy—”

  “You can’t control them. No one can.”

  “And what would the Fianna do instead? You might have been beloved once, but you weren’t when you died, were you? You were selfish and arrogant and demanding.”

  “What if I told you we learned our lesson?”

  I thought of Finn rubbing my hair between his fingers, Derry knifing a gang boy without thought or question, the battle behind my house while lightning flashed overhead. Bloodlust and excitement in the air, and my sense that they loved it more than anything.

  I thought of how Derry had kissed me, and how I’d kissed him back. How he’d used the lovespot on both Lucy and me. For the Fianna. It was why he did everything: for them. He means to seduce you and to kill you.

  “I don’t think you’ve changed. Any of you.”

  His expression hardened. “Then what makes you think the Fomori have?”

  He was right. It was stupid to think otherwise. But I’d been at supper with them. They were offering to help me live, and in spite of the stories and my confusion and my fears that I shouldn’t trust them, I wanted to.

  “Perhaps what I think about them doesn’t matter.”

  “What d’you mean?”

  “What if you’re all wrong about me? What if I’m not the veleda?”

  He frowned. “But you are.”

  “How can you be certain? I’ve no power at all. Aidan has all of it. And I don’t know anything. My mother says it’s all superstitious nonsense and everything Grandma said . . . well, none of it makes sense. She did tell me to find the archdruid, but—”

  “Did she say how to find him?”

  The sidhe will help.

  I started to say it and then I saw how intently he was watching me, and I remembered who he was, what he wanted from me. Be smart, Grace. I’d already told him too much, but I’d forgotten how easily we could talk to each other. That was a lie, too, wasn’t it? Just because his hair covered the ball seirce didn’t mean I should forget it was there.

  “Unfortunately not,” I lied. “She’s mad, Derry. None of it means anything.” We were drawing closer to Brooklyn. I saw the rise of the monolith they were building for the bridge tower, a great, dark shadow on the far shore, and I felt a sudden, sinking despair. “I don’t know what’s true anymore. I don’t know anything, and I want nothing to do with any of this. I wish I was far away from here.”

  “So do I,” he said. I saw a yearning in his eyes that reminded me sharply of my dream, along with a pain that confused me. What did he mean—that he wished I was far away, or that he was?

  I looked out toward the paddle wheel, hearing its thwap and the muted violin music in the salon, along with laughter and talk—people who had nothing more to worry about than going home after a hard day’s work. I wished I were one of them. I wished I were on an innocent boat trip with my brother.

  “When did Aidan join you?” I asked.

  “The morning Patrick discovered who I was.”

  “I see.” I wondered if Aidan knew about the geis as well. I couldn’t believe he would have put me in Derry’s hands if he did. “When you think I’ve betrayed you, please know that I haven’t.”

  “He’s trying to help us, Grace. He’s on our side. He wants you to be as well.”

  “Well, I’ve done what he wanted. I’ve met with you and I’ve listened. So now you and I can go our separate ways. Will you promise me you’ll do that? When we get back to the city, will you please just leave me alone?”

  He looked away uncomfortably. “There’s one other thing.”

  “One other thing?”

  “We’re not going back to the city.”

  “What?”

  “I’m not letting you go back to the Fomori.” Hi
s voice was heavy with apology—and determination.

  “You’re kidnapping me.”

  “I’m protecting you.”

  “You can’t do this. You have to take me back. Patrick’s waiting. I’ll . . . I’ll run. I’ll scream.”

  “It won’t change anything, Grace. I’ll drag you with me if I have to. D’you really think anyone on this boat can stop me?”

  I glanced around at the businessmen and factory girls. I’d seen him fight; I knew what he was capable of. Someone might try to help me, but they’d get hurt. Someone might even die. “Derry, please. Take me back. What can you hope to gain? If you don’t return me to Patrick, I’ll . . . hate you. It won’t help, not if you want me to choose—”

  “The way I see it, you won’t choose us now. And you hate me already. You see? Some things I don’t forget.”

  The misery in his eyes filled me with a nameless fear—no, it wasn’t nameless. I knew exactly what it was. “What do you mean to do? Take me to the Fianna?”

  “’Tis too dangerous. Your fiancé’s men raided the tenement the other night. Burned it to the ground.”

  “Patrick?”

  “He didn’t light the match, but he gave the order. You see how noble he and your Fomori friends are? They nearly roasted everyone who lived there, just to get to us.”

  “I don’t believe that. He never said anything to me about it.”

  “I’m thinking there are a lot of things he hasn’t said to you.”

  Bres had said that before the week was out, the Fianna would be arrested—but nothing about burning the tenement. The people I’d seen there, huddled on their fire escapes, cheering the fight between Finn’s Warriors and the Black Hands. Mothers and children and working men . . .

  How could Patrick have allowed something so horrible? I thought of my brother, smelling like smoke. “Was Aidan with you?”

  “Aye. We haven’t another place yet, and we can’t protect you well enough on the street. So until we can keep you safe, you and I will be staying in Brooklyn.”

  “You and I,” I repeated. My mouth went dry. People were moving forward as the ferry drew closer to the dock, the salon emptying. All around us was bustle and talk, but all I could hear were his words.

  “There’s a gang there loyal to Finn’s Warriors. They’ll shelter us for a time.”

  “Derry . . . you can’t. I can’t. I’m engaged. Do you know what people will say? What they’ll think?”

  He laughed. “None of that matters now, Grace. How can it matter?”

  That was true enough. How could it matter? I was going to die . . .

  No. I wouldn’t think that. Either I wasn’t the veleda or the archdruid could help me. I had to believe I could find him, that I had a future.

  “Then Patrick. What Patrick will think—”

  “I confess I don’t much care about that. If it makes him miserable, so much the better.” The venom in Derry’s voice startled me. “My job is to keep you safe. You’ll pardon me if I think I can do a better job of it than Patrick Devlin.”

  “He’ll come after us. Rose will tell him where I am. She knows I got on the ferry. She knows where we’re going—”

  “Aidan will take care of that.”

  “How?”

  “’Tis his job to convince her to say nothing.”

  I knew my brother’s charm. I knew how reasonable he could make everything seem, even as he was destroying everything around him. Just as the legends said of the Fomori. Though the Fianna were no different, were they? Rose would do as Aidan asked. He would make it seem as if she were helping me by keeping quiet. I burst out, “Damn you! I hate all of you! Patrick will be so worried. And my mother—she’s already upset not knowing where Aidan is. If both of us go missing . . . Derry, please. I can’t do that to her. She’s so frail—”

  “I’m sorry for that,” he said, but I saw that he would not change his mind.

  The ferry thudded into the slip of the Brooklyn dock.

  We stood alone on the aft deck. A crowd had gathered at the bow to disembark. I had to get back to Patrick, to my family. The fire at the tenement must have been an accident. Patrick would explain if I could only get back. If I could only escape . . .

  But Derry was too fast and too strong. I would never get through all those people before he caught me. My skirts and my corset would hamper me, and the attempt would only raise his guard and I would never get another chance. But later, when we were off the ferry, when we were alone and he wasn’t expecting it . . .

  “Very well. I’ll go with you.”

  He held out his hand. “I promise you won’t regret it.”

  But I already did. Both my mind and my heart screamed, Run!

  Patience, I told myself. Wait for the right moment.

  I prayed it would come soon.

  That evening

  Patrick

  Patrick arrived home to find Lucy sitting wearily in the parlor and his mother embroidering. Grace was nowhere to be seen. His mother said, “She’s in her room, dear. She’ll no doubt be down soon. Now go dress, please. You’ve the stink of the store about you.”

  The stink of hatmaking, glue and chemicals. He went upstairs, pausing as he passed Grace’s room. He’d thought about her all day—he couldn’t stop thinking about her. He wanted to reassure himself that she was all right—though why wouldn’t she be? He had guards posted everywhere. No member of the Fianna would get close to her.

  But he worried, and he felt guilty. All of this was his fault. It had been his idea to call the Fianna. He hadn’t known then that Grace was part of the prophecy, nor that the veleda had to die. He’d wanted to be a hero, to save Ireland, and all he’d managed to do was endanger the girl he loved and her family.

  He worried over Aidan nearly as much as he worried over Grace. It was as if Aidan Knox had dropped from the face of the earth that night in their backyard, when he’d been corralling lightning, his hair standing on end. Stormcaster, the Fomori had called him, as if a young man shooting sparks from his fingertips was not unusual.

  Whatever the power and wherever it had come from, Patrick had been struck with the sense that Aidan was in trouble and needed help. But finding him—that was the problem.

  When Patrick went downstairs again, Grace still wasn’t there. His mother called for supper and told the maid to get Grace.

  Mattie returned in moments. “She’s not in her room, ma’am. No one’s seen her.”

  “Since when?” Patrick asked.

  “Not since this morning, sir.”

  His mother said, “She was still asleep when we left to go calling this morning.”

  “You didn’t see her when you returned?” Patrick asked Lucy.

  “The door to her room was closed. I thought she might be napping. Or reading poetry or something.”

  Impatiently, Patrick told Mattie to ask the rest of the staff if anyone had seen Grace.

  “I’m certain she’s about, dear,” his mother said. “She’s probably only gone for a walk.”

  He didn’t bother to explain what his mother already knew—Grace couldn’t have gone for a walk without a guard. Instead, he went to the parlor doors, calling to the Fomori warrior standing in the garden, “Have you seen Miss Knox?”

  “Not since I came on an hour ago, sir.”

  The shift change. Each of the guards said the same thing: they’d been on shift only a short time, none of them had seen her. No one had. Not a single servant.

  “Except possibly the upstairs maid, Lila,” said the butler, John. “But she’s off for the night.”

  Patrick’s worry grew. “There were no visitors to the house? You answered the door for no one?”

  John’s discomfort seemed to increase. “I’m afraid I don’t know, sir. I had a bout of dyspepsia and had to lie down for a bit. Lila was supposed to answer
the door.”

  Patrick’s worry turned to fear. He went outside, through the gate, and into the park that every house on Madison Square bordered. It was nearly deserted now. He strode the length of it, even as he told himself that Grace wouldn’t be here. The guard would have stopped her. She wouldn’t have left the house without telling someone.

  Where the hell is she?

  He sent one guard to the confectionary on the corner and another to her mother’s house. There was no sign of her at either place. By twilight, Patrick was panicking. All of his precautions, and something had slipped past him. The Fianna. Diarmid. The lovespot. It took only a moment of persuasion. Only a moment.

  The Fomori had to be told. They would know what to do. When he returned to the house, the maid gave him a letter that had just arrived from Rory Nolan, his friend in the Fenian Brotherhood. Patrick tore it open, his heart pounding, hoping to read that they already knew of Grace’s disappearance, that they’d found her. Instead, it was only a summons, requesting his presence immediately.

  He called for the carriage and told his mother and Lucy he was going to the police station. The short journey to the three-story brick clubhouse of the Fenian Brotherhood seemed to take an eternity.

  When Patrick arrived, the others were already there. The moment he crossed the threshold, he blurted, “Grace is missing! No one’s seen her since this morning. We’ve searched the grounds—nothing. Your guards let her slip through their fingers.”

  Lot’s purple gaze darkened. “Our guards? They would not be so careless.”

  “Then you tell me how she could be gone. Did she just evaporate? Or is there someone you know who can make a girl disappear into thin air?”

  “Let’s not be hasty,” Rory said soothingly. “Had she any visitors?”

  “None that we know of, though the maid who was on duty earlier today is gone for the night. I’ve sent someone to fetch her. I want the guards questioned. Each one of them.”

  “It will be done,” said Bres, jerking his chin at Balor, who stood near the door. The hulking beast of a man nodded and left the room, accepting Bres’s command so easily it was hard to remember that he was a god himself, and one who had slain scores of men with his poisonous eye.