by Megan Chance
Battle Annie smiled, as terrible as the first time. “Unless things have changed very much, Diarmid, that means little.”
“You have my personal guarantee. I’ll swear to it. On Danu’s name.”
“Your guarantee means nothing. The sidhe have favored you, but that is in the past. And as for your oath—Danu is a long-ago god and a mother I no longer serve.”
Her gaze came back to me. I felt the sliver of it beneath my skin. Then she looked at him. I felt the communication between them, though she was silent and so was he, and I had no idea what she was telling him, what she was showing him. A glamour or something else? I saw him go taut. I saw a misery in his eyes that hurt. And then she said:
“I might accept a more meaningful promise.”
The blood left his face.
Battle Annie laughed. “Ah . . . how precious is the life of your veleda? I must confess yours is an interesting game to watch. Which way will it go, I wonder? Choices, choices . . .”
“No more of this,” Diarmid said. “Will you grant us safe passage or not?”
“Perhaps. But I won’t bargain with you. One cannot trust the Fianna, even now. What will you give us for safe passage, veleda? Your coin is worth something, at least.”
“No. Grace, no.”
“It’s my choice to make,” I told him.
“No.”
He was so adamant. I didn’t know what he saw that I missed, and in my silence, Battle Annie said, “As you wish.”
She snapped her fingers at the boys, who rushed forward, along with others who emerged from the shadows. Four of them grabbed Diarmid. Two were on me, their hands on my arms, their craving trying to pull my power through my skin, drawing on me, drinking . . .
“By the gods, stop them!” Diarmid shouted.
I felt dizzy, delirious. “She’ll kiss you . . . and make you ask her to do it again.” I understood what Lewis Corley meant. I wanted it to stop, I wanted it to go on forever.
“Leave her as she is, you fools! She may be of some use to us.”
At Battle Annie’s order, the draw stopped suddenly and I stumbled, disoriented. Battle Annie gestured, and they took us out, back down the hall, to the crew’s quarters. There was the bang of a door, a scuffle, and then I realized someone was lifting the trapdoors of the hold. Diarmid fought them, but they shoved him over the edge, into the hole, and then they shoved me too.
It wasn’t far to fall—perhaps four or five feet. I fell on him, heard the grunt of his breath as he caught me, and then the doors slammed shut and the darkness was complete.
Late that night
Patrick
They’ve escaped.”
Patrick listened as impassively as he could as Daire Donn told them the news.
Simon MacRonan asked, “How exactly does a river gang escape the Fomorian god of the sea?”
“Tethra and his men were blinded by a fog.”
“A fog,” Patrick said flatly.
“Aye. ’Twas a glamour.”
“A glamour?” Simon asked. “Set by river pirates?”
“They aren’t just river pirates,” Daire Donn said. “They’re children of the sidhe.”
Patrick jerked upright in his chair. “You’ve let Grace fall in with fairies?”
“’Tis not the best situation,” Daire Donn admitted.
Simon sputtered, his eyes bright with alarm, “I would say that’s an understatement, given all you’ve told us.”
“I think we can trust that Diarmid will do everything in his power to keep her safe.” Daire Donn looked uncomfortable as he said it.
“He’s a warrior, not a magician.” Patrick lurched to his feet. Protect her, keep her safe. Do your job. The words spun in his head.
“We’re pursuing them even now, through the fog . . .”
“You’re telling me a god can’t sweep away a fairy glamour?” Simon asked.
“These are . . . very strong sidhe,” Daire Donn said.
“How strong?” Patrick snapped.
Daire Donn grimaced. “The strongest we’ve seen in the city. Truthfully, the strongest we’ve seen for some time—but they are not stronger than Tethra. We should have your fiancée and Diarmid by morning.”
“And in the meantime, what could the sidhe do to her?”
Daire Donn’s smile was thin. “I suggest you don’t think of that, my friend. Remember, the Fianna cannot afford to lose her either. I think we can trust Diarmid not to fail. As we will not.”
Patrick’s fear only grew. The sidhe had Grace. They were after Aidan. What of the rest of the family? He went home quickly. Though he had Fomorian guards at every door, they had proven how unreliable they could be.
Even after reassuring himself that everyone was safe, Patrick didn’t sleep. He slumped in a leather chair in his study, staring unseeingly at the cold fireplace.
“Right now, she needs him more than she needs you.”
But why? The question plagued him. The need to see Grace’s brother again was so strong Patrick imagined he saw Aidan materializing before him. He shrugged away the fancy. A pink-edged dawn crept through the window. When the urge came over him to go into the park, he obliged it restlessly and went out the back door. The guard there started, raising his rifle until he saw it was Patrick. “Good morning, sir.”
“Good morning.” Patrick went to the gate, stepping out past the climbing rose that shielded the backyard from the park. Delivery wagons rattled in the distance, but the square in front of him was empty. He followed the path to the gazebo, which was sheltered by overhanging trees. He was not surprised to see someone already sitting there, nor was he surprised to find it was Aidan. In some part of his mind, he’d known Aidan was waiting; he’d come here to meet him.
Grace’s brother was throwing little threads of purple lightning from finger to finger, spinning them about, weaving a web of electricity. Aidan said casually, “I’m trying something new. I wondered if I could do it, if I could just call you like this.”
Patrick sat beside him on the bench. He found himself mesmerized by Aidan’s light play, unable to look away.
“When did you first know you had this power?” Patrick asked him.
Aidan closed his hand, banishing the threads. “I’ve always felt there was something . . . not right about me. When Papa died, it got worse. Then, about three months ago, I began to feel as if I were burning. It was like . . . like being on fire from the inside out. The only thing that eased it was drink and laudanum. And then the dreams started—dreams that came true. Things I knew that I couldn’t know. But the lightning—the sparks—that didn’t start until I met Finn. He told me I could do it. He knew just by looking at me.”
“How did Finn find you?”
“He didn’t. The night Diarmid found me in that gambling hell, I meant to get drunk and throw myself off a dock somewhere. He saved me. Believe me, I didn’t want to be saved—but then . . . he took me to your stables and you called him Diarmid and . . . I’d had a dream about him and Grace. It all fell into place. I followed him to the others. Finn told me I’m a stormcaster, that our family is descended from the veleda, which I knew anyway, because of Grandma, and that our ancestor, Neasa, was a Druid priestess of great power. He said he could see it bursting out of me the same way it did from her.”
Patrick was amazed at how easily he accepted this, as if he had known it all along. “What about Grace?”
Aidan looked down at his hands. “I don’t know about Grace.”
“You said she needed Diarmid.”
“She does.”
“He’s led her into a sidhe trap.”
Aidan’s head came up. “The sidhe?”
“She’s on a ship with sidhe posing as river pirates. Some of the most powerful fairies the Fomori have seen.”
Aidan’s breath hitched.
&nb
sp; “So what I need to know is: What do I do? What do you see? What can you tell me?”
“I can only talk to her in dreams,” Aidan said. “And then not very much. I don’t think Grace knows yet that it’s real. Darkness keeps closing between us. She needs a key—what that would be, I don’t know, though I think . . . I think Diarmid has something to do with it. I know she’s afraid.”
Grace afraid. It pained Patrick to think it. “Of him?”
“Perhaps.” Aidan exhaled deeply. “But there’s something else too. It’s just . . . there’s something wrong, Patrick. Nothing’s as it should be, and I don’t know why. There are all these . . . these loose pieces, and I can’t bring them together, no matter how I try. Grandma said there was a curse—”
“A curse? You mean the sidhe?”
“She never said more. And now she never will.”
“There’s still a chance she’ll wake up.”
“No,” Aidan said sadly. “Even if she does, she’ll know nothing.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Because she gave it all to me.”
Patrick stared at him. “She gave it all to you?”
“I have her visions,” Aidan explained. “I know they’re hers. But they’re jumbled and confused. Things don’t make sense. It’s as if . . . as if her madness is distorting what’s true. I can’t make heads or tails of it.”
A suspicion nagged at Patrick, one he couldn’t quite grasp. Here was Aidan, spinning lightning, having prophetic dreams, speaking with Grace through them, inheriting his grandmother’s visions. Aidan, with ancestral power of a kind Finn had recognized.
Patrick asked, “What has Finn said about Grace? He’s met her, hasn’t he?”
Aidan nodded. “Diarmid brought her to the tenement one night. I wasn’t there, but I’ve heard about it.”
“Did Finn see any power in her?”
“She knew how to say the spell on the ogham stick that called the Fomori.”
Patrick realized then what hope he’d been harboring. Grace had said, “What if you’re all wrong?” He wondered . . . Aidan was bursting with power, and Patrick had seen little of it in Grace. Still, the ogham stick had burned her. She’d seen the Fianna glow. She’d known how to say the spell.
But was it enough? Grace’s bits of power felt like scraps, an inheritance passed piecemeal.
“Cannel divined that she was the veleda,” Aidan said, as if reading Patrick’s thoughts.
“Her blood was on the dord fiann,” Patrick remembered, feeling as if he snatched at straws. “She’d cut herself on it. The Fianna can’t be called without the veleda’s blood, isn’t that right?”
“That’s what the spell needs. And . . . there’s something else you should know, Patrick. Cannel sees something else in Grace.”
“What’s that?”
“He sees her aspect in threes. Two days ago he came up with a theory about why that is.”
“‘She sees; she weighs; she chooses,’” said Patrick. “That’s what the prophecy says. The triune has always been part of the veleda.”
“It’s true of goddesses too. Brigid. The Morrigan.”
“Are you saying Cannel thinks Grace is a goddess?”
“He thinks she’s that powerful. More powerful than she should be.”
“But—”
“I think this key—whatever it is—unlocks her power.” Aidan met Patrick’s gaze.
The power of a goddess.
If Cannel was right, the kind of energy Grace’s death would release would be immense. Whoever held it would be unbeatable, just as the prophecy had said. Patrick’s own ambitions beckoned. Freeing Ireland. Everything he’d worked for. That kind of power—what he could do with it, what he could achieve . . .
No. It wasn’t worth her life. It would mean nothing without her. Nothing.
He was shaken by the ferocity of its temptation. “The Fianna know this? They know what kind of power Grace might have?”
“They know it,” Aidan said.
“Then they’ll have no wish to try to save her life.”
“They’re looking for the archdruid because they need the incantation. Grace doesn’t know what it is and neither do I. But you said the Fomori are trying to find another spell, one that will save her?”
Lot and the others had tried to reassure Patrick, and he wanted to believe them. He said, “They tell me they’re looking for the archdruid for such a spell, but I don’t think they suspect the kind of power you’re describing.”
“Do they think it likely that another spell exists?”
“They said it is possible.”
“Did they say it just to appease you? Or to win Grace’s trust?”
“Whatever they think, I have to believe in it. I love her. I have to save her.”
It had been years since they’d been close; those childhood days of playing with tin soldiers and sharing secrets were gone, but Patrick saw a pity in Aidan’s eyes now that reminded him of those times, when Aidan had known him better than anyone. He was surprised to find the connection still existed, that he understood Aidan without words.
“You don’t believe there is another spell,” Patrick said.
“I want to believe it. Like you, I have to believe it. I love my sister, and no one else is looking out for her. Only you and me. Perhaps Diarmid, but it’s hard to be certain. I know he’s attracted to her. Perhaps he cares for her. I told you: there’s something between them, and it’s important. But he’s Fianna through and through, and in the end, he’ll do what Finn asks of him.”
“You mean the geis.”
“Yes. So you and I need to form our own alliance. One dedicated to saving my sister’s life. Whatever else we do, we need to be together in this. Are we agreed?”
Patrick felt immeasurable relief. Here was the ally he needed. A man who only two months ago seemed like the most unreliable person on earth, and who was now the stormcaster for Patrick’s enemies. But he felt Aidan could be trusted, that he was somehow meant to trust him.
“We’re agreed,” he said.
July 25
Grace
Are you all right?” Diarmid asked.
“Yes. I think so.” I pulled away from him, still shaken from our encounter with the sidhe and the fall into his arms. I could see nothing at all, not even his shadow. I heard something scrabbling beyond—rats. “This is terrible.”
“It’s not good,” he agreed. “You should have let me handle things.”
“Because you were doing so well.”
“At least I wasn’t offering them everything.”
“Neither was I.”
“Aye, but they were taking it anyway, weren’t they? I told you to be careful. I told you not to trust them and not to let them touch you.”
“I didn’t have much choice,” I said.
“You can’t let them take your power.”
“What does it matter? Someone will take it. If not them, then the Fianna—or the Fomori. All for some stupid war.”
“It’s not a stupid war.”
“Isn’t it? Do you even know what you’re fighting for?”
“To keep the Fomori from devouring every Irish soul,” he said tightly.
Wearily, I closed my eyes. There was no difference between that darkness and the darkness we sat in, and so I opened them again. “And what will the Irish get if you win?”
“Their lives, for one. And their freedom.”
“And they’ll pay for that with eternal devotion, won’t they? The Fianna will be heroes again. Everyone will love and admire you. There’ll be nothing in the city you can’t have. Money . . . power . . . women . . . and it all starts over again. How long before you’re as corrupted as you claim the Fomori to be? No one believes you aren’t already. Battle Annie wouldn’t even bargain with you. The r
est of the sidhe doubt everything you say. Why shouldn’t I doubt it too?”
“Because you know me.”
The way he said those words, so softly . . . they felt so true. Once again I wanted to trust him, to believe him, to love him.
“Grace—” There was a movement in the darkness.
“Don’t touch me. You promised.”
He sighed so heavily it seemed to drag the dark down with it. “You shouldn’t have told her about the ogham stick, you know.”
“I was trying to find out if they knew anything about the archdruid.”
“We don’t even know if the ogham stick has anything to do with him.”
“I think it does. What did Battle Annie show you? What did she tempt you with? Was it a glamour?”
“You don’t want me to speak of it.”
“I wouldn’t have asked you if I didn’t want to speak of it.”
Very deliberately, he said, “She tempted me with you. The glamour she raised showed what you and I could be together if you only”—a self-deprecating laugh—“ah, never mind. She knows how I feel. Everyone believes in that, it seems. Everyone but you.”
“Oh.”
“Aye.” I heard him move, his footsteps. The ship rolled; water slapped against the hull. I felt it vibrating beneath the wood under my hands. Diarmid kicked something; there was a quiet thud and a scrabble of tiny claws that made me shudder.
The sound of rustling. “There’re some burlap bags over here. They’re empty, but they’ll serve as blankets. ’Tis a bed of sorts, if you want.”
“Where will you sleep?” I asked.
“Well . . . it might be a while until Annie gets over her irritation.”
“So?”
“So we might be in for a bit of a stay. There’re a dozen rats or more in this hold. I don’t know what else is down here, but ship rats aren’t something you want to mess with, I hear. I’m guessing you won’t like them nibbling at you in the night any more than I will.”
“And you can protect me from them, is that it?”
Another sigh. “I don’t know what Annie or the rats have in mind, Grace. But I’m tired. Truly, it feels as if I could sleep a year. I don’t want to be jumping awake at every movement because I don’t know where you are and I can’t see. I’d sleep better if you were beside me, and maybe you would too. In any case, it’ll be more comfortable than the floor.”