by Megan Chance
He kept running, clinging to shadows, maneuvering through corridors and in and out of stale beer dives and two-cent lodging houses. He’d lost them, but still, he didn’t stop running, not until he’d cleared Five Points and reached the seawall at Battery Park. He sagged against the wall, resting his head on his folded arms, trying to catch his breath.
He was alive. Alive and free, and he had Patrick Devlin to thank for it. Patrick Devlin, who had faked a fight and helped him escape.
Why?
“Keep her away.”
Bleakly, Diarmid raised his head. The lights of steamers and ferries sparkled on the black water. Beyond them was the looming shadow of Castle Garden, then the darkness of Staten Island and Governors Island beyond. He heard the faint pulse of the ocean, the soft slap of waves against the wall. For a moment, he fancied that the water lapping onto this beach was the same that had washed the rocks at Governors Island. Water that had somehow touched her.
She was waiting for him. He wondered if she could feel him standing here, the way he thought he could feel her, as if his soul were stretching to touch hers. Ah, but no. She didn’t really love him, not the same way. She thought she did, but the spell felt like real love. Or at least, that’s what he’d been told by other girls. He didn’t know—was there some way to tell the difference? Like all fairy spells, was the compulsion only a glamour that felt real until you realized something was just off, a detail that wasn’t right because the sidhe didn’t feel what humans felt, because their stock-in-trade was illusion, not truth?
He’d never thought to wonder before now. It had never mattered so much to him.
He tried to pierce the darkness between here and the island. To imagine her staring across the water toward Manhattan, thinking of him. To feel that connection between them, that tenuous thread. Her veleda to his Fianna. And, according to Aidan, even more than that.
Again, Diarmid felt dread. He closed his eyes. Grace, he thought. Grace, I’m coming.
He had to go back to the basement flat and his brothers. He had to see that Oscar and everyone else was safe. But tomorrow morning, he would be on his way to her.
Tomorrow.
The same day
Grace
I felt lonely the moment he left. Even with Miles there, the day and night without Diarmid passed slowly. The next morning, I was bored and listless. I sat staring at the sun slanting over the floor and scratched patterns in the scrim of dirt and sand with my fingers. I brushed against something hot, burning. A snippet of song leaped into my head. I pulled my hand away before I realized it was the ogham stick.
I’d forgotten all about it. The bit of melody reminded me of when Finn had handed me the ogham stick that called the Fomori. How the words he’d quoted had sounded wrong, the way I’d known instinctively how the spell must be said, the singsong cant.
I pushed at this stick with the very tips of my fingers. Again, I heard that smattering of song. I hadn’t heard it before, not when I’d touched it at Lewis Corley’s.
Then the stick began to glow.
It was the sunlight, I thought; but no, the ogham stick was in shadow. The light burned from within it. As if it were the sun.
The way Diarmid and the Fianna had glowed.
The stick hadn’t done this before. Neither the glow nor the music. I tried to touch it again—but I couldn’t. It burned too badly. Battle Annie had told me to listen, so I did.
The sea is the knife. Great stones crack and split. Storms will tell and the world is changed. The rivers guard treasures with no worth. To harm and to protect become as one, and all things will only be known in pieces.
The words played in my head like a song. Chaotic but so . . . present. Each line of the prophecy had its own melody; like the woven strands of a spiderweb, all led back to the center, but also radiated in distinct and opposite directions. I could follow one, or another, but some of them were confusing; some needed time and thought. Two things were startlingly clear:
Diarmid was the key I’d needed.
And I knew where the archdruid was.
He was supposed to stay with you.
My brother’s voice whispered in my ear as if he stood beside me. The air felt full as if his presence surrounded me, and with him was something else. Someone else. The same presence I’d felt in my dreams. Watching, waiting, silent. Aidan said, Without him you’ll need to be very careful. We need you.
I didn’t understand why I could suddenly hear him so clearly, or why my connection to him felt so strong. But it wasn’t a dream, and it felt right, as if this was how it should be, as if the darkness closing between us had been the wrong thing. I knew then what I had to do.
I had promised to wait, but I could not keep that promise. I had to go on alone. I had a different task, a different fate. I had a choice to make, a choice that would change the world, and I could not let my love for Diarmid influence me—because in the end, love was only love. It wasn’t right or wrong; it wasn’t worthy or unworthy. It just was.
If his side was in the wrong, I had to let him go. I had to let him die.
I was the descendant of Neasa, of generations of veledas whose purpose had been set two thousand years ago. I could not ignore it or make it less. The fate of the Irish—my own people—depended on me. I could not be frightened or lovestruck or paralyzed by what I felt. I was the veleda. I had to be strong enough to choose what was right, whatever the consequences for me.
And that meant I had to find my own way.
That evening, I played cards with Miles and bided my time. I heard my brother’s music singing, We need you. Be careful.
By the time it was dusk, my nerves were strung tight. Miles sat whittling while I sent my thoughts toward the water. Listen. I closed my eyes to hear the sounds of fishermen hauling in nets and the creaking wash of paddle wheels, people talking on the ferries and the lap of wakes against the hulls of schooners. A part of me didn’t believe I could do this—I had never been able to do anything like it before. I couldn’t really hear sailors call to one another or the cawing of seagulls as they swept the Brooklyn beach looking for food.
It had to be my imagination. But it felt real when I heard Battle Annie’s song, when I knew it was hers, and that she was listening too.
Night came on, and Miles curled up and said, “Good night, Gracie. See you in the morning.”
I said, “Good night,” and pretended to sleep, but when the moon came up, broad and full and blinding, I felt the call of it as I always had. Come with me. Let me show you.
Miles was deeply asleep. He was no Fianna warrior, and he didn’t rouse when I crept to the door. I left the ogham stick behind—its burn made it too hard to carry, and I had no more need of it. The prophecy and its songs were in my head. I cracked the door, which creaked and squealed, and I froze, waiting for Miles to wake, ready to run, but he only rolled over. I squeezed through the opening. Spots of white moonlight tangled with the shadows of the trees. The clay scarp was steep; I mostly slid down. I stumbled the last few feet, half falling to the beach.
The water lapped at the toes of my boots. The lights from Brooklyn shone in the near distance, the passing lanterns of ferries and ships. The moon cast a river of sparkling white onto the water, a river leading right to me, as if it offered me a path.
The soft splash of an oar, and a shadow emerged from nowhere, a small rowboat, and a person within who glowed silver. One of Battle Annie’s sidhe.
I was relieved. It hadn’t been my imagination.
The hull scraped against the rocky shore. Then a whisper. “Milady?”
“Yes,” I answered. He held the boat steady as I climbed inside. The fairy boy rowed us toward the sloop that I now saw anchored a short ways out, camouflaged by a wisping fog.
He rowed swiftly and well. Soon we arrived at the ship, and someone was lowering a rope ladder. When I stepped onto the de
ck, Battle Annie waited, her hands on her hips, her glow more intense than the others’.
“Learned to listen, did you?”
“I need you to take me up the East River. To the wharf at Cherry Street.”
“Corlears Hook,” she said. “Not a good part of town for a lass alone.”
“The archdruid is there.”
“Very well, veleda. As you command.”
She turned to give orders to her sailors, and I went to the bow, leaning over the rail. The sails filled with cold moonlight, the water slipped by, rippling as the sloop moved toward Manhattan and Battery Park.
And I heard him.
Diarmid.
I felt the tug of him like a kite feels the tug of its string, anchoring me, calling me. The melody of him, a song of despair and longing and something else. Fear? Or love?
Or perhaps they were the same thing. I was beginning to think that they were. I wanted only to love him, but I knew that this web binding us was bigger than we were, and it required courage and sacrifice. Before I could commit to it, there was more I had to learn, and answers I had to find.
Who I was. Who I was meant to be. And I could not make the right choice—between Diarmid and Patrick, the Fianna and the Fomori—until I understood what was true.
I looked up at the moon, then down at the silvery-white path it laid before me, leading me right back to Manhattan, to whatever future waited.
Come, the moonlight said. I’ve something for you. Follow me.
I lifted my face to the night air, to the smell of salt and river and smoke. The future that belonged to me was calling.
“I’m coming,” I told the moon.
The Fianna Trilogy has truly been a labor of love, and I’ve been privileged to have some excellent people working on it with me. Many, many thanks to my wonderful editor, Robin Benjamin, for her discerning pen and sharp eyes—the books became stronger and better in her hands. Also, thanks must go to Courtney Miller, for being such an enthusiastic champion, and to Miriam Juskowicz, Timoney Korbar, Erick Pullen, and the team at Amazon/Skyscape for their remarkable support. I am proud to be one of your authors. I cannot thank enough art director Katrina Damkoehler, cover designer Regina Flath, and artist Don Sipley for the stunning covers that brought Grace and her world to life in such a richly beautiful way. Thanks also must go to Kim Witherspoon and Allison Hunter at Inkwell Management, who achieve great things on my behalf. As always, I owe Kristin Hannah more than I can say—her enthusiasm for the project kept me going—and thank you to Elizabeth DeMatteo, Jena MacPherson, Melinda McRae, Liz Osborne, and Sharon Thomas, for reading early versions of the manuscripts and taking the story to their hearts. Thanks to my artist sister, Robyn Chance, for her encouragement and exquisite vision. And lastly, I am so grateful to Kany, Maggie, and Cleo for their inspiration, support, and love.
Photo © 2012 C.M.C. Levine
Megan Chance is the award-winning author of several adult novels, including Bone River and Inamorata. A former television news photographer with a BA from Western Washington University, Megan lives in the Pacific Northwest with her husband and two daughters. Visit her at www.meganchance.com.