“Brendan,” she said and gestured to the stall. “Do they really?”
“Aye. They hold what they say, and every bit is useful in causing mischief. Now come along, we’re almost there.”
“Where are we going?”
“Just up ahead. Our man will be at the pub.” Brendan nodded at a monstrously huge oak tree ahead of them.
Caitlin was about to ask him to repeat himself when she saw that this tree also had a door at its base. Windows were scattered across the tall trunk at different levels, which she deduced meant it had several floors. Above the door was a sign that bore the picture of a mug with froth on top.
“Right.” Maybe this should have surprised her more, but compared to everything else, a tree pub didn’t rate much. “Of course. The pub, where else would he be?”
Brendan chuckled under his breath. “Aye, that’s right. Come on, then, love.”
She followed him inside.
The pub was . . . well . . . it was about like she’d expect a Tír na nÓg pub inside a giant tree to look. At this point, she began to wonder if maybe her mind was just overloaded and that was why she wasn’t reacting more strongly. What the final straw was, she didn’t know. Maybe it was the Tinker Bell-like pixie flitting through the air holding a mug that was easily ten times her size, one-handed no less, or it could’ve been the centaur at the bar resting a hoof on the rail and drinking from his own large mug. It could’ve been the gnomes that were arm wrestling, or the elf playing darts with a nixie.
No, it was almost definitely the arm-wrestling gnomes.
The entire pub was part of the tree, alive and well, no less. The tables grew up out of the floor, as did the bar and benches that were set against the wall. Once more, everyone went quiet and all eyes turned to Brendan, but he seemed unconcerned. Caitlin felt a bit like she was walking with a quarterback through a comic book convention.
Brendan nodded to a table in front of a bench in the corner. “That’s our man there.”
Resting or, more correctly, passed out on the table was a small head of frizzy red hair. Attached to it, sitting on the bench, was a little man dressed in green. Caitlin could just hear the faint sound of his snoring from across the room.
“That’s our guide?”
“Easy, love.” Brendan chuckled and led her to the booth. “Seamus is a good sort. Don’t you worry none, he’s not as mangled as all that.”
Caitlin knew she was out of her depth, so she just followed Brendan.
“Seamus!” Brendan banged on the table. “Wake up, lad. Got some work for you.”
Seamus’s head shot up to reveal a round face, red cheeks, and a beard of the same frizzy hair that was on top of his head. He cast a bleary-eyed glare around the room. “Bogs, man! You trying to wake the bleeding dead in here?” There was a slight slur to his speech. Blinking again, his eyes opened wide, and he smiled even wider. “Brendan! Well, I was thinking you’d forgotten about old Seamus, you had.”
Brendan sat in a chair opposite the leprechaun and nodded for Caitlin to sit as well. She pulled a chair over.
“So, what brings you back to the Tír?” Seamus asked. When he saw others in the pub eyeing his table and whispering, he shouted across the room. “Mind your own, or I’ll mind it for you! Can’t a fella just have a word with a Fian without you clucking like a pack of hens?”
Brendan leaned in close. “We need us some information about a girseach. She would’ve been brought here by the oíche, and not long ago.”
“Bleeding oíche, bah.” Seamus picked up a pipe from the table and poked it with the tip of his finger. There was a little explosion of sparks, and it started smoking. He took several puffs on it and leaned back.
“Seamus.” Brendan’s voice was straining to remain calm. “We’ve not got time for your usual games. We need to know where they’ve taken her.” Seamus was about to speak, but Brendan cut him off. “No bollocks about not knowing nothing either. If anyone knows something, it’s you.”
Seamus laughed. “Easy there, lad.” He looked at Caitlin, and his smile faded. “I’m guessing you’d be the mother, then?”
Caitlin nodded.
Seamus drew in a breath. “Then some free advice for you, love.” He hesitated, then his look became serious. “Go home. Have another child, and forget about this one.”
The floor seemed to drop out from under Caitlin. She had to concentrate to take a breath.
Brendan backhanded Seamus. The blow knocked the leprechaun into the wall and down onto the floor. It happened so fast that it was hardly visible.
Caitlin looked at Brendan in shock.
“Now, Seamus,” Brendan said calmly, ignoring Caitlin. “You know better than to speak to a lady like that. I suggest you apologize, mate.”
“Bogs, man!” Seamus cried out from the floor. “I’d forgotten what a punch you pack. Rivers and stones!” He picked himself up from the floor and took his seat once more, giving Brendan a wary look as he rubbed the side of his face.
“That wasn’t a punch, bucko,” Brendan said. “Would you like to see one of those instead?”
“Easy there, son,” Seamus said. “No need to get your hackles raised. I wasn’t playing at nothing.” He recovered his pipe, took a puff, then looked around and leaned in. “There’re factors in all this you obviously don’t know.”
“Well that’s why we came to you now, isn’t it?” Brendan reached into the backpack, drew out the jug of milk, and set it on the table. “Can we bargain, then?”
“Oh, lad,” Seamus said, nearly drooling as he eyed the jug. “Aye, we can at that.”
“Fine,” Brendan said. “You tell us everything we want to know in regards to the girl—”
“Everything I know,” Seamus said, correcting him. “You’ll not bind me into a bargain that has me scouring the whole of Tír na nÓg for an answer. I’ve affairs of me own to attend to, you know.”
“Fair play,” Brendan said. “You tell us everything you know in regards to the girl. In return, you get the fresh, delicious, sweet milk.”
“Deal.” Seamus eyed the jug and licked his lips. “Can I get a wee taste now? In good faith, you know?”
“Talk first, then you get your milk. You know how it works.”
“Can’t blame a fella for trying, now, can you?” Seamus drew in a breath. “All right, then. It just so happens that I do know about your girseach. She and her escorts passed through the market not long ago.”
“You’re supposed to be telling us what we want to know,” Caitlin said. “Not what we already know.”
“Oh, I like that one, there,” Seamus said. “Fiery spirit, she has. Reminds me of Á—”
“Seamus!” Brendan said. “The girseach.”
“Right.” Seamus cleared his throat. “Sorry. Well, I do know where she is, but trust me, lad, you don’t want to be going after her.”
“I’m not worried about a pack of oíche, now, am I?” Brendan said. “I’ll tear the Tír apart if it’s needed to get her back, and you know that’s the truth.”
“Aye, that I do,” Seamus said. “But it isn’t the oíche what have her no more.”
“What?” Caitlin asked, unable to stop herself.
Brendan squeezed her hand under the table. “They took her out of the Tír, then?”
“No, they’re still here,” Seamus said. “And from what I hear, they’re not at all happy about it, neither.”
“Don’t be lying to me now. Did the wizard come here to claim her?”
“Wizard?” A look of genuine confusion came to Seamus’s face. “I don’t know nothing about no wizard.”
Caitlin blinked at Brendan. “But you and Dante—”
“I’d say we was wrong,” Brendan said to Caitlin. He turned back to Seamus. “All right, who’d they grab her for, then?”
“Well.” Seamu
s lowered his voice even more. “That’s a fair piece of information you’re asking for there, not the usual bit. This is prime—”
“Seamus,” Brendan growled. “We made us a bargain. You really want word to spread that you backed out of an agreement?” He stared hard, then spoke quietly and calmly. “You really want to back out of a deal with me?”
“No need to be threatening me there, lad,” Seamus said.
“Oh, I’ll do worse than threaten you if you don’t—”
“All right.” Seamus took a deep breath. “It’ll be the Dark King himself you’ll be wanting to visit.” His eyes darted around the room. “That’s who they turned her over to.”
Brendan’s eyes went wide. “Fergus? Go on with you now!”
Caitlin saw the disbelief in Brendan’s eyes, but there was a flicker of something else. She wasn’t sure if it was worry, fear, or shock. None of them boded well.
“As you say, we’re in a bargain. Besides, I can’t be lying to you, now, can I?” Seamus asked. “They went off into the Dusk Lands.”
“That don’t mean it was—”
“I heard it from a very good source,” Seamus said. “It was Fergus himself they handed her over to.”
Caitlin looked at Brendan. His brow was furrowed, and he was looking down.
Her head was spinning and her heart was pounding. The King of the Dusk Court had Fiona? Why would he want her? What did this mean for getting her back?
“This don’t change nothing,” Brendan said to Caitlin. “We’ll still get her back, if I have to pull her from Fergus’s hands meself.”
Caitlin tried to find some comfort in his words and the look in his eyes, but she couldn’t. It wasn’t there. Still, though his eyes held uncertainty, she understood the commitment he was making to her with those words. It touched her deeply and filled her with gratitude, but it didn’t ease her fear.
“Don’t change nothing?” Seamus laughed. “I do admire your courage, lad. A fine example of a Fian you are, even if you got bollocks bigger than your brains.”
“So what does Fergus want with a mortal—” Brendan stopped midsentence and cast a quick glance at Caitlin. “What’s he want with a child?”
“That I don’t know, lad,” Seamus said. “Wish I did. That’d be a fair bit of currency to bargain with.”
Brendan got to his feet. “Right, we’re done, then. Come on, love. Time to go.”
“Hold on there, lad,” Seamus said, his tone hesitant. “I do know one other thing.”
Brendan’s jaw clenched. “Forgot something, did you?”
Seamus didn’t say anything.
“Come on, out with it, then.”
“I know what it was that Fergus paid the oíche,” Seamus said.
“Aye? Well, go on, then.”
“He’s offered them a chance for release.” Seamus leaned back and began puffing his pipe with a shaking hand, his eyes darting around the room.
“Seamus,” Brendan said, “can you smell what you’re shoveling, mate? They was released when the Rogue Court formed, weren’t they? In fact, right now they’re fighting a war to take control of it.”
“I didn’t say release them from his court,” Seamus said between puffs.
Brendan’s face fell. “Dar fia, is that even possible?”
Seamus nodded. “Oh, sure it is, lad. Not something that happens often, and it does come with all kinds of strings, mind, but it can be done. They have themselves one full day to pull it off, and they don’t have the means to do it themselves.”
“That’s why they needed the bloody wizard,” Brendan said.
“Aye. That’d be one way to do it, to be sure.”
“Brendan?” Caitlin had no idea what this meant, but clearly it wasn’t good.
Brendan looked at her, then back to Seamus. “Anything else you’re forgetting to tell us?”
Seamus didn’t answer. He just puffed on his pipe.
“Right, then.” Brendan took Caitlin’s hand and pulled her along behind him as he went to the door.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
“Brendan,” Caitlin said as soon as they walked out the door of the pub, “why would the King of the Dusk Court want Fiona? Is it because she’s a changeling?”
“It’d have to be, but it doesn’t make any bleeding sense.”
“Why?”
“Cause your blood line isn’t of his court,” Brendan said.
Caitlin felt a surge of relief, though it was tempered with caution. “How do you know that?”
“Well, your da stuck around, didn’t he? Well, as long as he could anyway. If he’d been one of Fergus’s, he wouldn’t have been so kind. That means he was either Dawn Court or a noon fae that were connected with the Dawn Court.” He looked away and let out a breath. “Why the bloody hell would he want a changeling child that weren’t of his own court?”
Caitlin’s hand went to her pocket and caressed the little stuffed bear.
“No use trying to figure that one out,” he said. “We need to focus on getting her back, is all.”
“What?”
Brendan looked her in the eye. “Look, love. I don’t know what he’d want her for, but it’s not going to be anything good. We can either sit here trying to reason it out, which will be for nothing, or we can just go and get her back. You tell me, which do you prefer?”
“Okay. What’s a chance for release mean?”
“That’s another ball of shite.” Brendan began pacing. “It means the oíche wouldn’t be fae anymore.”
“So, what, they’d be mortal?”
“No.” Brendan took her hand and led her around the pub, out of sight. “They’d have their strength, their speed, probably even their magic. What they wouldn’t have is anyone to answer to. There wouldn’t be nothing stopping them from doing as they please. No hearth protections, no Oaths, no nothing. Hell, even iron might not bite them anymore.”
“Monsters free to roam the countryside.”
Brendan nodded.
Caitlin shivered. “Edward. We have to warn Edward and Dante.”
“Aye, but we got no way to get word to them.”
Caitlin’s knees felt weak. She thought of Eddy and Dante walking into something very different from what they expected. Eddy was the smartest person she’d ever known. Maybe he and Dante together would figure it out. She held tight to that hope, then refocused on Fiona and getting her back.
She looked up at Brendan. “Okay, what’s next?”
“Well, considering where we need to be going,” he said as he led her back around the tree, “we need to pick us up a charm.”
Caitlin followed him back into the market. Again, the chattering went silent as they walked down the street to the stall selling the wands and jewelry. A goblin stood behind the table, watching them warily.
Brendan stared back in silence.
“Are you . . . um . . . ,” the goblin said with a shaking voice, then cleared his throat. “Are you looking for something specific?”
“Aye.” Brendan examined the necklaces hanging from a stick. “We need us a seeking stone.”
The goblin’s eyes widened, and a smile came to his face that made Caitlin uneasy. She could almost see the cartoon dollar signs pop into his eyes.
“I take it you have payment?” the goblin asked.
Caitlin saw the goblin look at her, and she shuddered.
“We can bargain,” Brendan said, locking eyes with the goblin. “If you have one, that is.”
“Oh, I do happen to have one left.” The goblin drew a necklace out from under the table. From a leather cord hung a dark blue crystal. It was flat and smooth, with a hole in the center through which the cord was tied.
“One left?” Brendan laughed. “Oh, aren’t we just lucky, then.”
“Indeed you are, Fian.
” The goblin nodded several times. “In fact, a nixie was just inquiring about it.” He held up the necklace. Light glittered and danced inside the stone. “Finest goblin craftsmanship you’ll find. A dreaming stone, polished with silk that was woven by a traveler longing for home.”
Brendan reached to grab and examine it, but the goblin pulled it back.
“Payment?”
Brendan eyed him. “You wouldn’t be stupid enough to try and pawn me something false, would you?”
The goblin’s mouth dropped open and his eyes went wide. It was hard to tell, but he looked genuinely insulted. If she hadn’t seen it, Caitlin wouldn’t have believed his face was capable of it.
“Of course not!” the goblin said. “I don’t sell imitations.”
“Fair enough,” Brendan said. “How much?”
The goblin smiled at Caitlin. “I like her eyes.”
“My . . . my eyes?” She gulped. Cold ran down her spine as she remembered the kind of payments that faeries took. She had a brief flash of a ceramic jar with a new label. Changeling’s Eyes (Green).
Brendan crossed his arms. “No.”
The goblin scowled. “Then, how about—”
“No memories either, no names, none of that.”
The goblin gritted his teeth. “Well, it isn’t free, Fian!”
Brendan set the backpack on the table, and the goblin eyed him with interest. “How’ll this do, then?” Brendan pulled the bread out and set it on the table.
The goblin snatched up the bread and sniffed it. “It’s a start, but I’ll need something else as well.”
“Fine.” Brendan reached back in and set the honey on the table. “This as well, then.”
The goblin licked his lips. “My good Fian, you must understand, this is a fine example—”
“And this.” Brendan pulled the half-full whiskey bottle from the pack. “Final offer, or we take our—”
“Done.” The goblin snatched up the honey and whiskey, then handed the necklace to Brendan.
“Pleasure.” Brendan took the stone and pulled his pack back on. “We’re done here.”
The Stolen: An American Faerie Tale Page 23