by Nora Roberts
“Midor.” A name, at least, Branna thought, to work from. “Do you know of Cabhan’s origins? There is no word of it in the book, in Sorcha’s book.”
“She never spoke of it. We were children, cousin, and at the end, there was no time. Would it help to know?”
“I’m not sure, but knowing is always better than not. I was there, in a dream. With Fin. Finbar Burke.”
“Of the Burkes of Ashford? No, no,” she said quickly. “This is the one, the one of your circle who is Cabhan’s blood. His blood drew him to this place, and you with him?”
“I don’t know, nor does he. He is not Cabhan, he is not like Cabhan.”
Now Sorcha’s Brannaugh looked into her own fire. “Does your heart speak, cousin, or your head?”
“Both. He’s bled with us. You saw yourself, or will on Samhain night. And you will judge for yourself. Midor,” she repeated. “The light brought me here, and it may be for only this. I’ve never heard of Midor’s cave. I think this may be buried in time, but I know how to pick up a shovel and dig.”
They both looked toward the tall window as the howling rose up outside.
“He hunts and stalks.” Brannaugh held her son closer. “Already since we’ve come home a village girl’s gone missing. He pushed the dark against the windows, swirls his fog. Beware the shadows.”
“I do, and will.”
“Take this.” Shifting the baby, she held out her hand, and in it a spear of crystal clear as water. “A gift for you, and a light.”
“Thank you. I’ll keep it with me. Be well, cousin, and bright blessings to you and your son.”
“And to you. Samhain,” she murmured as Branna felt herself pulled away. “I will tip my arrows with poison, and do all in my power to end him.”
But you won’t, Branna thought as she sat in front of her own fire again, studying the crystal in her hand. Not on Samhain.
Another time, gods willing, but not on Samhain.
She rose, tucking the gift into her pocket. Choosing her laptop over the books, she began to search for Midor’s cave.
• • •
“I COULDN’T FIND A BLOODY THING THAT APPLIED TO THIS.” Branna sat, poking at the salad she’d made to go with a pretty penne and a round of olive bread.
“I’m not sure you can Google the cave of a sorcerer from the twelfth or thirteenth century.” Meara slathered butter on the bread.
“You can Google near to every bleeding thing.”
“Is it an Irish name? Midor?” Iona wondered.
“Not one I’ve heard. But he might’ve come from anywhere, from the bowels of hell for all we know, and ended up dying in front of that cave.”
“What about the mother?” Iona gestured with her wine. “Midor had to sire Cabhan—if we’ve got that right—with someone. Where’s the mother? Who’s the mother?”
“There’s nothing, just nothing about any of this in Sorcha’s book, in my great-grandmother’s. Maybe it’s not important after all.” Branna fisted her chin on her hand. “And bollocks to that. Some of it must be or Fin and I wouldn’t have gone to that shagging cave.”
“We’ll figure it out. Ah, this pasta’s brilliant,” Meara added. “We will figure it out, Branna. Maybe it’s Connor’s absolute faith rubbing off, but I believe it. Things are starting up again, you see? You having visits with Sorcha’s Brannaugh, you and Fin going on dreamwalks after a bit of a dream shag.”
Iona hunched her shoulders, then relaxed them again when she saw from Branna’s face Meara handled it just right.
“Wasn’t much of a shag,” Branna admitted. “It took premature ejaculation to a new level entirely. Fate’s a buggering bitch, I say. It’s all, Here you are, Branna, remember this? Then it’s, Well, remembering’s all you’ll get. And it’s back to the blood and the dark and the evildoings for you.”
“You’re tired of it.” Iona reached over, rubbed her arm.
“Tonight I am, that’s for certain. No one’s ever touched me like Fin, and I’m tired enough of it tonight to say so out loud. No one, not my body or my heart or my spirit besides. And no one will. Knowing that, well, it can make you tired.”
Iona started to speak, but Meara shook her head, silenced her.
“I didn’t need to be reminded of it. It was cruel, but magick can be. Here’s a gift, and oh, look what you are, what you have. But you can never be sure what you’ll pay for it.”
“He’s paid as well,” Meara said gently.
“Sure I know it. More than any other. It was easier when I could be angry or feel betrayed. But what needs doing can’t be done with anger and hard feelings. Letting them go brings back so much. Too much. So I have to ask how do I do what needs doing when I feel all this? It needs to be let go as well.”
“Love’s power,” Iona said after a moment. “I think even when it hurts, it’s power.”
“That may be. No, that is,” Branna corrected. “But how to use it and not be swallowed by it, that’s a fine, thin line, isn’t it? And right now I feel weighed and unbalanced and . . .”
She trailed off, laid a hand lightly on Iona’s, the other on Meara’s. “Beware the shadows,” she murmured, looking out the window where they dug deep pockets in the wall of fog.
“No, sit easy,” she said when Meara started to rise. “Just sit easy. He can’t come in to what’s mine, try as he might. But I’m sitting here in my own kitchen acting the gom. Sitting here, sniveling away so he can slide around my walls and windows, feeding on my self-pity. Well, he’s fed enough.”
She shoved away from the table, ignoring Iona’s quick, “Wait!” Striding straight to the window, she flung it open, and hurled out a ball of fire, then another, then two at once while the fury of her power snapped around her.
Something roared, something inhuman. And the fog lit like tinder before it vanished.
“Well now.” Branna closed the window with a little snap.
“Holy shit.” Iona standing, a ball of fire on her palm, let out a shaky breath. “Holy shit,” she repeated.
“I don’t think he liked the taste of that. And I feel better.” After dusting her hands, palm to palm, she came back, sat, picked up her fork. “You should put that fire out now, Iona, and finish your pasta.” She sampled her first bite. “For it’s brilliant if I say so myself. And, Meara, if you wouldn’t mind texting Connor. Just letting them know to have a care, though I don’t think Cabhan’s up to tangling with them tonight.”
“Sure I’ll do that.”
“He thought to take a little swipe at the women,” Branna said as she ate. “He’ll forever underestimate women. And he thought to lap up some of my feelings. Now he’ll choke on them. It’s light he can’t abide.” With a flick of her fingers the light in the room glowed just a little brighter. “And joy, and we’ll have some of that, for it’s not much makes me happier than picking out colors and finishings and the like.”
She scooped up more pasta. “So, Iona, have you thought of travertine for the master bath?”
“Travertine.” Iona let out another breath, and managed, “Hmmm.”
“And we’ve still details on your wedding to see to, and have barely talked of yours, Meara. There’s joy here.” She took her friends’ hands again. “The kind women know. So let’s have more wine and talk of weddings and making stone and glass into homes.”
• • •
CONNOR READ THE TEXT FROM MEARA. “CABHAN’S BEEN AT the cottage. No,” he said quickly as both his friends pushed back from the table. “He’s gone. Meara says Branna sent him off with his tail burning between his legs.”
“I’ll see better outside, out of the light and noise. We’ll be sure,” Fin added, and rose, walked out of the warmth of the pub.
“We should go back,” Boyle insisted.
“Meara says not to. Says that Branna needs her evening with just the women, and swears they’re safe, tucked up inside. She wouldn’t brush it off, Boyle.”
He opened himself, did what he could to block out th
e voices, the laughter around him.
“He’s not close.” He looked to Fin for verification when Fin came back.
“He’s that pissed, and still on the weak side,” Fin said. “Away from the cottage now, away from here. I should’ve felt him. If we’d been there . . .”
“Only shadows and fog,” Connor put in. “It’s all he’d risk yet. But the pub’s done for us, isn’t it? Back to your house?”
“Easy enough to keep watch from there, whether Branna likes it or not.”
“I’m with you. No, I’ve got this.” Boyle dug out some bills, tossed them down. “You never got around to talking to Connor as you wanted.”
“About what?” Connor asked.
Fin merely swung on his jacket, and bided his time as half the pub had something to say to Connor before he left. The man drew people like honey drew flies, Fin thought, and knew he himself would go half mad if he had that power.
Outside, they squeezed into Fin’s lorry as they’d decided—after considerable discussion—one would do them.
“It’s the school I wanted to discuss,” Fin began.
“There are no problems I can think of. Is it adding the hawking on horseback, as I’ve given that considerate thought?”
“We can talk about that as well. I’ve had partnership papers drawn up.”
“Partnership? Is Boyle going into it with you?”
“I’ve got enough on my plate with the stables, thanks all the same,” Boyle said, and tried to find space to stretch out his legs.
“Well, who’d you partner with then? Ah, tell me it’s not that idjit O’Lowrey from Sligo. He knows his hawks sure enough, but on every other point he’s a git.”
“Not O’Lowrey, but another idjit altogether. I’m partnering with you, you git.”
“With me? But . . . Well, I run the place, don’t I? There’s no need for you to make me a partner.”
“I’m not having the papers for need but because it’s right and it’s time. I’d’ve done it straight off, but you were half inclined to building, as much as you’re for the hawks. And running the school might not have suited you, the paperwork of it, the staffing and all the rest of the business. But it does, otherwise you could’ve just done the hawk walks, and the training. But the whole of it’s for you, so well, that’s done.”
Connor said nothing until Fin stopped in front of his house. “I don’t need papers, Fin.”
“You don’t, no, nor do I with you. Nor does Boyle or me with him. But the lawyers and the tax man and all of them, they need them. So we’ll read them over, sign them, and be done with it. It’d be a favor to me, Connor.”
“Bollocks to that. It’s no favor to—”
“Would the pair of you let me out of this bloody lorry if you’re going to fight about it half the night as I’m stuck between you?”
Fin got out. “We’ll pour a couple more pints in him, and he’ll be signing the papers and forgetting he ever did.”
“There aren’t enough pints in all of Mayo for me to forget a bloody thing.”
The edge in Connor’s voice had Boyle shaking his head, leaving them to it. And had Fin laying his hands on Connor’s shoulders.
“Mo dearthair, do you think I do this out of some sense of obligation?”
“I don’t know why you’re doing it.”
“Ah, for feck’s sake, Connor. The school’s more yours than mine, and ever was. It wouldn’t be but for you, as much as I wanted it. I’m a man of business, am I not?”
“I’ve heard tell.”
“And this is business. It’s also the hawks, which are as near and dear to me as you.” He lifted his arm, gloveless. In moments Merlin, his hawk, landed like a feather on his wrist.
“You care for him when I’m away.”
“Of course.”
Fin angled his head so the hawk rubbed against him. “He’s part of me, as Roibeard is part of you. I trust you to see to him, and Meara to see to him. When this is done, with Cabhan, I can’t stay here, not for a while in any case.”
“Fin—”
“I’ll have to go, for my own sanity. I’ll need to go, and I can’t say, not now, if I’ll come back. I need you to do this favor, Connor.”
Annoyed, Connor gave Fin a hard poke in the chest. “When this is over, you’ll stay. And Branna will be with you, as she once was.”
“Ending Cabhan won’t take away the mark.” Fin lifted his arm again, sent Merlin lifting off, spreading his wings in flight. “She can’t be mine, not truly, while I bear it. Until I can rid myself of it I can’t ask her to be mine. And I can’t live, Connor, I swear to you, knowing she’s hardly more than a stone’s throw away every night and never to be mine. Once I thought I could. Now I know I can’t.”
“I’ll sign your papers if it’s what you want. But I’m telling you now, looking eye to eye, when this is done—and it will be done—you’ll stay. Mark it, Finbar. Mark what I say. I’ll wager you a hundred on it, here and now.”
“Done. Now.” He slung an arm around Connor’s shoulders. “Let’s go have a pint and see if we can talk Boyle into making us something to eat as we didn’t get that far at the pub.”
“I’m for all of that.”
• • •
SHE COULDN’T SLEEP. LONG AFTER THE HOUSE WAS QUIET, Branna wandered through it, checking doors and windows and charms. He was out there, lurking. She felt him like a shadow over a sunbeam. As she walked back upstairs, she trailed a hand over Kathel’s head.
“We should sleep,” she told him. “Both of us. There’s more work to be done tomorrow.”
In the bedroom she built up the fire, for warmth, for the comfort of its light. She could walk through those flames in her mind, she considered, but knew whatever visions came might not bring warmth and comfort.
She’d had enough of the chill for now.
Instead, once Kathel settled, she took out her violin. He watched her as she rosined her bow, thumping his tail as if in time. That alone made her smile as she walked to the windows.
There she could see out, toward the hills, toward the woods, into the sky where the moon floated in and out of clouds, and stars flickered like distant candles.
And he could see in, she thought, see her standing behind the glass, behind the charms. Out of his reach.
And that turned her smile potent.
Look all you want, she thought, for you’ll never have what I am.
She set the violin on her shoulder, closed her eyes a moment while the music rose up in her.
And she played, the notes lifting out of her heart, her spirit, her blood, her passions. Slow, lilting, lovely, power sang through the strings, shimmered its defiance against the glass, against the dark.
Framed in the window, the firelight dancing behind her, she played what both lured and repelled him while her hound watched, while her friends slept, while the moon floated.
In his bed, alone in the dark, Fin heard her song, felt what lifted out of her heart pierce his own.
And ached for her.
6
SHE TOOK THE MORNING FOR DOMESTIC TASKS, TIDYING and polishing her house to what Connor often called her fearful standards. She considered herself a creature of order and sense, and one happiest when her surroundings echoed not only that order, but her own tastes.
She liked knowing things remained where she wanted them, a practical matter to her mind that saved time. To be at her best, she required color and texture and the pretty things that brightened the heart and appealed to the eye.
Pretty things and order required time and effort, and she enjoyed the housewifely duties, the simple and ordinary routine of them. She appreciated the faint scent of orange peel once the furniture was polished with the solution she made for herself and the tang of grapefruit left behind once she’d scrubbed her bath.
Fluffed pillows offered welcome as a soft, pretty throw arranged just so offered comfort and eye appeal.
Once done she refreshed candles, watered plants, filled her
old copper bucket with more peat for the fire.
Meara and Iona had set the kitchen to rights before they’d gone off to the stables, but . . . not quite right enough to suit her.
So while laundry chugged away in the machines, she fussed, making a mental list of what she wanted at the market, a secondary list of potential new products for her shop. Humming while she planned, she finished the last of the housework with mopping the kitchen floor.
And felt him.
Though her heart jumped she made herself turn slowly to where Fin stood in the doorway that led to her shop.
“A cheerful tune for scrubbing up.”
“I like scrubbing up.”
“A fact that’s always been a mystery to me. As is how you manage to look so fetching doing it. Am I wrong? Did we agree to work this morning?”
“You’re not wrong, just early.” Deliberately she went back to her mopping. “Go put the kettle on in the workshop. I’m nearly done.”
She’d had her morning, Branna reminded herself, her time alone to do as she pleased. Now it was time for duty. She’d work with Fin as it needed to be done. She accepted that, and had come to accept him as part of her circle.
Duty, she thought, couldn’t always be easy. Reaching a goal as vital as the one sought required sacrifice.
She put away her mop and bucket, put the rag she’d tucked in the waistband of her pants in the laundry. After taking just one more minute to gird herself for the next hours, went into her workshop.
He’d boosted the fire, and the warmth was welcome. It wasn’t as odd as it once had been to see him at her workshop stove, making tea.
He’d shed his coat, stood there in black pants and a sweater the color of forest shadows with the dog standing beside him.
“If you’re wanting a biscuit we’d best clear it with herself first,” he told the dog. “I’m not saying you didn’t earn one or a bit of a lie-down by the fire.” He stopped what he was doing, grinned down at the dog. “Afraid of her, am I? Well now, insulting me’s hardly the way to get yourself a biscuit, is it?”
It disconcerted her, as always, that he could read Kathel as easy as she.
And as she had with him in the kitchen, he sensed her, turned.
“He’s hoping for a biscuit.”
“So I gather. It’s early for that as well,” she said with a speaking look to her dog. “But he can have one, of course.”
“I know where they are.” Fin opened a cupboard as she crossed the room. Taking out the tin, he opened it. Before he could offer it, Kathel rose up, set his paws on Fin’s shoulders. He stared into Fin’s eyes for a moment, then gently licked Fin’s cheek.
“Sure you’re welcome,” Fin murmured when the dog lowered again, accepted the biscuit.
“He has a brave heart, and a kind one,” Branna said. “A fondness and a great tolerance for children. But he loves, truly loves a select few. You’re one of them.”
“He’d die for you, and knows I would as well.”
The truth of it shook her. “That being the case we’d best get to work so none of us dies.”
She got out her book.
Fin finished the tea, brought two mugs to the counter where she sat. “If you’re thinking of changing the potion we made to undo him, you’re wrong.”
“He’s not undone, is he?”
“It wasn’t the potion.”
“Then what?”
“If I knew for certain it would be done already. But I know it brought him