“I’ve always hoped that. What does that mean, what you called me?”
“Little sister.”
“I like it. I should learn Irish. Do all of you speak it?”
“Branna, Connor, and Fin.” Finished with her mincing, Meara walked over to rinse her hands. “Boyle and I have enough to get by, wouldn’t you say, Boyle?”
“Enough.”
“Is magick more powerful, do you think, with it? Sorry,” Iona said immediately. “I shouldn’t keep bringing that up and screwing with the mood. And I shouldn’t have put you on the spot like that,” she said to Boyle.
“You just disconcerted him, as he wouldn’t be accustomed to a woman who speaks her mind and feelings right out, without filtering. Connor,” Branna continued, “I need a Guinness for the pot, and I’d say another bottle of wine for the rest of us. And you’re right as well, Iona, to speak of the rest of it. We can’t know if we’ve a day or a year before we’ll face what’s coming, but logic says a day’s the closer to it. And all that said, I’m damned if any one of us will have our ass kicked. So we’ll get this stew on the simmer, have more wine, and we’ll talk of it.”
She turned, face flushed from the steam, eyes glittering with a determination so fierce Iona couldn’t believe it could be defeated.
“Well then, let’s have those vegetables. They won’t cook themselves.”
11
IT STILL MIGHT HAVE BEEN ANY GATHERING OF FRIENDS AND family—all crowded around the kitchen table with glasses of wine, and the dog still sprawled at the hearth.
But Iona recognized it for what it truly was.
A power summit.
“I’d like to say something first,” Branna began, “to Meara and to Boyle. ’Tisn’t your blood mixed into this, and you’ve neither power of your own as weapon or shield.”
“To begin with insulting us doesn’t make a strong first step,” Boyle told her.
“Sure it’s not meant like that, but to acknowledge what it means to the rest of us to know you’re with us. In truth, I don’t know how Connor or myself would have fared without you. You’re the truest friends I’ve ever had, or ever will. I don’t know if, as Fin claims, love has no limits, but I know I’ve yet to reach the limit of mine for either of you. And there, that’s said.”
“We don’t have power, but we’re not helpless. Far from it.” Meara looked to Boyle, got his nod.
“We have our brains, our fists. He’s never shown interest in us, and that’s his mistake.”
“That may be, and we should find a way to use it. But he’s taken a strong interest in Iona.” Connor gestured toward her. “Branna and I agree he’s hoped to do her harm—and worse—and by doing that, take her power, increase his own. It cost him, we think, to set the trap for her a few days ago, then fail.”
“What trap?” Boyle demanded. “Were you hurt?” he grabbed Iona’s arm. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“It isn’t easy to talk about this kind of thing at the stables. And I wasn’t hurt. Branna and Connor saw to that.”
Fin spoke quietly. “What happened? Be specific. Iona, you tend to be just that. Tell the rest of us.”
“It was the day I gave Sarah her first lesson. When I was walking home.”
She told them, specifically, and didn’t gloss over her fear.
As she spoke, Fin rose, strode to the window looking out over the back gardens. On the table, Boyle’s hands balled into fists.
“You’ll not walk to work or home alone from now on.”
Iona gaped at Boyle. “That’s ridiculous. I have to—”
“You’ll not. And that’s the end of it.”
Before Iona could speak again, she caught Meara’s eye, and her friend’s subtle shake of the head.
“Connor can walk with her to the stables.” Branna spoke smoothly. “They go the same way, and you and Fin have only to see their schedules mesh close enough.”
“It’s done,” Boyle said definitely. “And I’ll see her home. It’s done,” he repeated.
“I appreciate the concern. Is someone going to be with me every time I take a step out of the house, or want to go into the village? And you’d better start sleeping with me, too,” she told Boyle. “Because he’s poking around in my dreams. I’m allowed to be afraid, but I’m not allowed to be helpless. And no one else is allowed to think I am.”
“Far from helpless,” Connor soothed. “But precious. And necessary. We need you, so a few precautions, at least for now, will ease our minds.”
“Precious. Necessary.” Fin turned, his face cool. “I agree with that. And yet you didn’t call me when the precious and necessary was threatened.”
“It was quick,” Connor told him. “And in truth I only thought to get to Iona, and to bring Branna as fast as we both could. So you’re right, the fault’s mine there.”
“Could you have done more?” Branna asked Fin.
“We can’t know, can we? But you have to decide, all of you, if I’m to be a part of this, or if you’ll hold me outside.”
Rather than answer, Branna changed angles. “Can you read him? Sense his thoughts?”
“I can’t, no. He’s blocked me out. He knows I’ve chosen my side. Sure he believes I can be turned still, and he’ll pull at me. In dreams, and in waking ones.”
“You don’t block him.”
Fin bit off a curse. “I’ve a life to live, don’t I? Other thoughts in my head. He’s got only the one purpose for his whole existence, and I’ve more than that. And if I block him altogether, if I could, there’s no chance then, is there, none at all that I might learn something that could help us end this. If you don’t believe I want that, to end it, to see even the thought of him destroyed, I’ve nothing left to convince you.”
“I don’t doubt that. I don’t.” Branna rose to go over, stir the soup. “She needs the horse. Iona needs her guide.”
Sheer frustration flicked over Fin’s face. “He’s been hers since the first I saw him. You’ve no place to keep Alastar here, so he’s with Boyle and me. If you don’t trust that, I’ll sign his papers over to her tomorrow.”
“No!” Appalled, Iona pushed to her feet. “That’s not right.”
“Nor is it what I was saying or meaning. It’s you who have to tell her he’s hers. You and Boyle, as you brought him here, and you’re keeping him for her. I only meant that.”
“Even without any magick to it, the horse was hers the minute they set eyes on each other.” Boyle lifted his hands, let them fall. “And Fin’s the right of it. You’ve no place here to keep him as he needs to be. We spoke of it the very night Fin came home again.”
“I’m grateful to you, both.” Branna’s tone softened. “And I’m sorry, truly, if it seemed I wasn’t.”
“I’ve never wanted your gratitude or your apologies,” Fin told her.
“You have them, wanted or not, and can do what you please with them.” Setting the spoon aside, Branna came back to the table.
Iona, like Fin, remained standing.
“Thank you.”
“You’re entirely welcome,” Fin told her.
“And thank you,” she said to Boyle. “Since he’s mine, I’ll pay for his food and lodging. And that’s the end of it,” she said as Boyle opened his mouth in obvious protest. “I haven’t had much that was mine that mattered, but I take care of what belongs to me.”
“Fine then. We’ll work it out.”
“Good. I also know what it’s like to be held outside. There’s no colder place than right outside the warmth. None of you know what that’s like but me, and Fin. All of you have always been a part of something, even the center of it,” she added, looking at Branna. “So you don’t know what it is to feel you’re not wanted or accepted or understood. I think what’s between you and Fin, and what stands between you is personal. But there’s a lot more here to consider. You said I’m part of this, that this is family and it’s mine. So I want to say that Fin’s my family, too.”
On impulse she picked up the wine, and though he’d barely touched his, added a few drops to his glass. “You should come sit down,” she told him.
He murmured something in Irish before he came back, took his seat. And lifted his wine to drink.
“He said his heart and hand are yours,” Branna told her.
“Oh. Back at you, and that’s why we’ll win.”
“You’ve shamed me in my own house.”
“Oh, oh, Branna, I didn’t mean to—”
“And it’s good you did. I earned it, and it seems needed, the same sort of unfiltered thoughts and feelings you gave Boyle. We’re a circle or we’re not, and a circle with chinks in it is easily breached. So a circle we are, from here till it’s done.” She lifted her glass, held it toward Fin. After a moment, he tapped his to it.
“Sláinte.” Connor tapped his own to Fin’s, then his sister’s, then around the table. “Or better yet, may all the gods who ever were bless us, and help us send the bloody bastard to hell.”
“I’m good with that.” A little exhausted from the emotion, Iona sat again. Under the table Boyle took her hand in his. Surprised, she looked at him, met his quiet, steady gaze.
She all but felt something spill into her heart, something full of warmth and light, and hope.
“Well,” Meara said from across the table, “now that we’ve settled all that, what the hell do we do next?”
Plenty of ideas shot around the table with arguments for and against. At some point Meara got up and, obviously at home, put together a plate of crackers and cheese and olives to keep hunger at bay as the stew simmered.
“We’re not ready to confront.” Connor popped an olive as he ticked off reasons against Boyle’s push for a frontal attack. “We don’t have a solid plan, with the contingencies we’d surely need as yet, and more, Iona isn’t as well armed as she needs to be.”
“I’m not going to be responsible for holding anyone back.”
“Then study and practice more,” Branna ordered.
“Nag, nag. Didn’t I stop the rain?”
Brows lifted, Boyle pointed to the window where it lashed in wet whips.
“Temporarily and in a limited location. I’m better with fire.”
“It controls you more than you controlling it,” Branna corrected.
“Harsh, but true. Still, I’m better. And . . .” She focused, managed to levitate the table a few inches, then cautiously set it down again. “Getting air pretty well, and I’ve done the flowers in the workshop, so earth’s coming along. If I could try a couple spells . . .”