The Shadows

by Chance, Megan

  “I see.” Finn’s expression was grim. “And you didn’t think it important enough to tell me before now?”

  “Do you see a veleda?” Diarmid asked evenly. “Where is she? Even he”—Diarmid pointed to Cannel—“can’t see where she is. I would have mentioned it once we found her. Once she chose.”

  “I should have known this before.”

  “How does it matter if we don’t find her?” Diarmid asked.

  “And if we do?” Finn countered. “Can you look into pretty eyes and wield a knife, Diarmid?”

  It was a fair question. Girls were his weakness. They had always been. “She’s a veleda,” Diarmid said. “She’ll know what has to be done, won’t she? ’Tisn’t as if I’ll be killing an innocent.”

  “Killing an innocent?” Cannel’s voice went high. “You mean to kill her?”

  “Can you do it?” Finn demanded again.

  Diarmid heard the challenge. He met Finn’s gaze. “Aye. I can do it.”

  Cannel rose. “Look, I want no part of this. Not killing. I don’t know what you need with this veleda, but—”

  Finn set his hand on Cannel’s shoulder, pushing him down. “Shall I tell you who we truly are, cainte? You’re a Flannery, aren’t you? Have you heard of the Fianna? Of Ossian and Oscar? Diarmid Ua Duibhne?”

  Cannel’s eyes widened. “Yes, of course I have, but—”

  “We are the Fianna,” Finn declared.

  “The Fianna? The warriors of the High King? But . . . it’s a tale told to children.”

  “Called back from undying sleep, tasked with helping Ireland in her hour of need,” Finn went on. “The prophecy is laid: when we’re called, the veleda must decide whether our fight is worthy. And then she must sacrifice herself to her choice. If she does not choose us, we fail and die.” He paused. “And so we find ourselves in a confusing state. No caller or veleda in sight. We don’t know why we were summoned or why the horn brought us to this place instead of to Ireland. These are things we must discover. And we need your help for it.”

  Cannel looked at each of them. Diarmid felt the truth land on the Seer—settle, stay.

  “Help us find her,” Finn said. “So we can win her power. So we can discover why we’re here and return to Ireland. Once we’re gone, you can go back to your life. We won’t hold you.”

  “You’re the Fianna,” Cannel murmured. “It can’t be true. This isn’t some . . . this is impossible.”

  “Is it?” Finn asked. “What do your cards say?”

  “I don’t need the cards.” Cannel glanced back to Finn. “You’re Finn MacCool. Truly Finn MacCool.”

  “In the flesh. And I’ve made you a promise, Seer. I’ve never yet broken a vow. Help us find the veleda and our task, and we’ll release you.”

  Cannel nodded. Hero worship was in his eyes now, an expression Diarmid had known well once upon a time, and one that he was just beginning to see again since they’d defeated the Whyos and the Butcher Boys. When they passed, little boys turned to their friends and whispered, pallid-faced girls tendered hesitant smiles. Diarmid had to admit that he never grew tired of it—though he tried to remember that pride had been their undoing.

  Cannel fingered the cards. He turned over another. And then he noted, “It says here that we haven’t much time.”

  “What do you mean?” Finn demanded.

  “This card signifies the Otherworld. The door between worlds.”

  “This we know. The sacrifice must take place on Samhain, when the veil between worlds is thinnest,” Finn said. “We have until then to win the veleda’s choice.”

  Cannel nodded. “That’s October thirty-first. It’s already May. Only five months.”

  “And if we don’t find who called us?”

  Cannel looked back at the cards. “Death. Disaster. Chaos. I can’t see you past this. Any of you.”

  “You’re certain of it?”

  “I’m rarely wrong.”

  “That isn’t what you told us when you arrived,” Finn pointed out.

  Cannel flushed. Finn turned to the rest of them. “Well then, it’s quick work, but nothing we can’t handle.”

  “I’m betting a week or less before we find her,” Ossian boasted, tossing his white-blond head. “We’ll be in the hills of Ireland before we know it.”

  The others cheered.

  Only Diarmid was quiet.

  This was a place of marvels. Messages traveled through wire, paper so common—and printed, no less—that it fluttered from every post and wall. Ships ran on steam, and streetcars raced on rails. Houses were piped with light, and black stones burned for hours to heat even the largest rooms. Miracles.

  Though few of those miracles seemed to reach this part of the city. Even the streetlamps seemed dim here, as if the light were afraid to reach out into the darkness. Just now, the moon was full, and its brightness barely sneaked past the tall buildings leaning together to block the sky. Darkness was always the way of it here; the warrens of dead ends and alcoves were always shadowed, where men too drunk to walk—or dead—huddled. Dust rose in clouds and hazed both sun and moonlight. Narrow, unlit hallways and stairs so dark they were impenetrable even at noon, hazardous and slippery with wet and slime and sometimes other things. Piles of garbage in the streets that came to Diarmid’s knees, riddled with rats.

  He missed the green hills of home. More than that, he missed the peace of it. Here, even at night, the streets were full, people camping out on the flimsy landings of fire escapes, trying to flee the stink of the tenement flats and the heat—only late spring, and the rooms were already too hot and suffocating to bear. There were people on the rooftops too: women doing laundry in the cool of the night, children shouting and racing, couples courting, and men and women drinking and talking. From down the street came raucous yelling from some stale-beer dive or a two-cent lodging house.

  Diarmid sat on the stoop, leaning back against the wooden rail. He tilted his head, trying to see the sky, instead seeing people leaning out of their windows.

  “Going out tonight, Derry?”

  “I heard you boys was going after the Black Hands next. I got a wager on ya!”

  “You look lonely, lad. Want some company?”

  The last was from Mrs. Mahoney, who never failed to give him a grin and a wink when he went by. Diarmid called up, “When I do, you’ll be the first to know.”

  She laughed, and he looked down at his legs, covered now with coarse trousers and his boots, which were dirty with dust and manure. They’d traded their grave raiment for modern dress. It had bought enough to clothe all seven of them and to buy food for a time. But now the money was mostly gone. Dry and moldy bread yesterday, purloined from ash cans and garbage piles. A few limp and rat-bit carrots. There would need to be more coin and soon, especially with the challenges they faced: rival gangs wanting to test them, simply surviving. Not to mention the task they’d been brought back for, which they didn’t yet know.

  He heard footsteps behind him, felt the heaviness of a hand on his shoulder, and he looked back to see Oscar, whose hair—the same pale blond as his father’s—shone like a beacon in the night even without any light shining upon it.

  “You didn’t want any ale?”

  Diarmid shook his head. Conan had managed to find a small keg somewhere, and the others were celebrating that they’d found a Seer who’d agreed to help them—not that he’d had much choice.

  Oscar sat beside him, settling his forearms on his knees, letting his hands dangle. “What are you doing out here?”

  “Nothing. Thinking.”

  “I’d give almost anything for a good bed and decent mead. Last night I dreamed of a roast. I was chewing straw when I woke up.”

  “We’ll have those things again,” Diarmid said.

  “Aye.”

  Diarmid wasn’t surprised when Oscar asked quietly, “Was it a geis Manannan put on you? To kill the veleda? Or just a prophecy?”

  Prophecy could change as events changed. Wher
e there was free will, nothing was absolute. But a geis was something altogether different. It was a spell of sorts, a condition, a prohibition. To refuse it meant shame and death.

  “A geis,” Diarmid said.

  “Ah. You didn’t even tell me.”

  Diarmid shrugged. “I never thought any of this would happen, did you? Called back to help Ireland . . . a pretty dream it was, I thought.”

  “I hoped for it,” Oscar said. “But no, I didn’t really think it would happen.”

  “I’ll do what’s required. You know I will.”

  “I don’t doubt you.”

  “Finn does.”

  “Well. Aye.” Oscar chuckled. “Can you blame him? When it comes to you and the lasses—you’ve the softest heart of all of us. But I guess that’s what comes of being fostered by Aengus Og.”

  “I won’t give Finn another reason to doubt my loyalty.”

  Oscar sobered. “It’s been a long time since Grainne, Derry.”

  “He’ll never forget it.”

  “He regretted it. Letting you die. He won’t risk losing you a second time.”

  “I wish I had your faith. But I promise you: if something comes between us this time, it won’t be some lass.”

  Oscar nodded. “Speaking of which, how about the two of us go out and find one or two? The others won’t miss us for a while.”

  Diarmid smiled. “You never learn.”

  “Come on. Don’t tell me you don’t long for a soft breast to lie your head upon. It’s been what . . . two thousand years, give or take?”

  “There are ten saloons at least on this block alone,” Diarmid pointed out. “Take your pick. I’m sure you’ll find a lass or two among them.”

  “I haven’t time for wooing. ’Twould be easier if you were along to flash that lovespot.”

  Diarmid’s hand went to the spot on his forehead, the ball seirce a fairy had bestowed upon him because he’d been the only one of them to recognize her magic. It felt as it always did—a raised scar like a burn. He kept his hair long, falling in his eyes, to cover it. He’d enjoyed it at first—any lass who saw it fell in love with him, and he’d liked having anyone he wanted. And then he began to feel . . . empty. Now it was more a curse than a gift. He’d stopped being able to tell—was it really he those girls had loved, or was it just the spell? Even with Grainne—especially with Grainne. He swept his thick, dark hair forward again to cover the spot.

  “Excess, if you ask me,” Oscar grumbled, as he had a hundred times before. “You’re handsome enough already.”

  “The ball seirce wouldn’t help you anyway. It’s me they’d want, and I don’t want to have to fight you over jealousy.”

  “Ah, but what kind of a friend would you be if you didn’t throw one my way?”

  “I don’t even know if it works in this world.”

  “Why not try it out? What can it hurt?” Oscar asked.

  “We’ve trouble enough without courting more.”

  Oscar sighed. “Aye. I suppose you’re right. But any bed would be a sight better than that pile of straw.”

  “Ask Conan to borrow his sheepskin.”

  “By the gods, I swear I’ll throw that thing from the window before the week is done. If it gets much hotter, the smell of it will make us all sick.”

  Diarmid laughed.

  “That’s better,” Oscar said. “All right then, no lasses. But how about we go on down to the Bowery and see the sights? I’ve a wish to be out and about tonight instead of locked up in that flat with a bunch of sweaty soldiers.”

  The Bowery was a street of theaters and pleasure houses, saloons and dance halls and shops, lined with gaslights of colored glass globes unlike anything Diarmid had ever seen. Gang boys roaming and drinking, girls sashaying, pickpockets and thieves and very rich men with top hats and polished boots and everyone having a good time. Tonight it sounded fun, something to lift his mood, to ease the dread that had settled in his chest and didn’t seem to want to let go.

  He smiled and rose. “To the Bowery it is.”

  FOUR

  Patrick

  The streetlamps cast a soothing yellow glow through the haze of dust as Patrick Devlin walked up Broadway. The chaos and congestion that usually clogged the street during the day had given way to one or two wagons making night deliveries, carriages heading to the opera or the theater or a supper party, men going to their clubs. There were couples walking and tired newsboys and vendors making their way home, but no tramps and vagrants—not in this part of town. Here the rich were still rich. Here there were no empty shop windows and warehouses given over to auction marts selling off the goods of those who had gone bankrupt. When he was in this part of town, Patrick believed all things must still be possible.

  He reached for the bag looped over his shoulder, patting it as he had many times since he’d left the house, reassuring himself that the stone was still there. Tonight would be different from the last time. Tonight they would not fail. He knew it.

  He’d chosen to walk instead of call for the carriage because he didn’t want anyone to know where he was going, not so late. Lucy and his mother were used to his comings and goings. As long as he kept the world right for them, they hardly cared what he did. The thought irritated him. They had never embraced the cause that he and his father lived for. For them, Ireland was far away, a place to come from but never to return to. And perhaps once he’d felt the same way. Before he’d spent three years there and seen such poverty and despair. Though he supposed even that would make no difference to Lucy, who was as self-absorbed as she’d been when he’d left.

  Not like Grace.

  The way she’d said yes when he’d asked her if she wanted to know him. That breathy and yearning sigh. He had dreamed about that voice, about her face, for three years. It was his father’s wish that one day the Devlin and Knox businesses would be combined, but Patrick had never cared about that. She’d always been around, throughout his childhood, a little sister for him and Aidan to tease. But then, one day, only months before he’d left for Ireland, she had come to the house to see Lucy, and he had been . . . struck. Grace had been just fourteen, thoughtful and clever and romantic. He’d realized then that he wanted her in his world.

  But she was too young, and Ireland was waiting. He’d assumed he would forget her. There were too many other things to think about: keeping the business afloat after his father’s death, reassuring their suppliers, tending to his mother and sister. But he’d been unable to stop thinking of Grace. Even when things had settled and he’d got involved in the Irish side of the Fenian Brotherhood and it had taken over everything, thoughts of her haunted him. He saw her in a dark-haired girl on a Dublin street, in a pile of dusty books, in a pretty ribbon dangling from a vendor’s cart. When his mother had written to him of her father’s death, he’d wanted to return home, but it was impossible. And then he’d heard of the Knoxes’ troubles, and Grace’s likely early debut, and he had rushed home as soon as he could. The rebellion he’d helped organize had failed, and he was depressed and angry. He’d wanted someone to care.

  Yes, she’d said.

  Now, finally, it looked as if he might have everything he’d ever dreamed of.

  The brick clubhouse of the Fenian Brotherhood loomed before him. Patrick clutched the bag more tightly and climbed the stairs. Before he reached the door, it was opened by Rory Nolan, a solid and craggy-faced man with graying temples.

  “Patrick,” he said, ushering him inside, closing the door behind them. “The others are already here.”

  Patrick’s pulse raced as he followed Rory past the second-floor offices and club room decorated in greens and golds, to the meeting room on the top floor. There was a table in the center of the room, but all the chairs had been cleared away. A lamp stood on the table. A long, slender piece of wood, carved with what looked like runes, rested on a cloth of green velvet. The men around the table were haloed in the lamplight, the rest of the room shrouded in darkness. All of them were older
than Patrick. Only Jonathan Olwen was close in age. They had been in Ireland together, and had returned together too. Now, as Patrick approached the table, Jonathan shoved a nervous hand through his thinning brown hair. His smile of welcome was strained. Jonathan had argued against what they were doing tonight, but in the end he’d reluctantly agreed.

  Gray-haired Simon MacRonan came forward. His blue eyes glittered as he reached out a hand.

  Patrick offered the bag to Simon, who opened it eagerly, taking out the flat piece of stone called an ogham stick because it was etched with the ancient Druid writing, ogham. Simon looked reverently down at the stone, and then he made a noise like a yelp and dropped it to the table.

  “What is it?” Patrick asked. “What’s wrong?”

  “It burned,” said Simon. Then he smiled. “And that’s good, lad. That means it’s real.”

  “It didn’t burn me.”

  “There’s no Druid blood in your family, as we’ve learned already, much to our dismay.”

  Patrick flushed. He tried not to think of that night three weeks ago, the certainty he’d felt as he’d dripped Lucy’s blood from the little vial onto the horn. It had cost her a pinprick—nothing more, and he’d done it while she’d slept. The blood of the veleda, he’d hoped, as they all had. It was his heritage—his father had often said that the Devlins were descended from the Druids at Allen, the seat of the Fianna. And when the horn had come to Patrick and they’d discovered it was the dord fiann of the prophecy, Patrick had known the spell already—it had been in a story passed down through his family. The dord fiann, the blood of the veleda, the incantation, and then the blowing of the horn three times. They’d done it all in this very room.

  But something had gone wrong. The Fianna had not appeared.

  “Your sister’s no veleda,” Simon had snapped. “Has your family any Druid blood?”

  A lifetime of believing, of knowing he was special, gone in a moment. Patrick couldn’t help hating Simon for it, though he also needed him. They all needed him. Only Simon could read ogham, and he was descended from Druid priests and had the Sight too—another thing that should have been in Patrick’s family and wasn’t. Just looking at Lucy should’ve told Patrick she wasn’t the veleda. She was too vain and silly. He wondered why those stories had been in his family at all.