The Shadows

by Chance, Megan

  “Glowing,” Derry finished.

  “I remembered something my father had told me, about the old magic . . . We’ve done something amazing . . . It’s real, and it’s as alive as it always was. . . .”

  “You said that wasn’t all of the collection in his study,” Derry went on. “Do you know where he keeps the rest of it?”

  I shook my head, lost in my thoughts. The glowing and the burning stone, Patrick’s words, and now Derry . . . and Oscar . . .

  “Has he shown you anything else? A wand, perhaps? It would look like the stone, with carving, but made of wood. Of rowan.”

  “No. No, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Or a horn. Has he ever shown you a horn?”

  A horn. I stared at him.

  Derry sat back. “You’ve seen it.”

  “Patrick’s never shown me a horn. But I used to have one.”

  “You?”

  “An old hunting horn. It had been in my family a long time. But then Aidan lost it in a faro game. I don’t know where it is now.”

  “What did it look like?”

  “Just old. My grandmother told me it was ancient. It was cracked on one side. And it had a hammered silver band.”

  “Silver. But that . . . you’re sure ’twas silver?”

  “Yes. I know it so well I think I could tell it from a dozen others in the dark. I used to lie on my bed and imagine all the places it had been. Why does it matter? Why should Patrick have a horn?”

  “I don’t know that he does.” Derry glanced up; whatever trouble had been in his eyes cleared. “Here comes Oscar with your friend. Don’t say anything to her about this.”

  “Another secret you’re asking me to keep.”

  “Another secret.” He caught my gaze and held it. “Do me a favor, lass. Don’t rush into anything with Devlin. Can you do that for me?”

  “Why should I?” I laughed incredulously. “I’ve just told you how I need to marry. Why should I wait? What has any of this to do with you?”

  He glanced beyond me. Urgent and low, he said, “Use your good sense, Grace. Think about all this—” He broke off with a sudden, charming smile. I looked over my shoulder to see Oscar, with Rose clasping his arm, her round cheeks flushed, her eyes shining. What was it with my friends and these Irish boys? It was as if their sense had been stolen clean away. Though I’m no better, am I?

  “I thought you were going to join us,” Oscar said with his own charming smile.

  “We got distracted.” Derry rose, holding out his hand to me, and I had no real choice but to take it.

  “I think we should go.” I looked at Rose, who was studiously ignoring my pleading glance.

  She smiled up into Oscar’s eyes. “Oh, but we just got here, Grace. No one’s expecting us for hours.”

  Which was hardly an intelligent thing to say when we were with two boys we hardly knew, neither of whom could claim to be a gentleman. I felt Derry watching me; when I looked at him, his eyes glittered, with warning or something else, and I shivered, the things we’d talked about clashing like swords in my head.

  From the harbor came the thunder again.

  I started, and Derry’s fingers tightened on my hand, which he hadn’t released and I hadn’t drawn away. “I need to get back to the stables before they miss me.” He glanced at Rose in apology. “Some other time, maybe.”

  Sighing, Oscar added, “Aye, some other time. ’Twas a pleasure meeting you both.”

  “Just remember what I said,” Derry told me as he let go of my hand. Then that arrogance again, the flirt. “Try not to miss me too much.”

  “It’s hard to miss someone you don’t think about!” I called to his retreating back as he and Oscar walked away.

  He threw me a teasing grin over his shoulder.

  Rose said, “Lucy is going to murder you.”

  “Not if she doesn’t know. And if you say a word, I’ll tell your mother you were meeting some immigrant boy in Battery Park. She’ll never let you out of the house again.”

  “Why, Grace Knox, I never realized you could be so devious.”

  But she didn’t know, of course, just how devious I’d learned to be. Bill collectors and angry doctors. Men bearing promissory notes signed by Aidan. “Are you just hoping to keep it from him until he’s married you?”

  “So what did he want to talk to you about? Did he declare his undying love? Has he thrown over Lucy for you?”

  “Even if he had, I’m in love with Patrick.”

  “Of course you are,” Rose said. “I suppose you’re right. He’s hardly appropriate.”

  “Hardly,” I said. I turned back again, searching the crowd for glossy dark hair and white-blond that turned golden in the light.

  But Derry and Oscar had already disappeared.

  EIGHTEEN

  Diarmid

  She looks a bit like Neasa,” Oscar said as they went back to the stables. “Have you noticed that?”

  “I noticed,” Diarmid said. “She said her people are from Allen.”

  “Allen? How can that be a coincidence? By the gods, she must be the veleda. She must be. And that swoon . . . I’ve never seen anything like it. She saw me glowing, too, didn’t she?”

  “Aye.”

  “You have to tell Finn.”

  Diarmid had known that was true the moment she’d put her hand to her head and collapsed before Oscar. He didn’t think he’d be able to get the sound of her keening from his head. Or her helplessness, the way she’d gripped his arms, that made him feel he would do anything to protect her.

  Run away, he’d told her.

  He was a fool.

  “Cannel can divine the truth of it,” Oscar said with assurance. “And if she is the veleda, Finn will never forget ’twas you who found her.”

  “There’s something at least.”

  “’Twould be good to see the two of you on solid footing again,” Oscar said, slowing, looking at him with a concern that told Diarmid exactly how much his rift with Finn had wounded the Fianna. And that made him feel even guiltier, that he was hesitating. It was about all of them. The prophecy.

  They were nearly at the Devlin stables. Diarmid said, “I’ll tell Finn tonight.”

  Oscar nodded. “I’ll say nothing until you do. Maybe it won’t be so hard as you think, Derry. Maybe the lass knows more than you believe.”

  “Maybe.” Diarmid thought of the confusion in those dark, dancing eyes.

  “Even if she doesn’t, you’ve a smooth tongue. You can convince a lass to do anything, even without the lovespot.”

  Diarmid snorted. “Smooth tongue or no, this one won’t stay still enough to listen. You saw her today. She could hardly wait to be rid of me.”

  Oscar considered him thoughtfully. “I’ve never known you to be wrong about a girl’s heart. What is it about this one that blinds you?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “’Tis obvious she wants you.”

  Diarmid stared at Oscar, dumbfounded. “Which was it that addled you so, the heat or the little redhead?”

  “And I’m thinking you want her too,” Oscar went on, ignoring him. “So show her the ball seirce and be done with it. Then you’ll both have what you want.”

  “And what if she is the veleda?” Diarmid asked. “What if I have to kill her?”

  “Well, at least she won’t die a virgin.”

  Diarmid hit him. Hard, in the stomach, hard enough that Oscar doubled over. “What was that for?” he gasped.

  “For being an ass. No wonder Etain took a club to you all those years ago.”

  “She had a vicious temper.” Oscar moaned.

  “You can hardly blame her, given that she was wedded to you. This is a different world, Oscar. We can’t just take what we want the way we used to. Here we’re no better than . . . than stableboys. You’d best remember it.” Diarmid walked to the stables, leaving a silent Oscar behind him.

  When he went inside, Jerry muttered, “About time. You
owe me a bottle for this one.”

  Work felt good, sweat and effort, as good as it had felt to hit Oscar, though Diarmid regretted it now. He didn’t believe what his friend had said. Whether or not he wanted Grace Knox—and he did, he might as well admit it, even though he knew how foolish it was—he didn’t think she felt the same.

  Though a few times he’d thought perhaps she was growing to like him just a little bit. In her bedroom, for example, when she’d looked up at him with those eyes shining in the dark and told him the things she wanted. “Can you change the world?”

  Or today when he’d seen her consider running away and he’d nearly fallen over himself to help her. The way she laughed—such a familiar sound, which was strange, as he would have sworn he’d never heard her laugh before. She rarely even smiled at him.

  And then there was the fact that she’d come to meet him in the first place. He hadn’t been at all sure that she would, though he’d hoped what he’d asked Leonard to write for him would raise her curiosity.

  “Can you change the world?”

  He forked hay into the feeding troughs. He refused to think of Grace Knox for the rest of the afternoon. When night came on, he made his way through the moist and heavy air to the tenement—not rushing this time, smiling at the whores he passed, stopping to have a word with a passing newsboy or a man who recognized him.

  “I heard the Black Hands was coming for you boys,” said Tommy Royce, who ran with a gang called the Alley Boys, as he spat tobacco into an already overflowing, fetid gutter.

  “You put much credence in it?” Diarmid asked.

  “Heard it from Little Nose himself.”

  “You boys willing to fight with us?”

  “Aye. Send the word,” said Tommy, slinking again into the darkness, and Diarmid went on his way. He glanced involuntarily at the black sky. The world felt uneasy; he would welcome something to make the feeling go away. A good fight would relax him.

  Finn and Ossian were in what passed for a yard—dust and baking sewage, stinking and miasmic—training a group of neighbor boys by the light of an oil lamp placed on the ground. Finn was saying, “If you can fight in the darkness, lads, you can fight anywhere.”

  “We’re forming our own militia,” Oscar had told Diarmid that morning. “And it keeps those boys out of trouble too. Something to think about besides hunger and no work.” Diarmid liked the idea. These people needed real heroes. For a moment, Diarmid wished, as he often did walking these streets, that the Fianna could be those heroes.

  Conan sat watching from the stoop, his sheepskin around his shoulders despite the heat. The lamplight from a nearby window shone on his bald head.

  “I could smell you a block away,” Diarmid said as he approached.

  Conan glanced up. He had a cup of ale in his hand. He motioned to Finn and the others. “Black Hands are coming for us. ’Twould be good to have you in the fight.”

  “I heard. I’ll be here.”

  Conan belched and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “So what’ve you been up to, Derry? Kissing lasses and squiring them about town while the rest of us live in this wretchedness?” He kicked at the rail.

  Diarmid remembered when they’d been in the Fianna stronghold—living like kings, with fine things and enough food and wine to feed them all four times over, and lasses for all, even Conan—and still Conan had been dissatisfied, a soul that always wanted more. But he was amusing and good to have in a fight, and he’d never failed them, no matter his complaints.

  “I’d rather be here with the rest of you,” Diarmid said, catching Finn’s eye.

  Finn nodded back to him, put up the stick he was parrying with, and said, “That’s it for tonight, lads. Tomorrow we’ll try it again.”

  The boys dispersed in a mass of excited grumbling, and Finn and Ossian came over.

  “You’ve found the rowan wand?” Finn asked.

  “Maybe something better,” Diarmid said, stepping through the open door. He heard them clumping behind him up the stairs. The door to the flat was open.

  When they were all inside, Diarmid said, “I think I may have found the veleda.”

  The room went silent. Finn said, “The veleda?”

  “I think she may be Devlin’s lass. Grace Knox. When she first saw me, she said I was glowing. It hurt her enough that she swooned. And then . . . I took Oscar to see her this afternoon. The same thing. The ogham stick burned her when she touched it. The same way it did Cannel.”

  “You saw this?”

  “She told me. And—” Here was the worst of it, the part he didn’t want to say. “She reminds me of Neasa, Finn. She looks . . . There’s a resemblance. Her people are from Allen.”

  Finn’s gaze went razor-sharp.

  Diarmid forced himself to continue. “And Grace had a horn. Her brother lost it in a bet. I don’t know that it’s the dord fiann. She said it had silver on it. Did yours have silver? I didn’t remember that.”

  Finn shook his head. “Bronze.”

  “Then it isn’t the same one.” This, anyway, was a relief.

  Finn glanced at Cannel. “The cainte can do a divination to tell for certain. But we’ll need something of hers. And I want you to bring her here.”

  Diarmid said, “She won’t come. This part of town—she’s not like the lasses around here. She’s a lady, Finn.”

  “Bring her tomorrow.”

  “I don’t know if I can,” Diarmid said in exasperation. “’Twill be hard enough to convince her—”

  “You’re a soldier of the Fianna. Are you telling me you can’t manage to persuade a lass to go somewhere with you?”

  “Finn—”

  Finn grabbed the back of Diarmid’s neck, pulling him close. “I want her here, Diarmid. Time is passing quickly. Have you forgotten? Samhain grows ever closer. I don’t care how you get her here. Carry her off. Show her the lovespot. Just bring her.”

  Because she resembles Neasa. Diarmid knew that was the reason, and he wished he’d said nothing about it.

  Finn released him. “Cannel can do the divination while she’s here. Then we’ll know what should be done with her.”

  “Done with her?”

  “She has to choose us, Diarmid. Do you not remember the prophecy? No one here’s going to hurt her.”

  Which was true enough. Diarmid wasn’t afraid of that. He was afraid of . . .

  “’Tis you who must kill her.”

  NINETEEN

  Grace

  I spent the day reading the birthday book of poems from Patrick. I hadn’t seen him since he’d come to the house with the police five days ago. Mama was right. I would have to push. I had a vision of myself on my knees, proposing to him, and it was humiliating just to think it. I tried not to remember Derry’s words: “Do me a favor, lass. Don’t rush into anything with Devlin.”

  His talk of the ogham stick and the horn, Oscar glowing . . . And on top of everything else, Derry was still in my dreams. Last night I’d seen him in battle, his hair flying behind him, a spear in one hand and a sword in the other. Then the scene changed, again the pillows, his laughter, that near kiss—Oh, this was bad. Very bad. I wished I’d never laid eyes upon him. I would give anything not to see him again.

  And you don’t have to, I told myself. Leave him to Lucy. Think about Patrick.

  The plans for my debut were progressing, though the cost was one more thing I didn’t want to think about. Mama had gone twice more to give the Needham sisters pianoforte lessons, and each time she came back more drawn than before, as if they were sucking the life from her.

  “I think we’d best go with daisies,” she’d told me just this morning. “They’re less expensive, and just a few bouquets should be enough, don’t you think?”

  She looked so fragile now. I hated to do anything to upset her. I knew she had headaches, too, like mine, though she never admitted it. She was as tense as I was, watching the window all the time, waiting for the doctor’s lawsuit or a messenger from Patrick.r />
  The weather wasn’t helping. It stayed sultry and heavy. I needed a breath of air, no matter that it was fouler outside than in. Without a breeze, the smells of the city had gathered into one great, stinking fog. But it did not smell of desperation, which was a scent I’d grown heartily tired of, and so I stepped out into the tiny backyard bordered by the alley. I’d planted a garden this year, but I had no talent for growing things, and so the flowers and the vegetables had withered and died. I let the door close behind me and sagged against the wall. It would have been nice to have something green to eat. I closed my eyes. There’d been lettuce, I remembered. And carrots, and radishes—

  “Lass, might I have a word with you?”

  I started, opening my eyes to see Derry leaning against the gate, looking about warily.

  I felt a little shiver of something I didn’t want to understand. “All I wanted was some air. Where did you come from? Wait—are you watching me?”

  He smiled, that dimple again. His hair, as always, was flopping into his face. He gestured to the gate. “Can I come in?”

  I came down the stair, away from the house and my mother’s ears. He stepped inside, catching the gate before it could clang shut, making only a soft click.

  “I thought I told you to leave me alone,” I said.

  “That was days ago. You said nothing of it yesterday.”

  “I’d hoped I wouldn’t have to.”

  “I don’t remember things well.” He tapped his head, still smiling. “Best to keep reminding me.”

  “Then I’m reminding you now. Leave me alone. Why are you here?”

  The smile faded. “I’m afraid I need another favor.”

  “Another favor? Why is it you’re always coming to me? Why not ask Lucy? She’s the one in love with you. She’ll do anything you say.”

  “She’s busy. Tea parties and such. And you seem at your leisure.”

  “I’m not. In fact, I’m quite busy planning my debut.”

  “Aye. What is that exactly?”

  “A party that announces that I’m old enough to be married. So you see, I’ve a great many things to do. If you don’t mind—” I turned to leave. He caught my wrist, drawing me back. So warm. My pulse leaped.