He laughed then coughed. Riley watched the waves of his heartbeat increase on the monitor.
He swatted the air like he was brushing away a fly. “Ah. I’m that tired, I am. The heart attack didn’t get me, so now they’re on about killing me with exercise machines. I’m to walk a dreadmill every day.”
“Treadmill, Dad,” her mom corrected.
“I stand by my assessment,” he said and clapped his hands together. “Ooh, look there, they’ve brought me a wee snack of tree bark.”
“It’s a fiber bar to help him move his bowels,” the nurse explained. “When he can do that and his tryptophan levels are on target, we’ll move him down a step.”
She straightened the sheets and took his blood pressure.
“He’ll be out in a few days. Won’t you, Mr. O’Donnell?”
“Sure, lass, and you’re taking such grand care of me, I won’t want to leave.” He smiled and winked at Riley.
Her mom stood. “I’m going to get some coffee. Want anything?”
“No thanks.” Riley caught another wink from her grandpa just as her mom tapped her shoulder on her way out and mouthed, No magic.
So her dad had removed the spell, but her mother didn’t seem to want to talk about it now. She supposed she understood. Her grandpa seemed to be fine, but Riley didn’t want to be the cause of anything that hurt him.
When they were alone, he leaned forward to see if anyone was in the hall and waved Riley over to the bed.
“You’re mother’s upset with me, sure enough, but I’ve got her where I want her. She can’t take me on and me lying at death’s door.” He chuckled. “I’ll just moan a little when I want my way. It works wonders.”
“Grandpa, you behave.” He looked so small in the big bed, and so helpless with all the things hooked up to him, especially the oxygen.
“What is it, lass? Afraid of me with all these? They’re only little lines to tap into my goings on.” He nudged her with his hand. “You’ll have to face worse than this in your life, I’m afraid. Starting with my Gillian. We’ve already had some magic talk. I’m not budging, and she’s not budging. So, there you are.”
“I know. I’m just so sorry I did this to you.” She held up her hand. “I know you don’t think it’s my fault, but I do. I should have told you what I was up to. Then you wouldn’t have been shocked and had a heart attack. Now, mom knows. I don’t know what to do.”
“Listen, darling, this is no one’s fault. Well, maybe mine. I shouldn’t have been eating so many sweet buns and bangers and mash. But I cannot do anything about it now except go forward, move on. And if anyone’s to blame for the shock, it’s me. I brought you here, made you read that blasted journal, and pushed you into the whole mess with your eyes closed. I failed you— my fault.”
“Grandpa, I don’t want to shock you again, but I’ll tell you something if you can handle it.” Riley looked out in the hall.
“Sure enough, lass, lay it on me. Anything you got.”
“Really, you mean anything?”
“Anything.”
“Magical anything that is scary?”
“Darling.” He leveled his gaze at her. “What? I won’t break.”
“I found Sean.”
She instinctively winced, but nothing happened. She continued, “I was pulling him free when you saw me. And I went back for him.” Riley breathed in relief. Nothing went off or beeped, but his heart rate climbed steadily up. “He’s alive.”
“Where is he?”
“At Aileen’s. And he’s still … young.” Riley bit her lip. “From being trapped in the castle walls.”
“He was right there the whole time?” He whistled and leaned back against the bed. A few seconds later a nurse popped her head in. “Sorry, just a whistle.”
“All’s well, then, sir?”
“Yes, ma’am.” He saluted. “You’re an angel. Thank you,” he called after her and stared at Riley.
“What do you think, Grandpa?” she asked.
“I can’t put my mind around it.”
“Well, there’s more.” Riley scrunched up her shoulders. “I’m the maiden he wrote about in his journal. When I went back in time …”
“When you went back in time?” Carter started to whistle and put his hand over his mouth. “Darling, you’ve been traveling through time?”
“Yes, only twice though.”
“Only twice, she says.” Carter smiled. “I knew you would be fine. I told Fergus and Jay that they could help you, but I knew you’d come to it on your own. My fine little lass. Come here.” He held his arms open.
Riley gingerly lowered herself into his embrace. “Wait, what do you mean, Fergus and Jay?”
“They’re guardians. They were coming to dinner last night to help you channel your powers, but my old ticker got in the way.”
“Fergus and Jay? I thought they were drunks and handymen or something.”
“That, too. Multi-talented. Let’s talk about your finding Sean. I’m that proud, I am. Grateful, darling. It’s a relief. You don’t know. Now, what of Sean’s being a boy still? And more importantly, what of Brown?”
“Well, that’s where I need help.” Riley explained. “Dad went to gather the Order, but he hasn’t come back. He said Brown was coming, hot on his trail. I have nothing to defeat him.”
“Sha, don’t think of it. You have everything. You can defeat him, if anyone can. Born to it, you were. You just need a little push in the right direction. There your old gran-da can help.” He held up a hand. “Seems you need your imbibing guardians after all. And all the order.”
21
Something was definitely wrong.
“He never came?” Riley paced the kitchen, directing her question to Fergus and Jay who were busy building a fire in the kitchen hearth.
Fergus and Jay shook their heads in unison. “No.”
Jay put a tentative hand on Riley’s shoulder. “Emma is coming. She’ll know what must be done. Always right, our Emma.”
Riley paced the room. “I don’t even know what I’m up against. Or what I can do.”
Jay tried to comforting, his tone encouraging. “We’ll do all we can. You have us, all of us.”
“He’s right, girlie. All of us.”
Riley turned at the voice. Emma Aubrey walked through the kitchen wall with Riley’s dad behind her.
“Dad! Are you okay?”
He blinked like he was adjusting to the light and smiled. “I’m fine, but it’s you we’re worried for.”
“Dad, stop doing that. I thought I’d lost you again. For good.”
“Oh, darling, I’m so sorry. I wasn’t gone long at all though. What’s wrong?” He leaned into her hug.
“You’ve been gone a day.”
Emma cleared her throat. “That might be my fault. Stone moves slowly, and I forget how fast time is sometimes.”
“Stone?” Riley asked. “Here?”
“Not until just now, no. We had a little tour to take. To reclaim power at the old places. The stone sites and places of the old gods.”
Emma looked at Riley and blinked. “Your power has grown. It flows out in waves.”
“It does?” Riley tried to see her own colors on her hands and failed. “I can’t really see that.”
“It’s easier to see in others what we can’t in ourselves, good or bad. I see you plainly, your power a blending of the color spectrum without becoming blackness.”
“Is that what Brown is?”
Her dad answered, “No, he doesn’t draw on his own power. There’s a force within him for evil, but little of his power lies in himself. He relies on others, a waster of their power, their life force. The emptiness just sucks it to him, temporarily filling the void.” He straightened his shoulders and cleared his throat. “I guess that void just got bigger over time.”
“So, what about his crazy-long life?”
“That I don’t understand, unless he’s living in between time, floating from the past to the pr
esent. That, I’ve heard a little about, but not much. Emma?”
“He’s drawing on someone’s immortality. Someone is feeding him a life force.”
They were all silent then. Riley broke it. “I think I know who. Not specifically, but …”
She struggled to explain, speaking towards Emma. “A Daughter of Fate—“
Emma nodded. “The prophecies of the Daughters of Fate.” She glanced at Riley. “So, that’s it, then? Wait … did you? No, you couldn’t have. I’d know.”
“No, I didn’t.”
“What are you two talking about?”
Emma waved her hand. “It doesn’t matter now. What matters is we prepare. We’ve gathered power, but it won’t be enough alone.” She gave Riley a meaningful look. “We are all we have, and that will have to do.”
“Then let’s begin.” Jay gestured to the hearth. He tossed a log onto the fire at the hearth and poked at the embers. “Do you play much with fire?”
“No.” Riley crossed her arms and stared into the heart of the flames. “I’ve watched it, though. I get a little hypnotized by it sometimes, seeing it dance, leap out and fall back, consuming and feeding and dying as it does.”
Her dad snapped his fingers in front of her. Riley started and looked up at him. He was smiling.
“I guess you’ve thought about it a little, then.”
“A little maybe. You?”
He nodded, looking back into the hearth. “Fire isn’t a forgiving element. But she has her charms. Right, Jay?”
“Indeed, she do.” Jay nodded. The wood he had added smoldered as its outer bark burnt off. Fergus stepped back and let her dad in front of the fire. Her dad spoke like he did when he used to train her.
“Fire is a dangerous element. It’s the hardest to wield but the most rewarding.” He bent into the hearth, and Riley gasped as he dug his hands into the flames and pulled back two glowing embers that sparked hungrily in his cupped palms. “To wield fire is to be fire.”
“How are you doing that?” Riley followed his movements. He rolled the embers to the tips of his fingers and suddenly they burst into tall flames and then went black.
“Touch them.”
Riley stuck a tentative fingernail to the coal in his hand. It broke apart and fell to the floor like black snowflakes.
“To master fire is let yourself be consumed, as you said, but not consumed. I’m not trying to speak in riddles, but it’s hard to explain without letting you try it.”
He gathered another ember and pulled it from the flames.
“Hold out your hand.”
“Umm, I don’t think so.” Riley shied away. Everyone made encouraging noises and Jay whistled.
Her dad smiled, motioning for them to quiet. “Do you trust me?”
“Of course.” Riley swallowed and held her left hand out. The Griffin ring glowed in the flickering light.
“I see you have a talisman.” He blew on the coals and they throbbed orange. “Here, put your hand over it as I hold it first.”
There was no heat at first, just a calculated searching as the fire sparked against her senses. She saw the flames erupt under her hand but felt only a tickling along her veins. Her hair waved in response, rising above her head at the static created.
“Don’t move,” he said. “Think of it as part of you, an extension, like your breath. Remember how I taught you to focus on your breathing? Good. Then, this is almost the same. See these, focus on them. Let them be part of you. Make them breathe, let them only eat what you feed them.”
He transferred the coals to her hand, keeping complete contact with his hand under hers. Riley watched the coals swell and contract with the heart of fire inside them. She imagined them moving for her, reaching out to lick the air.
The flames burst forth in a violent searing, and the coals leapt into the air, suspended. Her dad still held her hand when the coals fell back into the hearth and sputtered toward the chimney. When the flames finally calmed to a reasonable height, he let go of her hand.
Riley felt chill bumps on her arms and smoothed her hair down.
“You were on fire there.” He dusted his hands of the black residue.
“I guess that went okay.”
“No, Riley, you caught fire. Your hair was made of flames.”
Her hair felt the same as it always had, maybe a little more static prone than usual.
“That was pretty cool. Well, I guess that’s the wrong word.” She laughed half-heartedly.
“We’ll keep practicing. Maybe Jay, master of fire, will teach you.” Her dad bowed to Jay. “I leave it to you.”
“Now, fire, she’s a fickle mistress.” Jay grinned. “And she’ll burn you if you don’t handle her right.”
He picked up an ember and dropped it into his palm, but unlike her flaming disaster, he looked the same.
“What is it doing?”
“Existing. With me.”
Emma suddenly hushed the room. “We need to move this. I can feel seekings glancing off our protections. We’ll take the old ways.”
Fergus stood and held out his hand to Emma. “Shall we convene at a more conducive locale? Jay, put Carter’s Guinness down. There’s work to be done.”
“Where are we going?”Riley asked. She needed to get back to Sean.
“It is a great secret, the place of the guardians.” Jay held up a finger to his lips. “Shh, don’t be telling the precise bit of earth we use, now, or it’s no more we’ll be having you over for tea, mind?”
“I wouldn’t . . .”
“’Twas a joke. It’s not so bad as Fergus and Jay can’t help. No problem too small.”
“The smaller the better,” Riley repeated and smiled at Jay’s face. The crinkles at his eyes deepened.
“Exactly. The easier solved, of course.”
Jay lifted off his cap. He pulled a small key out, which looked exactly like her charm.
“Here we be, so there you are.”
Emma took her hand. “Sam, stay here and see to the Order. Get William and young Eric. We’ll do right by your girlie. Let’s go.”
There was no sensation, no falling, no stumble. They simply stepped into the light of a barren room. Everything was white washed and void of any color except the deep green curtains hanging behind the one chair.
“Now we practice.” Emma pushed back the heavy brocade of curtains. The room behind them was stunning. Rich coppers and deep velvety fabrics greeted the eye at every turn.
Two gleaming white cats wove in between her legs and meowed without ceasing until Emma gestured for them to lie down near the fire. Riley sat on the sofa and sank into the luxury of its plush cushions. Fergus poured her a small glass of swirling green liquid.
“Not liquor, but as good,” he said and lifted his glass to hers. “To the life of Riley.”
Jay propped his worn shoes up on the ottoman. The drying mud that was clinging to the creases in his soles crumbled onto the raised paisley pattern and swept itself off into the floor.
Emma raised a glass to her lips and sighed. Fergus took a bonbon from the overflowing bowl on the coffee table and chewed thoughtfully before addressing her.
“We did feel a great pull at that very hour. When you rescued Sean from the stone, you defeated a powerful magic that has lasted these six decades since. And now to test your powers, we come to the crux of the matter. What can you do? Besides set yourself on fire.”
Riley tried to bolster her confidence as she listed her new skills, but a look at the faces as they listened dampened her hopes that she was anywhere near ready to face Brown.
“Well, my dear, we know that you are powerful. Indeed, your power has grown in bounds since I first met you, but,” Emma raised her eyebrows, “and this is a big but . . .”
Jay laughed softly and nudged Fergus as he walked by.
“But,” Emma repeated loudly, “we need to find a way to get you in control of your abilities. To make you hone them naturally, though time runs so fast.”
> “I have a question.” Jay raised his right hand and put his left over his heart. “Can’t we just cloak her from him, like normal?”
“Cloak me?” Riley looked at Emma.
“Yes, cloaking is the reason no one recognizes us as a threat. And you’ve been cloaked. If there’s no threat, no magical residue that can be sensed, the seeker moves on, but, in this case, it isn’t just the magic that draws him to you. It’s personal. And the big magic you’ve worked cannot be cloaked so well. That’s why we left Donahue keep. Here you are free and cloaked with the powers of all the Order and the old gods.”
“Speaking of residue, you have quite the lot of it clinging to you,” Fergus said.
“You do fair glow with it, very nice,” Jay said and turned up his glass.
“Yes, she does.” Emma smiled. “Let’s use that to her advantage.”
“Yes.” Fergus snapped his fingers. “Bait him, as it were.”
“Correct, but first we have to train her as best we can.” Emma pulled off her gloves. “How do you boys feel about a little exercise?”
22
Riley faced Fergus. Beside her Jay was banging a pot against his boots. It took every ounce of her strength to concentrate solely on what Fergus was doing. They circled the coffee table. He had gone through a few exercises like what Eric had done, and now, they were to battle with the elements. Riley tried to memorize the room and keep her eye on Fergus at the same time. She felt cross-eyed and wary.
“She’s ready,” Emma announced from the sofa.
Fergus blew out a long breath that pushed Riley against the wall. She thrashed against the flailing curtains that reached for her and fought the current of air with her hands thrown out in front of her.
“Just breathe, Riley.” Emma’s voice seemed to come from inside Riley’s head.
Riley turned her head away from the onslaught of the gale and took a deep breath. She expelled it a rush, directing it into the force of Fergus’s air. Riley could see his breath looping itself against her, no longer issuing from his mouth but manipulated with his mind.
She made the first puff explode, which rerouted Fergus’ for a brief moment. Then she blew out a long breath. She pictured it snaking into the middle of the looping air and sucking it all in. She watched the snake swell, absorbing Fergus’ breath, and then directed it back at him with all her might.
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