A Gilded Cage (Chronicles of an Urban Druid Book 1)

by Auburn Tempest

  His long strides and brisk pace leave me falling behind.

  I need a minute to take it in. It’s massive and beautiful and holds so much energy my blood fizzles in my veins. The main part of the church has no roof or windows, but the stone skeleton fires my imagination to life.

  We walk around the ancient sandstone bones of what looks like a Romanesque or Gothic section to the south transept. It’s the only part of the historic site that seems to be in current use. It houses a small parish church.

  “We’ll only be a minute.” He lifts his chin in greeting to a woman as we walk right past her. Once clear of the reception, we walk to the end of a private hall and stop in front of a solid stone wall. Sloan places his palms flat on the surface. He must be accessing his powers because mine ignite in response. A doorway appears, and we descend a set of circular stairs.

  The basement of the church is dimly lit and smells of musty stone. “It feels more like a wine cellar down here than any church basement I’ve ever been in.”

  Sloan chuffs and swings a tapestry rod to sweep the woven fabric in an arc away from a stone wall. “I’m not surprised ye’d think so.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “It means yer from Canada, eh? It’s a country founded in the late eighteen hundreds. Yer land has no depth of history. Yer culture practices no long-standing traditions. And yer people have no understanding of the power of what came before.”

  “Hello, judgy much? I’ll have you know that Canada prides itself on being a great melting pot. We haven’t got one practice of tradition. We have dozens—Greek, Italian, Irish, Chinese, Japanese, Portuguese—everyone is welcome to live freely and recognize their beliefs. Immigrants can speak their language, believe in their gods, and do it without judgy assholes looking down on them for not having been there for a thousand years.”

  He shrugs. “Is yer basement dry, bright, and comfy?”

  “It is. What’s wrong with that?”

  “Where’s the character in that? Where’s the meaning behind things?”

  “Where’s your head? Wait, there it is—stuck up your Irish ass. Do you honestly think you’re better than me because you have mold in your basement?”

  “I do.”

  “You’re an idiot.”

  He shrugs and starts drawing sigils on the stone wall with his finger. As his touch passes over the stone, a golden trail of light illuminates. The power he emits makes the hair on my arms stand on end.

  “You don’t need to say words?”

  “I don’t. Reciting spells is first and second level stuff—before the magic has sunk deep into yer bones.” When the first symbols are connected tail to tip, they burst into a brilliant glow. Sloan moves his focus to the right and starts again.

  “Call me a judgy asshole if ye like but time and history enrich druid connections and bring true power. Yer already at a disadvantage because yer da neglected to educate ye. If ye expect to be able to do anything beyond parlor tricks, ye need to stay here and learn from Lugh.”

  The “while he’s still alive” goes unspoken.

  It guts me to think of leaving when Granda only has a couple of weeks left. And after he’s gone, Gran will need support. I went through it with Da when Ma died. I know how desperately she’ll need support after losing her husband.

  “I suppose I can give him a couple of weeks.”

  The second sigils connect and burst into a glow. “Give yer head a shake. Lugh’s a Master Shrine-Keeper. The wisdom he has to impart will take decades to learn. I’ve seen his teaching goals. He sees amazing things in yer future.”

  My da’s words come back to haunt me. “Because I know the man, Fiona. The moment he gets his claws into ye, he’ll size you up for a future ye never wanted.”

  A rush of dizzying heat swells up from my chest to my head. I press a hand against the wall to steady myself, but the wall dissolves as it did upstairs. Stumbling from the loss of support, I’m about to take a header into Ali Baba’s treasure trove when Sloan grabs my wrist.

  “Careful. Don’t touch anything.”

  The panic about Da’s warning is shoved to a back-burner of my mind as I take in the shelves overflowing with gem-studded golden treasures, relics, parchments, glittery stones, and what I can only assume are…potion bottles?

  “Toto, we’re not in Kansas anymore.”

  Sloan scowls at me. “Yer so strange.”

  I blink and raise my hand to our surroundings. “Sorry, I’ve never been inside Gringotts vault before. Sue me for being mind-blown that druids have access to a crypt of golden treasure.”

  “Lugh is a Master Shrine-Keeper. How did ye not realize that involves a shrine to be kept?”

  I never thought about it. I guess that makes sense. “So where did it all come from? Were druids big into pillaging back in the day?”

  Sloan ignores me entirely which is better than us interacting. He searches a shelf against the far wall, takes out a piece of paper, and frowns. “Okay, where are you?”

  “Where is who?”

  “Not who—what?”

  “Okay,” I say, rolling my eyes. “Where is what?”

  He turns the paper around to show me a picture of a rectangular wooden box with a brass, snarling wolf crest on the front. “Yer granda sent us to fetch this.”

  I take a closer look at the box, and start to help with the search. I’m deeply focused on the hunt when suddenly, I don’t want to be here.

  I rub at the tingle spreading over my arms. “This place gives me the creeps. Let’s get gone before I hurl.”

  “Yer nauseous?” Sloan turns to me with the box in his hand. I don’t know what he sees, but by his response, it can’t be good. “Did it come on quick?”

  “Very.”

  “Have ye any other complaints?”

  I swallow and brush a hand over my moist brow, sinking to the stone floor. “Dizzy… Oh, gawd. I’m gonna puke.”

  “No, yer not.” A blur of Sloan pushes the box into my arms. The whirl of him wildly swirling his arms in the air doesn’t help the slosh in my belly. It does, however, reform the stone wall and seals us off from our exit.

  He kneels, looking freaked and takes my wrist.

  “Seriously, Sloan,” I choke. “Back off. You’re in the splash zone.”

  With the steady rhythm of a metronome, he tap-tap-taps at the base of my wrist below my palm. On principle, I want to object to him touching me, helping me, and in essence being anywhere near me, but I can’t.

  I stay slumped over while he repeats the process twice more. “Any better?”

  “Okay, yeah, thanks. You can treat the flu?”

  He glares at the stone of the treasure room wall and frowns. “No, but I can ease yer reaction to a hex.”

  “What? I’ve been mockered? How? Who? What does that mean?”

  He straightens and rushes to the curio cabinet with all the little potion bottles. Grabbing a blue bottle with no label on it and a sprig of dried leaves, he presses them in my hand. “Ye need to ingest two sips of this and four leaves of that.”

  He gets up and starts his symbology designs on the inside of the stone wall.

  “What’s happening?”

  This time when he ignores me, I don’t take it personally. Instead, I uncork the little potion bottle and take a whiff. “Oh, dayam, that smells like a cat’s asshole.”

  “I don’t care how ye know that. Just drink. Two sips if ye want to come out of this whole.”

  I take a page out of his book and flash him the bird. Okay, two sips to rid me of a hex. “I can do this.”

  “Quickly, Cumhaill.”

  Okayokayokay. I pinch my nose, tip back the bottle, and swallow. Once. Twice. Hacking and sputtering, I fight the convulsions of my throat to heave it back up. I press my fingers firmly over my mouth and will the elixir to stay put.

  All right, now the leaves. “Four leaves, you said, right?”

  “Four.”

  Not knowing if it’s four lar
ge leaves or four small ones I need, I split the difference and select four medium leaves. Channeling my internal koala, I wad them together and start chewing. “Okay, that’s nasty.”

  A chalky bite of bitterness makes my tongue numb, but I keep chewing. “See what a good patient I can be?” I gag and have to spit the pulpy mash into my palm.

  The surly one is right, Fiona, the voice says in my head. Ye need to get those leaves down yer gullet.

  I look around the treasure room, and there’s no way an animal companion could be sealed in here with us. So, what’s the voice? Deciding I must be on the express train to Crazytown, I trust my imaginary friend’s advice and get back with the cud-chewing. Yum.

  By the time Sloan finishes playing magical finger-painting with the wall, my head is clear, and I’m sitting up feeling a lot more myself. “Thanks for the save.”

  Sloan nods but still looks pissy. “I wish I knew what happened.”

  “I thought you said I was hexed. If I swallowed that wad of manure for no reason—”

  “Settle yerself. I know what it was. What I don’t know is who cast it on ye, why, and if they’re still out there.”

  They are. Don’t let him lower the wards on the tomb or ye’ll have more than a mocker to deal with.

  “Is there another exit?” I force my gaze to focus on him. “Maybe a back way out of here?”

  Sloan frowns. “I’m a wayfarer, so yeah.”

  It strikes me then, whenever Sloan’s around, the focus is on me and my abilities. What are his? “What does that mean? What discipline is that?”

  “Healing and Spiritual,” he says. “I have a bit of healing but far more spiritual. I sense the powers of others, am strong in memory magic, dream manipulation, and can teleport.”

  “Teleport? Okay, let’s go with that.” I wriggle against the shelf propping me up but can’t ease the itch on my back. “Although I feel better, I’d rather not face another attack and do back-to-back challenges on Fear Factor.”

  “I doubt whoever it was is out there,” Sloan says. “They did what they came here to do. The curse found ye and solidly took hold.”

  “And why did someone puke-hex me?”

  He shrugs. “Stuck in here without knowing who did it, it’s impossible to guess. Lugh might know more.”

  “Then let’s take the escape hatch exit and go ask him.”

  Sloan frowns. “The escape exit will cost us the chance to search the site. We’re best to wait a few minutes and go back the way we came. That way, I can see if there are any clues to what happened.”

  Bad idea. Have him scry the basement. He’ll find three hostiles lying in wait.

  “Before we drop the wards protecting us and the contents of this vault, do you have a way to check that the coast is clear? You know, to be sure there isn’t an ambush.”

  He tilts his head to the side as if considering. “I could scry the area and have a look-see.”

  “Perfect. That’s my vote. Let’s err on the side of caution. My Spidey-senses are tingling.”

  Chapter Ten

  “I’m sorry your truck got left behind, Granda,” I say while sitting at the kitchen table, twenty minutes later. “And I’m sorry for us fighting before I left. I’m frustrated, and I miss my family, but that’s no reason to talk back to you in your house.”

  Granda lets off one of those Irish harrumph noises that can mean anything based on the situation. I think this one says, “It’s okay, Fi. I was a mouthy, stubborn, old coot and shouldn’t have taken a cheap shot at yer da.”

  At least, I hope that’s what it means.

  “What matters is that yer both safe home.” Gran setting a mountain-high plate of stew and biscuits in front of both Sloan and me. “Sloan was right to portal ye straight back, luv. Yer far more important to us than a hape of steel and rubber.”

  By the scowl on Granda’s face, I’m not sure he agrees.

  “My computer bag was in the back seat.” I pull apart my biscuit and reach my knife toward the butter. “Do you think anyone will steal it?”

  Sloan scoffs. “This is Kerry, not Toronto. People here are raised to have a sense of honor.”

  I set down my fork so I’m less tempted to skewer him with it. “And what, people from Toronto are morally corrupt? We’re Canadian’s, for shit’s sake. We’re loved around the world for being kind and polite, you judgy dickwad.”

  “Polite and kind, ye say. Right. How could I miss that?”

  “Well, I was never hexed in Toronto, so there’s that.”

  “Back to the problem at hand.” Granda waves a hand between us. “Tell me again what ye saw when ye scried outside the shrine.”

  I go back to focusing on my dinner, not keen on revisiting the sensation of being hexed. It’s ridiculous. Who hexes people anyway? Apparently, dark faeries who have a thing against Clan Cumhaill.

  Sloan finishes describing the two men he saw.

  “But ye sensed a third?”

  He nods. “I did, but he had a shadow silhouette up so I couldn’t see him.”

  Her, the voice says in my head. The third was a female.

  “Her,” I repeat. “The third was a woman.”

  “How do ye know that, luv?” Gran asks.

  I chew my biscuit. “Something inside me says so.”

  Granda doesn’t look at all pleased. “Shadow blocking isn’t a dark fae gift. A female using it is even rarer.”

  “Sexist much?”

  Sloan meets Granda’s gaze, and the two of them share a silent conversation that I’m left out of. Whatever that’s about, neither of them is happy about it.

  Gran either. “It’s time, Lugh. Ye’ve unwittingly made her a target. She has the right to know all of it.”

  I sit straighter. Finally. “Tell me, what don’t I know?”

  Sloan picks up his plate and his Guinness and stands. “I’ll leave ye to have this conversation in private. I’ll be on the patio if ye need me.”

  My grandparents watch him go, and my stew sinks heavily into the pit of my gut. I wriggle against the back of my chair to scratch my shoulder blades but still feel uncomfortable. “Whatever it is, say it. How bad can it be?”

  Granda laces his fingers on the table before him and straightens at the head. He draws a deep breath and exhales. “All right. Here’s the rub of it. Ye asked me why I’m dying, and what the help is I need to keep that from happening. The whole truth is that I’m dying because of yer father.”

  “What? Bullshit. Da would never—”

  He holds up his hands, and I bite my tongue.

  “Before yer father left, we had quite a row. He said a great many things, and so did I. The result was that I stripped him of his powers and cast him out.”

  “Yeah, he said you disowned him. He also said if you weren’t his father, then we weren’t your grandchildren.”

  Gran stands and busies herself with the dishes.

  Granda purses his lips and frowns. “I was a rigidly stubborn man back then, and my behavior is nothing I’m proud of. What I never anticipated was how that moment of bad behavior would affect my life physically as time passed.”

  “Shunning Da ties to the dying part of things?”

  He nods. “Druids are meant to pass their gifts on to the heirs born with druid ability. It’s a wee spark of energy when a child is born, but it grows. When I took Niall’s powers from him, he was well on his way to becoming a great druid. His powers merged with mine, and as a man thirty years ago, I was able to absorb them.”

  “But not now?”

  “As well as my powers growing with age and experiences, once Niall started having children, his powers divided and expanded, ready to share with you six. Every one of ye has the gift, Fi. In this time of dwindling lineage, it’s a rare and precious gift.”

  I blink, imagining our six sparks of power growing inside him as well as Da’s and his. “It must be getting pretty crowded in there.”

  His smile is sad, and for the first time, I see how tired and n
ear his end he is. “It’s grown to be too much for the frailty of my aging body.”

  “So, you need Da to take his powers back so he can give us ours and you don’t overload?”

  “That was my intention over the past thirty years, but Niall made it clear he has no interest in unburning the bridge.”

  “Did you tell him you’re dying because of it? I know Da better than most. There’s no way he would ever let you suffer for the sake of his pride. He’d sacrifice anything to make things right for a member of his family.”

  Granda nods. “Maybe, but would he give up you kids to come back here and live this life in my stead? I am the Master Shrine-Keeper for the Ancient Order, Fiona. It’s our duty to carry that mantle in perpetuity.”

  My mind stalls out on that.

  I can’t even imagine having to stay here to…

  “You need him to leave us? But he’s our everything. He watches over the boys on the job, and keeps the neighborhood on track, and is the one people come to when they’re in a jam. He’s more than our Da. He’s the pillar holding up a large part of our community.”

  “And it does our hearts good to hear it,” he says, genuinely pleased. “That’s why I thought maybe I should approach one of his children instead.”

  Da’s warning comes back full force. He does have designs on my future. “You want me to stay here forever?”

  “It would be a sacrifice at first.” Gran reaches across the table to hold my hand. “But if ye took the burden of yer da’s power and that meant for yer brothers, Lugh could live years more. He could teach ye what ye need to know and I would help ye after he’s gone.”

  My gaze skitters toward the door, then toward my bedroom. The girl in me wants to run and hide, but the fighter in me knows they didn’t ask me this lightly.

  Granda will die within weeks if I don’t agree.

  The druid energy intended for my family is killing him. Whether Granda meant to or not, he sacrificed his health so Da could live his life and become our everything.