The Veil (Fianna Trilogy Book 3)

by Megan Chance

  I was going to die.

  I rushed to the door. I couldn’t find it. I ran my hands up the wall, as far as I could reach and then down to the floor. No door. Not on this wall, nor the next, nor the next. I was trapped. My own gasping breath filled my ears. I felt a kiss on my lips, another at my jaw, a hand tangling in my hair, holding me still, and then I saw the flash of a knife. Searing pain and blood gushing hot. My death. The dream I’d had so long ago.

  I am going to die.

  All the things I would be leaving behind: Mama’s hand on my forehead smoothing my hair from my face. My grandmother’s dark eyes brightening as she told my favorite stories. Aidan holding me tightly, promising never to betray me. Stroking the silver chasing on the dord fiann, Finn’s hunting horn, as I dreamed of faraway lands and battles and white knights. Kissing Patrick.

  Diarmid.

  Diarmid.

  I sank to my knees. The mirror crack’d from side to side . . . “I am half sick of shadows,” said the Lady of Shalott. I remembered telling the story to the fairy Deirdre and her followers in a Brooklyn warehouse. When I’d told them that the Lady of Shalott chose death over living life through a mirror, Deirdre had asked: “Do you think she regretted her choice?”

  “No,” I’d said.

  No.

  I lifted my head from my hands and stared into the darkness. I’d always felt as if I’d been meant for something special, something that belonged just to me. I’d longed for romance and adventure, and now legends had come alive before my eyes. Finn and Ossian, Keenan and Conan and Goll. Oscar’s white-blond hair shining in the sun in Battery Park, his teasing smile. Miogach’s sympathetic gray eyes and his reassurances, Lot’s startling beauty, and Daire Donn laughing over something Patrick had said, and then the way Patrick had turned to me with love in his eyes, the kind of love I’d never thought to see.

  I remembered lying in Diarmid’s arms and telling him I could never regret what had happened between us, because loving him was part of me.

  “There’s only going forward.”

  These things would never have been mine without the prophecy that meant my death now. Not the Fianna nor the Fomori, not adventure and romance. Not love.

  If I could go back, would I choose to give them up? How could I? How could I regret the very thing that had given me what I’d most desired? A song was made of many notes—without the melancholy, there would be nothing to measure the sweetness.

  What is blacker than a raven?

  Death.

  What is whiter than snow?

  Truth.

  What is sharper than the sword?

  Understanding.

  My fear disappeared, and in its place came a beautiful, peaceful calm, an acceptance that dried my tears. I was going to die, and it would be all right. It would be as it should be.

  I settled into the darkness, which was clear and bright as the moonlight that had once called me to follow it.

  Time and space fell away.

  September 30

  Patrick

  The sea is the knife. Great stones crack and split. Storms will tell and the world is changed. The rivers guard treasures with no worth. To harm and to protect become as one, and all things will only be known in pieces.

  The words whispered in Patrick’s ear during the day; at night, he heard them murmured through the smoke of oracle fires. Familiar and not. Obscure and yet somehow . . . not. He thought of them whenever he looked at the bronze bowl on his dresser. The bowl was connected to the words. He knew it, though not why or how.

  It was only one of many mysteries. It had been two months since Grace had disappeared, and there was still no sign of her. They all felt the strain of passing time. Now Patrick stood in the basement of the clubhouse, staring at four insolent sidhe. Three boys and a girl, all strikingly beautiful.

  Miogach was saying, “’Tis only information we seek, nothing more. You have never before cared for the troubles of mortals, why do you insist on taking a side now?”

  “We’ve taken no side,” said one of the boys. “We know nothing.”

  “You know nothing of any archdruid?”

  They were silent.

  “We know there’s one in the city.”

  “Then follow your own clues,” said another boy. “Why torment us?”

  “Have you felt a veleda?” interjected Patrick.

  The girl frowned. “We have. But no longer. She is gone.”

  Patrick struggled to hide his fear. “Where’s Battle Annie?”

  “She has never been our concern,” said one of the boys. “We don’t serve the river queen.”

  Miogach let out his breath in frustration. “By the gods, I’d like to cut your throats.”

  “We feel Druids all over the city,” said the girl. “Some with more power than others. You have one here now. Let us speak with him. We’ll tell him what we know.”

  She spoke of Simon MacRonan, Patrick knew, who was upstairs. But it was too dangerous to let the sidhe near any Druid.

  “They know nothing, ’tis clear,” said Miogach wearily.

  Patrick agreed. “Let them go.”

  Then he went home. He felt useless. There must be some news of Grace. If only he could think a little harder, be a little smarter . . . It was up to him to find her—he was the only one who could.

  Patrick wasn’t certain why he believed that. But he knew, absolutely, that it was true.

  That evening

  He stared out the French doors into the twilight garden while his mother and Lucy and Mrs. Knox discussed wedding decorations. The roses were nearly gone now. He remembered Grace standing among them the first time he’d kissed her; and so when Mrs. Knox said, “Lot and I thought lilies,” he said, “Roses. Please. Not red ones. Yellow and pink.”

  They stared at him. He’d been silent for so long, he supposed they’d forgotten he was in the room.

  Lucy asked, “Has there been any word?”

  He shook his head.

  “Why haven’t they arrested that gang boy?” Mama complained. “He must know something of her whereabouts. Why, he’s the one who kidnapped her!”

  Patrick heard what she didn’t say—his mother believed Grace had run away and become a gang girl.

  Mrs. Knox said, “Lot believes we will find her safe and well.”

  “They should arrest Derry,” Lucy said angrily. “Why, I wish they’d hang him!”

  “Have they searched the rivers?” Mama asked.

  Mrs. Knox’s hand went to her throat.

  Patrick glared at his mother. “There’s no reason to search the rivers. Grace isn’t dead.”

  Lucy put in, “Everyone believes Derry’s hiding her somewhere. Just yesterday, Liza McGowan said she wouldn’t be surprised if they found Grace already with child in some tenement—”

  “Lucy, please!” Mama said in horror.

  “I’m just telling you what I’ve heard. I’m sorry, Mrs. Knox, but you know how people gossip.”

  Mrs. Knox said firmly, “Grace would never do such a thing. She would never throw away her future.”

  Unless she was under the spell of the ball seirce. But Patrick said only, “No, she wouldn’t. And Lucy, you shouldn’t be passing along such talk.”

  “Why don’t they arrest him?” his mother asked. “What’s wrong with the police in this city that they can’t find a gang boy who’s done such a terrible thing! There are posters everywhere! You can’t tell me no one’s seen him!”

  Patrick said, “He belongs to a gang the immigrants think are heroes. They protect Finn’s Warriors.”

  “They should rip Derry’s heart out instead,” Lucy said.

  “My dear!”

  “I’m sorry, Mama, but I can’t help it. I hate him.”

  Which was better than grieving him. Lucy and their mother kept arguing. Mrs. Knox rose restlessly. She came up beside Patrick, staring at him as if she were seeing him for the first time. Her eyes looked odd—blue darkening to indigo—and distant.

/>   Patrick frowned as she grabbed his arm. “Mrs. Knox?”

  She clutched him, nails digging through his sleeve, and whispered, “Eubages, brithem, vater.”

  “What? What did you say?” Patrick asked.

  She blinked at him. “Why aren’t you with her?” she asked in confusion. “You should not have abandoned her.” Then her eyes rolled back in her head. “Éicse.”

  He caught her just before she hit the floor.

  The second week (sidhe time)

  Grace

  Chest!” Sarnat shouted.

  I shoved my elbow into the boy’s chest. He gasped.

  Sarnat ordered, “Foot!”

  I stomped on his instep.

  “Nose!”

  I spun, shoving my hand into his nose. The boy yelped and went down, disappearing, the glamour evaporating like smoke.

  I turned to Sarnat. “Well?”

  “At least you’re no longer helpless.” It was the most praise I was likely to get from her. She’d been teaching me defensive moves in the afternoons, when Iobhar was busy with the shop. Today was the first time I’d managed to bring my opponent to his knees.

  Roddy appeared in the doorway. “Iobhar’s ready for you now.”

  Sarnat said, “You’d do better to train with me than with that mountebank.”

  “He’s no mountebank.”

  “He’s no archdruid either. Just a boastful fairy. I don’t sense Druid power anywhere in him.”

  “But I do,” I said, hearing the archdruid’s song mingling with Iobhar’s bells. “He says you can’t sense it because he’s sidhe too.”

  “Or perhaps he’s teaching you nonsense. How would you know?”

  I didn’t try to explain how I knew I was supposed to be here, that this was what I was meant for.

  Iobhar was behind the counter, opening drawers, searching, muttering as he slammed one shut and then another.

  “What are you looking for?” I asked.

  “A Druid egg. ’Tis doubtful you would recognize one, but—”

  “I know what they look like. Patrick had some. Crystals the size of an apple.”

  Iobhar nodded. “Aye. Go see if ’tis in the study.”

  I sighed and gestured for Sarnat to come with me. “If I’m not back in a year, send someone for my body. Though you might not find me in that mess.”

  Iobhar said, “Leave your warrior here, even though every moment in her company tempts me to turn her into a cat.”

  She glared at him. “Searching for a Druid egg would be more interesting than listening to your riddles. Milady, you’re not his servant. Let him find his stupid egg himself.”

  “I need it for the next lesson,” Iobhar said.

  I resigned myself to a pointless search and went through the narrow, dark corridor to the stairs. I’d grown used to the way the shop seemed to expand or contract depending upon the task Iobhar set for me, but the chaotic mess of it never changed.

  Iobhar’s study was on the second floor. Inside were globes and amulets, maps and books, skeletons of tiny, fragile birds and lizards, skulls of sheep and cows and horses and two human ones as well. His raven-feathered capelet, tossed over a chair, ruffled as I came in, releasing his strange Druid-sidhe scent, and I shuddered.

  I began my search for the Druid egg. It was unlike Iobhar to send me looking for such a thing. As he said often, “I can make a world just by thinking it.” Why not just create a new crystal? This one must be very important.

  I heard a low growl behind me. “It’s all right, Cuan,” I said without turning around. “He knows I’m here.”

  The growl again. I looked over my shoulder. There was no Cuan. Nothing at all.

  The growl was louder, threatening, in front of me. I jerked around. No dog. I heard it again, more than one dog now, filling my ears and echoing in the beams. A cloudy presence whirled and pulsed in the corner, spinning faster and faster, and then it coalesced into red, glowing eyes and teeth sharp as razors, dripping saliva. Long snouts and bristling fur.

  The hounds of Slieve Lougher.

  In terror, I spun and ran from the study. They were right behind, snapping at my heels, howling and snarling. I raced for the stairs, but the stairs had disappeared; there was only darkness before me, and the hounds of hell were nearly on me. There was nowhere else to run. I plunged into the darkness.

  Into a cave.

  I stumbled, gasping hard. The hounds hadn’t followed. The cave was soundless, but . . . a cave? It must be a glamour, an illusion, just as the hounds had obviously been. If I turned around, the hall would be behind me. Just turn around. But when I tried, there was only stone. I knew it wasn’t real, but still I felt myself panic. Don’t. You’ll fail the test.

  Before me, the cave opened, a low arch leading into a tunnel. I ducked through and followed it down and down and down, slipping on loose pebbles. From below came the roar of the sea, waves upon a rocky shore. The tunnel was short; in only a few yards, it opened into another, smaller cave, walls hewn by water, cupped and smooth. And then the walls shivered, the sandstone shifting, dissolving into rivers of sand that flowed to the floor and then gathered and shuddered, transforming into figures, into boys. Gang boys, one after another, their eyes glowing. They looked at me with a hunger I recognized, and I turned to run, but the tunnel had closed behind me. There was no going back. Only forward. Philosophy made real. The irony was not amusing.

  “Hey, little girl.” A singsong chant. Started by one, and then others joined in. Hey, little girl, hey, little girl. They drew around me as they had on the East River dock only a few nights before. My mouth went dry. Sarnat had trained me well, but I was no warrior. I might escape one or two, but twenty?

  There was a light, another pathway opening beyond them. Escape. But to get there, I had to go through them.

  I took a deep breath and launched myself into them, stabbing my fingers into the eyes of one, my elbow into the throat of another, kicking the groin of a third. I told myself they were only an illusion, but they felt as real as Sarnat’s glamoured boys, grabbing at my hair, my arms, my clothes; scratching, biting, and twisting. I pummeled my way through, my skirts tangling about my legs and my corset biting into my ribs. They gave chase as I broke away and scrambled down another narrow tunnel, so low in some places, I was doubled over.

  The walls shifted again, the tunnel making an abrupt turn, and unexpectedly, standing before me was Bridget, the woman who’d harbored me and Diarmid in Brooklyn. Her older daughter, Molly, lay still on the ground beside her. Her younger, Sara, wept.

  I skidded to a stop, and as I did, the visions of the boys faded, and men—soldiers—took their place, lifting rifles with bayonets, running over grassy fields toward other soldiers in British uniforms, toward the Hill of Tara. Ireland. Irish men convulsed on the ground, groaning. The dead stared blindly at the sky. Others were bloated from hunger. So much desperation and fear. “We need the old gods,” one of them said beseechingly to me, and I knew he meant the Fomori. “Choose them. They can help us.”

  Another grabbed my ankle, his fingers curling in a death grip. “Help us,” he croaked. “Help us. Help us.” The flesh melted from his hand, a skeletal manacle. Behind me, the shouts of the gang boys came loud and close. I jerked my foot loose, shattering the bones so they rolled chittering across the dirt. I raced on.

  All around me, men and children were fighting and dying. Now the streets of New York City, a ragged militia, boys clutching at me with hot, sweaty fingers. “Help us! Give us heroes!” Their pleas tugged hard at me, but I kept running, into another chamber, thankfully empty and still.

  I slowed. Someone stepped from a shadowed cranny. A giant of a man wearing an eye patch.

  Balor. I didn’t know whether to feel relief or fear. He lifted his eye patch, and a ray of light shot from his eye, a bolt of pure electricity splitting the ground just beside my foot. I jumped away, and he was gone, and there was Lot, blond and beautiful, a gown tied over one shoulder, one breast exposed to
show a horrible mouth with black lips and rows and rows of gnashing, needlelike teeth. I stumbled back, and she held out her arms to me and said, “My darling, don’t be afraid. We need you. We can save them if only you’ll choose us.” In her eyes, I saw rolling, verdant fields and men cheering in victory. I saw the flag of Britain lowered, and the harp and green of Ireland raised.

  And then she disappeared, too, and there stood Finn holding knives dripping blood, and Oscar, his white-blond hair bright in the dim light. A boy with a slit throat lay at his feet.

  “Don’t be afraid,” Finn said. “Believe in us. We can help them, if only you’ll choose us.” And in his eyes, I saw Bridget’s children in clean new clothes, the Dun Rats in a schoolroom, men going to work, pride in their step.

  None of this is real. Finn’s hand was on my arm. Here was my childhood hero, the leader of the men I’d spent a lifetime dreaming of, and yet . . . “Come with us,” he begged. “You know we are your destiny.”

  It took all of my strength to break free, to dash past him and Oscar into yet another dark tunnel. Voices filled the blackness. My best friend, Rose, plaintive and afraid, Where are you, Grace? You should be here with me. Please come back. Lucy Devlin’s anxious pleas, You belong with Patrick, Grace. You know you do. My mother’s voice. My brother’s. My grandmother’s. Grace, come home. Grace, choose us. Choose us, choose us, choose us.

  I tore down the tunnel, racing around a corner, nearly barreling into a man who stepped in front of me.

  Patrick.

  He was haloed, his hair golden and his eyes so green. Only an illusion, but still, everything in me surged toward him. It had been forever since I’d looked into those eyes. He smiled and reached out his hand. “Choose me, Grace.”

  And then another stepped from the shadows. I knew before I turned who it was, and my heart set up this hammering beat. Dark haired. Blue eyed.