by Megan Chance
Diarmid.
He smiled; that long dimple in his cheek cut deeply. He held out his hand. “Choose me, Grace.”
I could not move. I could not choose.
Footsteps pounded behind me, gang boys cursing, the hounds of Slieve Lougher growling. All around me were the cries of the Irish and the immigrants.
“I don’t know,” I whispered. “I haven’t learned enough yet. I don’t know—”
Patrick pulled a knife. And then Diarmid. Knives that flashed impossibly in the dark. An eerie chanting reverberated from the stone walls.
Both reached out to me, and I knew whoever touched me would kill me. I had to escape. I had to find the way out of this place. No going back. Only forward.
My instincts screamed to run. But where? Behind me waited everything I was running from. But to go forward . . . to face the grim certainty of death in the smiles before me . . .
We all have to wager. Faith or fear?
I felt paralyzed with indecision. I was failing. I’d learned more than this. I knew what I had to do. I just needed to have faith that I could do it.
I closed my eyes, listening until I heard the music of the world beyond, the true world. I let it fill me and surround me. When I opened my eyes again, Diarmid melted into the air like a shimmer on water, and then Patrick did the same. Footsteps behind me silenced; the growls turned to whines and then nothing. The cave walls drew back as if some giant were dragging them apart, and I was staring at a field, and great, vast pyramids of laced branches, three-sided and three-cornered, with seven windows in each. They were on fire, burning fiercely, flames snapping to the sky. The celebration of Samhain in an ancient world. The smoke filled my nose and stung my eyes.
The fires went out, one after another, leaving only darkness and mist undulating like a veil in a breeze. The veil between worlds. The air shuddered as the veil rippled and thinned. A faint silvery glow broke from the earth, and spirits of the dead rose like wisps of fog; and the world felt complete and connected, all part of the same song, just as Diarmid had once told me. The past and the present and the future all tangled together. The way the world really was, if only we could see it. The beginning was the end, and the end was the beginning. I felt power radiating from my fingertips. This is where I belong. This is who I am. I want to know this. I want to know more.
The song went silent, and then the darkness lifted to reveal the hall outside the study, the stairs.
I negotiated the jumbled path down to Iobhar.
I said, “The egg is in your hand,” and he smiled and opened his palm to reveal the crystal globe.
“You sent her to look for it and you had it the whole time?” Sarnat asked in irritation.
“The end is the beginning, and the beginning is the end,” I said.
Roddy smiled. He clapped his hands, slow and loud. Clap clap clap.
Iobhar’s amber gaze came to me. “We’ll start learning the spells tomorrow.”
The next day (sidhe time)
The spells were sacred. They were not written anywhere, but memorized and passed down through generations. Every word had to be intoned perfectly.
Iobhar cleared a place in the study and set a porcelain basin decorated with rosebuds on the floor. It filled with steaming water on its own.
“You must bathe in that without letting a single drop hit the floor. And you must do it neither naked nor clothed.”
Impossible tasks. Again. I was beginning to think I was an idiot for expecting them to get easier. “How am I to do that?”
“’Tis not my task, but yours, veleda.” He leaned against the wall and crossed his arms.
“You mean to just stand there and watch?” I asked.
“How else am I to judge if you’ve done it well?”
Not a drop on the floor. Neither naked nor clothed. Another riddle.
I glanced around, looking for a clue. Books and bones, globes and maps, Iobhar’s raven capelet.
The feathers fluttered as if they sensed my intention. I took the capelet from the chair. Iobhar said nothing. I unhooked it, spreading it flat on the floor. The feathers shrugged in protest. I took off my boots and my stockings, and stood barefoot on the feathers, which were stiff and slick.
“Might I have a cloth?”
It materialized in Iobhar’s hand before I’d finished saying the words. He tossed it to me, and I caught it easily. Then I stared down at the steaming basin. Neither naked nor clothed.
I heard Diarmid’s words from when we were searching for the sidhe: “They like dawn and twilight—the change of worlds.” Neither day nor night, but both. “The river’s a good start. The edge of things.” Neither the shore nor the water, but both.
I unbuttoned my bodice and struggled out of my gown. I felt my cheeks grow hot as I took off the corset. Turning my back to Iobhar, I lowered one sleeve of my chemise, baring one shoulder, one breast. I felt Iobhar’s unblinking watchfulness and knew my face was bright red with embarrassment, but I made myself concentrate. Carefully, I used the cloth to bathe one side naked, and then I wet my chemise until it was soaked to my skin, bathing my other side through it. Water dripped down my skirt, over my bare feet, pooling on the raven feathers, which fluffed and held the water close, not allowing it to touch the floor.
It took forever, but I washed one side naked, and the other clothed. When I was done, I set the cloth back into the basin and pulled up my chemise to cover myself again. Not that it mattered particularly—it was soaking wet and transparent. I turned to face Iobhar.
“Well?”
His expression gave nothing away. “Good enough.”
In disappointment, I said, “Only good enough?”
“If ’tis compliments you’re working for, you’ve failed already.”
I went hot again, this time with humiliation. I had wanted to impress him.
“The gestures are as important to the spell as the song of it. Without them, the incantation will not work. This is a spell for the eubages, the Seer aspect of the veleda.”
His movements were very deliberate. A hand posed just so, ending with a chop that passed into a kind of swerve, a dash across the hips. “Move as the sun rises and sets for good intentions”—he paced out a circle—“and the other direction for satire and curses.”
I memorized everything. Every movement, from the slightest lift of a brow to the exact angle of a wave. Every Gaelic word he spoke—each one lilted or emphasized or whispered. In finishing school, I hadn’t the talent for watercolors. French conjugations baffled me. I was an uncertain dancer. But these spells were like reading poetry, with its rhythms and deeper meanings. I had a talent for them, and I liked it. I wanted to keep learning forever.
“Good,” Iobhar said, after I’d performed the spell to his satisfaction three times. “Go to your room and dream. And when you wake, tell me what comes to you.”
I did as he asked. And what dreams came?
None.
I woke disoriented and confused. Not a single dream. Only deep sleep. But perhaps that was the point. I didn’t yet trust myself to know. I went to tell Iobhar, and any hope I’d had faded when he frowned.
“No dream? But that’s impossible. Think hard, veleda. Perhaps you don’t remember.”
“I only slept.”
Iobhar’s frown grew. “Then ’twas something done wrong. Show me the spell again.”
I tried, but the spell had so completely left me, it was as if sleep had wiped the slate clean. Impatiently, Iobhar said, “Come now, veleda. We’ve little time. Show me the spell.”
“I’m trying.”
“Start again.”
“I was so good at it, and now I can’t remember it at all!”
“’Tis a spell that belongs to the eubages, which is in you. Reach deep for it. Again.”
It was useless. Finally, Iobhar said, “We’ll try again tonight.”
So that evening I relearned it. Just as before, I knew it inside and out. Iobhar said with satisfaction, “You’ll
dream tonight.”
But I didn’t. And in the morning, I could no longer remember any part of the spell.
Iobhar said, “You’re not trying hard enough.”
My head ached with effort. “I am trying. Do you think I enjoy this? Are you certain it’s the right spell?”
“Do you doubt me?” Iobhar asked softly.
Roddy said, “He’s done it right, lass. Or at least it seems that way to me.”
“But you wouldn’t know, would you?” I challenged. “You can’t remember what the right way is.”
“I told you he was nothing,” Sarnat said. “Why you should trust one such as him, I don’t know.”
Iobhar raised his hand, and Sarnat’s future as a stuffed cat flashed before my eyes. Hastily I said, “Iobhar, no. Please. I’m sorry. I’m certain you’ve taught me well. I thought I had it right, but perhaps . . . I’ll try it again. Show it to me again.”
“I think we’ll try something different.” He led me into a room filled with birdcages of all kinds and framed mirrors stacked one against the other. He angled one of the mirrors so I could see myself, full-length, within it.
He handed me a hawthorn branch and took me through the steps of another spell, this one designed to divine in mirrors. When I’d learned it perfectly, I stared into the depths of the glass, waiting for the visions.
Instead, all I saw was myself, my dark eyes wide and worried, my hair unkempt and hanging loosely over my shoulders, the violet stripes of my gown looking black in the light.
“Do it again,” Iobhar ordered. “And this time, listen for the music.”
That was something I could do. I performed the spell again. I listened for its music, searching for it beyond the songs of Iobhar and Roddy and Sarnat. I sent my mind deeper, winding it into the words I chanted.
And I heard the discord. An off note. Two. My inflection hadn’t been perfect after all. “I have to do it again.”
This time, I kept the music in my head as I spoke the incantation, and once more, I heard the jangle of missed notes.
I broke off in the middle of a word. “I thought I was saying it right.”
“You were,” Iobhar said.
“The music says I’m not.”
Iobhar fingered his necklace of bells, sending them tinkling. “Try it again.”
We spent the rest of the afternoon trying. I was near tears, and Iobhar’s gaze was stony. He pointed to a nearby birdcage. A yellow canary appeared within it. “For every time you fail, another appears.”
I didn’t realize what that meant until I kept failing. More canaries materialized in the cage. Yellow and blue and green, crammed together, pecking one another in aggravation.
“Iobhar—”
“You’ve the power to stop it.”
I tried again and again. The birdcage filled. The little birds shoved up against the bars, tormenting me with their frantic chirping. I tried to concentrate on the spell. No matter how I said it, or how often Iobhar insisted I was doing it right, the music said otherwise.
My eyes blurred; the bright feathers became only smears of color. The canaries began to die. Horribly and cruelly, smeared with blood from fighting, and then slowly suffocating.
“Stop! Please stop. I’ll never get this.” Obviously, I wasn’t meant for this. I was stupid and clumsy. “How can I do the ritual when I can’t even get this spell right?”
The birds in the cage vanished. Iobhar’s anger turned thoughtful. “’Tis clear there’s a problem.”
“Yes. The problem is that I’m a failure.”
He stalked from the room. I dropped the hawthorn branch. Already the spell was slipping from my mind. What kind of veleda couldn’t remember a simple spell?
My power answered—vibrating beneath my skin, humming in my veins. Still there. Still mine. What made me think that I could perfect in days what it had taken other Druids years to learn? I didn’t have long, but I could not be impatient. I would learn this. I would be good at it. I had to be.
I went in search of Iobhar, ready to begin again.
October 19
Diarmid
It had been nearly three months since Grace had disappeared. Samhain was only days away, and they were all anxious. Finn kept the rest of the Fianna busy organizing their rapidly growing militia when they weren’t looking for Grace, but he’d refused Diarmid the permission to train.
“You’re the one who lost her, so you’ll spend every hour searching,” Finn told him with a thin smile. “If she’s not dead—and you’d best hope she’s not—you’ll bring her to me.”
She wasn’t dead. Diarmid knew it; he would feel it if she were. But what she was . . . that was the fear that haunted him, that he couldn’t get past.
Every day Diarmid went out, and every night he returned, restless and irritable. Finn’s watchful concern was like an itch between his shoulder blades, and Aidan’s growing hostility didn’t help either.
“Play a game with me,” Oscar said, motioning to the chessboard that Goll had made from scraps of wood, using corks and stones for the pieces. “’Twill ease your mind.”
“I’m in no mood for it,” Diarmid said.
“Aye, you’re grouchy as a mean-tempered boar, but I’ll take you on. You won’t bring her here by sulking.”
“Have you not noticed how close we are to Samhain?”
Oscar just rolled his eyes. “Come and play, Derry.”
Diarmid sighed and gave in. Aidan sat in the corner, glaring at him. This made it hard to concentrate, and the game went poorly.
The third time Diarmid glanced at Aidan, Oscar said, “What is it between you two? You rarely take your eyes off him. I’d say you were sweet on him, but then . . . ’tis clear you’d rather kill him than kiss him, and he’s no better.”
“You’ve a true gift for the obvious.” Diarmid moved a bishop. “He’s angry with me for Grace.”
Oscar captured the piece. “You can’t blame him. You compelled his sister and stole her virtue. No brother can like that.”
Diarmid scowled.
Oscar only grinned. “So ’tis true then? You did steal her virtue?”
“None of your business.”
“Ah, I see. Well, so that explains Aidan. What reason have you to dislike him?”
Diarmid lowered his voice to ask, “Do you trust him?”
Oscar shrugged. “Aidan’s served us well in the battles he’s fought. Without him, we never would have escaped the Tombs, and I’d still be fodder for the Fomori. He’s risked his own life to help us. We need him, Derry.”
“Just . . . there’s something about him . . .”
“He’s the brother of the lass you love. ’Twould be better to make him your friend than your enemy.”
“Why does it matter what Aidan thinks of me? There’s no future for me and Grace. You know it as well as I do.”
“Aye, but ’tis good to hear you admit it,” said Oscar. “I confess, I wondered if you ever would.”
Diarmid made a final, futile move, and shoved the board away, leaning back against the wall. Slimy water from a seeping leak wet though his shirt. “Well, now I have. So you and the others can stop wondering whether I mean to betray you.”
“We don’t wonder it,” Oscar said. “But you’re hard to be around these days, Derry, and we all miss hearing you laugh. You’ll have a future without this lass.”
“If we find her, and she chooses us,” Diarmid pointed out.
“We will find her, and she will choose us. We’ve got the ball seirce and Finn on our side.” Oscar rose, ruffling Diarmid’s hair. “Of course, ’twould be better to have me working on her as well, but no one wants to overwhelm the lass.”
“Thoughtful of you,” Diarmid said.
Oscar laughed and went to join the others, and Diarmid went back to brooding. When midnight came, he went to his pallet, but he couldn’t sleep. He missed Grace. He wanted her with him. He knew it was stupid. Everything felt wasted and useless. No one had seen her. No one knew w
here she was.
Creak.
Diarmid opened his eyes just in time to see Aidan disappear up the stairs.
Diarmid rose to follow. One or two of the others stirred, but relaxed again when they saw it was him. Once Diarmid was out the back door, he glimpsed Aidan moving quickly through the broken gate into the alley. Diarmid drew into the shadows, keeping a good distance between them. Twice, Aidan shot thin bolts of purple lightning into the shadows, each followed by a thud. An old man with a broken bottle and a younger one with a knife. So Aidan was paying attention. It reassured Diarmid somewhat.
Aidan went over to Broadway—more dangerous for both of them, and there were plenty of policemen and people about, but at least it was dark, and it was easy to avoid the glow of streetlamps. Diarmid had thought perhaps Aidan meant to go to the Knox house, which was abandoned now that the rest of the family was living with Patrick Devlin. Diarmid hoped not. There were Fomori guards there constantly, and the Fianna had men watching it, too, hoping for Grace’s return. But Aidan skirted that street, and with dread and disbelief, Diarmid realized Aidan was headed to Devlin’s house.
Why?
Aidan cut through Madison Square. Diarmid paused at the edge of the park, hiding among the trees, watching. He expected Aidan to go right to the Devlins’ back gate, but instead Grace’s brother went to the pavilion in the middle of the park.
Then, the squeak of a gate, the clank of a latch falling shut, and Patrick Devlin hurried from his yard into the park.
Aidan was a spy for the Fomori.
What other reason could there be for him to sneak out at night to meet with Patrick?
Diarmid heard the murmur of voices, and he moved closer, creeping low until he was at the back wall of the gazebo, crouching out of sight.
“Have you discovered anything?” Aidan asked. “It’s two weeks until Samhain.”
“I know,” Patrick said tightly. “Don’t you think I know that? I’ve been thinking of the prophecy. I think you’re right. It’s trying to tell us something.”
“I dream about it every night. I’m on a ship in the middle of the ocean, and it feels as if I’m disappearing as we get farther and farther away. From what, I don’t know, but ‘the sea is the knife,’ just as the prophecy says. It’s severing me from something important, something I need to do. There are storms, and lightning—”
