The Web (Fianna Trilogy Book 2)

by Megan Chance

  “What happened then?” Patrick asked.

  “We met Aidan at the market. He wanted Grace to go on the ferry with him so they could talk, but he had to walk me back to my carriage, and he missed the boat. And then I saw Derry with her on the deck. Aidan said it was all right—he said he and Derry were friends, and he would wait for the ferry to return and bring her home. He said Derry needed to talk to her and that was all. You know Aidan, Patrick. He can be so . . . so . . . Well, he made me promise not to say anything. I didn’t want Grace to get into trouble, but I didn’t know she was gone. Truly I didn’t.”

  Patrick hardly heard her. “Fulton Market, you said. They were on the Brooklyn ferry?”

  She nodded.

  “Then, we know where they are, don’t we?” Bres said with satisfaction.

  “Aidan wouldn’t put her in danger, Patrick,” Rose said ardently. “He’s her brother—”

  “Where is he now?”

  “I don’t know. I haven’t seen him since.”

  “How did he find you?”

  “He waited in my yard until I appeared. He nearly frightened me to death.”

  “And he gave you no idea of where he’d been? Of what he’d been doing?” Patrick asked.

  “No,” Rose said with a sigh.

  “I need you to think very hard. We need to find Aidan as well. I think he may be in trouble.”

  “Aidan is trouble.” Rose scowled. “But he said nothing of where he’d been. He looked like he’d been sleeping in a hearth somewhere. He smelled of smoke.”

  Slowly, it came together. Aidan calling Diarmid a friend. Aidan smelling of smoke. The fire in the tenement that had rousted the Fianna.

  Aidan had joined them.

  It was not good news. Grace’s brother, whom she loved, was on the other side. Aidan had helped the Fianna kidnap her. And now Grace had been two days with Diarmid Ua Duibhne. Two days with the lovespot.

  Daire Donn put a hand on Patrick’s shoulder. It didn’t soothe him.

  Bres said, “Thank you, Miss Fitzgerald. You’ve been most useful.”

  Patrick said, “If you hear anything more from Aidan, Rose—anything at all, you must contact me. He needs help. I can help him. Tell him that, if you see him, would you? Tell him I can help him.”

  She nodded, looking frightened. “Yes, I will.”

  “And if you think of anything that might help us find him, or Grace . . .”

  “I’ll let you know that too. I’m so sorry, Patrick. But . . . Aidan is her brother. What was I to do?”

  He strode to the door without answering, without even saying good-bye, hearing the other two make apologies behind him. When they were outside, Daire Donn said, “We know where they are, Patrick. ’Tis only a matter of time before we find them.”

  “Time.” Patrick spat the word. “We don’t have time. There’s the lovespot, or don’t you remember?”

  Bres sighed. “Aye. You’d best accustom yourself to it. ’Twill already be done.”

  “However, it’s only been a short time. The lovespell will wear off quickly if we get her soon enough,” Daire Donn assured him.

  Patrick said hoarsely, “Send every man we have out to look for her. We’ll put up ‘Wanted’ posters everywhere. I want her back.”

  “And we shall have her back,” Bres said.

  But Patrick’s fear was beyond comfort.

  July 23

  Grace

  I dreamed again of the ship, its sails fat with wind and the deck rolling beneath my feet, and that presence hovering as if it waited for something. Then narrow streets, the sidhe coming out of hiding as I passed, forming a gauntlet I must run to reach Aidan, who was shouting, “The key. We need the key!” before he faded into darkness.

  I woke in the middle of the night, breathing hard as if I’d been running.

  “Sssh,” Derry murmured, not really awake. He pulled me back against his chest. At his touch, my terror eased, the last vestiges of the nightmare disappeared. I closed my eyes and went back to sleep. This time I dreamed of the two of us sitting on a beach beneath a leafy maple, and I leaned back against his chest while his laughter rumbled.

  When I woke again, I found myself tangled with him. His arms were around me, and his hand was in my hair, as it had been in my dream, and it felt as if I was exactly where I was meant to be.

  But then I remembered everything, and I was afraid of how much I liked being in his arms.

  What he’d said last night about wanting to save my life was a lie.

  Carefully, I disentangled his hand from my hair, waiting for him to wake, but he slept so deeply it was as if he’d been spelled. He looked relaxed and peaceful in a way I’d never seen.

  I rose and dressed. I expected him to wake at any moment, but he didn’t, not even when I left the alcove and tiptoed out of the room, through the few boarders still sleeping. In the other room, faint dawn light crept through the open window. The air was already warm; it would be another hot day. Bridget was sewing at the table, which held bread and a jug of milk with a faint bluish cast. Swill milk, Derry had told me, along with a caution not to drink it, because you never knew what was in it: chalk or river water or something worse. But I had a choice to drink or not, unlike Bridget’s children, who had nothing else.

  Bridget looked past me.

  “He’s still sleeping,” I told her, sitting down at the table. Bridget pushed the bread toward me. I shook my head. “Thank you, but I’m not hungry.”

  “There’s enough,” she said.

  But I knew there wasn’t, and what I’d told her was true. My dreams still haunted me. I wanted Derry to wake up. I wanted him to stay asleep. I tried not to think of the way I’d let him touch me last night, or the yearning that seemed to have lodged inside me.

  How did one fight such a thing? What had Miogach said? Like all love, it fades with absence. But Derry wasn’t absent, and I was afraid it was growing worse. No, I knew it was growing worse.

  Today must be the day I escaped. I glanced at the door, tempted again just to walk out. But he’d promised to help me, and I was afraid to confront the sidhe on my own. I would take his help, and once we’d learned what we could, I would run.

  I heard a commotion from the bedroom, and I looked over my shoulder to see Derry racing out, barefoot and shirtless, panicked.

  He saw me and slid to a stop before he crashed into the table. “You’re here,” he breathed.

  Bridget tsked. “You keep too tight a grip, lad, and you’ll push her clean away.”

  He ignored her. “How did you get out without waking me?”

  “You were sound asleep.”

  “I never sleep like that.”

  “Well, don’t look at me as if it’s my fault. It’s not as if I cast a spell on you.”

  “She didn’t go anywhere,” Bridget said. “But I’m beginning to think she should be runnin’.”

  I smiled sweetly at him. “I’m waiting for you to take me on that walk you promised.”

  “Walk?” he asked blankly.

  “You remember.” I gave him a pointed look. “You said we could search for wild things. Deer. Owls. Things like that.”

  Bridget laughed. “The only wild things you’ll find around here are boys.”

  I saw that Derry understood, though, and he didn’t look happy about it. “I’ll get my things.”

  He disappeared into the other room, reappearing moments later with his shirt and boots in his hands. The muscles in his arms and his back flexed as he dressed, and I looked to the window instead.

  “Do you think it’s too early?” I asked.

  “Perhaps not early enough. They like dawn and twilight—the change of worlds, the edges. But maybe we’ll be lucky.” He said the last drily.

  “Aye, you might see a rat or two,” Bridget said. “Or a hog.”
/>
  Derry grimaced.

  “A hog? You goin’ lookin’ for hogs? C’n I come?” Molly asked.

  Derry smiled at her. “Not today, lass. Some other time.”

  “But you said you’d play ball with us today.”

  “And so I will.” He tousled her hair. “Be good for your mama and we’ll play when I get back.”

  “We’d best get started,” I said.

  He took my hand to lead me down the stairs, and as always, I felt him like the pull of gravity. I thought of the press of his thumb against my lips.

  Stop.

  When we got to the bottom of the stairs, he warned, “They might not tell you anything, especially if they know how badly you want it.”

  “Then I won’t tell them how badly I want it.”

  “They’ll sense it. Even I can feel it.”

  “I’ll just have to take the risk. I could have gone without you, you know. You were sleeping like the dead this morning. I could have sneaked out—”

  “Aye. I don’t understand it. Anyone could have come in and slit my throat, or yours. Are you sure you didn’t bewitch me?”

  “I don’t even know how to do such a thing. And why would I, anyway?”

  “To escape.”

  “I actually want you to come with me today, as hard as that is to believe. The fairies frighten me, truthfully. You know what they’re like and if nothing else, you’ll try to keep me alive, for now. Until we know . . . what can be done. So where do we start? Where would they be, do you think?”

  “Wherever you are,” Diarmid said grimly. “They’re watching already. If we stand here long enough, they’ll start gathering. But I’d rather they not know where we’re staying.”

  I shuddered. “What a lovely thought. Just what I want, fairies serenading me outside the window.”

  “Better than me singing,” Derry noted. “Though my song won’t turn you into a madwoman—or at least, I don’t think it will. Truthfully, it might be a close thing.”

  I laughed.

  He looked surprised, and then pleased, and his smile brought heat creeping into my cheeks and I thought of my dream again, and his touch.

  Quickly, I said, “So where do we go?”

  “The river’s a good start. The edge of things, as I said.”

  “Which direction is the river?”

  He paused as if debating how much to tell me. “This way.”

  He stayed very close, though he never tried to take my arm or touch me. I felt his wariness as he led me away from the tenement, putting himself between me and any alleyway or darkened alcove. But I sensed we weren’t going directly there. He turned down one street after another, confusing the route, and while I was annoyed at his lack of trust, I also admired his cleverness.

  “I can’t run from you,” I told him. “You’re too fast. So there’s no sense trying to hide the way back to the ferry.”

  He slid me a glance. “I’m fast, but you’re canny. And stubborn. You’d run right into danger if I let you. Think of it this way: I’m saving you from yourself.”

  “How noble of you.”

  “I’d call it selfish instead. If you go running off, I’ll be facing Finn’s punishment, instead of joining the fight the way I want.”

  “I’ve never met anyone who loves a battle as you do.”

  “We’re warriors. But no one loves battle—not after they’ve been in a real one.” He looked up at the sky. “It’s hard to remember that I used to think it exciting. When I was small, I’d hear that thunder and the clash of swords and horses galloping, and wish I was in the thick of it. The Fianna rode through the village sometimes and . . . well, there wasn’t a lad that didn’t want to be one of them. But when you’re in the middle of it, with those ravens screaming and men coming at you with death in their eyes . . . the life of a farmer starts looking good.”

  “A farmer? You? Somehow that’s hard to picture.”

  “Is it? I’m guessing I wouldn’t have any talent for it. The closest I ever got to growing anything was spitting out an apple seed.” He looked at his hands, turning them over, holding one out to me, palm up. “Look at that. Calluses still, even though I haven’t thrown a spear in . . . two thousand years or more.” He laughed. “Two thousand years. ’Tis impossible to think it.”

  “It’s difficult for me to imagine as well, that it’s true and you’re . . . who you are. Or that there really was an Aengus Og who fostered you and a Manannan who taught you. That they were really gods.”

  “It didn’t seem so odd then. They were gods, but not as you imagine them, I think. You couldn’t trust any of them, really, but Aengus loved me, and I him.”

  I was so fascinated by the things he said that the world seemed to dissolve around me as we walked. The way he spoke of gods and monsters that existed in some far place and time—not just as legends, but as perplexing, real people that he’d known—made me forget how incredible it was.

  “Aengus wasn’t happy when I joined the Fianna. He never understood war. He thought it was a waste of time.”

  “He was the god of love, after all.”

  “Aye.” Derry’s smile was soft. “He thought it strange that I wanted the Fianna more than I wanted . . . well . . . love. When I told him I was going to take the tests, he threatened to turn me into a salmon.”

  I couldn’t help laughing again. “There’s an idea.”

  “But he let me go,” Derry went on. “Once he accepted it, he was a little too helpful. Finn had to bar him from the tests.”

  “What were the tests?”

  “You had to know the twelve books of poetry. Then you had to dig a hole up to your waist and stand there with a shield and a hazel rod while the others cast spears at you. If one hit you, you weren’t fit.”

  “What were the twelve books of poetry for?”

  He flashed me a grin. “Finn likes to hear it. He had five Druid poets at one time, so he could choose one according to his mood. And knowing the tales meant you could at least try to predict what a god or fairy might do.”

  “What else?”

  “You had to run through the woods with the others chasing. If you were hurt, or your hair came unplaited, or a single stick cracked beneath your foot, you were out. Then you had to leap over a stick your own height, bend under one no higher than your knee, and take out a thorn from your foot while you were running.”

  “Was being one of the Fianna worth it?”

  He shrugged. “’Twas a good life, when we were home.”

  “I suppose so. All those Druids to do your bidding—”

  He snorted. “A Druid? Not likely.”

  “But you said Finn had Druid poets. And there was Neasa—”

  “No one could make Neasa do what she didn’t want. The only one I ever saw her listen to was Glasny, and she didn’t do that half the time.”

  “Who was Glasny?”

  “Her . . . assistant, I guess you’d call him. Her protector. All the veledas have one.”

  “All the veledas? I guess that’s something else that was lost through time.”

  He eyed me thoughtfully. “Maybe not.”

  His words sent a shiver through me. As did the way he looked at me, as if he were remembering last night. He seemed to be implying that he was my protector, but protectors didn’t kill the one they meant to protect, did they?

  I said, “I could like someone who did what I told him.”

  “Then you wouldn’t have liked Glasny. He thought Neasa should listen to him, and Neasa thought otherwise. Finn didn’t like him. He thought Glasny interfered too much, but really it was just that Finn was always trying to make Neasa do what he wanted. She didn’t do that either, even when they were lovers.”

  The way Finn had taken a strand of my hair between his fingers, the way he’d looked at me as if he wanted somethi
ng he didn’t know how to ask for—suddenly, it made sense. “Lovers? You never told me that.”

  “Does it matter?”

  “No, I guess not. It’s just . . . you said I looked like her.”

  I felt him thinking, considering. “You do. Finn saw it too. But you’re not Neasa, Grace. No one would mistake it.”

  “Because she had so much power and I’ve none?”

  “Because you’re you.” He halted, stopping me with a light touch. “Here we are.”

  We stood before a warehouse fronting the river. The building looked abandoned, the loading dock ramshackle and sloping, the great doors closed. As we drew closer, I saw that the doors bore large, rusted padlocks. When we stepped up to the dock, Derry came up behind me and put his hands on my waist. When I started to protest, he said, “Can you get up there by yourself?” and then, without waiting for an answer, lifted me onto the dock, jumping up after. He went to one of the giant doors and kicked the padlock, which broke easily beneath his force.

  “I think that sort of thing is against the law,” I said.

  His expression was wry. “You think Patrick won’t have the whole police force after me once he finds out where you are? And I’m a thief, too, as I recall. If I’m going to hang, it doesn’t much matter how many other laws I break.”

  “Don’t say things like that.”

  He raised a brow I could only just see through his hair.

  I said, “I won’t let them arrest you.”

  “Some things even a veleda can’t promise.” He put his weight to the door, and it slid open with much squealing and creaking. “Come on. But be careful. This place is falling apart.”

  The doors on the river side were closed as well, and the building was cavernous and vacant, with deep shadows in the corners. Pieces of the roof were missing, and morning light slanted through the holes. There was a fluttering rush of air and noise, and a flock of birds rose squawking, sending bits of straw and dust scattering down from the beams. I heard the scrabble of rats.

  “How do you know of this place?” I asked, following him inside, stepping over the parts of the floor where planks had crumbled to reveal the water below, lapping against the tarred pilings that supported the warehouse.