Shadow Spell

by Nora Roberts

  “No, it’s okay.” Iona dashed the tears away, and together they cut the binding on the fresh bale. “Your color came back, and Boyle said he felt your fingers move in his. And that’s when I realized how scared I’d been—when the worst, according to Branna, was over.”

  “He put me down hard,” Meara said as she loosened the straw with a pitchfork. “That’s a tick in his column.”

  “Maybe, but we brought you back, and here you are spreading fresh straw for Spud’s stall. That’s a bigger tick in ours.”

  The silver lining, Meara mused. Iona could always find one. And maybe it was time she started searching them out herself.

  “I’m after keeping it that way. I’ll be putting in some time with my sword. I need the practice.”

  Needed practice, she thought as they moved to the next stall, on many things.

  * * *

  CONNOR DID SOME CLEANING OF HIS OWN, BUT WHAT HE considered end-of-the-day work. Birds must be fed, and as with horses, their area cleaned regularly of droppings. According to his personal calendar it was time for the hawks’ bath to be cleaned and sanitized.

  He wanted the labor. He’d needed the sheer physicality and mindless rote of it the last day or so while Meara recovered. It took effort to maintain his own calm, for her sake, to add some cheer to keep her spirits up when she’d been weakened and tired, and so unlike herself.

  With some women you brought flowers or chocolate. With Meara—not that some blossoms and candy were out of place—she did better with bits and pieces of village gossip, or tales of work, of the people who’d come by the schools or stables.

  He’d done his best to supply her, to prop his boots up, lift a pint and regale her with stories—some of which he embellished, others he made up of whole cloth.

  And what he’d wanted to do was hunt Cabhan down, to dare the bastard to show himself. He wanted to whip a wind so fierce it would rend his bones and freeze his blood.

  The thirst for vengeance ran so strong he was constantly parched.

  And knew better, Jesus, knew better, he thought as he scrubbed the tub while the birds perched and watched him. But knowing and feeling weren’t the same thing at all. He could hope that the labor burned the thirst out of him.

  Then he saw her, walking across the wide gravel yard. He left everything, went out and through to meet her.

  “What are you doing walking about alone?” he demanded.

  “I could ask the same of you, but as I know what you’ll say to that I won’t and avoid it all. Iona and Boyle dropped me off before they went to Cong for a pint and a meal, so I haven’t been alone at all, as I’m not now.”

  She glanced around. “You’re late at this, aren’t you, Connor? Where’s everyone else?”

  “We finished up the last hawk walk, and I sent the lot of them on. Brian had some studying for this online class he’s taking, and Kyra had herself a hot date. And for the rest, I thought they could use an extra hour free.”

  “And you wanted some time alone with your friends,” she added with a nod toward the hawks.

  “There was that as well. I have to finish up here, since I’ve started it all.”

  “I’ll come back with you, if that’s all right. Then you’ll give me a lift back to the cottage.”

  He walked her back. The birds ruffled a bit at the visitor, gave her a long stare.

  “I haven’t had time to visit much in the last months,” she commented. “The young ones don’t know me, or not well.”

  “They’ll come to.” He got back down to finish the cleaning. “How’d the day all go for you then?”

  “Just as it should. I took out two guideds.” She angled her head at his sharp look, pulled out the stones she wore from under her scarf. “And Iona insisted I take Alastar—and she braided fresh charms in his mane. I saw nothing but the woods and the trail. I won’t be reckless, Connor. For my own sake, yes, but also because I never want to put you or the others through what I put you through once already.”

  She paused a moment. “I need the work and the horses as you need the work and the hawks.”

  “You’re right. I hope he felt you. I hope he felt how strong and able you are, despite him.”

  He began to fill the tub, listened to the water pour.

  “You think I don’t know you’re angry,” she said quietly. “But I do know it. I’m angry as well. I’ve wanted to end him, always, because it’s needed, because of you and Branna and Fin. But now I don’t only want to end him—I want to give him pain and misery first, to know he suffers. I don’t tell Branna as she’d never approve. For her it’s only about right and wrong, light and dark—birthright and blood. And I know that’s how it should be, but I want his pain.”

  From his crouch, he looked up at her. “I would give it to you, and more. I would give you his agony.”

  “But we can’t.” Hunkering down beside him, she touched his arm lightly. “Because Branna’s got the right of it, and because it would change you. To seek revenge only? To seek to cause pain and suffering to pay him back for what he did to me? It would change you, Connor. I think it wouldn’t change me, but that’s the lack in me.”

  “It’s not a lack at all.”

  “It’s how I’m built, so we’ll all have to live with it. But you’re the light, and there’s reason for that. End him, it must be done. But it must be done as it should be done. And if there’s pain, it’s because it had to be, not because you willed it.”

  “You’ve done some thinking on this.”

  He measured out the additives, then as he always did, stirred the water with his hands over the surface, adding that light she spoke of, for the health and well-being of his birds.

  “God, yes, and far too much on it. And in thinking far too much on it, I came to understand you needed to know I felt as you do, but it isn’t what I want from you, or for myself. I want what we are, the six of us. I want us to be right. And when we end him, and it’s done, for us to know we were right. I want no shadows over us, no shadows over you. That’s revenge enough for me.”

  “I love you, Meara. I love that you’d understand this, come clear to it, and tell me. I’ve been torn, in a way I’ve never been.”

  “Don’t be. Know I’m telling you what’s in my heart. I want us to be right.”

  “Then we will be.”

  Satisfied, relieved, she nodded. “And it’s time to talk of it all again. I know you’ve all let it go the last few days.”

  “You weren’t up to it.”

  “I’m more than up to it now.” She pushed up, flexed her biceps to make him smile. “So we’ll talk again, the six of us.”

  “Tonight?”

  “Tonight, tomorrow night if need be. We’ll see what the others say.”

  “I’ll finish up then.” He looked at her, smiled.

  For some women it was flowers, he thought, or chocolate.

  For Meara?

  “Hold your arms out.”

  “What? Why would I?”

  “Because I ask you. Hold your arms out.”

  She rolled her eyes, but did as he asked. He stretched his hands toward the birds, the young ones, sent his thoughts to them.

  With the flow of his hands, they lifted, a soft whoosh of wings—the young hawks—and rose up to circle her, to make her laugh.

  “Hold still, and don’t worry about your jacket or your skin, I’ve taken that in the measure.”

  “What— Oh!”

  They landed light and graceful along her outstretched arms.

  “We’ve trained them well, though this isn’t in their lessons. Still they don’t seem to mind it. And they’ll know you, Meara, now they will.”

  “They’re beautiful. They’re so beautiful. When you look in their eyes you think they know more than we do. So much more.”

  She laughed, and at the sound of it, the terrible thirst that had dogged him for days finally eased.

  19

  THEY HAD TEA, WITH WHISKEY FOR THOSE WHO WANTED it, in the
living room of the cottage. Branna set out a plate of gingerbread biscuits and considered her domestic duties done.

  “Where do we begin?” she wondered. “Do we still agree on Samhain?”

  “It gives us a fortnight,” Boyle pointed out. “And from what I can see we could use the time. But . . .”

  “But.” Fin opted for whiskey and poured himself two fingers, neat. “He’s come at us hard. We weren’t ready for him, and that’s clear enough.”

  “It was my fault.”

  “Fault isn’t the point of it, Meara,” Fin interrupted. “He lurks and slithers about at his will, and could come at any one of us in a moment of vulnerability. He’s been at Iona, and now at you. From the pattern of it, if we don’t end this, he’ll go at Branna next.”

  “Let him come.” Branna calmly took a sip of tea.

  “You’re far too cocksure of yourself,” Fin snapped back. “Arrogance isn’t power or a weapon.”

  “You’ve never had trouble wrapping yourself in it good and tight.”

  “Stop.” Connor stretched his legs out, shook his head. “The pair of you. Save the pokes and barbs for when we’ve time for them. He may well go at Meara again, but she won’t be foolish a second time.”

  “My oath on that.”

  “And it’s just as likely he could take a pass at Boyle, or Fin or myself if he saw an opportunity.”

  Risking having an accusation of arrogance tossed at him, Connor shrugged. “And though I think Fin’s right, if he tires of going for Meara, he’ll turn his attentions on Branna, knowing that doesn’t speak to what we do, when we do it, and how we send him on to hell for all and done.”

  “He’s right. Protecting ourselves, that’s defense—and it’s essential,” Iona added. “But it’s our offense that needs to be perfected.”

  “She’s been watching matches with me.” Boyle gave her a quick grin. “We were close the last we went for him, sent him off bleeding and howling. But it wasn’t enough. What will be?”

  “The potion’s stronger than it was, and that makes it a risk. One we’ll have to take.” Fin flicked a glance at Branna, got her nod.

  “We thought to take him by surprise on the solstice,” Connor pointed out, “and he took us. Even then, as Boyle said, we got close to it. If we make our stand at Sorcha’s cabin, he’ll have the advantage of shifting the time, and we couldn’t know when he’d take us, or if he could, as he did, manage to separate us so we’d end up scattered, using power to reform again.”

  “If not there,” Meara asked, “where?”

  “It’s a place of power, for us as well as him. I think it must be there. But you’re right, Connor,” Branna added. “We can’t be separated. I’m thinking the three as a unit, and Fin, Boyle, and Meara as another—and those joined in a way that can’t be broken. This we can do—and this we will do this time.”

  “Can we block him from the time shift?” Iona wondered.

  “We could, I think, if we knew how he does it. But to counter such a spell, we’d need the elements of it. It’s working blind there,” Branna said in frustration.

  “We shift first.” Connor leaned forward, took a biscuit. “You’re not the only one who can study and ponder and plot.” He gestured toward Branna with the biscuit, then bit in. “But you’re the only one who can make such brilliant gingerbread. We take the offensive, and shift from the start.”

  “And how, scholar, should we find the way to do that—which will take considerable doing—would we lure him to when we are?”

  “We know the way to do it already,” he reminded his sister. “Iona did it herself when she’d no more than gotten her toe dipped in her own magickal waters.”

  “I did?” After a blink, Iona pumped her fist in the air. “Go, me.”

  “I’ve done it myself,” he added, “alone and with Meara, and met our long-ago cousins.”

  “Dream travel?” Branna put down her teacup. “Oh, Connor, that’s a reckless thing.”

  “It’s reckless times, and we’d have to be smart about it.”

  “It’s bloody brilliant,” Fin said, and earned Connor’s grin, Branna’s scowl.

  “He’s talking of casting a dream net over the six of us at once.”

  “I know it. That’s what’s bloody brilliant. He’d have to be on the same level, wouldn’t he, to come at us? And it would be in the time and place of our choosing.”

  “He couldn’t turn it on us,” Connor pointed out, “as he wouldn’t know the elements of the spell we cast, any more than we know the elements of his. It’s him who’d have to come to us, and he’d lose the power to shift our ground.”

  “Give me a moment.” Boyle lifted a hand, then used it to scratch his head. “Are you saying we’d go against Cabhan in our sleep?”

  “A dream spell’s different from natural sleep. It’s not like you’re lying there snoring them off. You’ve done a bit of it yourself,” Connor recalled. “Pulled in with Iona into her dream—and didn’t you give the bastard a good punch in the face while you were at it?”

  “I did, and woke with his blood on my knuckles. But a dream battle? I’ve accepted all the lot of you can do as I’ve lived with it most of my life, but this strains the tether.”

  “He’d never expect it,” Meara speculated. “Can it really be done?”

  “All six at once, and with no one left behind at the wheel you could say.” Struggling to look at the pros, the cons, the balance of them, Branna shoved both hands through her hair. “Sure it’s nothing I’ve ever done. I’d be easy trying it with the three, facing him off that way, and the three of you back here—Fin at that wheel for certain to steer us back should we lose balance or direction.”

  “It’s the six of us,” Meara said decisively, “or not at all.”

  “Meara, I’m not talking this through in the way of insulting you. Any of you. But dream casting six together, and two of them without powers.”

  “Not so cocksure now?” Fin asked, with just a little bite.

  “Oh, feck off,” Branna snapped.

  “And back at you, darling, for suggesting that I or Boyle or Meara would stay back like obedient pups while you waged the war.”

  “That’s not my meaning.”

  “It’s how it feels.” Meara turned to Connor. “And you?”

  “The six of us,” he said without hesitation, “or none at all.”

  “All or none,” Boyle agreed.

  “Yes.” Nodding, Iona took his hand. “If anyone can work out how it can be done, Branna, it’s you.”

  “Ah, Jesus, bloody hell, let me think.” She shoved the teacup aside, poured whiskey—more generously than Fin had.

  She tossed it back like water.

  “I’ve always admired your head for whiskey,” Fin said as she shoved to her feet to pace.

  “Be quiet. Just be quiet. Six at once,” she repeated as she paced, “in the name of Morrigan, it’s madness. And two of them armed with nothing but wit and fist and sword for all that. And one of them bearing Cabhan’s mark. Just shut up about it,” she snapped at Fin, who’d said nothing at all, “it’s fact.”

  “They’re armed with more than wit and fist and sword, and have more than a mark unearned.” Connor spoke quietly. “They have heart.”

  “Do you think I don’t know it? Do you think I don’t value it, above all?” She stopped, closed her eyes a moment. Sighed. “You’ve turned this upside down on me, Connor. I need to work my way through it. It’s not like one of us going into a magickal dream and taking along the one lying with us, the one we’ve been intimate with. And that has its own risks, as both Boyle and Iona know well.”

  “It’s not, no. This would be a deliberate and conscious thing, a planned thing, a casting of our own.” Connor lifted his hands, spread them, palms up. “With as many protections as we can build into the spell. But there’ll be risks, yes, but risks however we go about it. And on Samhain, when the Veil thins, is the perfect time for this.”

  He rose, went to he
r, took her hands. “You’d leave them behind if you could—and I would as well. That’s for love and friendship—and because this is a burden and duty that came to us. To you, to me, to Iona. Not to them.”

  He kissed her hands lightly. “But that would be wrong for so many reasons. We’re a circle, three by three. It was always meant to be the six of us, Branna. I believe that.”

  “I know it. It’s clear to me as well.”

  “You fear you’ll fail them. You won’t. You won’t, and the burden of it isn’t yours alone.”

  “We’ve never done it before.”

  “I’d never floated so much as a feather before I came here,” Iona reminded her. “And now?”

  She lifted her hands, palms up. The sofa where she sat beside Boyle rose smoothly, soundlessly, did a slow circle, then lowered back to the ground.

  “Fair play to you,” Fin said, amused.

  “You taught me, you and Connor. You opened me to what I have and what I am. We’ll figure out how to do it, and do it.”

  “All right. All right. I can’t stand one against five. And it is a bloody brilliant idea. Reckless and frightening and brilliant. I know a potion I could tinker with that should work, and we’ll write the spell—and I’ll need every hour of that fortnight.”

  “And you have us to help you tinker,” Connor pointed out.

  “I’ll need you all as well. Still, I’d be easier if we have what would be a kind of control outside the dream net.”

  “Would they have to be right here—with us, I mean?” Meara asked.

  “Physically you’re meaning?” Connor glanced over at her, considered. “I don’t see why.”

  “Then you have your father, the two of you. And there’s Iona’s grandmother. That’s blood and purpose shared, isn’t it? And love as well.”

  “And more bloody brilliance!” On a laugh, Connor turned to Meara, plucked her straight out of her chair to spin her around. “That would do, and do very well. Branna?”

  “It could—no, it would. And if I’d cleared the buzzing out of my head, I’d have seen it. Iona’s Nan, our da, and . . .”

  She turned to Fin. “Your cousin Selena. Would she be willing? Three’s a better number than two, and gives it all power and blood from each of us. Three would balance, I’d think, should we need to be righted again.”

  “She would be more than willing. She’s in Spain, but I’ll contact her. I’ll speak with her about it.”

  “Then that part’s settled. I’ll study on it.”

  “I have been,” Connor told her. “The potion, to open the vision, shared by all inside the ritual circle. Best done outside, in the air. We take our guides as well, the horse, the hound, the hawk.”

  Branna started to speak, reconsidered. “You have studied on it.”

  “I have. Fin, your horse, your hawk—and I don’t suppose you can come up with a hound in the next fortnight? Three for three.”

  “I have one. I have Bugs.”

  “Little Bugs?” Iona began, thinking of the barn dog at the big stables.

  “Little as you are, game as you are. Three for three,” Fin repeated with a nod. “Horse for Boyle, hawk for Meara, hound, such as he is, for me. It’s well thought, Connor.”

  “It’s you who must link them to the others, as they come from you.”

  “So I will.”