“Yeah. It’s a wilder ride, but I’ve done it.”
“I won’t mind the wild.”
He grinned at her, and unable to resist, kissed her hand. “You’ll get it. Riley should pick the when. I’ll get the coordinates for where. Once Bran and Sasha are on board, we can start prepping for the trip. One thing.” Sawyer looked at Riley. “If we can do this before sundown in the now—there and back, it won’t matter to you. If we can’t get back until after sundown, what happens to—with you?”
“Never done it, but I’m going to say the change will hit me like a mother. I can handle it. But there and back before the moon? Better.”
“Nerezza will be on us,” Doyle said. “Either in the cave when we find it, or when we come back.”
“The shift—time and place?” Sawyer lifted a shoulder. “I’m not saying don’t be ready, but I think it might be enough to at least confuse her. But yeah, once we have it, she’ll hit. So, battle plan.”
Annika also considered it an honor to be part of the council of war. “We must protect Bran, so he can make the star safe if I find it. But . . . the compass doesn’t say where to go when we have it safe.”
“Not yet.”
“It’s a lot to take on faith.”
“Got a better option, Mr. Bright Side?” Riley asked Doyle.
“We go anywhere. Get the star, secure the star, then go anywhere until we know. I’ve looked for centuries, and never got close, to the star or Nerezza, until the day in the cave on Corfu. If we’re booking odds, they’re long for us to find all three in a matter of months. And then find the Island of Glass?”
“We’re six.” Sawyer took Annika’s hand in a firm grip. “We have two months more, and that’s it. I don’t believe, not for a second, we won’t find them before that.”
“If I must go back to the sea before . . . I can still help. I will help.”
“We’re not even going there,” Sawyer began, pausing only when Bran came out. “Everything okay?”
“It is. She’s . . . amazing. I didn’t disturb her—doubt I could have.”
“What’s she painting?” Riley wanted to know.
“Beauty, and I believe the place to send the Water Star. I believe the place we’re to go once we have it.”
“Where? If we can pin it down, I can start working on a house or villa, or a bunch of pup tents.”
Bran merely smiled at Riley. “If I’m reading the painting correctly, that won’t be necessary. As it’s my house in Ireland she paints—to my eye. The house I built at the end of a path, the painting she created before any of us met. The one I bought before I knew her.”
“Another island.” Riley sat back. “So that fits. Coast?”
“West. It’s in Clare, where Doyle is from. I think it’s a fine fit, yes.”
“We’d stay at your house. Oh, I would like that very much. It must be beautiful.”
“For me, it is,” he told Annika. “And there’s room enough for all of us. I wondered when I had it done why I wanted such a large place, but I saw it in my head, felt it should be just so, and that’s what I did. Problem?” he said to Doyle.
“I haven’t been back to Ireland in some time, and to Clare in longer yet. I should’ve known this would be a part of it. Well, you can fill Bran in on what we’ve worked out.”
When he rose, walked away, Annika looked after him. “It hurts his heart.”
“Going back to where he started, to where he lived when he just lived. That’s a price to pay.” Riley rose. “I’ll go piss him off about something, get his mind off it. Clare,” she said to Bran. “Your family’s from Sligo, but you built a house in Clare.”
“It called to me, the path, and what was at the end of it. The ruins of an old manor on the cliffs above the thrashing sea. Different from the rolling hills of my birth, but it called to me.”
“I guess this is why. I’m going to piss Doyle off, then pack. Might as well be ready to go.”
By noon Sawyer sat on the terrace watching Sasha. No one wanted her left alone for long, and he’d opted to sit there for an hour while Bran worked.
He’d set up a table, cleaned his guns. After that he laid out his map of Ireland, and watched his compass glide unerringly to the coast of County Clare.