“I’m making lasagna, and I baked freaking bread.”
“Now I’m gonna cry.”
“You might when you eat it, but if it’s not good, lie.”
She clasped hands with him as they went down the steps with Bollocks waiting for them at the wall. “What a beautiful day. What an absolutely perfectly beautiful day. Now let’s go spread the word.”
Even the thought of training didn’t spoil her mood as she walked from a lovely time of celebration and magicks at Marg’s toward whatever torture Keegan planned for her at the farm.
No doubt Marco had celebrated at the farm, and at Finola’s. And they’d celebrate again at the cottage when Brian joined them.
“A really, really good day, Bollocks. Like the start of a new chapter in a book you can’t wait to read. I can’t wait to see Sally’s face when we tell him.”
Buoyed by the image, she strolled on.
Ahead, just ahead, a gray cloud swirled on the road. The cloud became a form—a faerie, a dark one, with wings edged in black.
Recognizing wraith, she cursed Keegan, and fumbled for her sword.
“Breen Siobhan O’Ceallaigh, I am from Odran, god of all.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah.”
Beside her, Bollocks growled, low and fierce.
“Through my eyes he sees; through my mouth he speaks.”
“Clever,” Breen muttered. “Sneaky clever, Taoiseach.”
She started to toss out power rather than strike with the sword, but the voice came. And the voice was Odran’s.
“The sand is low in the glass for you, and when the last grain falls, all this will burn. Burn and bleed. Should I show you now, with this foolish dog?”
“No! Sit.” She snapped it so fiercely at Bollocks, his rump hit the ground with a thud. And she stood in front of him.
“You won’t touch him.”
“I could spare him, and a handful of others of your choosing, if you come to me now.”
“You’d spare nothing and no one. Death is all you know. And I’ll never come to you.”
“This choice runs out as the grains of sand run out. Come through the portal in the Tree of Snakes. Unseal it and come before the turn of the moons, or all burn and bleed. All curse your name as they burn and bleed. Come and you’ll sit by my side, a treasured granddaughter. Feed me your power and live, honored for the gift. Refuse and I takeall you are, and you live only long enough to see the worlds so precious to you die.”
He brought her fear, she wouldn’t deny it. But neither would she fall to fear.
“You threaten me through a phantom, an illusion. Your power’s weak and stinks of your desperation. Here’s my choice.”
When she struck out at the wraith, steel met steel. She saw the fury in its eyes, Odran’s eyes, and something like pleasure.
Before she could block, the opposing blade struck her arm, and sliced through flesh.
Pain and shock ripped a cry from her as she stumbled back. Bollocks, too furious to obey, leaped. And leaped straight through the wraith.
“Your blood. Such is my power strong and yours weak. Now watch this mongrel die for you.”
“No.”
As Bollocks charged again, and the wraith lifted the sword, Breen shot fire. An inferno, one that erupted in her through twin sparks of fear and rage.