“Me, too. And I told her, in two weeks, you’d send in a selection of recipes that’ll give her a sense of the style you’re going for.”
“Oh, girl,” he repeated.
Breen just wiggled her pinky finger.
She spent two weeks focused like a laser on the book before crossing into Talamh to focus on magicks and training. If her life spread over two worlds, she’d do her best in both of them.
At the end of two weeks, she presented Harken with the new harness. He studied it, ran his hands over it like another might a precious jewel.
“Oh, this is fine. More than fine.”
“So’s he.” Breen pressed her cheek to Boy’s. “I’d hoped to get it to you before you started plowing for spring, but the craftsman was very particular.”
“Oh, he’s all that. And this is a harness my children may use one day, and theirs after.” He stroked it as he might one of those beloved children. “You’ve had our family name put on it.”
“Keegan’s idea.”
“It means much.” He pushed back his cap as he looked at her. “You know, Boy’s been yours since first you swung up on him.”
“I wouldn’t have called that a swing, not the first time. But I feltthat connection. Thank you, Harken, for knowing it before I did. I’m sorry I can’t take him with me tomorrow, but we’ll only be gone a day or two.”
“We’ll take good care of him for you. Enjoy the Capital, and the flight over. Spring’s coming,” he said as he looked around his fields. “And the bloom of it.”
Trust a farmer, Breen thought when they took flight the next morning. The air, unquestionably warmer than her last trip east, carried the promise of spring.
With Bollocks, topknot fluttering in the wind, she rode Lonrach, with Keegan on Cróga beside them. On her other side, Mahon’s wings spread.
And below, she saw others plowing the earth, turning that rich brown for seed and seedlings. She’d do the same on her return, now that the air and earth warmed to welcome the rebirth.
She’d have the time, she thought, and wanted that work as well as her work on Bollocks’s next book, now that she’d sent her manuscript to New York, along with Marco’s sampling for the cookbook.
Sent them, she admitted, late the night before so with the time difference Carlee wouldn’t see them until into the morning in New York.
Just as she’d left Marco the entire book while he slept.
She’d done the very best she could, and told herself to put it aside, put it away. She had work to do here, in Talamh, and whatever duties waited at the Capital.
When Cróga veered north over the green roll of the midlands, she glanced toward Keegan, but he looked down where he guided the dragon.
“He means to stop at a portal here, for a check on things, and on those who stand guard,” Mahon told her. “It’s good for those here to see the taoiseach, and you now.”
“Oh.”
She’d dressed for the flight, not for being seen, in leggings and boots, a sweater and jacket. Though she’d tied back her hair, she knew the wind had already done a number on it.
Keegan landed in a field separated from the next by a line of long-limbed trees. Their bare branches showed the faint haze of the green to come.
Three stood, swords at their sides, one with a quiver on his back. She recognized a Sidhe, a Were, and an Elfin.
“Welcome, Taoiseach.” The Sidhe stepped forward, a slender woman with a honeycomb cap of hair and a warrior’s braid. “And to you, Mahon, and to the Daughter. Peace holds here.”
“I’m glad of it.” Keegan scanned the tree line.
“We’re on the watch for ravens or any else, but there’s been none since the last.”
“You’ll keep sharp, I know,” Keegan said, and turned to Breen, lifted his brows.
Now she was supposed to say something?