Page 17 of Shadow Spell

“That he did,” Connor confirmed. “He was gone, and with him the fog, and there was only myself and the boy. Then only myself. But... He was me, and I was he—parts of one. That I knew when we joined hands. More than blood. Not the same, but... more than blood. For a moment, I could see into him—like a mirror.”

“What did you see?” Meara asked.

“Love and grief and courage. The fear, but the heart to face it, for his sisters, for his parents. For us, come to that. Just a lad, no more than ten, I’d venture. But in that moment, shining with a power he hasn’t yet learned to ride smooth.”

“Is it like me going to visit Nan?” Iona wondered, thinking of her grandmother in America. “A kind of astral projection? But it’s not exactly, is it? It’s like that, but with the time shift, much more than that. The time shift that can happen by Sorcha’s cabin. You weren’t by Sorcha’s cabin, were you, Connor?”

“No, still outside the clearing. Near though.” Connor considered. “Maybe near enough. All this is new. But I know for certain it wasn’t what Cabhan expected.”

“It may be he brought the boy, brought Eamon,” Meara suggested. “Pulled him from his own time into ours, trying to separate him from his sisters, to take on a boy rather than a man like the sodding coward he is. The way you said it happened, Connor, if you hadn’t come along, he might have killed the boy, or certainly harmed him.”

“True enough. Eamon was game, by God, he was game—wouldn’t run when I told him to run, but still confused, afraid, not yet able to draw up enough to fight on his own.”

“So you woke and went out,” Branna said, “you who never step a foot out of a morning without something in your belly, and called up your hawk. Barely dawn?” She shook her head. “Something called you there. The connection between you and Eamon, or Sorcha herself. A mother still protecting her child.”

“I dreamed of Teagan,” Iona reminded them. “Of her riding Alastar to the cabin, to her mother’s grave, and facing Cabhan there—drawing his blood. She’s mine, the way Eamon is Connor’s.”

Branna nodded as Iona looked at her. “Brannaugh to Branna, yes. I dream of her often. But nothing like this. It’s useful, it must be useful. We’ll find a way to use what happened here, what we know. He hid away since the solstice.”

“We hurt him,” Boyle said, scanning the others with tawny eyes. “That night he bled and burned as we did. More, I’m thinking.”

“He took the rest of the summer to heal, to gather. And this morning tried for the boy, to take that power, and—”

“To end you,” Fin interrupted Branna. “Kill the boy, Connor never exists? Or it’s very possible that’s the case. Change what was, change what is.”

“Well now, he failed brilliantly.” Connor polished off his bacon, sighed. “And I feel not only human again, but fit and fine. It’s a pity we can’t take the bastard on again now.”

“You need more than a full fry in your belly to take him on.” Rising, Meara gathered dishes. “All of us do. We hurt him on the solstice, and that’s a satisfying thing, but we didn’t finish him. What did we miss? Isn’t that the thing we need? What did we not do that we need to do?”

“Ah, the practical mind.”

“Someone needs to think practical,” Meara tossed back at him.

“She’s right. I’ve poured over Sorcha’s book.” Branna shook her head. “What we did, what we had, how we planned it, it should’ve worked.”

“He changed the ground,” Boyle reminded her. “Took the fighting ground back in time.”

“And still, I can’t find what we might add to it.” Branna tossed a glance toward Fin, just a beat. He only gave her the most subtle shake of head. “So we’ll keep looking.”

“No, you sit.” Iona took more dishes before Connor could do so. “Considering your dawn adventure, you get a pass at kitchen duty. Maybe I wasn’t strong or skilled enough last summer.”

“Do you need reminding of a whirlwind called?” Boyle asked her.

“That was more instinct than skill, but I’m learning.” She glanced back at Branna.

“You are, yes, and very well indeed. You’re no weak link if that’s what you’re thinking, nor have you ever been. He knows more than us, and that’s a problem. He’s lived, in his way, hundreds of years.”

“That makes him older,” Meara put in, “not smarter.”

“We have books and legends and what was passed down generation to generation. But he lived it all, so—smarter or not—he knows more. And what he has is deep and dark. His power has no rules as ours does. He harms who he wants, no matter to it. That we can never do and be what we are.”

“His power source—the stone he wears around his neck, wolf or man. Destroy it, destroy him. I know it,” Fin stated, clenched a fist on the table. “I know it as truth, but don’t know how it can be done. Yet.”

“We’ll find the way. We must,” Connor said, “so we will.”

Fin rose when Connor reached over the table to lay his hand on Branna’s, and joined the others across the room with the clatter of dishes, the whoosh of water in the sink.

“Worrying for me won’t help, and isn’t needed. I don’t have to look,” he added, “to see.”

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