Page 82 of Shadow Spell

“All right then?” he asked.

Branna leaned against him a moment. “I will be.”

She turned the heat off under the potatoes, began to scoop them out with a slotted tool onto paper towels to drain. “Why didn’t I feel any of it?” she wondered. “I slept straight through it all, never knowing a thing.”

“Why didn’t I, or Iona?” Fin countered from behind her. “It wasn’t our dream; we didn’t have a part in it.”

“I was right in the same house, only just down the hall. I should’ve sensed something.”

“I can see as you’re the center of this world how you’re deserving a piece of all of it.”

When she rounded on him, eyes flashing, narrowed, Iona stepped up. “Stop it, just stop it, both of you. You’re each blaming yourselves, and that’s stupid. Neither of you is responsible. The only one who is, is Cabhan, so knock it off. My blood, my brother,” she added before the pair of them could speak. “Blah, blah, blah. So what? We’re all in this. Why don’t we find out exactly what happened before we start dividing up the blame?”

“You’re marrying a bossy woman,mo dearthair,” Fin said to Boyle. “And a sensible one. Sit, Iona, and Meara as well. I’ll get your coffee.”

Iona sat, folded her hands neatly on the table. “That would be very nice.”

“Don’t bleed it out,” Meara warned, and joined her.

At Branna’s direction, Boyle piled eggs on the platter with the sausage, bacon, potatoes, fried tomatoes, and black pudding.

He carted it to the table while Fin served the coffee and Connor poured out juice.

“Take us through it,” Fin told Connor.

“It started as they do—as if you’re fully awake and aware and somewhere else all at once. In Clare we were, though I didn’t know it at first. In Clare, and in Eamon’s time.”

He wound through the story as they all served themselves from the huge platter.

“A hart?” Branna interrupted. “Was it real, or did you bring it into it?”

“I wouldn’t have thought of it. If I’d wanted a guide, I’d have pulled in Roibeard. It was a massive buck, and magnificent. Regal, and with a hide more gold than brown.”

“Blue eyes,” Meara added.

“You’re right. They were. Bold and blue, like Eamon’s, come to think of it.”

“Or his father’s,” Branna pointed out. “In Sorcha’s book she writes her son has his father’s eyes, his coloring.”

“You think it was Daithi,” Connor considered, “or representing him. He might be given that form to be near his children, protect them as best he can.”

“I hope it’s true,” Iona said quietly. “He was killed riding home to protect them.”

“The hart that might have been Daithi’s spirit guided us toward the light, and the light was Eamon. Three years in his time since we last met. He was taller, and his face fined down as it does when you’re passing out of childhood. He’s a handsome lad.”

Now he grinned at Meara.

“He’d say that, as I told him they favor each other. Different coloring to be sure, but you’d know they’re kin.”

“He thought Meara was Aine—a gypsy,” Connor explained. “One who’d passed through some time before, and told him they’d see home again.”

“That’s interesting. You have gypsy in your heritage,” Iona pointed out.

“I do.”

“And Fin named the filly he chose for Alastar Aine.”

“I thought of that, and take it doesn’t mean I resemble a horse.”

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