Page 120 of A Winding Wave of Magic
I looked around us. There was nothing here but a grimy brick wall, though farther down the alley were signs of the back entrances to restaurants and apartment buildings.
“Catching your breath?” I joked. “I think the restaurants are that way.”
I floated a gloved finger over the brick covered with decades of grime, feeling brave. The past thrummed everywhere in Dublin but was as firmly held at bay as ever with this sorcerer beside me. Part of me wanted to test that stability and touch the past as it so clearly wanted me to.
It was an odd feeling, compared to the way I had run from this ability most of my life.
Jonathan held a finger to his lips, then pointed toward the alley’s entrance, where pedestrians were passing by. Then he offered a Mona Lisa smile before placing a hand on one of the bricks. Immediately, the wall shimmered before morphing into a bright red door, over which emerged a crooked sign, squeaking nervously on rusty hinges. “The Roving Raider” was painted in cracked, curling letters that bespoke a far older time.
I gawked.
“Enchanted door,” Jonathan informed me. “The Raider only allows true fae within its premises. Plain folk would find the wall impenetrable, if they could find it at all.”
“Is that really a problem?” I asked. “Plain persecution?”
“It was when they came in droves with pitchforks,” he said darkly, then took my gloved hand and guided me inside.
The door swung shut, enclosing us in a pub full of raucous fae cheering pints of beer with glassy-eyed expressions and roaring salutations. Stout, spiced wine, and whiskey filled my nose, and the bittersweet wail of a lone fiddler serenaded everyone from a corner in the back.
Like the lobby of The Carson, everyone in the pub seemed to be shifters, sorcerers, or sirens—at least from what I couldtell by the errant touch. They were also almost all men, with the exception of a few sirens lounging suggestively at the end of the bar while they twirled glossy ringlets and blew kisses at anyone who glanced their way, like characters straight out ofDubliners.
“‘And here was my nabs, as cool as you please,’”I murmured, quoting Joyce’s famous pub crawl story.
Jonathan, whose grip on my hand had not broken since entering the bar, chuckled in agreement as he felt my thoughts. He didn’t respond, mentally or otherwise, as he was otherwise preoccupied with searching the pub for something—or someone.
At last, his expression lit on a hunched old man seated in the shadows at the far end of the room, face hidden by a driver’s cap.Cary. The name darted through my thoughts as if Jonathan had spoken aloud.
They won’t hurt you. And this is someone you’ll want to meet.
As Jonathan led me through the pub, I braced myself for an onslaught of thoughts and emotion, even with the shield he seemed to lend me through our touch. Unlike a typical human crowd, which would have bombarded me with Sights until I craved a pool or a straitjacket, every fae we passed blinked in concentration, their mental blocks evident only if I happened to bump an elbow or a toe. They weren’t impregnable, but it seemed Jonathan wasn’t the only non-seer learned in the art of basic shielding.
I was grateful for them all, though I didn’t think the feeling was mutual. More than one whisper of “bean feasa” filtered through the din in uneasy tones.
“Cass.”
Jonathan beckoned me to sit next to him. A waitress, whose thin neck, short, feathery hair, and pointed nose gave her more than a passing appearance to some sort of bird, materialized to take our orders.A crane?I wondered inwardly.
Heron, Jonathan replied. His attention, however, was elsewhere.
“Jesus, Jon, what are you thinking, bringing her here?”
The voice was craggy and rough. Dressed in worn clothes and a threadbare denim jacket, he looked quite old until I realized it was more his slumped posture and crabby expression that made him look that way. His skin, though weathered, was curiously unlined.
“Glad to see you too, Cary,” Jonathan replied.
The waitress reappeared and dropped two pints of dark stout on the table. Jonathan handed her a bill, then slid one of the glasses to me and held his up in a silent salute. I smiled and took a sip.
“Now, then,” Jonathan said to Cary. “What’s the problem with my friend joining us tonight?”
His accent had shifted, I noticed, taking on more of the lilt of Dublin as opposed to the stiff Oxford-esque academic he generally affected.
Don’t mention your name,he told me through our clasped hands, now resting on his knee.
“Well, aside from the fact that she’s likely to be thought a whore?—”
“Again?” I sputtered through a mouthful of beer. I looked around for a napkin only to find Cary calmly handing me a handkerchief. “What century are we in?”
Discomfort flooded my fingers, along with something else—something Jonathan didn’t want to tell me.
