Page 32 of Outside the Veil
I might need a ball of twine to find my way back out of there.
Diego carried Finn from his metal prison to lay him on the grass while he unpacked the truck. Only Finn’s furred chest moved with the slow rise and fall of his breathing.
“You want me to carry you in?” Diego crouched beside him when all the luggage and bags were safely inside. “Or maybe bring you dinner out here?”
Finn’s eyes remained shut. “Leave me here. I’m not hungry. Go rest.”
“It’ll get cold out here.”
“Diego, I never lived inside a building before I guested with you. Do you think Irish winters are warm?”
“No, but…”
“I said leave me be. Gods. Deaf as well as stubborn.”
“Fine, fine.” Diego chewed on his bottom lip as he walked back to the house. Finn’s voice stopped him when he reached the steps.
“Diego?”
“Yes?”
“It is a beautiful place.”
“Everything you wanted?”
“More than I ever dared hope for.”
Chapter eight
Taking the City Out of the Boy
Finn shifted back to his own form, a painful, tedious process after his daylong confinement, but a relief all the same. He rolled spreadeagle onto his back to get as much of his skin in contact with the earth as possible, opening himself to the flows of magic. Fingers digging into the dirt, he reached into the depths for the strongest veins of magic. Relief flooded through every scrap of him.
The cacophony of scents brought tears to his eyes—damp grass, new leaves, wildflowers sweet and woody, the sharp tang of insects, hints of territorial musk, humus and loam. He turned his gaze upward and nearly sobbed aloud.
Great Dagda. Stars.
He hadn’t seen stars since he’d woken. With all the horrors confronting him, he’d been afraid to ask Diego if the stars still shone. As if an evil fog dissipated, his senses sprang back to heart-pounding clarity.
A bat fluttered against the house in her hunt for mosquitoes. Three deer picked their way cautiously through a nearby clearing. Hundreds of crickets sang. An owl called across the treetops—
“Finn!”
The houselights flared, blocking out the stars. Diego barreled down the front steps in nothing but the delightfully short pants he wore to bed. Lovely sight if Diego hadn’t been white with shock.
“I’m here, my hero,” Finn called. “What’s amiss?”
“I… There was…” Diego shook his head as he did when he became flustered. “I heard a scream. I thought it was you.”
“A scream?”
The owl called again and Diego stabbed a finger toward the woods. “There!”
“Ah, that would be the bane sidhe come to rip your soul away.”
“Banshees are real, too?”
Diego’s expression held such a mix of horror and disbelief Finn found himself unable to continue his small mischief. “They are, but there are none here. That is merely an owl calling for her mate.”
