“It may be you deserved a better mother, alanna. Shall we forgive one another while we still can?”
“Oh, sure. I’m sure I deserved a better mother than the one who chose not to hand the Master a major defeat because it might’ve risked my unborn self, or the one who gave me up to my father so the Master couldn’t keep the bead he’d had on me, or the one who gave me a magic silver necklace to protect my soul from evil, or the one who came back from the dead to lay a smackdown on the Master and kick a banshee’s ass because I was too new and feeble in my powers to do it myself. I’m sure I deserved—”
“A mother,” Sheila interrupted, and to my horror tears flooded my eyes. “Shall we forgive?” she asked again, even more quietly. I nodded, miserable with embarrassment, and she sighed before a note of playfulness came into her voice. “Now, I know we’ve little time and much to talk about, Siobhán, but there’s two things you’ve said that have my attention, so they do.”
I looked up, snuffling, to see her smile and lift a finger to touch its tip. “One—you got the guy?”
I laughed through snorting snot, which made for a very wet burbly disgusting laugh, but it was heartfelt. “My boss. My former boss. Captain Morrison? Did I mention—”
“The one who can’t tell a Corvette from a Mustang,” Sheila said, eyes solemn. Then she leaned forward confidentially and admitted, “I’m Irish, lass. I wouldn’t know the one from the other if my life depended on it.”
“Yes, but you’re Irish. He’s a red-blooded American male, it just shouldn’t be possible for him not to know.” I snuffled again and wiped my hand under my nose. Six-year-olds had more dignity than I did. “But anyway, yeah. We sort of…yeah. It’s not like you and Dad.” A thought which bent my brain. “Morrison’s not magical at all. But I don’t need any more magic in my life. He grounds me. He’s…” God. My stupid eyes filled up with tears again, for a whole different reason this time. I was turning into a regular Waterworks Wendy.
“That’s grand so,” my mother said in delight. “Congratulations, Joanne. Be happy, alanna. Be happy.”
“I hope so.” I cleared my throat. “What was the other thing?”
“Oh!” Her eyes lit up. “A magic necklace?”
“Yeah, my—your—silver choker? It’s magic. Didn’t you know that? Nuada made it for the Morrígan when he married her and it bound her to this whole fight we’re in. Hobbled her, like.” I was falling into the Irish idiom of adding “like” or “so” to the end of sentences for no apparent reason. If I stayed here more than a week I’d forget how to speak American English. “I don’t know if it’s got any other power, but reining in goddesses is a pretty good one-shot to have. And, oh, it’s, um, sort of bound to our family line. I was kind of there when it was forged and put some of my blood into the forging. The Morrígan had to bear a child to have it removed, and that child was Méabh, who made a choice to fight against her mother and our whole family has been doing it ever since. I’ve got Caitríona O’Reilly with me now. She’s taking up your mantle, she’ll be the new Irish mage, since I’m not cut out for it.”
Mother hesitated. “Caitríona? Truly?”
“Oh, yeah. She found us at the graveyard about to burn your bones and made us come up to Croagh Patrick, where Áine triggered her magic. Méabh’s having a fit because that’s not how it’s done in her estimation, but it sure looks like that’s what’s happened anyway.”
I was as unaccustomed to seeing pride on Sheila’s face as I was smiles, but there was unmistakable pride now. “Caitríona will be grand so. Oh, but she’s got so much study ahead of her, Joanne. The mage’s path isn’t an easy one. She’s a fine lass, though, strong and quick. She’ll do well. Tell her I said so, won’t you?”
“Yeah.” I cleared my throat. “Yeah, of course I will. It’ll torque Méabh’s jaws, but that’ll be fun, too.”
It was Sheila’s turn to clear her throat, after which she said, “Méabh,” cautiously. “We’re the daughters of Méabh? Of the Méabh? Queen Méabh of Connacht?”
“Yep, that one.” Ah, how my life had shifted, that I could say that so casually. “She’s kind of hanging around on Croagh Patrick right now while I talk to you. Do you want to meet her?”
Mother’s eyes got very nearly as big as saucer plates, which in the garden of the soul was a dangerous kind of phrase to indulge in. “I would so,” she whispered, and I sat up straighter, pleased to be able to offer something to my mother that would mean something to her.
If I turned my attention outward, Méabh’s presence was easy to distinguish, a roaring flame of connected power. A flame which appeared to be in heated argument with Caitríona. I was going to have to separate those two, but not just yet. I softened my shields ever so slightly, extending an invitation to Méabh. She broke off fighting with Cat and spun to face me, her own shields melding until they fit the shape of doorway I offered. A moment later she stepped through, larger than life and glorious even in the garden of my mind.
Which would have been fine, except the Morrígan stalked into my garden on her heels.
Chapter Twenty
Under any other circumstances I’d have applauded the entrance. The woman was amazing, with her blue-black hair and her blue-banded biceps and the flowing, gorgeous robes that didn’t impede her fighting ability at all. Furthermore, my shields glimmered around her as she pushed through, giving her a glowing curtain of power that clung to her skin and shone silver highlights on the curve of strong muscles. Méabh was Amazonian, but fair-haired. The Morrígan seemed more like what I could look like if I was at my absolute peak of awesomeness.
My forearm burned suddenly, the half-forgotten bite awakening again. The Morrígan lay along an unforgiving path, where admiring any part of her made me all the more susceptible to her master’s powers. I clenched my right hand over the bite and squeezed hard, half hoping it would pop, pimplelike, and all the poisoned blood would gush out.
Well. That was gross enough to wipe away the folly of admiring the bad guys. I surged to my feet, snapping, “You can’t be here,��� but I could See the path she’d taken to get in. There were too many links here: me, Sheila, Méabh and the necklace, all of us tied to the Morrígan in one way or another. That, and although a few hundred generations separated us, we had a trace of magic in common, too. It made my shields just vulnerable enough, when I’d already invited her daughter through them.
Méabh and Sheila both spun to see the interloper, Méabh with her sword drawn before she’d finished turning. I started to reach for my own sword and stopped, remembering with a pang that it and Gary were lost to time. Lost to a battle they’d fought against the woman who’d just walked into my garden as if it were her own. Smart money was on kicking her right out, but I’d never been all that smart. “Tell me what happened to Gary.”
Méabh gave me a sharp look, and Sheila a curious one, but neither of them questioned me as the Morrígan laughed, low and warm and friendly. “And why would I do that?”
Every once in a while my shit came together and I knew the right answer to a challenging question. Cool with anger, I straightened to my full height—a height which was more impressive among humans; the Morrígan didn’t tower over me the way Méabh did, but she still had me by a couple inches—and did my best to look disdainfully down my nose at a goddess. “Because I’ll let you go free from this place if you do, and otherwise I will bind you beneath the stone of this mountain as your master has been bound beneath the earth before, and you will lie with its weight pressing down on you, and its white power will stymie your magics and you will be a prisoner until the end of time.”