“I won’t.” Breen followed her grandmother into the cottage, where Marg set the fire to light. “Is it like when I saw the deer—a buck—when I turned to your cottage, and I knew he wasn’t a Were, but a buck?”
“It’s more. All Fey have this knowing. No one would loose an arrow on the hunt without looking and knowing. But not all have what you have. It’s one of Harken’s gifts as well. And Aisling in her way, the way of healing a wound or an illness. You have both.”
“Do you? I’ve never asked.”
“A bit of both. Your gift is stronger, but needs to be honed as yet.”
“I lost all that time. I could’ve been learning.”
“Time’s never lost, just spent on other matters. Now.” Marg gestured to her many shelves, the jars and baskets, the crystals and tools. “What manner of protection are you wanting for your friend?”
“I’d like to put him inside an impenetrable force field. I don’t suppose that’s an option.”
“With time and practice,” Marg said as she lit the little stove with its kettle on the hob.
“Really?”
“Such things can be prisons as well, can’t they, taking freedom away as well as giving protection. What I know of him? I’d say something …” She circled a finger in the air as if to find the word. “Stylish, that he can wear. Show off a bit.”
“You’re right about that. A necklace.” Breen toyed with her own. “Or a bracelet maybe.”
Marg gestured to the shelves. “See what strikes you.”
Breen wandered up and down, looking at, picking up, putting down cords and chains, stones, ribbons, strips of leather.
“Do the Trolls mine the crystals?”
“They do, aye.”
“And you barter and trade with them for them. I need to expand my stock. You’ve been more than generous there, but I should start getting my own. Will they barter with me?”
“Sure and they would. Nothing the Trolls favor more than a good trade. Other than a good meal with a large tankard of ale. It’s a good ride to the nearest mines and their trading post. Keegan can take you while he’s training you.”
“Hmm” was all Breen said to that.
“But you’ll choose what you like now for your friend, and mine. And the making of the protection is good practice for you.”
“I was thinking the leather. If I could braid some together for a bracelet. These different tones—the black, the browns. And work stones in. Um. Malachite for protection and support—and he’d like the color. Black tourmaline for safety and protection, obsidian for shielding, purifying, and for sending negative energy back to the source. Citrine for positive energy, spiritual cleansing. Amethyst and labradorite for protection against psychic attacks.”
She looked back at Marg.
“Good choices, all—you learn, Breen Siobhan. I think add a fire agate, a shield. Choose your stones then—tumbled ones would work best for a bracelet, I’m thinking. I’ve kept your wand and your athame, so be sure to take them with you when you leave for your training.”
Marg went to another shelf, opened a long wooden box. She took out Breen’s tools, set them on the worktable.
“Now lay out what you’ve chosen. The simple task first, to braid the leather with your own hands, with the thought of your friend and your intent in each twist.”
She could braid—Marco had seen to that—so she sat and began.
“Each twist, each fold, binding protection for the brother of my heart. Strong leather, dark and light, three into one. And this his pulse beats under.”
Marg nodded in approval. “Well done, well said. Lay the stones on the leather as you wish.”
Breen arranged them, rearranged them, changed them a third time. “Do you think that’s right?”
“It’s what you think, what you feel.”
“It feels right. He’ll like the colors and contrasts. It’s a strong combination.”
“Aye. Now bring the light, mo stór. Charge the stones with its energy, and yours.”
It seemed like yesterday, and a year from yesterday all at once since she’d done purposeful magicks. Her heart tripped as she drew her power in and up, as she pulled the light streaming through the window to bathe the stones.
In it, they pulsed.
“Your wand now. Merge them, stone to leather, intent with heart. Give them your power and your words.”
“This gift I make for one held dear, to shield him from harms both far and near. With my hands three became one, with my powers I called the sun. And here with these stones selected, I charge he be protected. Body, mind, spirit, three as one.”
She passed the wand over the leather and stones, once, twice, three times. “And so by wand and will, my charm is done.”
The stones sank into the braided leather, fused with it.
She felt the power tremble inside her another moment, then released it with a breath.
“It’s a strong gift.” Marg kissed the top of Breen’s head. “And a lovely one.”
Breen lifted it, turned it over, studied the smooth flat braid, then laid it upside over her wrist to examine the look of the stones. “I’ve missed this,” she murmured, and turned her head to look up at Marg. “And you. Missed all of this and you more than I realized.”
“We’ll sew a fine pouch for the gift.”
Breen took Marg’s hand before she could turn back to the shelves. “Odran doesn’t see me yet. It’s like a curtain, but there’s a chink letting in dark instead of light. It’s your curtain, your spell holding it.”
“For now. You need time yet, as do we all.”
“He’ll shove it open soon.”
“He will, aye, he will. But we have today.” Now she cupped Breen’s face. “He knows you have more than he thought, but he doesn’t understand you have more even than that. Neither do you know it, but you will.”
Marg walked back to the shelves. “A red leather pouch, I’m thinking, done with gold cord. Would that suit Marco?”
“To the ground.”
And because she sensed Bollocks patiently waiting outside the door, Breen rose to let him in.
“I won’t leave again until it’s done, Nan. That’s my promise, that’s my choice. Help me find the more in me to get it done.”
“I’ll always help you, mo stór, but it’s you who’ll find what you have and what you need.”
Soon, Marg hoped, as the tugs and pulls on the curtains grew stronger every day.
CHAPTER FIVE
After the sublime—an afternoon of conjuring, practicing, and creating with her grandmother—Breen walked to the farm for, if not the ridiculous, the most likely painful.
She felt a spark of hope when she spotted Morena giving Marco pointers in hand-to-hand on the training field. Keegan leaned back against the paddock fence watching. Harken, most usually busy in the fields or with the stock, sat on the fence beside his brother.
The resemblance struck her as Keegan, hands in the pockets of his duster, turned his head to say something that made Harken grin. They shared features with the man in the photo with her father, taken before she was born. The set of the jaw, the shape of the mouth, the plane of the nose.
But whatever the similarities, she’d detected wide differences in their personalities and interests. Keegan wore a sword at his side, and Harken had work gloves sticking out of his trouser pocket. Harken wore an old brown cap on his wave of hair, and Keegan the skinny warrior’s braid down one side of his.
The taoiseach and the farmer, she thought. If cameras had worked in Talamh, she’d have snapped a photo of the moment.
Harken lifted a hand in greeting as she walked along the stone fence to the gate. Keegan just tracked her with his eyes.