“Ma—”
She waved Keegan away. “Wars and battles come soon enough. We take the good and the bright when we find it. Come back,” she told Breen and Marco, “for the good and the bright.”
“We don’t want to intrude,” Breen began as Tarryn crossed the road to lift Kavan onto her hip and take Finian’s hand.
“She wants you, she’ll have you. But you’ll train first. Don’t be late,” Keegan warned, and walked away to join Harken in the field, where the riders already set up tents.
“That was something,” Marco managed after a moment. “It still is something. They’re going to camp out here, and they’ve got all the horses in the field. There are dragons circling overhead. Oh Jesus, they’re coming down. Where are they going to put dragons?”
They landed, single file, on the road, shaking the ground as they lined up like planes on a runway.
Jewels, Breen thought. Magnificent jewels with men and women sliding or leaping off their backs.
The riders pulled off saddles, saddlebags, packs. And one by one the dragons lifted up, making Breen’s heart shake with wonder, and considerable envy.
The riders hauled their gear, nodding to Breen and Marco as they passed, talking idly among themselves.
One, a saddle over one shoulder, a pack on his back, gave Breen a nodding glance, and Marco a long look.
“A fine head of hair you have there, friend.”
“Ah, thanks. You, too.”
He stood a moment longer, well over six feet in his boots, a warrior’s braid to his shoulder and the rest of his deep blond mane waving down his back.
“And where from the other side are you from now?”
“Um. Philadelphia.”
“Phil-a-del-phi-a,” he repeated carefully, and smiled. “All right then.”
When he walked off, Marco kept watching. “Was he flirting with me?”
“I don’t know. I couldn’t really tell. Maybe. He sure wasn’t flirting with me.”
“I think he was flirting with me. It threw me off so I didn’t flirt back. He had really blue eyes. I should’ve flirted back. I didn’t even get his name.”
“Go train, Marco.”
“Right.” He put his sunglasses back on. “I’m going this way,” he said, but kept looking after the dragon rider. “Don’t forget I’ve got that Zoom, but then we’re cleaning up, duding up, and coming back to party.”
“I really don’t think we—”
“The queen—I know she’s not a queen, but she oughta be—the queen commanded it.” He gave Breen a light punch. “Catch you later.”
She didn’t have time for a party, and couldn’t think about going to a party where she knew a bare handful of people anyway. So rather than think about it, Breen called the dog and walked down to Marg’s cottage.
She found Marg in the back garden harvesting vegetables from her little patch.
And since she didn’t see a way out, she told Marg of Tarryn’s arrival, the invitation to visit, and the ceilidh.
“A ceilidh’s just the thing. I’ll walk to the farm with you to spill the tea with Tarryn.”
“Spill it?”
“Gossip, it means. And we’ll pick a couple of these pumpkins, enough for a pie and soup as well to take to the ceilidh.”
“You’re going to make a pie and soup out of an actual pumpkin?”
“Well, of course. I can’t claim to have the hand with them Sedric does, but no one’s yet turned up a nose to either. There’s magick in cooking, Breen, as you put your intent into it, and your work, and your love as well.”
For the first time in her life Breen carved out a pumpkin. She learned how to separate the seeds, how to toast them while the chunks of pumpkin simmered on the stove to soften.
Instead of a few hours in the workshop, she spent them with Marg in the kitchen with the scents of fall everywhere. She learned how to peel and grate a nut of nutmeg, how to grind cloves and cinnamon into powders with mortar and pestle.
And while she seriously doubted she’d put any of the skills to regular use, she found some pleasure in them.
Whatever they didn’t use they stored in jars for ingredients in future cooking or magicks.
In the end, they had a pot of soup, two pies, and two rounds of pumpkin bread.
“You’ve a fine hand in the kitchen.”
“Helping hand,” Breen qualified. “Our apartment kitchen’s so small I mostly stayed out of Marco’s way, but when he wanted a hand, mine did chopping and stirring.”
During the washing up—a chore that included hauling in water from the well—she asked about Sedric. She’d realized during the baking time he’d gone south.
“Are you worried for Sedric?”
“Where there’s love, there’s worry. Worry walks hand in hand with joy on love’s path, I think. He’s where he’s needed. As am I,” she added with a brush of her hand on Breen’s shoulder.
“Would you be in the south if it wasn’t for me?”
“Ah, but there is you, mo stór, and if there wasn’t, we might not know to be in the south at the ready. So the question’s a circle that has countless answers on its ring.”
Marg dried her hands, gave a nod to the tidy state of her kitchen. “Now that’s done, we’ll take our fine work up to the farm, but set by a round of the bread for Sedric on his return.”
Breen carried the pot of soup by its handle, and Marg the pie and bread in a basket.
Leaves scuttled across the road, colorful children whisked by the wind. Overhead, dragons glided, with rider and riderless. Breen saw actual children, the group of friends she thought of as the Gang of Six, race across a field toward the bay. Because she felt Bollocks’s longing, she glanced down.
“Go on and play awhile.”
When he raced off, she laughed. “It’s a tough call which he wants more, the kids or a swim.”
“And so he’ll have both. And how’s the new book on our boy there going?”
“Pretty well. I’m going back to it in the morning as a kind of palate cleanser. I’ve been working on the adult novel, and wrote a really violent battle scene. I’m taking a break from that and switching to the fun.”
“Isn’t it a gift you have both in you?”
“I’m surprised and grateful for it every day. And for the cottage, Nan, where I can write, and Marco can work. This time last year, I got up every morning to go to a job I never wanted because I thought, I really believed, I had no choice. Now? I get up every morning to do work I love, and it’s my choice. I know I have more to make.”
“And so you will.”
“I will. Just like I’m choosing to let Keegan push, kick, and shove me through another session of training.” She sent Marg the side-eye. “Not the favorite part of my day.”
“Well now, getting through it makes the good parts that much brighter.”
“I’ll try to remember that when he kills me half a dozen times. Still, I really enjoyed meeting the Trolls, and the views on the mountain— I’ll never forget. I know I couldn’t have done it unless he’d taught me to ride, and pushed me hard. I saw you riding your dragon. I won’t forget that either. How magnificent you looked.”
“Aren’t you the one?”
“Can I go up with you sometime?”
“Well and of course you can. Ah, I see Keegan’s setting up a target. So it’s the bow for you today.”
She looked over, saw Keegan in a field putting a target on a stack of hay bales.
“That won’t be so bad. I might even be good at archery.”
“Then go find out. Here, I’ll take the soup in.”
“Have a good time, um, spilling the tea with his mother.”
“Be sure I will.”
Breen split off at the gate. How bad could it be? she asked herself. She noted he had the sword set aside for her, so there’d be some of that. Which meant getting her ass kicked—not pleasant. But if he’d gone to the trouble of putting up a target, surely they’d spend most of the training there.