Saying nothing, Marco took two glasses to Breen and Marg.
“Smashed his head with a rock she did, and took his clothes. Left him bleeding and naked in the cold. Took the horse he’d gone out to feed.”
“Is he— How bad?” Breen asked, and Keegan shook his head.
“Healers are doing what they can. He was an hour, they think, before the littles—only four years, twin boys—went to look for him. They had the wit to cover him with blankets, and were running to the nearest cottage when one of the Sidhe scouting the area saw them and flew down.
“They have him in spell sleep, as the damage is great, and will take hours if not days to heal. If it can be healed. She’s going west, that’s clear.”
“The valley, your home, your family.” Breen looked at Marg. “Mine.”
“They’re forewarned,” Marg assured her, “and more than able to deal with her. This is not a turn, not a twist. This is who she is. She masked it, and well, and it may be she didn’t know, not fully, what she had in her. But it was there. Three times now she’s tried to take life.”
“She had an hour or more on horseback, and in the advantage of rain. She rides well, and she’d ride hard.” Keegan sat with his wine but didn’t drink. “And as she’s proved more canny—or bloody lucky— than I’d imagined, I’m thinking she’ll go on foot once the horse is played out.”
“But cold and wet, right?” Marco put in. “Hungry, tired. Gotta be some scared in there, too.”
“It won’t matter,” Breen added. “It won’t, because Nan’s right. This is who she is. The control might have snapped, but this is who she is. What would we need for a finding spell? Something of hers.”
“We have hair from her brushes and combs,” Keegan began. “Clothes and jewelry she wore, and she left a few drops of blood on the dressing table from her own spell-casting. We’ll use it.”
“We write the spell, wind the spell,” Marg said. “And find her.”
Breen looked around, the twin fires blazing, the tools of magicks, and with her, three of the Wise ready to work under a ceiling painted with stars and the two moons of Talamh.
This she could do. Here, she could help.
“Where do we start?”
Breen sat with Tarryn when she joined them to work on crafting the words and intent. Marg and Keegan worked on ingredients, mixing fresh potions, distilling oils.
Engrossed, frustrated, fascinated, Breen didn’t realize Marco had gone out until he came back in.
“Dinner break,” he announced as he came in carrying a pot, and the man and woman who’d argued about the rain followed him with bread on a board, bowls.
Brigid came in behind with food and water for Bollocks.
“I know you gotta work,” Marco said, “but witches gotta eat like the rest of us.”
“He’s right,” Tarryn said before Keegan could object. “We’ll do better work with food in us. What have we here, Marco?”
“What we’ve got is what I call kitchen sink stew. I went down to the kitchen and Maggie and Teag let me have at it.”
“He’s a brilliant cook,” Maggie put in as she and Teag set up a table. “We sampled the results, and you’re in for a good hearty meal. Gods’ blessings on you all for the work you’re doing, and our candles are lit for the young boy in the midlands.”
“Thank you, Maggie, thank you, Teag, and you as well, Brigid. Come now, let’s sit.” Tarryn gestured to the table. “And see what the kitchen sink has to offer.”
“It smells like it offers well.” Pushing back impatience, Keegan turned. “And I’m hoping he left you all more than a sample.”
“That he did, Taoiseach.” Teag grinned. “And we’ll go make quick work of it. The kitchen’s yours, Marco, whenever you please.”
Tarryn ladled up the stew. “We thank you for the meal, Marco.”
“Just want to do my part. Bollocks and I, we’ll take a walk after we eat so you can get back to it. Did I hear right? You have to do this outside? Teag said it’s going to be pretty raw out.”
“Outside’s best.” Keegan took a spoonful. “All right then, it is brilliant. A coven of seven,” he continued. “And seven from each tribe.”
“Like on Samhain.”
“Aye. I would ask you to be part of it.”
Marco blinked. “Me?”
“We would have seven that are not Fey, seven who come from outside. I would have you as one of them if you choose.”
“Yeah, sure. Wow. What do I do?”
“Be with us,” Tarryn said simply.
“That’s simple. I already am.”
Deep in the woods stood a dolmen that served as an altar for high rituals and spells of great import. Around this, in the last hour, the seven who stood for the Wise cast the circle.
Though the air held raw, and the wind snapped at her cloak, Breen felt a heat inside as she and six others performed the rite.
It surprised her to find Loren as part of the coven, then she realized that was Keegan’s way. An acknowledgment of innocence and faith.
So they called to the Quarters as other circles formed around them. The Sidhe, the Were, the Troll, the Elfin, the Mer in the sea, and the seven from other worlds.
Candles and torches sprang to life, spreading light into shadows.
“For justice, for peace, we seek to find she who hides from judgment.” As he spoke, Keegan poured water gathered from the day’s rain into the cauldron. “In breaking First Laws, she must face punishment.”
“So potions for clear eyes, clear hearts swim into water mixed by son and daughter.” Marg drained two bottles into the cauldron.
Tarryn moved forward. “Now herbs and crystals for power, for light, into this brew bring knowledge, bring sight.”
Eyes grieving, voice thick, Loren held his hand over the cauldron. “This pin I gave her. I would I could save her.”
The next added a glove, and the next a jeweled brush and comb.
“It is Shana O’Loinsigh we seek to find with this spell we seven wind. Now as the altar goes to flame, seven by seven, we speak the name.”
Beneath the cauldron, flames rose up to encase the dolmen. And from the dolmen, smoke spiraled up, white as the moons.
“Hear her crimes one by one, and grant us sight so justice is done. With this blood she sought to bind me, from my own will she sought to blind me.” Keegan added the blood.
Tarryn poured in pieces of crystal from her cupped hands. “With this vase now broken, she struck a friend to keep truth unspoken.”
Breen heard the dolmen hum under the flames as she lifted the blackened knife over the cauldron. “With this knife she tried to end my life. In her attack, this blade aimed at my back.”
Marg brought the bloodstained rock. “She struck a child with this stone, and left him lying all alone. By her malice, his life hangs in the balance.”
Keegan’s voice rose like the smoke. “At this hour, with joined power, for Talamh and its laws we stand as one. Show us now in flame and smoke so justice can be done.”
And in the smoke, and in the flame, Breen saw.
In the woods of the west where the moss grew thick and the river ran fast and green, Shana slipped through shadows, into trees, out again.
Miles back, she’d let the horse go. It had served its purpose, and even with vicious kicks had no longer managed even a trot. But she’d found her way, a way she’d remembered from a ride with Keegan on her single trip to the valley.
There would be a waterfall up ahead, and in it, the portal to Odran. It would be guarded, no question, and she’d yet to work out how to deal with that, or how to open the bloody portal.