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“Okay…” Nox gathered up the shrinking pieces of his consciousness and focused as he became drowsier. “I’m stronger because of who I am and that’s why He fears me. That’s also why I’m His most beloved. And He is not my father.”
“No,” Lucas said firmly. “You’re my boy and this is the part of you that He can’t see or claim.”
“But He told me to come back here to find Him.” Nox spun and took in the clearing. He couldn’t remember its name or even the state they’d visited that weekend, but it wouldn’t be hard to find out when he was awake. “Why would He choose this?”
“He didn’t,” Lucas whispered with a sly smirk. “I did, because I thought we'd be safe from Him in this old circle and that…something might happen if both heirs awoke here on Ostara.”
Nox laughed and it was slower and heavier. “Right. We always went camping on my birthday because you said my mother goddess needed a break.”
“You were always at your wildest and most potent this time of year, especially on Ostara. He knows this is where you first believed that we could do magick and believed in something bigger than yourself,” Lucas explained, his voice growing more and more distant.
“He shouldn’t have done that,” Nox said, vowing he’d make the Dagda regret this particular trick.
“That’s my boy. I love you so much, Nox.”
“I love you too, Dad,” he said, but Nox was alone and sinking into the peaceful dark again.
Twenty-Two
He’d gotten as close as he dared and Nelson was devastated by his brief glimpse at the Dagda’s trap. It had been masterfully crafted to ensnare Nox with a little earthly assistance from ‘the three.’
Nelson had all the pieces of the awful puzzle except the why, but he would know the reason before Nox woke up from his “nap.”
This time, Nelson gave Clancy a fifteen-minute head start when he sent his S.O.S.—Send Old Saboteurs.
He had arrived and was taking off his coat when Merlin burst through the door, breathless and ready with his bag. “What’s happened? Where’s Nox?” Merlin asked, casting a suspicious glance at Clancy. “And how did you get here first?”
Nelson cleared his throat and tipped his head toward the study, signaling for them to follow. He avoided Merlin’s questioning look and shut the door behind them. “Nox is upstairs recovering from a tea bender. He sends his compliments,” Nelson told Merlin with a hard look, making Clancy swear as he headed for the decanters.
“I told him to knock it off. Are these safe?” he asked, looking over his shoulder at Merlin.
“I never tamper with spirits, especially Irish whiskey. But you already know that,” Merlin countered.
“Enough,” Nelson stated. “I finally put the pieces together and I know what we are now,” he said, waving at the three of them. “We’re His three. What I haven’t figured out is how this happened and how the two of you could do this to him.” He shook his head at Merlin and Clancy, but Nelson was just as disgusted with himself. “How could we do this to Nox?”
Merlin was as white as a sheet as he sank onto the sofa, still hugging his bag. “We had to do it, don’t you see?”
“No, we didn’t!” Nelson shook his head. “I understand—I believe—you thought we were doing the right thing. Maybe we were, on a cosmic or a spiritual level. But you knew that Nox didn’t want this. How could you take that choice from him? How could you betray him like that?”
“Because we had to.” Clancy shrugged at the decanters and Nelson heard a dry snort. “Because we love Nox more than life itself.”
“That’s the part that keeps tripping me up,” Nelson admitted. “I didn’t understand my part of the prophecy, that I was the gateway or the bridge. But you two knew…” It was staggering, when he took account of Merlin’s and Clancy’s misdeeds. And they had started long before Nelson was told to investigate two missing witches. “A cauldron to provide for the family and please the company and a mace or a staff to protect them,” he said, watching as both Merlin and Clancy nodded and hung their heads.
Merlin opened his bag and dug inside of it until he found what he was looking for. “It has always been my duty to serve the MacIlwraiths,” he said as he held the damaged locket out to Nelson. “It’s safe again.”
Nelson thanked him as he took it. “He thought you were helping him find a way to suppress this connection he has with the Dagda. But you’ve been nurturing it, cultivating it. You designed him for the Dagda, right down to picking Sorcha, an Ó Murchadha, for Lucas to marry,” Nelson continued, then shook his head, gravely disappointed. “And that’s the real reason you sent Nox to New Castle the first time and why he couldn’t miss the rave.”
“Yes…” Merlin nodded jerkily up at Nelson and they both jumped when Clancy laughed into his drink.
“He didn’t just design him for the Dagda. He’s a walking magnet and if Nox was a car, he’d be covered in ‘I love the Dagda’ and ‘the Dagda is my copilot’ stickers.”
“I did what I was meant to do,” Merlin replied with a haughty sniff. “I did as we agreed,” he added.
Nelson made a note of that but wasn’t ready to move on yet. “I never agreed to deliver him to New Castle or to being drugged,” he scolded Merlin and the older man watched Nelson with wide, admiring eyes as he set his bag aside and rose.
“I had to! I’ve only ever encountered one Uaithne in my time and I’ve never heard of one with a will as strong as yours.” He looked to Clancy and he shook his head.
“I’ve only ever known two and you’re the most Uaithne I’ve ever seen. But your will is very much your own and I can’t tell you how much that reassures me.”
