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I want to argue, scared to death Sionnach is unstable this close to Beltane, but there’s no time. We link arms and blast through the glass walls of Sionnach’s Veil with a crack and land in the middle of rolling farmland.
He grabs my hand, and we race down a country road. “Over the next rise.”
To my dismay, Sionnach limps, slowing our progress. I tell myself it has to be this way. His redemption must come after the musket ball lamed him.
A stone wall to our right curves with the path. Did Loho father and son lay these stones to mark family land?
As we crest a hill, the view knocks the breath from me. Not more than half a city block before us is the edge of a massive cliff. Beyond, the sea crashes over a wide stretch of rocky coastline. Off to our left, a finger of land stretches into the waves. At its far end, the flashing beacon of a lighthouse pulses through rising mist.
“Beautiful,” I whisper to the road of moonlight sketched across the surface of the water.
“Here,” says Sionnach, tugging me through a wooden gate. Tall wildflowers border a lane leading to a small cottage. A familiar smell of herbs and lavender wraps around me. I’m back in my grandmother’s greenhouse.
Home.
Smoke rises from a stone chimney poking above a thatched roof covered with lines of rope. Moonshine silvers stone walls. White rocks outline windows that peek from behind a beard of ivy. Behind the house, two giant yew trees stand guard at either corner.
At the door, I stop. Once again, our actions are about to skew futures and pasts. If Sion’s virtue is restored, does my existence become unnecessary? I’ve no choice but to move forward.
He takes both my hands in his and kisses them. “You ache to see Ma as I do.”
My Máthair is on the other side of these wooden slats. Despite keeping the truth from me, I love the woman who faced down the King of the Connacht Fae to insist on my humanity. I will see this through with my fox. To restore his virtue is worth gambling my place in this life.
Sionnach raps on the door and then pushes it aside to usher me in.
The scene inside is a killing blow. The stench of soil gone to rot fills the cottage. Máthair, my grandmother—Sionnach’s mother, stands atop a trestle table with a noose around her neck. Rope has been thrown over the rafters of the house to form impromptu gallows. My hands fly to my mouth as I recognize the man next to her. Timothy Yew—who will one day pose as Máthair’s lawyer in New York—wears a matching noose around the ruddy skin of his neck.
“Ma. Da,” cries Sionnach, bursting into the single room cottage.
His parents call, “Sionnach,” in one voice. Father reaches out to son, but then grabs the rope around his neck to keep it from tightening.
“Far enough,” roars Olk, one foot poised on the edge of the table, ready to kick it over and hang Sionnach’s parents right in front of him.
Máthair and Timothy hold hands. Here is the man who bested a Faerie king for this woman’s love. The man or spirit who, at my grandmother’s behest back in New York, gave me the means to find my destiny.
How many spirits have walked through my life?
Martha O’Dwyer Loho is no more than forty. A woman I’ve only seen in the few black and white pictures she kept in a wooden box on the mantle above our fireplace. She drinks in Sionnach with wide green eyes banded with gold. I start, recognizing the same green glass eyes I now share with her son. She has the eyes of a fánaí who’s wandered through the Otherworld with her Fae lover.
“Praises, we’re blessed to lay eyes on you.” Máthair passes a swift glance in my direction. She doesn’t know me. Like the absence of Sionnach’s limp when we traveled back in time, I haven’t happened yet. The need for me hasn’t arisen. Sionnach’s human life hasn’t ended with a missing virtue. To his parents, the man standing next to me with springy russet curls isn’t the Veil guide he will become. Máthair’s bargain with Finnbheara is in the future.
Sion shakes a fist at Olk. “How dare you enter my home.”
“We opened our door to a man of God,” says Máthair. “Not a red-eyed demon.” For a heartbeat, I believe her expression might melt the fiend on the spot.
“Go now, Son,” says Timothy. “And take the lassie with you.”
Olk’s cassock is splattered with mud. He grins. “You fools thought you could best me. The moment you called the Veil, I saw where you’d travel to try to salvage your wretched soul.”
My throat constricts. I should have trusted my instinct and stopped Sionnach from guiding us here.
Máthair spits at Olk. “A thousand masses could be said for your soul, and it would still be as black as ash.”
“A thousand masses won’t save your son’s soul either.” He points a finger at Sionnach. “Your lad turned spy and condemned a good man, a priest, to torture and death.”
Máthair’s and Timothy’s faces pale as they stare at their son. Emotions from disbelief to horror cross their faces.
Timothy is first to speak. “Is this true?”
