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Olk glowers with white-hot hatred, driving the blade deeper into Sionnach’s chest.
Within me, Veil Sprites explode into a wall of flame. I am not helpless. I possess the power of human and Fae. It’s time to embrace both. A lifetime of folklore and stories swirl in my head, quickly settling on the tale of a simple woman who sought the aid of a mighty Fae king. The story sharpens in my mind, showing me how to act.
I sweep a hand toward the cottage door. It flies off the hinges as I cry to the night. “Éisteacht liom mo athair, Finnbheara. Listen to me. For the love you bore this woman, grant me the power to overcome evil.”
In the distance, lightning erupts above the horizon, spiking across the sea. On the farthest point of the peninsula, the lighthouse begins to spin faster and faster, as bolt after bolt of lightning pummel it. The structure explodes into a pillar of blinding white. Before the light stands a colossus clad in polished silver armor with a crown upon his head. He raises a stone shield as tall as the vanished lighthouse to the maelstrom of furious gray-black clouds above his shining helm. His other hand wields a gleaming silver sword, pointing directly at my heart.
I turn and bow to my king. Behind Finnbheara, a hundred shafts of light pierce the clouds to meet the sea. Each place they touch erupts in a geyser of hissing steam.
My hand tingles and then a cylinder of pure white light no thicker than my finger rises from my palm—passed from Finnbheara to me. I turn to Olk, who drops Sionnach and backs into a corner of the cottage, fear mangling his features. I level the light at his heart. “In the name of my maker, Finnbheara, I purge you from the Veil. I purge you from the earth. I purge you from the heavens.”
Olk raises arms to block the light streaking from my outstretched hand. He attempts to shift from man into the conflagration of purple-blue fire he uses to infect the Veil. Snow white flames as delicate as strands of fine lace surround him, compressing the malignant fiend into a smaller and smaller mass. For a moment, golden light illuminates him like an angelic portrait, but he swiftly corrupts into a sculpture of ash. Wind screams through the cottage and Jeremy Olk’s blackened soul flies through the open door, riding the night wind to Finnbheara’s outstretched palm.
The king squeezes his hand into a fist and raises it to the sky. From between his fingers, black liquid drips into the sea. When the last of Jeremy Olk is consumed by the waves, Finnbheara thumps his chest and nods to me. King and lightning stream back to the clouds. The lighthouse resumes its solitary watch over the shore.
My head swims, and I clutch a chair to keep from falling. Timothy and Máthair escape their nooses and drop to the ground next to their son. Both adults stare at me with a combination of fear and awe, but Sionnach’s face breaks into a pain-riddled smile.
“Ma. Da. This is Eala Duir.” He reaches for me. “My love.”
I rush to his side. While Timothy presses a wad of cloth against the bleeding wound in his son’s chest, Máthair turns to me. A distant flicker shines at the back of my grandmother’s eyes as bright as emerald glass. She pulls me into her arms, holding me to her heart with the same strength that carried me through life from the day I was born until the day she left me.
The love in her voice whose absence tore a hole in my heart flows through my body, repairing damage I thought I’d wear forever. “Then we love you too, dearest Eala.”
Beside us, Sionnach’s breathing turns ragged. Words shift into groans. Máthair transfers his head to her lap. “Tim, fetch my dandelion oil.” She turns to me. “For healing.”
Judging from the gray pallor of his skin, and the pool of blood on the floor next to him, my Sionnach is not going to heal in this time. I don’t need to count heartbeats to know the end of the Celtic day draws near. I rip the kerchief from my neck and toss it to Máthair to replace the blood-soaked cloth over Sionnach’s wound.
He smiles at his parents, straining to speak. “No man goes beyond his day, eh, Da?”
Timothy Yew, no Timothy Loho, the stocky farmer that sent me on my journey to find Máthair, lays a hand on the crown of his son’s garnet-colored head. “’Tis not your day yet, Mac.”
Not in this time and place, but it is Sionnach’s last day. We must return to the soulfall tower before the day dawns so he can pass into forever. I trade places with Máthair and cradle Sionnach’s curly head on my lap while she pours dandelion oil into the wound, tending to her boy for the last time.
I lean over and kiss her cheek. “I will take care of him, Máthair.” I lay a hand on Timothy’s sleeve. “I promise.”
In front of the astonished faces of my grandmother and the man for whom she forfeited Tír na nÓg, the Veil enfolds Sionnach and me in radiant glory. We glide through time back to the soulfall tower.
The round room at the top of the turret is once again bathed in the glow of golden torchlight. Outside the window, indigo night fades to lavender, the precursor of dawn. Beltane has grabbed onto a trail of moonlight to draw itself over the world.
Sionnach sits next to me on the floor, patting his chest. The Veil works its magic, and the wound becomes a thumb-sized pink scar.
I grab both his hands in mine and kiss them. My tears wet his skin. “Will you go to Heaven?”
We cradle each other’s faces. His lips trail from my temple to my mouth, claiming me with the joy of a soul finally unfettered. Sionnach’s voice is raw. “I’ll spend my eternity searching for your soul.”
Rivulets of tears drench my skin. “Why didn’t Máthair send me to you sooner?”
Sionnach gives a gentle laugh. “And you’d a opened your arms wide to me if I’d dropped in on any old Éostre and asked you to join me in Ireland to hop around time?”
I can’t help but smile, remembering how I badly wanted to drop kick him the day we met in the Druid’s Cave at Blarney Castle. I rise to my knees, pulling him up with me. We press our hearts together. “Don’t leave me. I love you. There’s nothing in this life or the next that will matter as much as you.”
He buries his face against my neck. “I should have begged Finnbheara to change the bargain and trade eternity to stay one lifetime on this earth with you.”
I grab fistfuls of his leine. “I’ll ask it of him now. He’s listening. Finnbheara came when I called to him at the cottage.”
Sionnach shakes his head, his gaze drifting to the window. “My hour has come.” He lays one hand over my heart and the other over his. “One hundred thousand heartbeats.”
We fall into a kiss filled with the hundred thousand words we’ll never speak to each other.
