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I fiddle with my scarf. “Considering it.” An upward glance reveals no change in the clouds. Gray construction paper collages hang in a static starry sky.
Is Sion seriously asking me to dabble in whatever Veil traveling is? Why? What if I’ve encountered a trickster from folklore, name-dropping a king of Tír Na nÓg? How many tales have I studied where mortals have fallen into a similar trap?
As if sensing my doubt, he asks, “Do you know what the center of a Celtic star stands for?”
A five-pointed Celtic star hung on the wall above Máthair’s bed. In its center was a circle of emerald chips that caught the light of the rising sun. Every morning, she’d touch each point of the star one at a time and tell me, “These five points are for the senses we understand.” Then she’d kiss her fingertip and rest it lightly in the middle. “This is for what we believe.”
“My grandmother said it was the crossover.”
His look is as intense as the bizarre energy emanating from my heart like the circles that surround a rock dropped in a pond. “Aye. Where humanity meets Sidhe, Otherworld.” He covers my hand with his. “Here. The Veil is part of that.”
Memories of Máthair smiling, laughing, and holding me in her arms fill me with a presence so strong, I expect her to step from behind one of the tangled trees at the edge of the forest.
Find me.
“Are we in Tír na nÓg?” Is this what my grandmother meant? If I find the Veil and the gates of Tír na nÓg, will I find her?
Impatient Sion Loho reappears and shoots to his feet. “What did I just tell you?” He bats curls off his forehead. “We’re in the Veil. Do you need further tutorials?”
Disappointment knocks the wind out of me. The eerie lack of movement in our surroundings, except for the tangible but invisible current of who knows what, gives me a chill. Not Tír na nÓg. I haven’t found my grandmother, but if insanity hasn’t taken me round the bend and stolen my ability to reason, then Sion, a wanderer, this Veil guide, may be a link to her.
“If you want—” I flick a finger between us. “To continue on any level, you need to stop being ridiculously short-tempered while I attempt to understand what’s going on here.”
Sion hangs his head and fusses with the tips of ears threatening to bust through his mop of hair. A way of counting to ten, I suppose. Or hiding ears ending in points. Is it Faeries, Elves, or both with pointed ears?
I stand. “And if I ask you a question, I expect an acid-free answer.”
He raises his face, kisses two fingers on his right hand, and lays them over his heart.
The air around me thickens and pushes at my body. I teeter and rub a hand across my forehead to rid myself of the floaty sensation. My first thought is this would be such a lovely dream. Faeries, the Veil, Sprites, Sion changing into a fox—Máthair would relish every bit of what’s happening.
When my gaze meets Sion’s, my hope for a lovely dream shatters. We’re not in Farmer McKean’s cozy wood. I traveled to this place via the fodder of legends. The supposition of my dissertation leaps to the forefront of my mind. Myths are truths subjugated to untruths to keep people from being scared of what their world is truly made of.
I need to sleep. I need to process. I need to decide what to do with this massive dose of weird. “Okay then, let’s go back to the campsite.”
Alarm flashes across Sion’s face. “Back? No. We’ve got to get crackin’.”
Chapter 9
The Tower
Sion strides to the edge of the forest. When I don’t follow, he waves an arm. “Crackin’. Moving. Come on, love.”
I set my hands to my hips. “First, stop calling me love. Second, I’m not crackin’ anywhere except to the bonfire.”
He circles back and attempts to seize my hand. “We’ve got to do our work while they sleep.”
“They?”
Muscles pulse in his throat. “The bunch at the campsite.”
I wipe hands down the sides of my face. “No more unintelligible fragments.” I try to mentally smooth the tension knots beading along my spine. “You call me your partner and now want to drag me off to do heaven knows what away from the people I know and am responsible for?” I raise a finger. “I assume we’re crackin’ to do whatever you claim Finnbheara accuses you of failing at?” I ball my hands into fists. “Do you get how insane all this sounds?”
His own fists bounce against muscular thighs. I’m privy to the wrestling match going on in his head through the narrowing and widening of his eyes. He stills, green glass fixing on me with such determination, I raise my foot to step away from him.
Quick as one of the flashes of light I saw in the forest, Sion scoops me off my feet and into his arms. Before I can scream or smack him, glass-like sheets harden around and above us, forming a space akin to a giant elevator car. Moonlight splits through the barriers, revealing every color of the visible spectrum. I gasp, recognizing them as solid versions of my dream flash boundaries. I peer down to see his feet resting on something I’ve never seen in my visions, a carpet of spheres the size of gumballs that glow in soft electric turquoise and violet.
The beauty of shimmering colors momentarily douses the indignation of being plucked off my feet. “What is this?”
