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He gives his vest a final tug and stares at me too long before he answers. “If I tell you, I need your word you won’t run off.”
Oh, shit. Here comes another avalanche of weird.
Sion grins. “You might say this isn’t my first parade.”
“Rodeo.”
“Eh?”
“The saying is: It’s not my first rodeo.”
“Rodeo. Grand.” He rearranges the leaves on the path with his toe, stalling. “As I’ve said, my days to serve are limited from Éostre to Beltane every year.”
I’m not sure I want him to answer, but I ask anyway. “How many times have you had these days?”
“Closing in on two hundred.”
I back into a tree trunk and cling to it to keep from falling.
He reaches a hand toward me but to his credit, holds his ground. “Honestly, it’s less than three years over time if you do the calculating of possible days.” He gives me a guilty smile. “It’s no time at all if you divvy that up between devoting time to each soul’s artifact.”
My chest is so tight, I barely draw breath. Even though he doesn’t look a day past thirty, Sion is saying he’s over two hundred years old. How can he exist in the same lifetime as me as if he belongs here?
He takes a step closer. “Ask only what you need to. Time will have its way with us soon enough.”
“How do you fit in and seem as normal as you do?”
“Short way is, I’ve got maybe forty days every year to catch up on the world.” He blows air out his lips with a low whistle. “It’s not a hard deal. One year to the next ain’t much different.” He lifts his chin like he’s measuring the moon. “I reckon all this hasn’t had adequate time to settle in your noggin, but we’d best be off.”
He’s right. My noggin is full to bursting. If I’m accepting the Veil and time travel, I guess Sion’s bizarre existence is just one more part of the package to buy into.
“We’ll talk again on it. I promise,” he says, shifting his weight from foot to foot. “Can we be off then?”
Sion is so casual. I’m freaked out in equal parts to his calm. Have I lost my mind? What will it take to trade overwhelmed for being rooted in the now and stay safe? I should make Sion take me back to the circle of fake standing stones with their garlands and twinkle lights and let my grandmother rest in peace.
My chest tightens. What if Máthair is in a soulfall? Is she waiting for a Veil guide to find her key to pass into Tír na nÓg? I’ve got to find her. If my grandmother is cracking over a giant boulder in a different parade of doomed souls, maybe Sion and I can save her as well.
I lay a hand on Sion’s. The contact sends a pleasant hum up my arm. “Are there other soulfalls?” He nods. “Will you go fix another if we get everything right with this one?”
My partner in our escapade wears a mask of weariness. “I’m not meaning to dodge your questions, love.” A hand rests over his heart. He pauses as if counting the beats. “But I’m begging for a deferment until after we deal with Master Matthew.”
Given the extremely loud ticking clock of a single Celtic day that I’m now aware of, I tamp down the urge to argue for now. “Okay.” As soon as we return to my reality, I’m going to pin him to the ground until I get answers. The image of Sion’s body pinned beneath mine ignites a burn across my cheeks as well as regions lower in my body.
His eyes twinkle, and my blush intensifies, mortified at the notion this strange man may be able to slip into my very thoughts. Sharing and Sion are not two words that fit companionably side-by-side so I’m in the dark as to how far his otherwordly reach may be. Given my last mental image, I’m not going to bring up the question right now.
“Ready?” he asks.
How can anyone be ready for backspacing five hundred years? I fight another onslaught of nerves. I’m doing this for the souls and the hope Sion can help me find Máthair. My heart aches with loss as fresh and violent as the day I lost her. If there is a chance to make sure she’s found peace, I can’t fritter it away because I’m scared shitless. “Not even a little.”
He wraps an arm around my waist. “I won’t be leaving your side, Eala bán. You have my word.”
I thread an arm around his back, needing to cement myself to him. “And you promise we’ll find my grandmother if I go with you?”
His muscles turn to granite against my arm. “I’ll do my best to see it done.”
I want to ask why he’s so tense about his half of the promise. Is he bound to a Celtic afterlife rule book? In this place of soulfalls and Faerie kings, how can contacting Máthair’s spirit be that big a taboo?
I hear Sion murmur before the prism walls fracture light around us. The barriers are gauzier than before. We glide through streaks of color. The rainbow box turns into a passageway. Far off I hear a chime, and then a sweet, sustained note. A violin, the music of my dream flashes. A second note rides beside it in gorgeous harmony. And then, in a breath, it all disappears.
