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Charlie nips any further questioning by calling her over.
I take advantage of the opening to head toward the exit, bent on making my way to the cathedral when a familiar figure leans out from behind a pedestal topped with a marble bust.
“Eala.” Sion’s voice is low as he keeps to the shadows.
I rush to his side, grabbing him by the shoulders. “Shit—a fire.” I’m relieved when a quick once over doesn’t reveal any burns or singes. “Please tell me it didn’t have anything to do with you and Strongbow’s tomb.”
He guides me past a pair of sweeping staircases into the next gallery, clinging to me and panting. I’ll bet he sprinted the mile between the cathedral and here. “I can’t be sure.”
I pull him closer to keep nearby patrons from overhearing us. “Was it the artifact? Did it flare or ignite when you pushed it through the stone lid?”
We stare intently into each other’s eyes. He leads me to a deserted nook away from the nearest docent. We drop onto a white platform with a Do Not Sit sign under a painting called View of the Devil’s Glen. The dark subject matter of the art does nothing to relieve my rising trepidation.
“I had no chance to return it.” He lays the metal rings on my palm.
The longer I stare at them, the shakier I feel. “Why not?”
“Fixing things isn’t always as easy as ‘twas with the Kennedys.” He fiddles with the zipper on his jacket. “Problems do crop up.”
He thought our jaunt to Leap Castle was easy? Blood pounds in my temples. “Problems? As in fires?”
He rests a hand on my thigh. “I sat in a chair next to Himself’s tomb and waited ‘til no one but me was close. When I touched the mail to the likeness of Strongbow, flames started down the row of chairs next to me. The fire put me off what I meant to do.”
“If you were the only one near the effigy, who started the fire?”
Sion’s battle whether to tell me or not rages across his face. I grip the hand on my leg. I’m overwhelmed by a need to touch him. Our contact sets off pleasant currents across my skin. A definite closeness is building, but there’s more than a semantic difference between accomplishing something side-by-side versus hand-in-hand. Which is it for him?
I bounce a fist off the top of his thigh. “Sionnach, you can’t call me your partner and then pick and choose what to tell and what to hide.”
The light aimed at the painting above us hits the side of his face, sharpening his features. He pulls a twig from the snap pocket on the front of his jacket and madly chews it. A whiff of whiskey tickles my nose while I stare him down, waiting for a response.
Finally, he wheezes in a loud breath. “In the past, there’s been, ah…complications. A thing that blocks me from getting a key or bringing it back to the soul.”
I shiver at the implication. “A thing? As in enemy?” It never occurred to me there would be resistance to this soul-saving business. The desolate cave in the center of View of the Devil’s Glen catches my eye and darker parts of my Catholic upbringing start demons and exorcisms parading through my head.
“Oh, love,” he pulls me to his chest and wraps arms around me.
The way our hearts gallop together, I fear we won’t have our full allotment of a hundred thousand heartbeats the next time we cross the Veil.
He slides a palm against my cheek. “I’ve turned your bones to ice.” Peering into my face, he speaks soft and gentle as if to croon my fear away. “It’s not enemies such as wicked demon horses I’m speaking of.” Sion plays with a strand of my hair. “When sin rubs against the virtues we’re working to put right, there’s bound to be friction.”
“Friction? From where? From what?” I pull out of his grasp. “Be specific for fuck’s sake.”
He rakes fingers through his curls. “I dunno. Fate. Destiny. Powers we’re not privy to.”
St. Augustine’s quote about the unseen takes on sinister shadings. I hold my hands together creating one giant fist. “How do we fight invisible friction that wants us to fail?”
Sion swallows my hands with his. His touch thaws the ice crystals seeping across my skin. “With faith, my white swan, faith.”
I drop my chin to my chest.
Faith.
A tattered remnant of faith brought me to Ireland to follow Máthair’s wish. Instead of a payoff for my faith, I’ve landed in a rapidly dwindling hourglass to save souls.
Faith is not my friend.
“You can’t dole out false promises about keeping me safe, Sion, when tombs are burning, and I barely missed being manhandled by a medieval rapist when we searched for Matthew Kennedy. This Finnbheara mission of yours is more than solving virtuous riddles.”
