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“You are a ruthless jerk obsessed with your own failure. What about my life? My soul?”
“Your soul,” his voice falters, “is the most precious thing in the world to me. Do you not know it?”
For once, I hear the simple purity of truth in his words, a single chime in a silent forest. It’s jarring. “How could I possibly know you feel that way?”
His shoulders stoop like an old man’s. The fire of his drive has gone out. He won’t fight or force me anymore. I hold power over what comes next.
His face is oddly peaceful and damn it, full of hope. I am the stasis in his turmoil. Chewing my lip, I grasp at swirling thoughts to arrange them in some sort of order. The soulfall is dwindling because of me, but the fact does not erase my fear and disgust Sion has no qualms over dragging me into potential disaster and possible death.
“Two souls left, love. Stay with me, please. The Veil will not fail us.”
I’m a doll whose stuffing has been removed. Veil Sprites, each no larger than the point of a sharpened pencil, link through the marrow of my bones, radiating heat, begging me not to abandon them.
Two more souls. I find the moon in its place midway across the sky. The Celtic day waits. Can we finish before dawn? My urge for self-preservation collides with Sprites, souls, and feelings for Sion that still smolder inside me despite his terrifying transformation in the forest. I’m more convinced than ever before this is madness.
I never speak the word yes, but the walls of the Veil undulate around me, questioning. My heart expands and contracts as its magic brushes my skin. With a shock, I realize I’m calling it. I close my eyes and reach out. Its walls curve beneath my fingers.
It’s the Veil that convinces me not to run. Two more souls and our task will be finished. I must believe there is a life waiting for me afterward. One I don’t want cursed with haunting regret.
I call the Veil and allow it to wrap me in its ethereal cocoon. Shafts of prismatic light cross before me as their energy wafts through me. This passage between time and place answers to me now.
Sionnach’s control is done. I choose to finish our task so the failure haunting his soul will not tarnish mine.
Reaching for the ancient power surrounding me, I search for any specter of evil approaching. Nothing dark stirs nearby. Sionnach’s presence is near me but not touching. I do not resist as he steers us toward the next artifact. The music of the Veil, faraway strains of a violin, draws a long single melancholy note that echoes in my heart.
Chapter 20
The Victim
I lift the skirts of my Victorian maid’s uniform to move faster. Luckily, Alfie’s stash had a spare apron to cover the mud stains from the bog at Birr Castle. Sion rushes along Clonskeagh Road in Dublin toward the home of Sir Arthur Vicars. Not the Dublin where I’ll meet the travel group tomorrow, but well past midnight in Dublin of the early 1900s.
My heeled shoes click against stone as Sion waits for me to catch up. I avoid his eyes. Keeping as much distance from him as possible is more than a priority now. It’s survival. I tell myself over and over that he is the ass from the Rock Close at Blarney Castle and the ranting nutcase from the aftermath of Pwyll’s exorcism, not my Sionnach, my fox.
He’s danger.
Sion moves to lay a hand on my arm but thinks better of it. “This’ll be simple, splat, done, I promise.”
Nothing in my association with Sion Loho has been simple, splat, done. My skin prickles from our series of peek and sneak Veil jumps to confuse the shadow menace.
“My gut always told me Sir Arthur’s key, his artifact, is literally a key.” He gestures at a house near the end of the row. “Feller was custodian of the Irish Crown Jewels. Someone lifted the bitty spare key he kept at his house and stole the treasure. Vicars took the fall.” He stretches a cinnamon curl. It does spring back the way I imagined. “He spent the rest of his life howling his innocence to the moon, even in his will.”
Quick calculations in my head glare with a piece that doesn’t fit. “But Vicars was alive just over a hundred years ago. You said you’ve been trying to end the soulfall for two hundred years.”
Sion studies the ground. “We needed the man to represent the last missing virtue and complete the soulfall.”
“You’re telling me soulfalls can grow?” My eyes widen. “How can they ever be fixed if they’re open-ended?” I crush the skirt in my fists. “Are more souls going to just pop in?”
Again, Sion reaches for me then retreats. “No. I swear. Once the soulfall counts every virtue, it’s set.”
“So, you’ve had less time for Vicars than the others?”
He nods. “I thought he’d be simple to turn around.”
It feels too straightforward. If saving Vicars is as simple as a real key, Sion could have solved this mystery a hundred times over. “How do you know his soul is telling the truth?”
“We’re meant to restore his diligence.” A shudder runs through me when he says we’re. We are not a we anymore. I’m only here to nudge the remaining pieces of the souls’ puzzles into place. Not take Sion’s hand and walk into the first rays of dawn.
“His virtue cracked after living so many years under a cloud of false accusation. His words said innocent, but the number of folks doubting him burned his faith to ash. His spirit gave up the fight. Diligence to believe he’d be exonerated of the crime left his heart even though his voice kept at it.”
