‘So, you really …’ began Nicole.
‘That’s right,’ Callum snarled. ‘Dear Daddy founded the Wake.’
Kyan’s front met her back, telling her without words,I’m right here.
‘I was their Artifex, their inventor,’ her father continued. ‘I came up with a great many ideas because I sought the beauty of creating. I thought the Wake wouldprotectus from Empyreals, the beings designed to kill us. I didn’t think it would become a tool for such control and destruction.
‘I refused to remain a part of it, which is why I’m here. And why I chose to help your mother when she first came to kill me.’
He met her and her siblings’ gazes, an honesty in his eyes Nicole knew she could trust.
She tried to reconcile herself to the idea that the fairy tale of her parents meeting wasn’t real either. But for once, she didn’t want to be asking questions. She wanted a flow, a flood of information. Then maybe she could make her mind up about what to think, how to feel.
‘How old are you?’ Bells asked.
‘I don’t actually know. Much older than two thousand, at least.’
A slow breath gusted out of her.
‘Keep talking,’ Callum warned.
‘In theCath Tánaiste Maige TuiredI witnessed what Elatha, one of the leaders of our people, had done to his own son Bres: allowing him to fight the Túatha Dé – the Old Gods – after a failed attempt at being their king. It was then that I knew there was something else going on. Elatha, of course, wanted the real control. Bres was manipulated by his father. Used like afidchellpiece in a larger game. A game that, when he saw Bres would lose, he allowed him to lose. And allowed the Old Gods to believe they’d won and smothered any future rebellion or uprising; that they’d banished all Fomóiri back to our underworld.
‘But it only bought Elatha the upper hand. The Old Gods believed there would be peace, and so they returned to their Otherworld. But many of us lived on in hiding.’
‘So then they severed the harmonies and slaughtered the Druids and Úaithne’s descendants,’ Callum said.
‘Does Remi know she’s right?’ Nicole managed, her voice raspy.
Her father met her gaze and nodded softly. ‘Her family were the ones that held this knowledge. Though it had been lost for generations, Adam rediscovered the theory. They needed more proof to know they were on the right track, proof they got with Freya’s last message. They are indeed looking for —’ Her father’s throat strained and he winced.
‘The Dagda’s divine harp,’ Nicole realised.
Callum snarled.
‘Why didn’t you ever tell us?’ Bells asked.
Nicole checked on Dylan. He hadn’t spoken, his face stone.
‘I can’t explain the details. The Wake’s Empyrean oath wasn’t the first they developed. I can’t report most of the information I have on the Fomóiri. Can’t write it down, can’t speak it.’
‘You can fuckingacton it,’ Callum growled.
‘No. I can’t,’ he snarled back. ‘Not when I have my children to protect. Not when they stripped me of my powers. Not when only death can break the oath.’ He dug out his reading glasses, held them up. ‘I was blind for years after Elatha was done with my punishment. He barely left me enough power to keep myself alive. If I use too much of it, it sends a shockwave out, helping them pinpoint my location, unless I’m in a highly warded place.’
The deathly power from Estwood … Nicole recalled thefeelof it ripping through the world. He’d tried to use what he could at the risk of the Wake following, to save her from Lynch. No wonder he’d been so eager to smother her scent and move on.
‘But I – I thought you have visions?’ Bells asked.
‘No. Your mother told me enough of her visions of the future that I could use that to convince people.’
‘Why don’t we have your powers?’ Nicole asked.
‘You don’t have my divinity because so much of it was taken long before you were born. After they destroyed my ability to use it, I returned to making weapons and poisons to heal and protect myself if needed. Then I suppressed what remained of my powers by consistently poisoning myself, so my body was so busy healing that my power didn’t give me away, while the scents of the herbs smothered my own. I experimented for … a long time.’
The tonics, his case of weapons, the greenhouse of plants. It made sense.
But this … this meant she was the daughter of one of theDemon Godsof the mythic Irish world, who had masterminded the Wake itself.
