The Shadows (14 page)

Patrick had leaned forward eagerly. “Yes, of course. Once the rebellion succeeds, we’ll need leaders to guide the people, to write a new constitution. There will need to be a new government formed—a democratic one—and we can offer you a place within it.”

Rory said, “There will be opportunities for good men to shape a new world.”

“A new world?” Daire Donn took a sip of beer. “That sounds promising. I will have an answer for you in ten days’ time. Will that be acceptable?”

Patrick let out the breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. “Yes.”

After that, the talk had been filled with stories and laughter as Daire Donn recounted the Fomori’s exploits, which had eased Patrick’s worry. It was as he’d thought: the Fomori had an entirely different way of looking at events. The Fianna were not quite as heroic as they’d been portrayed. They had moments as bloodthirsty and cruel as those told of the Fomori. And Daire Donn’s love of Ireland was obvious, as was his enthusiasm to help.

But now it had been ten days, and they’d heard nothing. Patrick stood over one of the glass cases in his study, staring down at the things inside, the ogham stick safely locked in place, separate from the rowan wand, which Simon had hidden elsewhere. Patrick felt a shiver of excitement when he looked at the stone. Daire Donn had been everything he’d hoped. The old King of the World had been a charismatic man. Patrick understood why people followed him.

And most importantly, he seemed a reasonable man.

Tell me,
Patrick thought impatiently.
Send the message.

He tapped his fingers against the glass. Impatience was his failing, he knew, but he couldn’t help himself. He could be patient with some things: with the business, with his mother,
with Lucy, though she tried him often, as when she’d come begging him to hire some poor boy who needed a job—and who had thought Lucy capable of such finer feeling? It made Patrick wonder if perhaps he’d been wrong; perhaps his sister wasn’t as shallow as he’d thought. And despite the depression, the business was doing well—rich men knew how to stay rich, and they always needed tailoring and hats—so what was another stableboy if it made his sister happy?

He turned from the display case, striding to the window, looking out on Madison Square, at promenaders and tinkling fountains, the smell of roses from his mother’s garden wafting through the open window. He thought of Grace in the reflected light of the garden: the softness of her mouth against his, the way she’d quoted “Dark Rosaleen” to him. He’d been struck then with the urge to tell her everything. Everything the Fenian Brotherhood had done, everything he wanted. The old magic and the failure of the Fianna to show and the calling of the Fomori. Daire Donn.

But there again, he was too impatient. He would tell her eventually, because he knew she would share the passions of whomever she loved. It was that romance in her, her love for the Irish legends: the tale of Finn, who’d saved the life of High King Cormac of Ireland and was made the head of the king’s elite fighting force as a reward; the love story of Grace’s namesake, Grainne, and her Diarmid; and the tragedy of the fair-haired Etain’s love for Oscar. Grace understood his passion for their homeland.

But he’d also seen her nervousness. He’d had to remind
himself that she was still so young. Almost seventeen, but there was so much she didn’t know about the world, and at twenty-one, he’d seen so much more. He wanted to teach her. He wanted to see that fire in her eyes burn for him. But he had to go slow. Waiting was the key.

He gripped the windowsill hard. He pressed his head against the glass.

He hated waiting.

When he heard the knock at the front door, he jumped. But then he realized that Daire Donn was unlikely to send a messenger to his house. No, the Fomori’s answer would come to the Brotherhood, where Rory Nolan was waiting.

Patrick heard the opening of the front door, the maid’s voice. He heard her footsteps down the hall. When she knocked at his study, it was all he could do to school his face into a pleasant smile.

“A note for you, sir,” she said, giving him what looked like a scroll tied with a ribbon before she left.

It wasn’t paper, but parchment. Real parchment, made from scraped hides. Thick yet pliable.

Patience,
Patrick cautioned himself. It could be nothing, an invitation to a costume ball. A themed supper. Some foolish waste of time.

But he knew it wasn’t. He felt the magic pulsing from it. He was amazed that the maid hadn’t seemed to feel it as well.

He stripped the ribbon from the scroll and unrolled it, his fingers trembling.

The note was written in Gaelic, in thick, flowing ink. He’d been reading Gaelic since he was ten, and this was no trouble.

They had agreed. They were coming! The summer solstice—that was June twenty-first, only a few short weeks away. It had been so easy after all, just as Patrick had hoped. The Fomori were coming, and together they would save Ireland. And the answer had come to
him.
Daire Donn had chosen
him.

Patrick smiled.

The scroll turned to dust in his hands and disappeared.

TEN

Grace

M
y dreams that night were filled with death and destruction, screaming ravens and fire. Aidan shouting
No, Grace!
as purple lightning flashed. And then there was a river, and sunlight, and a blond young man standing on the bank beneath a tree laden with red berries. He turned—Patrick—his face lighting in that irresistible smile, and I ran toward him; but as I did, he changed. He wasn’t Patrick—but Derry, and I knew I looked into the face of my own destruction.

I woke with my head pounding and the fury to forget him, and was relieved when I heard my grandmother call for me. When I stumbled to her room, she was twisted up in the bedcovers, her nightcap completely turned about so that the ribbons trailed into her face.

“Grainne,” she croaked when she saw me, which was odd in itself, as she almost never called me by my given name.

“Look at you,” I said, trying to smile, to ignore my headache. I leaned to straighten her cap.

She grabbed my wrists so suddenly and tightly I cried out. “You must stop him,” she said. “It can only be you.”

“Grandma, please—”

“Is she all right?”

It may have been the first time in weeks that I was truly glad to see my brother. He stood barefoot in the doorway rubbing his eyes, his clothes so wrinkled it was obvious he’d slept in them. I thought of my dream, his shouting.

He said, “I heard her call out.”

Grandma released me as suddenly as she’d grabbed me. She leaned back against the pillows with a groan. “That boy.”

Aidan came into the room. “What boy?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “She’s been saying it for days. I think she means Patrick.”

Aidan sat on the edge of the bed. I wanted to say something cutting, but he didn’t seem drunk for a change, and he gave me a sweet smile as he took Grandma’s hand, murmuring calming words. He was so good when he wanted to be.

“There you are, my boy,” Grandma said, herself again.

My boy
. I wondered if I’d got it wrong. If that hadn’t been what she’d said before, instead of
that boy.
Perhaps it was my brother she’d meant and not Patrick. It made sense.
Don’t trust him,
she’d said, and
He will keep you safe
. Both things could be true when it came to Aidan. But to say that only I could stop him . . . I had no power over Aidan. I could not guilt him into
seeing what he was doing to us, and my anger had no effect. His charm worked on me as well as anyone.

Now I watched as his charm worked on Grandma too. She’d seemingly forgotten me. I hesitated, not trusting to leave her to him, but he said, “It’s all right, Gracie. I’ll stay for a bit. Go on and do whatever needs doing.”

“The dishes, you mean?” I could not keep from being cutting after all. “As there’s no kitchen maid?”

Aidan’s eyes darkened. “You’re learning a valuable skill. We could hire you out if need be.”

I rolled my eyes and went back to my room to get dressed. My headache lingered, not strongly but there, the kind of thing you forgot until you turned your head just so or saw too bright a light. And that reminded me of Derry and that blinding glow, the stabbing pain. I still didn’t know what had caused it. But it seemed better to forget it.

My mother had gone to give pianoforte lessons again, and I was in the kitchen, up to my elbows in greasy water, wearing my oldest dress, with my hair straggling into my face, when there was a knock on the back door. I meant to ignore it, but whoever it was kept pounding. Probably a peddler looking for the cook we didn’t have. I pulled my hands from the water, wiping them on the hem of the apron, and I yanked open the door.

“You took your time.” Derry leaned against the wall near the door. Last night’s dream whirled back, as if his dark-blue gaze wasn’t enough to unsettle me on its own. “I see it wasn’t to fix yourself up.”

My face flamed. I told myself I didn’t care. He was a
stableboy
. What did it matter if he saw me in my oldest dress, with my hair falling every which way? I raised my chin and met his gaze. “What do you want?”

“You’re not going to invite me in for tea?”

“I’m busy, as you must plainly see.”

“Doing what?” He craned his neck to look past me.

“Washing dishes.”

He raised a dark brow, barely visible through that thick hair.

“Do you never comb your hair out of your face?”

“I like it that way,” he said. “Most girls do too.”

“Don’t you have something else you should be doing rather than bothering me—like mucking out stables or twisting Lucy about your finger?”

“Twisting Lucy—is that what you think I’m doing?”

“Aren’t you?”

“You don’t think much of me, do you?”

“You’ve given me no reason to think otherwise.”

“You’re very sure of your position for a lass who’s washing her own dishes.”

I grabbed the edge of the door, meaning to close it on him.

He stuck his foot in the gap and pushed the door open. He came into the kitchen, making me step back. “Don’t send me away so quickly. I’ve come to give you this.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out something.

“Patrick’s book!” I reached for it, and Derry pulled it away, just out of my reach. When I reached for it again, he put it behind his back.

“What will you give me for it?” he asked with a too-sure smile that said he’d played this game many times.

“I’m not Lucy,” I said. “And I don’t like being teased. If you think I’m going to give you a kiss for it, you’re sadly mistaken.”

“A kiss? What makes you think I want one from you?”

I tried to pretend my face wasn’t burning
again
and drew away. “Keep it then.”

His smile softened—it was even more humiliating to see that he realized how much he’d embarrassed me.

This time when he held out the book, I didn’t take it.

“I’m sorry, lass. I shouldn’t have teased. You bring out the worst in me, I’m afraid. Go on, unless you want me to drop it on the floor.”

Warily, I took it. I’d been worried over losing it, but it wasn’t until I had it in my hands that I realized just how worried. “Thank you. Where did you find it?”

“On the walk.” He grinned. “Where you swooned.”

“You
did
have it! You lied to me!”

“I wanted to read it.”

That surprised me. Both that he’d wanted to and that he could. “Oh. Did you?”

“‘Alas, alas, and alas! For the once proud people of Banba!’”

I clutched the book. “You did.”

“You know what the poem’s about?” he asked.

“Ireland’s oppression.”

“You care about such things?”

“Why shouldn’t I?”

“Safe here in your little house,” he said, gesturing. “Choosing pink dresses for a party. You’ll pardon me if I say it doesn’t seem that Ireland’s troubles
trouble
you.”

“You don’t know me at all,” I said. “I care very much.”

“Do you? For yourself? Or for Devlin?”

My heart was pounding, though I didn’t know why. “It’s Patrick’s mission. And so it’s mine too.”