The Shadows (36 page)

Finn ordered, “Ossian, get Cannel. We’ll see what we can teach our stormcaster in the next few hours. Then Aidan and Diarmid will go fetch the
veleda.
’Tis Tethra’s thunder we hear. I’d know it anywhere. The Fomori are very close. We can waste no time. Are you ready to do what must be done, Diarmid?”

The
ball seirce
seemed to burn on Diarmid’s forehead.

“I am.”

TWENTY-EIGHT

Patrick

P
atrick glanced out the window as the carriage lumbered to a stop. The traffic on Broadway was at a complete standstill. He knocked on the ceiling to signal his driver and then got out, shouting to Leonard, “I’ll walk from here.”

He wove through the wagons with their cursing drivers and the other stalled carriages on the street. The weather pressed upon him, that ever-present, unnerving thunder.

The Fianna were here. Grace was the
veleda. Grace
. If he’d only known . . .

He thought of the way she’d looked up at him in the park. Those dark, trusting eyes. Why hadn’t the horn brought the Fianna to the club the way the spell had brought the Fomori? Why to a tenement? Why had there been such confusion? Spells weren’t supposed to work that way.

Why?

He hated that he didn’t know. He hated it more because
that one thing, that singular thing, had cost him everything. Had the Fianna appeared as they were supposed to, he never would have called the Fomori, and the Fianna would have joined with the Fenian Brotherhood, and the
veleda
’s choice would be clear. Patrick hadn’t even considered that the cause might prove unworthy, and it wasn’t. Diarmid had said so.

But still . . .
Grace.
Grace would have to choose. And she would have to die.

There
had
to be another way.

Patrick reached the redbrick building and sprinted up the stairs, wrenching open the door and racing to the meeting room. His message to the others had declared an emergency, and they were all there.

“Why have you called us here, Devlin?” Rory Nolan asked. “Have the Fomori arrived early?”

“The Fianna are here!” Patrick announced.

They went silent.

“What?” Jonathan asked finally. “They’re here? How can that be?”

“The horn worked,” Patrick explained. “It brought them to a tenement, where they’ve been posing as a gang.”

Simon said, “But they should have come here, just as Daire Donn did.”

“Yes, they should have come here. No one knows why they didn’t.”

“How did you discover them?” Rory asked.

Patrick sank into a chair, burying his face in his hands. “Diarmid Ua Duibhne is my stableboy.”

Rory said, “Perhaps you’d better start at the beginning.”

Patrick looked up. “The Fianna have been searching for who called them. They looked for Irish organizations. That brought them to the Brotherhood, which brought them to me. Ua Duibhne took a job as my stableboy, hoping to get close to me. I discovered the truth only this morning. I’ve spoken with him. Finn’s here too—all of them.”

Jonathan let out his breath. “Thank God. Well then, that’s it, isn’t it? The Fianna are here. We’ll win. We’ll win at last!”

Patrick said, “The Fomori are coming, too, remember? And the Fianna have refused to fight with them.”

“They’ve refused?” Jonathan looked stunned. “But . . . we called them.
Can
they refuse us?”

“Of course they can.” Simon sat down heavily. “They have free will. No one can compel them. The point was for the Fianna to learn a lesson. They can choose a side. They
must
choose a side if they want the chance to keep living.” He looked at Patrick. “Did our fight not interest them? Surely you explained it? Surely they want to win self-rule for Ireland?”

Patrick nodded. “Diarmid said they were more than willing to do that. Until I told him the Fomori were involved.”

“Did you tell him that things are no longer as they were?” asked Rory. “That we can control the Fomori? That Daire Donn—”

“I told him all that. He said that no one could control them. That the world would fall to devastation and despair if they were involved.”

Simon sat back. “Well, then, that
is
a problem.”

“So they won’t fight for us,” Rory said. “We have the Fomori now. We don’t need them.”

Simon shook his head. “I’m afraid it doesn’t work that way. The Fianna have been called, and now the fight has changed. It’s the Fianna against
us
and the Fomori. Which means we have to beat them. And we need the
veleda
to choose us.” He looked at Patrick. “I assume your sister is the one, after all, as she blooded the horn?”

Patrick’s throat tightened. “No. It isn’t Lucy.”

“Then who? Did Ua Duibhne know who she is? Have they found her?”

This was worse than he could have imagined. “They know who she is.”

“Do they
have
her?” Simon asked. “We can’t let them have any advantage.”

“They don’t have the advantage. Not yet anyway. We do. Or . . . I think we do. She’s my soon-to-be fiancée. Grace Knox.”

His announcement was met with astonished stares.

Jonathan said, “Are you certain? Does she know she’s the
veleda
?”

Patrick threaded his fingers through his hair, gripping his pounding skull. “Yes, I’m certain. I don’t know if she knows. I haven’t spoken to her. I came directly here.”

“Your soon-to-be fiancée,” Simon said. “What exactly does that mean?”

“I haven’t proposed yet. I would have, but she felt we were moving too quickly—”

“Will she accept your suit?”

“I believe so.”

“Because she loves you?” Simon asked.

“I hope so. I think so.”

“Listen carefully to me, Devlin,” Simon said. “We need more than the girl accepting you because she sees the benefit of marrying a rich young man. She will have to choose between us and the Fianna. Does she love you? Do we have an advantage?”

Jonathan said, “But wait . . . doesn’t Diarmid Ua Duibhne have a . . . what was that called? The thing that compelled women to love him?”

“The
ball seirce.
And yes. He used it on my sister,” Patrick said dully.

“Does he know your fiancée? Has he used it on her?”

“I don’t think so,” Patrick said. Grace had said Diarmid was attentive, but she hadn’t seemed lovestruck. Not like Lucy—

“But he might,” Simon said. “Finn MacCool is brilliant and ruthless. He’ll see the
ball seirce
as a tool. You need to secure her, Devlin. Now. Keep her away from Ua Duibhne. Propose to her. Win her to our side. I don’t suppose you can rush the marriage?”

“I don’t know. Perhaps.”

“You must try.”

Hopelessness swept over Patrick. “There’s one other thing Diarmid told me. The
veleda
makes the choice, but she must die to ensure it. She must
die
.”

Even Simon looked shocked.

Patrick went on, “That part of the prophecy was lost. It wasn’t in any of the stories I knew. Why would it be lost? Why would we not know it?”

“It’s been two thousand years,” Simon said. “Things go missing. But even if we’d known it, would it have changed what we did? Would you have refused to call the Fianna?”

“I thought the
veleda
was my sister. Of course I would have refused.”

“Would you really?” Simon asked. “It seems a small price to pay. One life for thousands.”

“Goddamn you, Simon. What if it were your sister? Your fiancée?”

“I would still have called them,” Simon said firmly.

Around the room, the others nodded.

“You’re either willing to sacrifice everything for the cause, or you’re not the man we thought you were,” Simon said.

Patrick’s life had been dedicated to this cause, and they were
questioning
it. He knew he wasn’t weak, and he wasn’t wavering. But this . . .

He said rawly, “I love Grace. How can I watch her . . .?”

“This is for Ireland, Patrick,” Rory said gently. “You said you were willing to die for her.”

“That was
me
. This is different. I can’t condemn Grace.”

“You have no choice,” Simon said. “The prophecy is already in play. The
veleda
is bound to the Fianna. There is no other way.”

“Perhaps there’s another spell. Perhaps she doesn’t need to die. The Fomori might know, don’t you think?”

Simon sighed. “Yes. Yes, perhaps. We’ll ask Daire Donn when they arrive.”

But Patrick saw that Simon didn’t believe it.

“If there is another way, we’ll find it,” Jonathan reassured him.

Rory added, “We’ll all study the problem. But in the meantime, Simon is right; you must secure her. We can’t lose her to the Fianna, and if she loves you, well . . . we need her help. You know this.”

Simon was watching him. They all were. Patrick looked down at his clasped hands. At long last, the fight was to be had, and he was at the fulcrum of it. He could make a difference. He could change the world.

And none of it would matter, because he would lose her.

“Yes,” he whispered. “I know.”

TWENTY-NINE

Grace

I
t was still thundering the next day. Aidan had disappeared yesterday soon after Patrick had brought him home, and I’d seen no sign of him since. Mama only said in a distracted voice, “Is he gone again? He shouldn’t keep doing that. He has to be at your debut, at least.”

I thought of how strange my brother had been, his words from my dreams, but I had no time to ponder them, because a carriage arrived bearing a note from Patrick.

“He wants to see you right away,” Mama said.

I wondered if it had something to do with Derry, and then was angry that he was the first thing that came to mind. How long would it be before I stopped thinking of him, or dreaming of him—or worse, reliving his kiss?

I took my time getting ready. My nightmare-filled sleep showed in the bruised-looking shadows beneath my eyes.
There was no help for that beyond powder, which I didn’t have, and so I changed into my second-best gown of green twill and fixed my hair. Mama was waiting with my shawl and hat.

When I went out to the waiting carriage, thunder erupted nearly overhead, putting me even more on edge. At the Devlins’, the maid said, “This way, miss. He’s waiting for you in his study.”

When we passed the parlor, Mrs. Devlin looked up from the settee, where she was comforting a sobbing Lucy—and I feared that I knew what that was about. “Oh, hello, Grace. We’ll have tea after,” Mrs. Devlin called.

It was the last thing I wanted, but I forgot all that when I reached the study.

“Grace!” Patrick glanced at the maid and ordered tersely, “Leave us. And close the door.”

Now I was worried. It was unlike Patrick not to think of propriety.

He rushed to me, taking my hands, looking me over as if searching for wounds. “You’re all right?”

“Of course I am.”

“Nothing’s happened? He hasn’t been to see you?”

“Who?”

“Diar—Derry.”

“No. Why would I have seen him?”

“Thank God. Thank God. I was afraid I hadn’t got to you in time.”

“In time for what?”

His hands moved to my face. He kissed me—hard and urgently, possessively. It was so unlike him that I pulled away, saying, “Patrick, the door. We can’t—”

“You know how much I love you, don’t you?” His hands didn’t leave my face. “I would never do anything to cause you harm. Nothing.”

“Patrick, you’re frightening me.”

He let go of me and reluctantly stepped back, closing his eyes for a moment as if to muster control. He looked haunted and ill.

He said, “There are things I must tell you. About the relics. I’ve meant to tell you some of it before, but . . .”

I remembered our unfinished conversation. How I’d longed to hear the rest. But now, looking at him, I wasn’t certain I still wanted to know.

“You look tired, Patrick,” I said, trying to calm him. “There must be a better time—”

“I must tell you now!” he burst out. Then, “I’m sorry, Grace. But there’s no more time to wait. Please will you . . . will you sit down and let me explain?”

I seated myself on the edge of a chair, squeezing my hands in my lap as he paced before the fireplace. For a long time he said nothing. Finally I could stand it no longer.