Island of Glass (The Guardians Trilogy #3)(30)

She set up her laptop, her tablets, pulled out her phone. Started making calls.

Forty minutes in, Doyle surprised her. She’d figured he’d find almost anything to do but join her in the library venture. With the phone at her ear, she pulled one of the books out of her stack, shoved it across the table, circled her finger.

“No problem at all,” she said into the phone. “But I’d want to look them over, test them out.” She rose, wandered to the window and back as she listened. “Fair enough. I’ve got a list of ammo. If you can supply us there, it may be we can work out what you’d call a volume discount.” Now she laughed. “Don’t ask, don’t tell, Liam. Sure, hang on.”

She dug Sawyer’s list out of her pocket, began to read it off. She rolled her eyes to the ceiling, picked up her water, drank. “Like I said, we’re a kind of club, having what you could call a tournament of sorts. Reach out to Sean. He’ll vouch for me. No question about that, but he’s no more full of shit than the next guy. Like I said, I worked with him in Meath on the Black Friary, and again about three years ago on Caherconnell in the Burren. Check with him and let me know. Yeah, this number. Later.”

She hung up, blew out a breath. “We’re going to score there, but it’s going to take another hour or two to confirm.”

“Another gunrunner connection?”

“Not exactly, but this Liam’s got connections to certain people who’d supply certain products.”

“But he doesn’t know you.”

“Not directly. He’s the cousin of the ex-girlfriend of an associate of mine. My associate, the ex, and the cousin remain friendly, seeing as my associate introduced the ex to her husband, with whom she has two kids, and the cousin is godfather to the oldest. My associate and the cousin hunt together once or twice a year. The cousin also runs a kind of side business, cash only, out of his barn, which is, handily, only about twenty kilometers east of Ennis. This works out, we get pizza, guns, and ammo in one trip.”

Not on his bike, Doyle thought with disappointment. So it would mean taking Bran’s car. “I’m driving.”

“Why is that? I know the roads better.”

“And how is that?”

“Because I’ve been here in the past decade and, in fact, consulted for a time on the Craggaunowen Project, which we’ll pass on the way to this barn.”

“Then you can navigate, but I’m driving.”

“We’ll flip for the wheel.”

“No.”

“You prefer rock, paper, scissors?”

He didn’t dignify that with an answer, and just continued to read. “This accounting is worthless. It talks of four sisters—in Ireland—charged with guarding an infant queen. Three were pure, and one was lured by a dark faerie, who with promises of power and eternal beauty, turned her against the other three.”

“Not worthless,” Riley disagreed. “Just the Telephone Game of Time. The root’s there.”

“Well tangled. It says the three good sisters hid the infant in a castle of glass on an invisible island, and flew to the moon, becoming stars. And in her rage, the fourth sister struck them down from the heavens, blah, blah. One fell as lightning, striking the earth with fire, another into the sea in a swirling tempest, the last into the north where it covered the land with ice.”

“Not that far off.”

He spared her a single look that mixed equal parts annoyance and frustration. “Far enough when you’ve got the queen—apparently growing up fast—flying from the invisible island on a winged horse to do battle with the evil sister, vanquishing her and turning her to stone.”

“Shake out the probable hyperbole, and you find roots. Nerezza materialized out of a stone column in a cave on Corfu.”

Doyle put the book aside. “I’ve lived a long time without seeing a winged horse.”

“I’ll bet you lived a long time without seeing a Cerberus until recently.”

He couldn’t argue that. And still. “It’s a Brothers Grimm version, and bastardized at that.”

“Retellings get bastardized and elaborated,” Riley pointed out. “That’s why you dig out the root. Four sisters.” She held up four fingers. “Four goddesses. It’s not the first time I’ve heard or read of them being sisters. It may be they are. Invisible island, Island of Glass, appears and vanishes as it wills. Three stars—fire, water, ice.”

“It doesn’t add anything.”

Civilians, she thought, with some pity. “Not yet. Being thorough may be tedious, Doyle, but being thorough’s how you find what’s been overlooked or discounted. There are worse things than sitting in a comfortable chair in a library reading a book.”

“A little sex and violence in it would keep it from being so tedious.”

“Read on. You could get lucky.” Her phone signaled, and she smiled at the readout. “I’m betting we just did. Hello, Liam,” she said, and wandered back to the window as she brokered the deal.

Since she clearly had it handled, Doyle went back to the book. He could be grateful, at least, that the particular story in it was fairly short. Though the queen defeated the evil sister, the loss of the others, the stars, grieved her. She returned to her island, exiling herself until prophet, siren, and warrior lifted the stars from their graves so they shined again.