Island of Glass (The Guardians Trilogy #3)(32)

“I had schooling.”

“I wondered if, given the amount of time and opportunities, you’d gone for more education.”

“I learned when something interested me.”

“Uh-huh.” The road narrowed, wound, and snaked. She loved these kinds of roads, the quick turns, the hedgerows, the blurry flash of a dooryard garden. “Languages. You’ve got a good head for languages.”

“I’ve been looking for the stars longer than you’ve been alive. Longer than your grandmother’s been alive. So I’ve traveled. Traveling’s more productive if you speak the language.”

“No argument. Next road, right. Why a sword? You’re a solid shot with a gun.”

“If I’m going to kill a man, I’d rather look him in the eye. And,” he said after a long beat of silence, “it helps me remember who I am. It’s easy to forget.”

“I don’t think so. I don’t think you ever forget.”

He didn’t want to ask, had deliberately not asked. But now couldn’t stop himself. “Why did you come to the graves last night?”

“I was heading back and I saw you. I respect the dead, who and what they were, what they did, how they lived, what they left behind. You said they weren’t there. You’re right, and you’re wrong.”

“How can I be both?”

“They’ve moved on, recycled, which is how I think of reincarnation. That’s how the system works for me. But they’re still there, because you are. Because the land they lived on, they worked on, where they built a home and a life, it’s there.”

Riley kept her eyes on the scenery as she spoke because she felt it would be easier for him. “There are trees in the forest that lived when they lived, and they’re still there.

“The Craggaunowen Project, where I consulted? It’s not far from here. Neither is Dysert O’Dea, both amazing places. There are countless places absolutely amazing in Ireland, because it respects its history—its long and layered history—and those who came before, what they did, how they lived and died. That’s why you can feel them here, if you let yourself, and other places in the world are voids because in those places everything’s about what’s next, and nobody much cares about what was.”

She gestured. “That’s the place. Big white barn, old yellow house—and okay, really big brown dog.”

“You should be able to handle a dog.”

“Never met one I couldn’t. And I’ll handle Liam and the deal.”

Doyle pulled into the long gravel drive where the house was set well back, and the barn farther back still. The dog let out a series of deep, throaty warning barks, but Riley climbed out, gave the dog a long look as it stiff-legged toward her.

“Knock it off, big boy.”

“Sure he only takes small bites.” The man who stepped out of the barn wore a tweed cap over tufts of steel-gray hair, and a baggy cardigan and jeans over a bone-thin frame. He grinned, hands on his narrow hips, obviously amused.

Riley opted to set the tone, grinned back, then gestured to the dog. “Come on and have a sniff, pal.”

The dog’s tail wagged, two slow tick-tocks. He stepped to her, sniffed her legs, her orange Chucks, then licked the hand she held at her side.

“Well now.” Liam strolled forward. “That’s a new one altogether. While it’s true enough he won’t take those bites unless I tell him, he isn’t one to make friends with strangers.”

“Dogs like me.” Now that they’d settled the matter, Riley leaned over, gave the dog a quick, rough stroking. “What’s his name?”

“He’s our Rory. And who’s your guard dog this fine afternoon?”

“This is Doyle, part of my team.” She offered Liam a hand.

“It’s good to meet you, Dr. Riley Gwin, who our friend Sean says is as smart and quick as they come. And you, Doyle . . .” He let it hang as he offered Doyle his hand.

“McCleary.”

“McCleary, is it? My mother, she married a James McCleary, and lost him in the Second Great War. He left her a widow and a babe in her belly—and that would be me brother Jimmy. She married my own father some three years later, but we’ve McCleary relations. Do you have people here, Doyle McCleary?”

“Possibly.”

He pointed a long, bony finger. “I can hear some of the Clare under the Yank. And you, the famous Dr. Gwin.”

“A mongrel, like Rory, but with some of the roots in Galway and Kerry.”

“Mongrels, I find, are the smartest and most adaptable. And how long do you plan to be staying in Ireland?”

As she knew the country need for conversation, Riley stood hipshot and relaxed with the dog leaning companionably against her leg. “Hard to say, but we’re enjoying the time. We’re on the coast, staying with a friend. Bran Killian.”

Liam’s eyebrows shot up. “Friends with the Killian, are you? An interesting lad—a magician, it seems. Rumors abound.”

“I’m sure he enjoys that.”

“Quite the place he has on the cliff, I’m told, and built on what was, long ago, McCleary land. Are you connected there, Doyle?”

“Possibly.”

“Doyle’s not as keen on digging up the origins as I am,” Riley said easily. “You’re an O’Dea, an old name, and a prominent one. It’s likely your father’s people lived in Clare, maybe in the villages that carried your name. Dysert O’Dea, Tully O’Dea. The old name was O’Deaghaidh, and means searcher, likely a nod to your clan’s holy men. You lost a lot of land in the rebellions of the seventeenth century.”