Blood Magick (The Cousins O'Dwyer Trilogy #3)(12)

“You’re neither,” Connor corrected. “Are you happy your mother’s happy?”

“Of course, I am, but—”

“And why shouldn’t you be? She’s found a place where she’s content, where she has grandchildren to spoil. And why shouldn’t you kick up your heels a bit, as she won’t be ringing you up twice a day when she can’t work out how to switch out a lightbulb?”

“Or burns another joint of lamb,” Boyle added.

“That’s the bloody truth, isn’t it?” So Meara did another quick dance. “I’m happy for her, I am. And I’m wild with joy for my own self.”

When Fin came in Meara launched herself at him—and gave Branna a moment to adjust herself, as she had to do whenever he walked in her door.

“You’ve lost a tenant, Finbar. My ma’s settled once and done with my sister.” She kissed him hard as well, made him laugh. “That’s thanks to you—and don’t say you don’t need it—for the years of low rent, and for holding the little cottage in case she wanted to come back to Cong.”

“She was a fine tenant. Kept the place tidy as a church.”

“The place looks fine now, it does, with the updates we’ve done.” As Iona took over the table setting, Connor grabbed his first coffee. “I expect Fin will have someone in there, quick as you please.”

“I’ll be looking into it.” But it was Branna he looked at, and into. Then saying nothing, took Connor’s coffee for himself.

She kept her hands busy, and wished to bloody hell she’d done that little glamour. No restless night showed on his face, on that beautiful carving of it, in the bold green eyes.

He looked perfect—man and witch—with his raven black hair damp from the rain, his body tall and lean as he shed his black leather jacket, hung it on a peg.

She’d loved him all her life, understood, accepted, she always would. But the first and only time they’d given themselves to each other—so young, still so innocent—the mark had come on him.

Cabhan’s mark.

A Dark Witch of Mayo could never be with Cabhan’s blood.

She could, would, and had worked with him, for he’d proven time and again he wanted Cabhan’s end as much as she. But there could never be more.

Did knowing it pained him as it did her help her through it? Maybe a bit, she admitted. Just a bit.

She took the platter heaped with pancakes she’d already flipped from the skillet out of the warmer, added the last of them.

“We’ll sit then, and eat. It’s your Nan’s recipe, Iona. We’ll see if I did her proud.”

Even as she lifted the platter, Fin took it from her. And as he took it, his eyes met and held hers. “You’ve a story to go with them, I’m told.”

“I do, yes.” She took a plate full of bacon and sausage, carried it to the table. And sat. “Not an hour ago I sat here and had a conversation with Sorcha’s Brannaugh.”

“She came here?” Connor paused in the act of sliding a stack of pancakes onto his plate. “Our kitchen?”

“She did. I’d had a restless night, full of dreams and voices. Hers among them. I couldn’t be sure of the place as it was vague and scattered as dreams can be.” She took a single pancake for herself. “I was here, getting my first cup of coffee, and I turned around. There she was.

“She looks like me—or I like her. That was a jolt of surprise, just how close we are there—though she was heavily pregnant. Her son comes today—or not today, as in her time it was still a fortnight to Samhain.”

“Time shifts,” Iona murmured.

“As you say. They’d gone to Ballintubber Abbey on the way here. That’s where the dream took me.”

“Ballintubber.” Iona shifted to Boyle. “I felt them there, remember? When you took me to see it, I felt them, knew they’d gone there. It’s such a strong place.”

“It is, yes,” Branna agreed. “But I’ve been there more than once, as has Connor. I never felt them.”

“You haven’t been since Iona’s come,” Fin pointed out. “You haven’t been there since the three are all in Mayo.”

“True enough.” And a good point, she was forced to admit. “But I will, we will. On your wedding day, Iona, if not before. She said the others, those before us, guard the place, so Cabhan’s barred from it. He can’t go in, see in. It’s a true sanctuary if we find we need one. They, who came before, gave light and strength to the three. And hope—I think she needed that most.”

“And you,” Iona said, “all of us. Hope wouldn’t hurt us either.”

“I’m more for doing than hoping, but it gave her what she needed. I could see it. She said—in the dream, and here—we will prevail. To believe that, and they’ll be with us when we face Cabhan again. To find the way. To know, if it isn’t for us to finish, another three will come. We will prevail.”

“Though it takes a thousand years,” Connor added. “Well then, I’m fine with hope, fine with doing. But I’ll be buggered if I wait a thousand years to see the end of Cabhan.”

“Then we find the way, in the here and the now. I had pancakes once when I went to Montana in the American West,” Fin commented. “They called them something else . . .”