Dark Witch (The Cousins O'Dwyer Trilogy #1)(102)

“For love and friendship, for family and friends, we’ll stand together in the right time, in the right place and fight with each other. Fight for each other.”

After a moment’s silence, Fin picked up the champagne he’d ignored, lifted the glass toward Iona. “All right, deirfiúr bheag. We’ll be your happy few.” He shifted toward Branna. “Trust,” he said, waited.

“Trust.” She lifted her own glass, touched it to his. In that quiet clink a spark of light flashed, then softened away.

“With that settled, let’s get down to the nitty of it then.” Connor leaned forward. “Step-by-step.”

Boyle said nothing as Branna walked them through her plan, as that plan was revised, questioned, adjusted. He said nothing because looking at Iona as she’d spoken had given him all and every answer.

He’d hold on to them until it was time to give them back to her.


*


SHE COUNTED DOWN THE DAYS AS MAY DRIFTED INTO JUNE, and let herself cling to each one for itself. She could prize the blue skies when she had them, welcome the rain when it fell. She came to believe that whatever happened on the longest day, she’d had these weeks, these months, and these people in her life, and so her life, even for that short time, had been richer than ever before.

She’d been given a gift and learned how to use it, how to trust and respect it.

She was, and ever would be, of the three. She was, and ever would be, a dark witch of Mayo, charged with power and with light.

She believed they would triumph, her nature demanded she believe. But that gift she’d been given demanded the respect of caution and care.

As the solstice approached, she wrote a long letter to her grandmother—pen and paper, she thought. Old-school, but it was important, felt important, to take the time, make the effort. In it she spoke of love, for her grandmother, her cousins, her friends. For Boyle, and the mistakes she’d made.

She spoke of finding herself, her place, her time, and what it meant to her to have come to Ireland. And to have become there.

She asked only one thing. If something happened, her grandmother would find the amulet, take it and Alastar, and pass them both to the next.

There would be a next if she failed. That, too, she believed absolutely.

However long it took, light would beat back the dark.


*


ON THE MORNING BEFORE THE SOLSTICE SHE WENT DOWN EARLY, the letter in her back pocket. She tried her hand at cooking a full breakfast fry, and though she thought she’d never be more than a half-decent cook, it didn’t mean not making the effort.

Connor walked in, sniffing the air.

“And what’s all this then?”

“We’ll be busy tomorrow, so I thought I’d take the opportunity to do it up right and spare Branna the time. She was up late again, wasn’t she?”

“Barely sleeping the past week or so, and no amount of cajoling or arguing changes it.”

“I hear her music, like last night, and it smooths me right out. She does it on purpose.”

“Claims she thinks clearer when the two of us aren’t thinking.” He snagged a sausage from the plate. “You’re worried.”

“I guess I am, now that it’s down to hours instead of days. Why aren’t you?”

“We’re meant to do what we’re doing. If something’s meant, what’s the point in worrying over it?”

For comfort, she leaned against him a moment. “You smooth me out as much as Branna’s music.”

“I have every faith. In you.” He wrapped an arm around her waist for a squeeze. “In Branna, in myself. And in all the others as well, and as much. We’ll do what’s meant, and do our best. And that’s all anyone can ever do.”

“You’re right, on all of it.” She eased away to pile a plate full for him. “I feel him lurking, don’t you? I feel him around the edges of my dreams trying to get in. He nearly does, and part of me realizes I’m allowing it. Then there’s Branna’s music, and the next I know it’s morning.”

Iona got down another plate, arranged about half as much on it as she had for Connor. “I’m going to leave this warming in the oven for Branna.”

When she turned around, Connor just wrapped his arms around her. He had, Iona thought, the most comforting way.

“There now, stop the fretting. He’s never faced the like of us three, or the three with us.”

“You’re right again. So let’s eat, then I’m going to drive to work, taking the long way for practice.”

“You’d be there in half the time if I walked you.”

“True, but I wouldn’t practice.” Or be able to stop off at the hotel, ask if they’d post her letter the next day.

She kept her eyes peeled for any trace of fog, of the black wolf, of anything that alarmed her instincts or senses. She made it to Ashford Castle without incident or accident. Really, she thought she handled the Mini, the roads, the left-hand drive very well, whatever Meara said to the contrary.

Just as she believed she handled the throbbing nerves of the waiting, of the silence, very well.

Maybe her pulse jittered every time she looked out a window of the cottage to scan forest, road, hills. Maybe she recognized the ache of stress in her back and shoulders every time she prepared to lead a group through the green shadows and thick woods.