FORTY-SIX
SAGE
“I need lavender,” I say, stepping up to the fireplace.
“You don’t have to do this, Sage,” Faelan says, his voice unsteady.
He’s afraid. His goddess has been silent for hundreds of years—most of his life. And now I’m going to draw her closer.
I hope. There’s so much that I need to know, that I need to understand.
The old me of two weeks ago would be baffled by what I’m about to try, but in this moment I have a deep assurance. As a Daughter of Fire, this is what I would do. And I want to feel this. I want to understand. To know why . . . why she just abandoned me to that horror of a life.
Kieran holds out a bowl of lavender buds as if he’d known I would need them. “Is this all you need?” he asks.
I nod, taking some between my fingers.
“Marius should be here,” Faelan says. “As leader of the House of Brighid.”
“He’ll understand,” I say, even though I’m not sure of that. “It may not even work.”
“It’ll work,” Kieran says, very sure. When I glance at him, he adds, “Why do you think Brighid has been silent since Lily’s fall?”
“She only speaks to her daughters,” Faelan says, clarifying.
I’m filled with a sense of purpose as the realization hits: I’m the link to the goddess. It’s a stunning thought. I scoop some more lavender into my palm, my hand shaking as I turn to the fire.
“I’m ready. But I need the torque off, Kieran.”
After a moment, his fingers brush the back of my neck, and the necklace loosens. As it falls away, everything inside me seems to grow lighter, like I’m floating from the ground, a hum filling my chest. Warmth stirs in my belly, but I try to dampen it, not wanting it to spill out. I still don’t know how strong this power is. If Lily really is inside me, then I have a feeling the energy could be monumental.
I focus on my pulse, like Faelan taught me. On the blood weaving through me, the buzzing energy threading into my muscles.
Then I let a small trickle emerge into my fingers, and I toss the lavender into the fire.
The flames spark and shiver. I breathe slowly and try to speak. “Mother Brighid, hear me,” I say, my voice barely a whisper. Please hear me. “I must speak with you. It’s your daughter L—Sage.”
Remember me? The one you abandoned?
“I need your help,” I continue, listening to the same thing I always hear—touch, feed, control—coming through the flames. “There’s an imbalance,” I say. “I’m not sure what to do.”
“Ask her how we can stop my sister,” Kieran says. “We need to somehow block her from watching us or—”
“I got it,” I say, agitated. “Now be quiet so I can hear.”
I take in another deep breath and release it, then say one more time, “Mother Brighid, hear me, please. I need to talk to you about so many things. What do we do about Mara? What do we do about me and . . . Lily?” I watch the dancing light, the flames sliding over the charred logs. I listen to the snapping wood. But I don’t hear any new voices. Just fire.
Then something pops with a spark. The logs hiss.
My daughter . . .
I blink, not sure I really heard it. I keep staring at the flames, straining to listen.
And the whispers come again, like a soft wind: You are more than most.
“Mother,” I breathe, my voice breaking. I move closer, falling to my knees on the hearth.
I reach out to the light. My fingers brush the fire, the blaze encompassing my hand, the flames sliding over the surface of my palm. The heat fills me like a caress. And no pain comes.
Forgive me, daughter, the snapping logs say. I didn’t mean for you to be alone for so long.
An arrow of pain spikes my throat.
I loved you both. My own flesh. I was weak—I couldn’t choose between you and my Lily.
“What is she saying?” Faelan asks.
I ignore him, desperate to stay locked into the connection. “We’re in danger, Lily and I,” I say. “Mara is trying to hurt us. We need your help to stop her, to understand.”
The light flares, and I feel the goddess’s urgency in my gut. Poison. My sister’s daughter is poison. She is chaos, she is destruction, and her weapon will strike true. You must hurry—you must keep him safe.
“Who?” I ask. “Keep who safe?”
Two will be lost. Only one can be saved.
My nerves prickle. “What do you mean? What do I do?”
One made of water who leads my flock. Another a true friend in the wood who gave all and asked for nothing in return. Hold one to you, or the other will be lost.
Dread fills me. The flames dim, returning to embers. And I sense her fade away.
I know who she means. The one made of water who leads—that’s Marius. And the second, a true friend—as soon as I heard the words, Lily’s memories of the wood, of his gentleness, his kindness, all filled my head.
“We have to go to Lailoken,” I say, urgency filling my bones, thinking of him being hurt. My friend. He was my only friend for a time—Lily’s only friend.
“Why?” Kieran and Faelan ask at the same time.
“Brighid says that two people will be in danger, but only one can be saved.” I hesitate, knowing what Faelan will do, but I decide to tell them everything. “It’s Lailoken and Marius.”
“Marius?” Faelan stands. “Where is he? How is he in danger?”
“She said poison, but that’s all I know.” And if it’s anything like what happened to Niamh, there’s no time to waste.
Faelan blanches. “We need to go. Now.” He starts for the door.
“I’m not going with you, Faelan,” I say.
“What? What do you mean?” He frowns. “Marius is your master; he’s mine. We have a loyalty to him.”
“You do,” I say. “I don’t.”
Conflict fills Faelan’s eyes.
I move closer to him, hoping he hears me. “I have to go to Lailoken, Faelan. I know it doesn’t make sense, but to this thing deep inside me, he’s my truest friend. I can’t let anything happen to him.”
Faelan nods. But then he shifts his feet, torn. “I can’t allow you to be harmed.”
Kieran sets the iron poker back in the rack. “I know this old monk well enough. I’ll take her to him. You go to your master, hunter.”
“No fucking way,” Faelan says. “She’s not going anywhere with you.”
“Faelan.” I give him a look, not wanting to argue in front of Kieran. I understand where Faelan’s coming from, but he has to loosen the leash. “I can take care of myself now, remember. Thanks to you.”
Kieran looks back and forth between us.
Faelan runs a hand through his hair, then releases a growl and kicks the chair with a crack of wood. He nods, saying through his teeth, “Fine.” He steps over to Kieran, getting close and pointing a finger at his neck. “You let anything happen to her, I’ll rip your throat out.”
Kieran smirks. “And here I thought we were becoming friends.”
I fall to my knees in the clover, stomach heaving. I have a vague awareness of trees around me, but I’m focused on the spasms of pain racking my body.
“Apparently you’ve never traveled like this before?” I hear Kieran saying over me. “It can be a shock the first time.”
“I’m fine,” I lie. Another surge rips through me, forcing me to vomit.
Kieran crouches nearby. “You have to breathe deep when the initial vibrations hit.” He mimics slow breathing. “In and out, three times. Long and steady. Focus on a single spot on the ground while you do it. Like you’re convincing your body you’ve arrived.”
I nod, breathing in through my nose like he is.
“Yes, then out.”
I release the shaky breath slowly, focusing on a single blade of grass near my hand, and my stomach actually settles. Another spasm ripples through me, but it’s smaller and I don’t throw up this time. I breathe in and out again, pacing myself, then I try to stand. I stumble.
Kieran takes me by the arm to steady me. “You’re good,” he says.
I lean on him, and reality hits me. I almost burst out laughing. How did I get here, being propped up by the freaking dark prince? This guy pretty much murdered me in an alley only a week ago. His sister is apparently trying to torment me and control me, and maybe did the same to my sister. But somehow I’ve ended up walking through a magical doorway beside him.
What the hell is wrong with my head?
“What did Brighid say about Mara?” he asks.
“That she’s poison.” I brush leaves from my pants. “And chaos. And destruction—my mother’s not a fan.”
He considers that for a minute as we begin to walk. “The goddess isn’t wrong.”
I shrug, not wanting to talk with him like I would with Faelan. I decide to ask my own questions. “So you figured out Lily’s spirit was inside me. Do you know how that happened?”
He shakes his head. “That I don’t know. I only knew she’d be within a new vessel that could eventually help her hide for a time.”
And now she’s stealing my body? That’s extremely creepy. “Why did you say that you had some kind of rights to me then? Was that just because of your brother marrying my sister?”
“When she was free, Lily told me her sister would belong to me.”
“Excuse me?” Belong? “How did she even know she’d have a sister? That would’ve been long before I got here.”
“I don’t know. But I trusted her. She was good to me, even though I was a boy, young and annoying. All I knew of her was how happy she made my brother.”
So he’s been waiting this whole time, thinking I’d show up and be his? And instead I hate him.
Maybe if he wasn’t such an asshole . . .
“What are your powers?” I ask. “Besides being a weirdo raven man, I mean.”
He gives me a crooked smile. “Why do you wish to know?”
“For self-defense reasons, obviously.”
“Well, in that case,” he says, clearing his throat, “as a son of Morrígan, my element is spirit, so that is what I manipulate. I can walk into dreams, change emotions, and take away a person’s will.”
My pulse speeds up as he rattles off the list.
“Oh, and I can be a weirdo raven man,” he adds. He moves a branch out of the way and allows me to pass first. When he follows, he says, “This also means I can see through the eyes of other ravens. Which is how I followed you most of the time.”
My feet stumble in the moss. “Followed me?”
“Before you came to us, when you lived on the street, I was watching. And then once you were at Marius’s house, I kept my birds close.” He looks at me. “I saw many things.”
His words hang in the air. I don’t want to think about what “many things” might mean. But that must be how he knew about Niamh.
“So what’re we going to do about your sister?” I ask, trying not to think about the pixie she killed, the horrifying death. Instead I need to focus on how to get revenge.
Kieran is quiet for a few seconds like he’s thinking. “I was only going to hide you from her. I’m not sure how to destroy her. And the Cast is behind her, always.”
“I can’t hide forever, Kieran. We have to do something.”
“Lily assumed something could be done,” he says, his voice full of sadness. “She was wrong.”
“Your sister hurt her—is that why Lily went crazy and killed your brother?”
“In a way,” he says.
“If you know what happened to them, tell me.”
“It’s not my story to tell.”
I stop walking and turn to glare at him. “Really? You’re gonna be coy? People have died.”
“Some stories kill as well. Even a demi.” He moves ahead on the path, and I hear him say quietly, “And I won’t be the one to put you in the crosshairs of that mess.”
I watch him go and then follow a few paces behind. He’s impossible to understand. And he’s obviously not going to tell me anything. But if Lily’s really a part of me, I need to know what she knew about Princess Mara. I need to understand where everything went wrong, why Lily killed the king.
“Did your brother and sister get along?” I ask.
“No, never,” Kieran says. “My brother felt my sister’s way of living, of feeding, was undignified. He never allowed her to be a part of the court. At the time I felt he was unfair to her. Now I understand why.”
“And now she’s in charge,” I say. How convenient. “How do the children of Morrígan . . . feed?” I ask. When the king fed from me in the dream, it felt like I was being ripped to bits from the inside.
His shoulders stiffen and at first he doesn’t answer. Then he says quietly, “We pull spirits from their bodies.”
Chills rake over me.
“A bit at a time.” He sounds tired saying it. “It can be very painful.”
I remember.
“As a fire demi, what you take from a body is related to their molecular structure; it’s physical. The Morrígan children take the essence of a person’s spirit,” he continues. “It can be messy if it’s not tightly controlled, and pieces of the spirit itself can peel off in the feeding. That’s why most of my younger siblings have shade consorts—they’re already dead in the important sense of the word, only threads of spirit left behind. You can’t usually pull those threads from a shade by accident, so they’re more likely to survive.”
I let all of that soak in. Then I ask, “Do you kill every time you feed?”
“Not anymore.”
The pathway narrows and the trees become thicker. I’m wondering if we’re ever going to get there, when Kieran says, “It’s just up ahead.”
We pick our way through a section of dense ferns followed by some pretty crazy brambles, pushing forward. And just when I think he’s lying and we’ll be walking in an endless loop for an eternity, we stumble out.
Right into a huge field of purple and yellow flowers.
I gasp, taken off guard by the beauty in front of me. And I immediately recognize it as the place Lily wanted to return to, the woods of Caledonia, a field of bluebells and daffodils.
A rush of elation washes over me. “Oh wow, it’s barely changed at all.” I search the other side of the clearing for the juniper tree. It has twisty limbs, I remember—
My gaze catches on an overgrown area on the far side of the clearing. A branch sticking out looks familiar, so I head toward it.