She breathed again, slow and steady, put her focus, her energy on the candlewick. Felt the warmth rise in her, and light seep through. And she blew gently.
The flame flickered, swayed, then burned true.
“It’s so cool,” Iona whispered. “I’ll never get used to it. I’m just . . . magick.”
“It’s power. It must be trained, disciplined, and respected. And honored.”
“You sound like Nan. She showed me when I was little, and I believed. Then I thought they were just magick tricks, because my parents said they were. And I think—I know—my mother told her to stop or she wouldn’t let her see me.”
“Your mother’s mind is closed. She’s like a lot of others. You shouldn’t be angry with her.”
“She kept me from this. From what I am.”
“Now you know. Can you do more?”
“A few things. I can levitate things—not big things, and it’s fifty-fifty. Horses. I understand what they’re feeling. I always have. I tried a glamour, but that was a terrible bust. My eyes went purple—even the whites, and my teeth glowed like neon. I had to call in sick for two days before it wore off.”
Amused, Branna added more tea and whiskey to the cups.
“What can you do?” Iona demanded. “I showed mine. You show yours.”
“Fair enough then.” Branna flicked out a hand, and held a ball of white fire in her palm.
“Holy shit. That’s . . .” Warily Iona reached out, brought her fingertips close enough to feel the heat. “I want to do that.”
“Then you’ll practice, and you’ll learn.”
“You’ll teach me?”
“I’ll guide you. It’s already in you, but needs the route, the signs, the . . . finesse. I’ll give you some books to read and study. Take your week at the castle, and think about what you want, Iona Sheehan. Think carefully, for once it begins, you can’t go back.”
“I don’t want to go back.”
“I don’t mean to America, or your life there. I mean from the path we’ll walk.” She flicked her hand again and, with it empty, picked up her tea. “Cabhan, what is left of him, may be worse than what was. And what is left wants what you have, what we have. And he wants our blood. Your power and your life, you’ll risk both, so think carefully, for it’s not a game we’d be playing.”
“Nan said it had to be a choice, my choice. She told me he—Cabhan—would want what I have, what I am, and do whatever he could to get it. She cried when I said I was going to come, but she was proud, too. As soon as I got here, I knew it was the right choice. I don’t want to ignore what I am. I just want to understand it.”
“Staying is still a choice. And if you decide to stay, you’ll stay here, with me and Connor.”
“Here?”
“It’s best we stay together. There’s room enough.”
Nothing had prepared her for this. Nothing in her life measured as amazing a gift. “You’d let me live here, with you?”
“We’re cousins, after all. Take your week. Connor and I have committed, have taken an oath if the third came, we’d accept. But you haven’t had a lifetime, so think it through, and be sure. The decision has to be yours.”
Whatever it was, Branna thought, would change all.
4
THE RAIN SOAKED HER AGAIN ON HER TREK BACK, but it didn’t dampen her mood. After warming her bones in the shower, Iona dug out flannel pants, a thermal T-shirt, then, dumping her suitcase on the floor—she’d unpack properly later—she crawled into bed.
And slept like the dead for four solid hours.
She woke in the dark, completely disoriented and starving.
Though her thoroughly disorganized possessions taunted her, she rooted through for jeans, a sweater, warm socks, boots. Armed with her guidebook and one of the books Branna had lent her, she took herself off to the hotel’s cottage restaurant for the food, the company.