“When we’ve done what we’ve sworn to do, the sorrow and duty will be done.” She gave his grubby hand a squeeze. “They’ll know it just as we do. I’m sure of that.”
“Why can’t we see, you and me together? And with Iona the three? Why can’t we see how it ends?”
“You know the answer to that. As long as there’s choice, the end is never set. What he has, and all that’s gone before, it blurs the vision, Connor.”
“We’re the light.” Iona stood with her bucket of pods, garden soil staining the knees of her jeans. And the ring Boyle had given her sparkling on her finger. “Whatever he comes with, however he comes, we’ll fight. And we’ll win. I believe that. And I believe it because you do,” she told Connor. “Because with your whole life leading to this, knowing it did, you believe. He’s a bully and a bastard hiding behind power he bartered for with some devil. What we are?” She laid a hand on her heart. “What we have is from the blood and from the light. We’ll cut him down with that light, and send him to hell. I know it.”
“Well said. And there.” Branna gave Connor a poke. “That’s our own Iona’s St. Crispin’s Day speech.”
“It was well said. It’s just a mood hanging over me. A promise not yet kept.”
“One that will be,” Branna said. “And it’s not just that and digging potatoes that’s put you in a mood—a sour one that’s rare for you. Have you and Meara had a fight?”
“Not at all. It’s all grand. I might worry here and there at the way Cabhan’s taken too fine an interest in her. When it’s one of us, we have weapon for weapon, magicks to magicks. She’s only wit and spine, and a blade if she’s carrying one.”
“Which serves her well, and she wears your protective stones, carries the charms we made. It’s all we can do.”
“I had her blood on my hands.” He looked down at them now, saw the wet red of Meara’s blood rather than the good, dark soil. “I find I can’t get around it, get past it, so I’m after texting her a half dozen times a day, making up some foolish reason, just to be sure she’s safe.”
“She’d knock you flat for that.”
“I know it well.”
“I worry about Boyle, too. And Cabhan hasn’t paid any real attention there. It’s natural,” Iona added, “for us to have concerns about the two people we care about who don’t have the same arsenal we do.” She looked at Branna. “You worry, too.”
“I do, yes. Even knowing there’s nothing we can do we haven’t done, I worry.”
“If it helps, I promise I’m with her a lot during the workday. And when she takes out a group—ever since the wolf shadowed her—I braid a charm into her horse’s mane.”
Connor smiled. “Do you?”
“She indulges me, and so does Boyle. I’ve been adding them to all the horses as often as I can manage. It makes me feel better when we have to leave them at night.”
“I gave her some lotion the other day, asked her to use it every day, to test it for me.” Now Branna smiled. “I charmed it.”
“The one that smells of apricots and honey? It’s lovely.” He kissed Branna’s cheeks. “So that’s thanks on a magickal and a romantic sort of level. I should’ve known the pair of you would add precautions. For me, she’s never out of Roibeard’s sight unless she’s in mine.”
“Well, give her over to Merlin for an hour or so—Fin would be willing. And go hawking.” With a hand on his shoulder for a boost, Branna rose. “Put the potatoes in the little cellar and take your hawk out for a bit. I expect you could both use the time.”
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“What about the boiling and blanching and all the rest?”
“You’re dismissed.”
“And the soup?”
She laughed, gave him a light knock on the head with her fist. “Here’s my thought. Tell Boyle I’ll need Meara around here in . . .” Branna looked up at the beaming sun, calculated the time. “Three hours will work. Then the rest of you should be here by half-six. We’ll have your soup, and a rocket salad as I’ll have Iona cut it fresh, some brown bread, and cream cake.”
“Cake? What occasion is this?”
“We’ll have a céili. It’s long past time we had a party here.”
Brushing his hands on his pants, Connor pushed to his feet. “I can see I need to develop a sour mood more often.”
“It won’t work a second time. Go store those potatoes, go find your hawk, and be back here at half-six.”
“I’ll do all that. Thanks.”