Blade Dance

Iobáth was not looking forward to his interview with the sorcerer. He was finding the Fae in Boston and the complicated, dangerously entwined houses of MacCecht and MacUmhaill far trickier to navigate than he had anticipated. And Miach MacCecht had always been the trickiest of Fae sorcerers.

They had conferred briefly before deciding how best to storm the Druid mound. Passing to an unknown location could be challenging. Translating Ann’s GPS coordinates to something that a Fae mind could fix on, to wind and rain and surf and sand and tall pines, was the bread and butter of a modern mage like Miach, so they were able to arrive on the island’s shores whole and hale.

It was still a shock to find himself inside a Druid mound after all these years. He had heard that Conn of the Hundred Battles had burrowed like an animal into his, sleeping for centuries at a time. The leader of the Fianna in New York, Donal, had described it to him in the terms of the age, as “depression.”

The Druid was gone, untraceable, according to Miach. And, more important, the berserker was bleeding from a belly wound. Finn looked stricken. Iobáth had thought himself inured to that kind of suffering, but he felt the old grief well up in him and he had to turn away so that no one would see his face when Miach said that she would live, and the three of them passed out of sight.

Iobáth knew that he ought to examine the notebooks and computers the creature had left behind, that it was his sacred penance to prevent the creature from doing any more mischief, but all he could think was how different the Druid he’d met at the library, Diana, was from the people who had built this mound. She’d been what the Druids once were, a scholar, fiercely attached to her books. Maybe he should return the book to the girl and take leave of the houses of MacCecht and MacUmhaill and go to one of the old cities, the ones that had been little towns before the fall, like London or Paris, or even great centers of empire, like Rome or Athens, where familiarity would give him some ease. It might be wise to find a woman as unlike Diana Seater as possible. He did not deserve the comfort of a woman who remembered his name.

Miach returned without Finn and the berserker and ordered Garrett to search the Druid’s computers and notes. “And fetch Liam and Nial here so we have half-bloods who can remove the iron dust and get those bars rolled back safely. And when you’re home and have a cell phone signal, call Conn and ask if he will bring Beth. It would help to have a Druid who can interpret the plans of the wall.”

Iobáth stepped forward. “We need to have a word.”

Miach nodded. “As soon as I release the Prince.”

“You’re not going to just let him go, are you?”

“I don’t see that we have a choice,” said Miach.

“He saved my son,” said Sean, who had not left the silver effigy’s side since they arrived.

“But he is safely contained this way,” said Iobáth. “He can cause no mischief with a knife through his heart.”

“We can’t know what effect the enchantment is having on the boy,” said Miach. “Take it out, and after that, if you’re willing to put the knife back into the Prince’s heart, I won’t stop you.”

“That wouldn’t be right,” said Iobáth. He wished someone with fewer scruples disagreed, but Miach MacCecht had acquired a human conscience with his half-blood offspring and Sean Silver Blade was not about to agree to his brother’s stabbing.

“No, unfortunately not.”

Miach circled the Prince and the boy, locked in their silvery embrace on the chamber’s cold stone floor. He wrapped his right hand around the knife’s iron hilt, and his face contorted in a rictus of pain. Miach might be a sorcerer, but he was no coward. Handling iron was unbearably painful. Doing it voluntarily and in a Druid mound, where the memory of his torment must be especially vivid, took incredible strength of will. Iobáth had seen what iron knives had done to Miach MacCecht, the vivisection scars that ran from neck to navel. They’d opened him again and again, relying on his Fae nature and sorcerous ability to self-heal to sustain his body while gutting it.

Miach muttered something in the old tongue and pulled the knife free. He didn’t drop it, but turned to one of the granite tables and set it there, then leaned upon the stone for support.

The Prince’s body did not warm all at once. The wound closed first, then the silvery glow at its edge faded. Life flowed out from his heart, beating once more, and a flush suffused his neck, his face, and finally his hands, the velvet of his jacket and the silk of his shirt shedding their silver hue. He took in a sharp, ragged breath, and stared at the child still clutched in his arms, whose face was ashen pale but no longer silver gray.

Little Davin did not open his eyes.

Something constricted in Iobáth’s chest when he saw Sean Silver Blade’s face. Sean snatched the boy away from his brother and shook him. Garrett crossed the room in a blur and took the child from him.

“He’s not breathing,” said Garrett.

“The enchantment is lifted,” said Miach, moving stiffly to his acolyte’s side. Iobáth felt helpless, watching tragedy unfold, as he had on that fateful day. The sorcerer lifted the child’s eyelids, lowered his ear to his heart. “We have to get his heart started again. Garrett, give him mouth-to-mouth while I try to summon the strength.”

The sorcerer was drained. Iobáth could see that. He tried anyway, pressing his hands over the child’s chest in between Garrett’s effort to breathe for him. The child’s body convulsed. Once, twice, and on the third try the boy gasped in air and opened his eyes.

Sean tore the child out of Miach’s arms and hugged him tight, then looked up at the place where his brother had been standing. “Where the hell is he?”

The Prince had gone. Iobáth was not surprised. Whether he had left before or after he determined if the child lived was impossible to say.

“If you have no other business—” Iobáth began.

Miach held up a hand. “I have to examine the chamber with the plans for the wall and make sure that my grandsons don’t kill anyone shifting iron dust. If you wish to see me, come to my house in South Boston this evening before the feast at Finn’s.”

Iobáth did not like being put off. His business in Boston was concluded, or would be as soon as he fulfilled his vow and returned the book to the pretty Druid at Harvard. He did not attend feasts. He was not attached to either of these families. The child was safe and breathing. He would not have waited on the pleasure of any other Fae living, but Miach MacCecht was the world’s best hope for keeping the wall intact. He would have to stay.

He passed back to Finn’s house, where at least there would be water for washing and he could shed the stink of the Druid mound. He arrived at a point a block away from the house so he could walk any traces of iron dust off his shoes. Inside there were scented fires burning in the parlor and dining room, and he could smell meat roasting in the kitchen. Finn’s housekeeper tried to fuss over him as though he was human. Iobáth wondered if Finn liked that and encouraged her or if he just put up with it for the cooking. He could smell rosemary and garlic and beef and, beneath that, the sugared aroma of vanilla, butter, and nutmeg.

Maybe he would return for the feast. He had to eat at some point. He might as well eat among his people. Or some who were his people. There were more half-bloods here than Fae. Once, he would not have been able to bear it. So many half-bloods gathered in one place would only have reminded him of her. Yet Finn’s house suited him better than Donal’s, where there were no half-bloods, only Fae and their empty-eyed thralls. The glazed faces, intoxicated by Fae beauty, their personal identities submerged in ecstatic worship, had reminded him of her—of the horror of her death.

Someone was offering him an implement. He must have been lost in his thoughts, lost in the past. Finn’s cook was holding a spoon up in his face.

“Have a lick and then go get yourself a shower while there’s still hot water. Before himself and the new mistress and the rest get back.”

He was being managed. He licked the spoon. Chocolate. Perhaps being managed wasn’t such a bad thing.

“Go on with you, then,” she said, snatching back the spoon.

He went. Up the stairs, to the front of the house, to a bedroom and a bath facing the monument where he showered and was grateful to find the soaps and oils laid out for him were not the acrid chemical soups that made the air on public transportation a noxious brew, but homemade recipes rich with natural scents. He emerged smelling like juniper and pine and sandalwood and found that the clothes he had left there the day before had been laundered and pressed for him.

A Fae could get used to such a life. Finn MacUmhaill evidently had. Iobáth had become too used to being on his own, too used to having to rely on strangers to wash or mend his clothes, to cook his meals, to make his bed. Or he slept in the wild, where he could see the stars and bathe in clean running water.

But there was something to be said for hot running water.

He could have passed to Miach’s house but he did not want to arrive ahead or at the same time as the sorcerer, so he walked. It was easy to see why Finn had settled on the peninsula of Charlestown. It was cut off from the bustle of downtown Boston by the water, and its little squares were laid out in harmony with the natural contours of the land, not by dint of man’s dogged interference. The iron bridge connecting the little community to Boston was a barrier, but he found the water taxi where the young woman at the museum in the Navy Yard told him it would be and crossed to Boston’s North End. From there he walked through Faneuil Hall, bustling with tourists, where he stopped in to drink a beer at a bar where he had heard that they still played the old music, and where Elada Brightsword’s woman sometimes sang, though she was not there today. From the bar it was another mile to the bridge to South Boston, and he walked through the postindustrial blight of her converted warehouses and truck yards to Miach’s towering white mansion at City Point, hard by the water.

The house was warded, so he waited patiently outside for someone to answer the door. It was like listening to a battle on the other side of the threshold. Voices shouting to one another, feet stampeding across floors and down staircases. Finally Nieve appeared, breathless, wearing leggings and an apron that hid her swollen belly.

“Granddad says you’re to go straight up,” she announced, stepping aside for him to enter and indicating the heavily carved Victorian stair, the newel post crowned with a sculpture of a dancer in brass.

The house was not to his taste, but the rustle of tablecloths and clink of dishes from the dining room held an appealing domesticity, and the shrill voices of half-blood children followed him up the stairs. The second floor was heavily carpeted in a pattern that no doubt showed to better advantage under gas light. Iobáth chose the open door at the end of the hall because he guessed that it faced the water, and that Miach would select its exposure for his library.

The view was indeed spectacular. The sorcerer’s lair looked more like a university library than a South Boston crime lord’s office. The empire furniture, the painted ceiling, the dark wood bookshelves all conspired to give the room a scholarly air.

Miach himself had washed and dressed in contemporary fashions, as all the Boston Fae seemed to, with their short hair and their practical New England layers. Someone had brought him a tea tray, and if the pastries and sandwiches lacked the professional polish of Mrs. Friary’s cooking, they more than made up for it with their heartiness.

“Help yourself,” said Miach, nodding to the tray. “Nieve’s a plainer cook than Mrs. Friary, but a better one to our family’s taste.”

“Speak for yourself,” said a low, cool voice. Iobáth had not noticed the woman in the window seat until she spoke. She was curled up on the cushion, long blond hair unbound, with a book of paintings open in her lap. “I’m saving my appetite for Mrs. Friary’s baked brie.”

“Her employer,” said Miach, in an exasperated tone, “tried to enslave you.”

“Finn has his faults,” said the woman who must be Miach’s wife, Helene, as she rose from her seat, “but his taste in cooks isn’t one of them. You should hire someone and give Nieve a break until she’s had the baby.”

“If she would only let me,” said Miach.

Helene offered Iobáth a cool nod, mouthed the words save your appetite, and departed from the room.

Miach took a seat behind his desk. “Now, what is it you wanted to say to me?”

The frost in his tone was not lost on Iobáth. “I need the book that Nieve and I brought you yesterday. I made a vow that I would return it to the student who was using it.”

“So I understand,” said Miach. “Why should I oblige you?”

“Because if I do not return the book,” said Iobáth, patiently explaining the obvious, “the geis I have taken will weaken me.”

Miach shrugged. “What concern is that of mine?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“You are not a member of my house. You may profess a desire to obstruct the Prince, but that does not necessarily make us allies.”

“Doesn’t it?”

“The enemy of my enemy is my friend? No. Not in all circumstances. Finn, I think, understands that we face a common threat, but we have faced this common threat for years now and he has never been able to let go of his vengeance. He abducted my right hand, Elada, and Elada’s wife, who happened to be a Druid, because he hadn’t had anyone to torture in two thousand years and thought it might be fun.”

“But you helped him save his grandson today,” said Iobáth, frustrated with these petty politics.

“And I may come to an understanding with him tonight that unites our two houses against the Prince, but I fail to see what role you will play in it. You have already told my granddaughter that you will not act as her husband’s right hand.”

“Because that is a role she should take herself,” said Iobáth.

“Yes. So she told me. Did Finn put you up to that?”

“Why would he do such a thing? She’s carrying his grandchild.”

“Because Finn has never thought my Nieve was good enough for his son. He has encouraged him to betray her for years.”

“I believe he has seen the error of his ways. He said as much.”

“Words,” said Miach. “Nothing more, until he acts on them.”

“That Nieve should be her husband’s right hand, his sword as well as his helpmeet, was entirely my idea. You raised her as the equal of any Fae. If she has fallen behind in the study of arms, it is only because she has taken up the role of chatelaine, one your wife would be happy to see passed to a professional.”

“My wife,” said Miach, “would hire fucking Lydia Shire to cook for us and still want to go out five nights a week. And Nieve, as you have pointed out, is pregnant. She was lucky to survive the birth of her first child. She’ll be lucky to survive the second, even with my help. She’s hardly going to be wielding a sword tomorrow or soon after this child is born.”

“What is it you want, in exchange for the book, Miach?”

“We come to the heart of the matter,” said the sorcerer. “You want the book. I agree that my granddaughter could serve as her husband’s right hand, but she cannot play that role until she has delivered the child, and she will not survive long in that role without better training. Elada is away with his stone singer. I am willing to give you the book to return to this student, to whom you made such a rash promise. But in return, you must serve as Garrett’s right hand until Nieve is ready, and that means until she can wield a sword to my satisfaction—under your tutelage, of course.”

“That is blackmail.”

“What if it is? I am fighting a war here, Iobáth the Penitent. You have stayed aloof from Fae and human affairs for two thousand years, wedded to your grief and guilt. I have no sympathy for you. The rest of us—here in Boston, anyway—built something.”

“I have defended the weak from the strong, curbed the excesses of the survivors of our race,” he said, gravely offended. The sorcerer was suggesting that he had wasted the last two thousand years.

“And some good, no doubt, has come of it,” agreed Miach. “But wandering has also spared you fresh pain, allowed you to nurse your grief, absolved you from living in the world. I do not see the virtue in that.”

“I don’t fucking care what you see virtue in. You have given me no choice. Unless I wish to eat dog meat like Cú Chulainn, I must have that book.”

“Then you agree to my terms? You will bind yourself to my house, do as I bid, until I am satisfied that Nieve can take up your mantle?”

“Yes, but not with an open heart or any good will to you or yours,” said Iobáth, feeling spiteful. It was not an emotion he had experienced in a very long time. It shocked him to think how long it had been since he had felt anything but the familiar weight of his grief.

Miach smiled. “I think that’s the first time I’ve seen your composure shaken, Penitent. Is the girl pretty?”

“What girl?”

“The Druid you made such an asinine pledge to, of course.”

“You know she is,” said Iobáth. “Else you would have taken her in and trained her, but your human wife won’t let you keep a harem of Druids.”

“And quite right she is, too,” said Miach. “Notwithstanding the fact that her best friend is a Druid. But fortunately for all concerned, Beth Carter is bound to Conn of the Hundred Battles. And in any case, I love my wife.”

“Your taste for human emotions blinds you, and it has endangered this girl. The Prince followed us to the library. He knows of her existence. And that you have an interest in her.”

“If we leave her alone, chances are that he will as well. At least until he’s tracked down his rogue Druid.”

Iobáth took the book and his leave of Miach. His anger evaporated somewhat on the way to Cambridge. He told himself it was because he had the book, because he would be able to fulfill the terms of his geis and be released from it, but he knew that wasn’t the reason. He was looking forward to seeing Diana Seater again.