“I need some air. I’m going to take the dog and get some air. I feel like I’m living in my book. Maybe I am.”

“Wear this, if you will.” Rising, Marg took a round red stone on a chain. “I gave this to you after you were taken, for protection. I didn’t know until you’d gone your mother had left it behind.”

“It’s beautiful. What is it?”

“We call this crystal a dragon’s heart.”

Breen lifted the thin chain over her head. “I’m not as pissed off at my mother, so that’s something. More, after all this, I’m not having a major anxiety attack. Maybe because it doesn’t seem real.”

She walked to the door, opened it for the dog, who leaped up to dash out. “But it does. It does seem real, and I have to work it through in my head.”

“May I begin to read your children’s book while you’re out walking? I can make it come if you allow it.”

“Fine.” Learning she was a crap writer was currently the least of her worries. Still, she hesitated. “I can see this wasn’t easy for you to tell me. I think you love me.”

Everything in Marg’s face softened. “More than anything in all the worlds.”

Because she believed it, Breen nodded. “I’ll be back. I just want to walk, to let Bollocks swim in the bay. If you could think of something else to teach me—simple—I don’t think I’m up for more than simple. I’ll be about an hour.”

“I’ll wait for you.”

And had, Marg thought, more than twenty long years.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Wind blew in from the sea and swept clouds, gray at the edges, east, over a wide roll of fields and the rocky promontories above them.

At least, she assumed east. For all she knew the sun rose in the north here. Some sort of grain grew in the field, swaying gold over the green. She spotted movement along the tower of rocks, and thought goats until she clearly saw two-legged creatures, wearing caps and long vests.

As she wondered over that, a group of kids she estimated as about the same age she’d once taught came into sight around a turn of the road. Pushing, elbowing, but in joking ways.

She counted five of them—two girls, three boys. One of the girls—dark skin, hair a mass of blue-tipped black braids—held up a hand.

When she dropped it sharply, she and two of the boys raced off in a blur of speed—impossible speed—while the other girl sprouted rainbow wings and bulleted through the air and the third boy dropped to all fours and became, in front of her eyes, a young horse that galloped after them.

“That’s something you don’t see every day, unless you’re here.” She glanced down to see what Bollocks thought of it, but he’d already run to and into the water.

She followed him down and, because her head ached, sat on the sandy shale and closed her eyes.

It soothed, the brisk wind, the lap of the water, the splashes and yips of the puppy.

She’d accepted the impossible as truth, Breen thought, and now she had to decide what to do about it.

She heard a cry, looked up to see a hawk circling.

And Morena sat down beside her.

“Showing off for you, he is.”

“He’s entitled to show off. He’s so beautiful.”

“We saw you wandering down this way, but you seemed well inside your own head.”

“I guess I was. I saw kids, five of them. If I have it straight, one was a faerie, one a were-horse. The other three were fast, ridiculously fast.”

“Elves. I saw them myself. They’re fast friends, that lot. You’ll usually see another girl with them, but she’s on a day of punishment for using a spell to do her chores.”

“So, one of the Wise?”

“Not so wise to think she could get away with not doing her chores proper as she was told to.”

Rules, Breen thought, and discipline for children. “So using magick to do the dishes, for instance, isn’t allowed.”

“We’ll say it’s situational. It’s discouraged, especially in the young ones, to take the short way. You have to learn how to milk a goat, plant a carrot, wash your linens, and all of it. Otherwise, you’ll end up lazy and fat, won’t you? Magicks are a serious business, not that they can’t and shouldn’t be fun along with it. But they’re not a convenience. If only that, you stop honoring what you have.”

Simple, Breen decided. And in its way, pure.

“I don’t know what to do with what I have. I lit a candle today. It took an hour of Nan’s coaching, but I lit it with an indrawn breath.”

“That’s fine, and it won’t take so long the next time around.”

“I don’t know what to do with it. I saw men climbing those rocky cliffs back there like goats.”

“Trolls,” Morena said easily. “Likely coming out from the caves they’re mining to have their midday meal in the sun.”

“Trolls, of course. I should have thought of that. Kids with wings and speed and hooves.”

“Don’t children run about on a fine summer day in the outside? There’s no schooling—or not the formal sort—in the summertime, so why not run about?”

“You have schools?”

“Sure and we have schools! Do you think we want to be ignorant?”

“No. Schools, kids running, people sitting in the sun for their lunch break, it’s all normal. Does the sun come up in the east here?”

“Where else would it come up?”

“Normal. But you have two moons.”

“Some worlds have one, others two or seven. Astronomers are always finding something new in the skies, aren’t they?”

“You have astronomers. Don’t give me that look. I’m trying to balance out the normal with the fantastic. Nan told me what I am, all I am, and why Odran wants me.”

In the way of friends, Morena rubbed a hand on Breen’s thigh. “It was for her to tell, and as she did, she believes you have the need to know, and the spine to carry it. But it’s so much, I understand that.”

“I remembered being taken, and with Nan, I saw it all again, in the fire. What she saw, too.”

“I was so frightened, all those years ago.” Drawing her knees to her chest, Morena looked over them to the water. “The alarm sounded in the night. I’d never heard it before, but I knew to be afraid. They bundled me and my brothers off with the other children, and I heard from those who stayed back to tend us and shield us you’d been taken. It seemed like days, days and days, but it was only a few hours when my mother brought you back.”

“She sang to me. She took me through the portal in the waterfall, and sang to me.”

“There was blood on you—your own blood from your hands. It was Aisling who tended them before anyone else could. And I don’t know if it will trouble or help you to know that in your eyes, on your face I saw such power, such rage, such might. It faded as the women all fussed and soothed and gave you a quieting potion to drink. You were just my friend again—my heart sister—who’d been brought home safe again.”

“It must have been some potion, because I’ve spent most of my life trying to be quiet.”

“And now?”

“I don’t know.” Idly, Breen picked up a piece of shale, tossed it. “I do know I liked what I felt when I lit the candle. I liked that it felt strong, and it felt like me. I need time to think about it all, but I also need to learn more.”

“There’s no better teacher on the ways of the Wise than Marg.”

“That’s what Keegan said.”

“So you’ve talked with Keegan, have you?”

“Briefly. He was outside the farmhouse last night when I went out to walk.”

“Oh, you should’ve come in.” Now Morena gave Breen a little shove. “It was fine craic. So many want to meet you or see you again. We’re a friendly sort.”

“He doesn’t strike me as especially friendly.”

“Oh, well, that’s Keegan. He’s a broody one, but he’s the world on his shoulders, after all. He’s good company when he’s not brooding, and as fair a taoiseach as any have been before.”

Sliding her gaze over, Breen studied Morena’s face. “Are the two of you . . .”

“What?”

“Involved?”

“Sure, we’re involved as any—Oh!” Her face went bright with humor. “You mean are we mating? Gods no. He’s next to a brother to me. Not that he isn’t a fine example of a man, and I’ve heard he’s more than fine in bed. Besides, I bed with Harken now and again, and though it’s not forbidden, I’d find it awkward to bed brothers.”

While Breen tried to think of a response, Bollocks dragged a piece of driftwood over, wagged hopefully.

Morena hopped up, threw it into the water. Delirious with joy, the dog leaped in after it.

“I’ll tell you this,” Morena went on. “You’ll want Keegan to train you in hand-to-hand and sword work, as there’s none better I know. It was your father who took up his training—and Harken’s and Aisling’s after their father fell—so it’s no wonder.”

Bollocks dragged the wood out again; Morena threw it.

“I could work with you some, show you the raw basics, but I’m a poor teacher, I think. I lack patience.”

“You know how to use a sword?”

“Sure I know how. Being a peaceful people isn’t the same as being a defenseless one.”

There were dragons in the sky, three of them. A herd? A flock? She’d have to look it up, but for now Breen thought of family, as there were two large and one small. Like parents and child.

“Have you ever ridden one?” Breen asked.

“I have, and it’s wonderful. I’ve not bonded with one, but I’ve ridden Harken’s.”

“Harken has a dragon?”