Lips twitching, Sally sat. “Should I?”

“I’ve the warning from Marco on it, and expect the same from you. You’re her family after all. Thanks,” he added when the waitress set down their drinks. “My friend, another brother to me, had his eye on my sister, and she on him. And though my sister’s more than a year older than I am, and Mahon as true a man as I know, I said much the same to him.”

“And how did that work out?”

Keegan lifted his beer. “Well now, it didn’t come to blows, which is fortunate for both of us, as Aisling would have kicked our arses for it. And they’re expecting their third child.”

“To happy endings.” Sally lifted his water. “And is that what you’re looking for with Breen? A happy ending, children?”

“What?”

The sincere shock had Sally’s lips twitching again.

“An example only of my understanding of family. It’s a conversation I’m planning, no more, in hopes she’ll come back with me. She’s family there as well. And . . . there’s a need for her there. A place for her.”

“You speak for her grandmother? Someone she didn’t know existed until last summer.”

Diplomacy, Keegan reminded himself.

“Marg kept her silence, which cost her dearly, out of respect for Breen’s mother, and to give Breen herself time to make her own choices when the moment came. It’s not my story to tell you, so I’ll say only when Eian brought Breen here, at her mother’s demand, he did his best to keep his family safe and whole, and to keep the family he left behind the same.

“No one will speak ill of Mairghread or Eian Kelly in my hearing.”

“Fair enough. Though I will say I wish her grandmother had made herself known sooner, and given Jennifer less time to do a number on Breen.”

“I’m aware of your meaning, and the truth of it. But the time of choices comes when it comes. And she had you, didn’t she then? And Marco, and this place.”

He looked around again as applause followed the trio offstage.

“It’s a good place, as I said. One of love and shelter, beyond the fun of it.”

With a huff, Sally sat back. “How am I supposed to grill you like a fish when you say something like that?”

He smiled. “It’s what I see and feel for myself now I’m here, and what was easy enough to glean from how Breen spoke of you, of Marco, of here, of . . . it’s Derrick, isn’t it?”

“Yes. The love of my life.”

“So a fine man he must be, as you’ve no reason to settle for less.”

“Shit. Charm, looks, and the accent.” Sally tossed his platinum locks. “What’s a mother supposed to do?”

“Let her go back with me, if she chooses.”

“I couldn’t stop her, and wouldn’t try to stand in front of something she wants. She’s never had her heart broken—romantically,” Sally qualified. “She’s had her ego, her self-esteem, both always wobbly, shaken and dinged, but not her heart.” He leaned forward. “Don’t be the first.”

“I’m not—This isn’t about romantic reasons.”

With a manicured, hot-pink-tipped hand, Sally patted Keegan’s. “Whatever you say, handsome. And that’s my cue. Enjoy the show.”

It was hard not to, even with growing impatience—when the hell would she come out again?—when the place erupted with applause and cheers.

And Sally took the stage.

He admired performers, and quickly saw Sally had spoken true. He’d been born for the stage.

A presence was what it was, the movements, the confidence, as he sang about a bad romance with many patrons joining in on the chorus as they might at a pub sing-along.

And though he enjoyed, he knew when Breen came in. Just a tip of power in the air. It always amazed him people in this world couldn’t feel it.

He turned his head, and saw her as she saw him.

When she started toward him, he rose.

“What are you doing here?”

“We need to speak. If you’d come with me back to your home.”

Instead she sat. “We can speak right here.”

“It’s a conversation I’d rather in private.”

“This is private enough.”

Her self-confidence didn’t appear so—was it “wobbly”?—as her heart mother thought.

He started to lean forward, but the waitress stepped up, set down a glass of wine. “Marco thought you’d like one. Can I get you another beer?”

“Thanks all the same, this is more than fine.”

“Just send out a signal if you need anything.” Hettie looked deliberately at Breen. “Anything.”

“You’d think I’d come to drag you off by the hair,” Keegan muttered.

“We look out for each other here.”

“As do we,” he reminded her. “You said you’d come back, but it’s been more than a month.”

“Not quite a month,” she corrected. “I speak with Nan nearly every day.”

“And she’d say nothing that might weigh on you. In any case, I’ve been at the Capital these last days. You need to come back. The signs are growing.”

“What signs?”

“Of the dark that’s coming. You gave your word you’d come when needed. You’re needed.”

“I didn’t think you took me at my word.”

“Bugger it, woman, I was well pissed off, wasn’t I? This isn’t about your feelings or mine, but of duty.”

The music pulsed. Sally slid into “Born This Way.” People crowded onto the dance floor. The lights glimmered.

Everything, everything in the moment was so familiar, so safe, so normal, she craved it like breath.

“Tell me the truth. If I go to Talamh, I could die there.”

“Everything I have, everything I am will fight to protect you.”

She looked at him; she drank some wine. “I believe that. But I could die.”

He fisted a hand on the table, but didn’t pound it. “As I could, as all could. And if we fail, as all here could in time. Odran won’t stop with Talamh.”

“I see the land burning. I smell the smoke and the blood. I hear the screams.” She set down the wine.

He closed a hand over hers. “Will you do nothing, and let that happen?”

“No.” She rose, looked toward the stage at Sally, then at the bar and Marco. After pressing a hand to her heart, she started toward the door.

“I have a flight on hold for next week,” she said as Keegan came after her. “I told everyone who matters I was going back—to Ireland.” Outside, she began to walk quickly. “I needed to tell them, needed to say goodbye. Now I have, so I’ll see if I can book an earlier flight.”

“You were coming back.”

She rounded on him. “I said I would.”

“I apologize.” He grabbed her arm as she turned and hurried on. “I’m sorry. Truly.”

“Doesn’t matter.”

“Sure and it does. I questioned your word, insulted you there, and that hurts you. I’m sorry for it. And three times sorry, so it should be enough for anyone.”

“I’m afraid.” She looked straight ahead as she spoke. “Everything here is what I know, and I have something I always wanted with writing. It’s like, here’s your chance to be happy, Breen, really happy, to finally find your place.

“But it’s not my place, or not my only place,” she continued. “When I think about the cottage in Ireland, or the way the air feels on my face in Talamh. What it’s like to watch Morena’s wings spread, or the scents in Nan’s workshop, her kitchen. How her door stays open.”

She sighed, closed her eyes. “And I miss it like a heartbeat. And I miss having a place there, being a part of something the way I’ve never felt here. I want the magicks, want to feel that joy inside me.

“And I’m afraid.”

“You’d be foolish if you weren’t afraid.”

She paused outside the door to her building. “Then I guess I’m not foolish.”

She went inside, started up the stairs. “I have Marco, Sally, Derrick, friends from Sally’s, and they matter so much. But I don’t fit here now. And I’m afraid if I want or need to come back, I won’t fit. That’s assuming I live through what’s coming.”

She got out her keys, unlocked the door. “Do I have to give up what I love here?”

He wanted to touch her, reassure her. And for truth, did neither. “I don’t know the answer.”

“Neither do I. Go ahead and sit down. I’ll try to book a seat on your flight. When is it, what airline?”

“You think I came on the airplane? Why would I do that? Bloody awful things, they are. I’ve opened a portal, a temporary one. Opening it again from here, now with you joining, will be a much simpler matter.”

As he spoke, he picked up his sword, strapped it on.

“How did your sword get—Here?” she realized. “You opened a portal from Talamh into my apartment?”

“It seemed the best place for it.”

“What if Marco had been here?”

“He wasn’t.”

“What if I’d had company, or I’d been in the middle of a damn orgy?”

“You didn’t,” he said simply. “You weren’t. And since you spoke of a quiet sort of life here, I didn’t consider the possibility of an orgy. Do you have them often?”

“People knock before they come into someone’s private home.”

He fought for patience, and felt himself losing almost before he began.

“Considering the circumstances, I set good manners aside. You can flay me for the lack of them once we’re back. You’ve said your goodbyes, so let’s be at it and gone.”