Blade Dance (A Cold Iron Novel Book 4) (14 page)

“And even then,” finished Miach, “we would not be able to trust him.”

“He will not fail us,” said Sean. “He’s my brother.”

“He
was
your brother,” said Finn. “Long ago, before the Queen, before the Court, before the fall. Since she chose him, his first allegiance has always been to her, and it will always be to her.”

“Davin is the only child born of his blood in two thousand years. He will bring the boy back,” insisted Finn.

“Sean,” said Miach as gently, Ann imagined, as a Fae was capable of doing, “even if we bind the Prince successfully, even if he finds the Druid, it is possible that the boy is already dead.”

Nancy McTeer shook her head. “No,” she rasped. “He is not dead. I would know it. I straddled worlds when I bore him, saw into the grave while I bled out my life to give him his. He lives.”

Miach exchanged a look with Finn.

“How long do you need?” asked Finn.

“A couple of hours,” said Miach. “I’ll need Garrett, at full strength. And we’ll need a half-blood to fetch and wield an iron knife. It will have to be forged for the purpose, which means finding a smith on short notice.”

“I can do it,” said Nieve.

“No,” said Miach. “I’ll not have you cutting the Prince. I don’t want him making a target of you in the future.”

“Name someone you would trust more, Grandfather,” she said.

Miach swore.

“For once, I agree with Miach,” said Finn. “It shouldn’t be you, Nieve. You’re carrying a child, for Dana’s sake.”

“Yes,” she agreed. “One who deserves to come into a world that holds no terrors like this Druid.” She stood up. “There’s a smith at the ironworks in Saugus who will make what we need.”

“He’ll need specifications for the knives. They’ve got to be made as a set, and they’ve got to be copied, exactly, out of the book of Dian Cecht.”

“Tell me where it is, and I’ll run home and grab it before heading to Saugus.”

“It’s not at home,” said Miach. “It’s at the Widener, at Harvard.”

“Why the hell is your father’s book in a library?” asked Finn.

“Because there was a promising young scholar there who I felt would benefit from close study of the book,” said Miach.

“I doubt they’re going to let me just take it out of the Widener,” said Nieve.

“I’ll go with her,” offered Iobáth. “I can persuade the librarian to let us walk out with it.”

Miach nodded. “Be alert. The Prince may anticipate our next move and follow you. If he can prevent you from getting the book, he can save himself the trouble of taking the blood oath.”

“We’ll be back as soon as we can,” said Iobáth.

Silently, Nieve put the spoon she was feeding her husband with down and followed Iobáth out of the house.

“It’s going to take hours for her to get that book and have the knives made,” said Sean. “I don’t need an oath from my own brother where it concerns my own son.”

“A brother who hasn’t troubled to even meet the boy in the seven years since he was born,” pointed out Miach.

“Once the Prince finds the Druid,” said Ann, “Could one of you scry him? Scry the Prince, I mean? And follow him?”

“Not without an object or something intimately acquainted with him,” said Garrett.

“Like the iron knives you’re going to cut him with to get his blood.”

Miach smiled. “You’re awfully clever for a berserker.”

“I spend all day with seven-year-olds,” said Ann. “They keep you on your toes.”

“It would take some additional preparation,” added Garrett. “If we mean to follow close on his heels.”

“How quickly could you follow him?” asked Ann.

“With something like the knife, as long as the Prince isn’t making multiple jumps—and he may be—we could find him in ten minutes. Maybe less,” said Miach.

Ann turned to Sean Silver Blade. They’d barely spoken since the warehouse, but he had no trouble meeting her eyes. “Does Davin know the Prince?” she asked. “I mean, will he understand that the Prince is there to save him? Or will he be too frightened to trust him?”

“My son isn’t afraid of anything,” said Sean Silver Blade, bristling.

“He doesn’t know the Prince,” admitted Nancy. “He’s never met him. He knows the Prince is his uncle, but he’s heard stories about him from the other half-blood children and he knows that the Queen despises half-bloods and the Prince is her creature.”

“Davin has been gone more than a day,” said Ann. “He may trust his captor more than the Prince.”

“We’ll follow as close on his heels as we can,” Miach assured her. “He’ll know he’s safe when he sees his father with us.”

“Will he?” asked Ann.

There was a knife in Sean Silver Blade’s hand before Ann could draw another breath.

Knowing she risked her life, she went on, because her responsibility was first and foremost to Davin. “It was his father who betrayed him first, bringing the Druid into the house, letting the creature tattoo him. And his mother stood by and allowed it. He might not trust anyone any more. That’s why I should come as well.”

F
inn didn’t want to have
this conversation, here, now in front of others. “We’ll discuss this in private, Ann,” he said.

“There’s nothing to discuss. I’m coming.”

“It’s not as simple as that,” said Finn. “For one thing, you may be a berserker, but you’re not trained. And you can’t call on your power at will.”

“You admitted me to the Fianna, you said, because everyone has to start somewhere. If I were one of your Fae followers, would you bar me from coming?”

“No, but you’re not one of my followers. You’re my . . . ” he searched for the right term. “You’re important to me.”

“Then let me come, and I’ll believe it.”

“You don’t understand what you’re asking for,” cut in Miach. “Not all Fae can carry a living being with them when they
pass.
It requires a significant outlay of power. It means that the Fae who
passes
with you will arrive at something less than his full strength. It will mean he cannot carry a full complement of weapons. It will put Finn, or someone else, at a disadvantage in the fight with this Druid, or worse, at a disadvantage in a fight with the Prince Consort, if it comes to that.”

“And if I don’t come, it won’t matter, because Davin may run from the very people who are trying to save him.”

Miach and Finn exchanged a look, and Ann decided she didn’t like that one bit.

“I think you have matters to discuss,” said Miach. “I’ll get started formulating the
geis
and preparing to scry the Prince. Garrett should get some rest.”

The meeting broke up, leaving Ann alone with Finn in the dining room.

“We only have a few hours,” Finn said, touching her face and looking into her eyes. “I don’t want to spend it arguing.”

“Then agree to take me with you.”

“I thought you didn’t like
passing
,
” he evaded.

“I hated it. But I’m willing to do it for Davin.”

“Miach is right, Ann. It will hamper our efforts to save the boy.”

“But I’m right, too. He might be too terrified to trust any of you.”

“Children that age are very resilient.”

“If the Prince would carry me, would you agree then?”

“Never. Not under any circumstances. The Prince is not to be trusted.”

“But you’re trusting him to scry for the Druid.”

“Because we have no other choice. I will not trust him with your safety.”

“Not even if I’m willing to take that chance?”

“Not even then. I would trust no one else with
passing
with you, Ann. Not even Garrett.”

“Does it ever get easier?
Passing
? Or is it always so . . . ”

“Disorienting? Probably, although if we have need to
pass
together again, I’ll try to give you some warning. That may help. But it is out of the question on this occasion.”

A faint idea formed in her mind. “How would I be able to tell, if you didn’t warn me, that you were about to
pass
?”

“I would give you warning.”

“But in an emergency, if you had to do it without warning me, how would I be able to tell?”

He looked at her with a hopeful smile. “Does that mean you plan on sticking around here after we get Davin back?”

“It might.” If she lived through what she was planning. She was grateful that he was too focused on what lay ahead to suspect what she was thinking.

“It’s not something most humans can sense, but with the Fae blood you do have, you should be able to feel it. There’s a . . . current of sorts, an electrification of the air nearby.”

“If you tried to
pass
without me, would I be able to grab onto you and be carried along?”

“Don’t try it, Ann. I won’t take you. If you did that, if I had to bring you back here, it would leave Garrett and Miach more exposed, with only Iobáth to wield a sword for them, and that won’t help Davin.”

“If I was armed, would you take me?”

“With a sword you can’t use?”

“With an ax.”

“You think that’s your weapon?”

“I was swinging one upstairs. It felt right,” said Ann. So, too, did his hand at her hip, the closeness of their bodies.

He leaned close and spoke in her ear. “We feel right, too, don’t we, Ann?” he said, seeming to read her mind.

“Yes,” she said. It came out a hoarse whisper.

“We have a little time before Nieve comes back. Let’s go upstairs together. I can promise you,” his hand slid up to her breast and cupped it, “that afterward you won’t look twice at the Prince again.”

“It’s not the Prince I want,” she said.

He led her to the back of the house and up a narrow staircase she hadn’t climbed before. The walls in the hallway were covered in a geometric pattern, the kind of historic reproduction paper you usually saw in museums, block printed with squares and ovals. The master bedroom was as surprising as the attic had been. The space occupied the entire breadth of a projecting wing of the house. Six-over-six windows painted sea green gave a view of the garden on three sides, and a giant curtained four poster dominated the room with a paneled fireplace at its foot.

Finn kicked the door shut behind him and the room became instantly quiet. “It’s soundproof,” he explained.

“And the windows?” she asked.

“Double glazed.”

“I’m not much of a screamer,” she said, thinking of the quiet relief she gave herself in the shower.

Finn pulled his shirt off and said, “That’s about to change.”

Chapter 11

I
obáth was glad that Nieve offered to drive. He didn’t know Boston’s twisting streets and didn’t like relying on a GPS to get around. He was less pleased when he saw her vehicle.

“It’s a minivan,” he said, stating the obvious. It was, in fact, a silver-gray minivan, American made, and there was cereal ground into the carpets and the seats.

“Try getting a car seat in and out of a sedan,” said Nieve.

“I thought Elada Brightsword was normally your driver,” said Iobáth.

“He used to be. But he’s traveling with Sorcha Kavanaugh, Grandfather’s stone singer, searching for others like her.”

“I do not believe that Elada Brightsword would drive such a vehicle.”

Nieve looked at him sideways. “When was the last time you had a beer with Elada Brightsword?” she asked.

“Before the fall,” admitted Iobáth.

“People change,” she said, brushing crumbs off the passenger seat. He hoped the pale, crusted stains on the upholstery were applesauce or some other innocuous substance, but her husband was a sorcerer, so Iobáth wasn’t entirely certain.

“The Fae aren’t people,” he replied, laying his sword across the floor of the backseat.

“Why are you here, Iobáth?” she asked, putting the car in gear.

“To glamour librarians on your behalf,” he said drily.

“I mean, why are you in Boston?”

“Your father-in-law invited me.”

“I guessed that much. I mean, why did he invite you? And no more cryptic answers. I don’t put up with that nonsense from Granddad. I won’t have it from you.”

“Miach raised you to think of yourself as equal to the Fae,” observed Iobáth.

“Granddad makes no distinction between Fae and half-bloods in his family,” said Nieve. “You’ll notice that all of his children and grandchildren speak to him.”

“Miach has always gone against the grain. Even before the fall. It is not as easy as he makes it look.”

“It’s not as hard as Finn MacUmhaill claims.”

“You’re very quick to judge your father-in-law,” observed Iobáth.

“Only if you think ten years is quick.”

“For the Fae, it is the blink of an eye.”

“He encouraged Garrett to cheat on me.”

“But only after Miach extracted a
geis
from him that he would never see you again. And celibacy does not come easily to the Fae.”

She looked at him sideways. “They say it comes easily to you, though.”

“Not easily and not without lapses. And Finn’s last marriage took place while the Queen still ruled. His understanding of love was molded by a world that has been gone for two thousand years.”

“They say he loved Brigid,” said Nieve, wistfully, “but I’ll never believe it. Everyone knows she was the Prince’s lover.”

“It was a different time,” said Iobáth.

“Are you defending him because you think the way he does or because he’s paying you?”

“He isn’t paying me,” said Iobáth. “I am not a sword for hire.”

“Then what are you doing here?”

“I came because Finn told me there was a threat to the wall.”

“My father–in-law has never cared about the threat to the wall. Miach has been trying to convince him of the danger for years, and he won’t see it.”

“But he does see the danger to his son, if he fights alongside Miach with no right hand. If he remains married to you.”

They were speeding along a road that hugged the Charles River, and Nieve pulled over suddenly and killed the engine.

“Is that why you’re here? To get rid of me, so Garrett can have a right hand?”

“You insult me, daughter of the house of Cecht. I have never raised my hand to a woman. I have spent two thousand years in penance for allowing others to do so.”

“Then why are you here?”

“Because Finn hoped I would act as Garrett’s right hand in the fight that is coming. He thought I would agree to do so as a hired hand, without entering into the formal bonds that your marriage forbids.”

“And, will you?” He could hear the hope in her voice, so open and human. It reminded him of another woman, in another life.

“No,” said Iobáth.

“Then my husband is going to die, isn’t he?” she asked. “Because this isn’t a fight that he or Granddad can walk away from.”

“What your husband and your father-in-law and even you have failed to recognize, Nieve, is that he already has a right hand. You have only to take up your place at his side.”

“Me? You must be kidding.”

“No. I’m not. You were raised by the most powerful sorcerer the Fae have ever known and trained to arms from childhood by one of our most formidable swordsmen. Miach raised you like a Fae. It’s time you started acting like one.”

“I’m a
mother
, and I’m pregnant again,” she said, as though he was unaware of that fact.

“All the more reason for you to stand at your husband’s side. You know what will happen to you and to your half-blood children if the Queen returns. And there is no one on this earth who would fight more valiantly for your husband’s life than you.”

She shook her head. “I’m not good enough. I’m not as good as Elada.”

“Hardly anyone is.”

“But
you
are,” she insisted.

“I’m better, actually, and I’d be happy to repair any little deficiencies in your technique that you may have picked up from Brightsword.”

“Is that supposed to be funny?”

“Yes. I make jokes, from time to time.”

“I think you might be out of practice.” She started the car again.

“Think on it, Nieve,” he said.

“Finn will never agree to it.”

“People change,” said Iobáth, parroting her words.

She looked at him sideways at that but didn’t reply.

Iobáth had never been to Harvard Square before but he found it too congested for his liking. Nieve seemed to know her way around and drove straight to a miraculously empty parking space in a lot tucked away at the center of a block of Georgian buildings affiliated with the university.

“How did you know about this spot?” he asked.

“Granddad bought it for Liam. He’s in law school here.”

“That is surprising. Miach has always had a reputation for keeping his family close.”

“Helene convinced him that it was a good idea.”

“His human consort?”

“Wife,” said Nieve. “He calls her his wife.”

So Miach MacCecht had pledged himself to a mortal. Interesting.

Nieve led them through the campus to the wide steps of the library. He liked the contemplative atmosphere of the university. Once, he had considered retreating from the world to reflect on his sins, but he had always been a swordsman, never a scholar, and he reached the conclusion that meditation would not atone for what he had done. Only his active penance, the righting of wrongs, could do that.

Still, he wished that in his long life he had been able to spend a few years in a place like this, removed from violence, nurtured by words and ideas.

Nieve used her brother’s identification card and Iobáth used his Fae voice, the glamour that all his race possessed, to talk their way past the guard. It occurred to him that he had never before been in any place with such a staggering number of books.

“How are we to locate a single volume in this vast place?” he asked, as students bustled by with their laptops and notebooks.

“It’ll be in the Celtic library,” she said. “Granddad took me there once. He endowed a fellowship of some kind. I didn’t realize that he’d donated books as well. He gave a bunch of paintings to Helene’s museum, but they weren’t Fae artifacts.”

“You think he had some hidden agenda in donating this tome?”

“Granddad always has an agenda,” said Nieve.

The Celtic library was a pleasant enough space and removed from the bustle of the main library. There was a long table with seats for a dozen readers, but only two desultory graduate students occupied them. Nieve sat down at a computer kiosk and performed some kind of search, then bobbed up and marched across the room to a shelf by the window.

“It’s not here,” she said.

“Perhaps someone has borrowed it,” said Iobáth.

“No. This isn’t a circulating library. Maybe it’s on reserve at the desk.”

Iobáth had missed the librarian’s desk tucked away beside the door. Nieve presented the student worker seated there with the book’s call numbers on a piece of paper, and they both watched as the young scholar searched his records.

“It’s here,” he said, pushing his glasses back up onto his nose. “But it’s on reserve for a dissertation project. Have you checked the student carrels?”

“What are those?” asked Iobáth.

“Graduate students have assigned carrels. They’re allowed up to have up to sixty books from the collection checked out to their name and kept in their carrel at any one time.”

“Where?” asked Nieve.

They turned out to be along the far wall, jammed in between rows of shelves. Iobáth found the carrels to be touchingly homey little affairs, with photographs of sweethearts and children pinned to the wood laminate sides. There were bags of treats tucked in between the books: chocolates, peppermints, homemade cookies. There was even an erotic novel, a stack of comic books, and a row of painted miniatures of Celtic heroes lined up along the top of one. He picked up a figure that bore more than a passing resemblance to himself, although the scale and proportion of the sword would have made it ten feet long in life size.

“Put that back,” scolded Nieve.

Chastened, he replaced the figure.

She was halfway down the line of carrels when she said, “Found it!”

“Excuse me,” came a cool feminine voice down the aisle, “but that book is mine. I’ve got it checked out to my carrel for the semester.”

Iobáth turned to look at the woman. She was young, but not so achingly young as many of the students they had passed on the way. She was dressed for the autumn chill and fitful heating of the library in tall leather boots and a corduroy skirt topped with a printed blouse, the tiny floral pattern faded and stretched slightly over the breasts, as though she had outgrown the shirt but couldn’t stand—or afford—to part with it.

He didn’t mean to stare at her. He supposed it had been too long for him. A Fae couldn’t go that long—years now—without a woman. It reached a point where it became a distraction, where he couldn’t talk to a female like this without imagining taking those full round breasts into his mouth. The fantasy spun out in his mind for a second, of telling Nieve that he had a small errand to run, of beckoning this appealing creature into the stacks, and having her, legs wrapped around him, a hand over her mouth to muffle her cries, up against a bookcase.

He’d decided long ago that as long as he did not seduce, did not exert his glamour, allowed women to come to him, then it was not the same as what had been done to his love. And if he only had a single encounter with the women, if he did not learn their names, if he did not think of them beyond the sweetness of their touch and the slickness of their thighs, then it was just another necessary act to keep the body together while he executed his penance, like eating and drinking and bathing.

But she was not offering herself to him. He would find a bar, later, after the child has been recovered. The kind where young people went looking for anonymous hookups. He would wait until a woman who was sober enough to know what she was doing fixed her intent on him, and then he would go home with her, or better, to a car or an alley, where nothing but bodily fluids could be exchanged. It was all he would ever have.

It was all he deserved.

“We need to borrow the book for a time,” he said, trying to focus on her eyes, which were a rich dark brown, like fresh brewed coffee.

“I’m sorry,” she said, “but that isn’t possible. I need the book for my dissertation.”

Nieve cast him a look. He knew why. He was no sorcerer, but his Fae voice should have persuaded an ordinary woman.

“We only need it for an afternoon,” said Iobáth. “I’d return it in the morning.”

She raised her eyebrows at this. They were pale and golden, lighter than the hair tied at the back of her neck, which was the color of honey and pin straight. “What department are you with?” she asked, suspicious at last. That was the peculiar thing he had noticed about human institutions. They could be vast, but once you were inside them, everyone assumed that everyone else belonged.

“We’re law students,” said Nieve. “I’m working on a journal article. I just need to check a reference, and you can have the book back.”

“If you can do that here, in the reading room, then it’s no problem.” The challenge in her tone told Iobáth that not only did his voice have no power over her, but that she could see through his glamour. The rest of Harvard’s student population saw a man, taller perhaps than average, handsome by their standards, no doubt, but ordinary enough. They did not see the white-blond hair that swept to his knees or the sword on his back.

This woman did.

“The book,” Nieve said, losing patience, “isn’t yours. It’s my granddad’s, and he donated it to the library.”

“That doesn’t mean he can have it back,” the woman said.

“How much of the book have you read?” cut in Iobáth.