Into the Fire (13 page)

“Eden, wait! I’m not going to hurt you!” Nuala called. Eden dodged her grasp by a fraction of an inch and then closed her eyes and thought of home as she jumped feetfirst into the glittering stream.

Nuala stared at the stream that ran through her bedchamber. The glowing rocks at the bottom sparkled and winked at her, but there was no sign of the little girl. She could still picture Eden’s face as she crouched beside her bed. There had been fear, yes… but also hatred.

“Damn it,” Nuala seethed. Her eyes were still fixated on the spot where Eden had vanished, but her mind was whirling. A strange sensation had settled into the pit of her stomach, and she struggled to place it. Surely she wasn’t upset that the girl hated her. What did it matter? The girl was a pawn, a necessary part of her plan. No harm would come to her so long as her parents didn’t do anything stupid. Still, she had thought that Eden might have enjoyed part of their adventure together. How many six-year-olds got to swim with the Merrow? Eden would probably never have seen Tír na nÓg if it hadn’t been for her.
Stupid, ungrateful child,
she thought. Well, it didn’t matter what the girl thought of her. What mattered was that her plan was working.

“Fionnghuala?” Deaglán came up behind her and wrapped his arms around her waist. “Is everything all right?”

She turned and looked him in the eyes. “Yes,” she purred. “Everything is fine. Go back to sleep, darling.” She watched as he walked up the hill and climbed back into the bed, falling asleep almost instantly. Then she reached inside her nightgown and pulled
out a sparkling stone the color of merlot that dangled from a thin gold chain. Her lips moved rapidly as she softly sang the song that would unlock the stone’s power and activate its other half. She followed the stream until she came to a delicate bench decorated with ivy that sat in the middle of a small copse of trees. She finished the song and waited. After a moment, the colors in the stone started to swirl, and then a face appeared.

They were still pacing the hallway when Eden materialized out of thin air and fell onto the carpet at Cedar’s feet. She was soaking wet. “Close it!” Eden screamed, and Finn rushed over to the patch of glittering air. They heard a loud roar, and then Finn waved his hand and there was silence.

Felix immediately took Eden into his arms and carried her over to the couch. She was shivering and pale. “Warm clothes,” he said, and Jane ran to Eden’s room. He cupped Eden’s face in his hands and looked into her eyes. “Eden, it’s Uncle Felix,” he said. “Can you hear me?” Eden nodded. “You’re safe now, and your mum and dad are right here.”

Cedar crouched down next to the couch and clasped Eden’s hand in hers. “Are you okay?” she asked. “What happened? Where did you go? Why are you so wet?”

“Let her rest for a moment,” Felix said. He whispered some words and held his hands over Eden’s forehead, then her chest, stomach, and legs. “She’s fine physically,” he said. “Just chilled. But let’s help her feel safe and warm. I’ll make some tea.”

Jane handed Cedar some dry pajamas for Eden, then sat down in the armchair in the corner, hugging her knees close to her chest. Cedar helped Eden into the pajamas and then wrapped her up in a quilt and sat down next to her, holding her close. Finn was pacing the room, his eyes locked on his daughter.

When Felix returned, he handed mugs to both Cedar and Eden. “I have a feeling you could use some of this too,” he said, and both mother and daughter accepted their tea. Finally, Cedar asked, “Can you talk about it now?”

“I don’t know how I got there,” Eden said. “I remember reading on my bed, and then I woke up outside. There were dancing lights and a stream with little fairies in it. I climbed to the top of a hill and saw two people in a big bed. One of them was Nuala. She woke up and chased me.”

Cedar looked at Finn in alarm and saw that he had stopped pacing. His face was pale and drawn.

“How did you escape?” Cedar asked Eden.

“I just thought of home and jumped into the stream,” Eden replied. “It was the only thing I could think of.”

Cedar hugged her daughter close, her eyes filling with tears. “You did great, baby. I’m so glad you’re safe.”

“But how did I get there?” Eden asked.

“You don’t remember waking up and screaming?” Finn asked. Felix had forced a cup into his hand as well, and Cedar was pretty sure that it didn’t contain tea.

Eden’s forehead creased as she frowned. “I wasn’t screaming.”

“You were, honey,” Cedar said gently. “Your eyes were open and you were screaming and you wouldn’t let me hold you. Then you ran out of the room and made a sidh. You closed it behind you before we could get to you.”

Eden looked at her with big eyes. “I didn’t do any of that! Honest, I didn’t!”

“It’s okay, Eden, you’re not in trouble. You just don’t remember doing it,” Felix said. He glanced at Finn. “It could be an innocuous as a night terror… but considering where she ended up, I have my doubts.”

“You think Nuala did this?” Cedar asked. “How? How could she get inside Eden’s head like that?” The thought of Nuala being
able to torment her daughter from another world was something Cedar hadn’t even thought to fear. How could she keep her daughter safe if Nuala could get inside Eden’s mind?

“I don’t know,” Felix said, a tortured look on his face as he stared at the huddled figures on the sofa. “I don’t know.”

CHAPTER 7

C
edar was afraid to sleep that night, convinced that Eden might somehow disappear from her arms. Finally, Finn asked Felix to make Cedar a sleeping draught so that she’d be at least somewhat well rested for their trip to Edinburgh. Cedar protested, but Finn promised to stay awake all night to keep an eye on Eden. Begrudgingly, Cedar agreed, knowing Finn required much less sleep than she did. It wasn’t the first time she wished she didn’t have the gift of humanity.
More of a curse than a gift,
she thought, but then checked herself. Her gift had saved Eden’s life and rid the Tuatha Dé Danann of Lorcan.
Not that they were overwhelmed with gratitude,
she thought grumpily as she drifted off into an herb-induced sleep.

She was the last one up in the morning. Eden and Jane were chatting over bowls of Cocoa Puffs, last night’s terror seemingly forgotten. Fascinated by the prospect of going to a real castle, Eden was bombarding Jane with questions about the princes and princesses who had lived there. To her credit, Jane was answering Eden’s questions as patiently as she could, pulling up pictures and timelines and video tours on her laptop for Eden to watch.

“Good morning, sleepyhead,” Finn said, handing her a cup of coffee.

“Morning,” Cedar said. “You shouldn’t have let me sleep so long.”

He shrugged. “You needed it. And we don’t
all
need to have an encyclopedic knowledge of Edinburgh Castle,” he said, grinning at Jane and Eden.

“Mum, guess what?” Eden said. “They have a cemetery just for pets!”

“Very useful knowledge, I’m sure,” Cedar said, smiling. “So? Are we ready to check this place out?”

“No photography or videos are allowed in the Crown Room, where the stone is,” Jane said. “But I’m sure I can get around that if need be. And who knows? It might be easier than we think. It could just be a matter of distracting the guards and making a run for it.”

“Think you can manage that without getting arrested?” Felix asked.

Jane shot him a dirty look. “I’m sure you could magic me out if I did,” she said.

“Don’t know that I’d want to,” he replied under his breath.

Cedar raised her eyebrows at Finn, who shook his head and rolled his eyes. Cedar took this to mean that Felix and Jane had been bickering all morning. She stepped between them and clapped her hands.

“Okay!” she said brightly. “So we’re going to act like normal tourists, but we’ll head straight for the Crown Room. Jane will see what kind of technology we’re up against, Felix will keep an eye out for any kinds of magical protection around the stone, and Finn and I will be glued to Eden’s side.” It made her nervous to take Eden out in public after last night, but if they didn’t find the stone, none of them would be safe. No one would.

A few minutes later they were ready to go. Eden opened the sidh into a back alley on the Royal Mile, just outside the castle. It was early afternoon here, and the main street was crowded with the last flush of the tourist season. Cedar bought them all tickets at the admissions stand, despite Jane’s protests. “Why are we buying tickets again?” she asked. “Why can’t Eden just zap us into the Crown Room?”

“Because someone might ask to see our tickets inside,” Cedar said. “I don’t know how it works; none of us have ever been here before.”

“Technically, that’s not true,” Felix said, strolling behind them. “I was here once… but it was before the castle was built.”

“Show-off,” Jane muttered.

They followed the map they’d been given at the entrance and walked through the Gatehouse, between the looming statues of Sir William Wallace and King Robert the Bruce. Cedar ran her hands along the stone walls, thinking about all of the other hands that must have touched them over the past several hundred years. She had always felt rather rootless growing up in the “new world,” where almost everyone was from somewhere else. She’d had an Irish friend once in high school. She had asked her how long her family had been Irish, and, with a puzzled look on her face, her friend had answered, “Forever, I suppose.” At the time, Cedar had envied such a heritage. How strange it was to realize that she belonged to a race even older than the Irish, an unbroken line that went back to the dawn of time.

They passed under a massive stone gate, trying not to run or look conspicuous in their haste. Eden kept pulling on Cedar’s arm, trying to get her to go see the dog cemetery. “Later,” Cedar told her. “We have to find the stone first.” She had to admit that she, too, wished they could stop and look around. She’d never been to a castle before, and she vowed to bring Eden back here someday, when they could wander the nooks and crannies of history at their leisure.

After winding between ancient buildings and through clusters of tourists, they stepped into a large square courtyard in the heart of the castle. Stone buildings and towers surrounded them on every side. Cedar turned the map upside down so she that she could orient herself. “The war museum is that way,” she said, pointing. “The
royal apartments are that way, and it says the Crown Room is this way.”

They followed a tour group through one of the doors and into a large hall. A man dressed in period costume was explaining what the hall had been used for in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Cedar looked around for the stone.

“It’s not in here. We have to head up these stairs,” Jane said, leading the way. She scowled at the large signs that read,
NO VIDEO OR PHOTOGRAPHY PERMITTED.
When they reached the top, they passed through another doorway, one that was thick and heavy, and entered a small, dimly lit room. Cedar felt like she’d stumbled into an old university library. The walls were lined with dark wood, and the plush carpet muffled their footsteps. There were only a couple of other people inside, but the room was small and it felt close and crowded.

In the center of the room, on a raised platform cordoned off by a brass rail, were the Honours of Scotland, encased in glass. Eden’s mouth hung open as she gazed at the crown, which was studded with pearls and gemstones. Beside it lay a long polished sword with an ornate, silver hilt. The scepter was no less impressive. It was gleaming silver and at least four feet long, topped with a dark polished stone and a single pearl. Lying beside it was a large rectangular block of stone resting on a deep purple cloth. The stone was about two feet long, a foot and a half wide, and a foot deep. It looked no different from the stones that she’d run her fingers across in the castle wall. She wasn’t sure what she’d been expecting, but this stone appeared so perfectly ordinary that she didn’t think it could possibly be the Lia Fáil of legend. Still, there was only one way to find out. She reached out a hand.

“Don’t touch the glass, miss,” came a voice from behind her. One of the castle guides was standing in the corner, frowning at her. Cedar nodded and pulled her hand back. After a moment Felix sidled up to the guide and started chatting casually with him.