Into the Fire (17 page)

“Is she okay?” Cedar asked.

“Her body is still healing on the inside,” Felix said. “Finn, hand me that bottle, there.” He pointed to a tiny glass bottle that he had brought into the bathroom.

Finn handed it to him, and Felix poured a few drops of a clear liquid between Jane’s lips. “She will sleep for several hours now, while her body finishes healing. But I think it’s safe to remove her from the bath and from my touch.”

Cedar helped Felix lift Jane out of the water and wrap her in towels, and then he carried her back to the sofa and gently laid her down. Cedar blushed as he stripped out of his soaking pants and wrapped himself in a towel, setting himself down on the floor in front of the sofa.

“You look exhausted,” Cedar said. “Can I get you anything?” Felix leaned his head back against Jane.

“Healing takes its toll,” he said. “But I will be fine,” he repeated. “I’ll look at Eden now.”

Finn laid the limp form of their daughter in Felix’s lap. He examined her closely, frowning. “The best guess I have is that she is protecting herself. I think she has disappeared deep inside herself to protect her mind from the druids. They must be affecting her somehow—maybe that’s why she opened the sidh to Nuala last night and why she brought us to the courtyard and closed off all our escape routes. I don’t think they’re controlling her mind… it’s more like they know they’re influencing her movements by terrifying her. The power of suggestion, perhaps.”

“Well, we got lucky in one regard.… I don’t think the druids were expecting to see a dragon,” Cedar said to Finn. “They scattered as soon as you arrived.”

“Most of the druids who are alive today have never experienced the creatures of the old world,” Finn said. “You’re right—I think I took them by surprise.”

“Still,” Felix said. “If you hadn’t arrived, I’m not sure if I would have been able to defeat them all before they got to Cedar or Eden, or whoever they were after. There must have been a dozen of them.”

Finn started pacing the room, casting nervous glances out the window. “This won’t do,” he said. “We cannot find the Lia Fáil
and
fight an army of druids. And where the hell is Logheryman? He should be here.
Nothing
feels right about this.”

“We need Liam,” Cedar said suddenly. “He knows how the druids work. He can help us fight them. He said he wanted to help.”

Felix and Finn glanced at each other. “
Druids
just attacked us,” Felix said. “And you’ve only just met him. How do you know we can trust him?”

“
He
wasn’t one of the druids who attacked us,” she protested. “And he hates Nuala, remember? We need his help. If she’s sending her druids after us, the best way to fight them is to have one on our side. He can help us figure out how they think and what they might do next.”

“He tells a good story,” Finn said. “But how do you
know
he’s on our side? We can’t afford to take any chances. We only have six days left.…”

“If he was in league with Nuala, he would have killed me the first time I met him and spared her all this trouble. She’d be queen now and well on her way to destroying humanity.”

“Druids can be unstable—,” Felix started to say, but Cedar stopped him with a huff of exasperation.

“Seriously? You want to paint them all with the same brush? You still can’t get the master-and-servant mentality out of your heads, can you? Not all druids are bad, just like not all of the Tuatha Dé Danann are good.”

Finn and Felix were quiet for a long moment, both of them looking slightly abashed. “You’re right,” Finn finally said. “And we do need help.”

Felix nodded and looked down at the child in his arms. “And perhaps he’ll know what to do for Eden. My skill is with healing, but she’s not injured. I think she might just be afraid to wake up.”

Cedar was wearing the same jeans she’s had on the day before, and when she reached into her back pocket, Liam’s card was still there. She breathed out a deep sigh of relief as she examined it.
Trinity College, Dublin
. He’d told her that he was flying home that morning, so at least he was in the same country. She went to use the phone in Logheryman’s kitchen. All of their cell phones and laptops had been in her apartment, and had—in all likelihood—been burned to a crisp. She dialed his cell phone number and then realized it was the middle of the night. He picked up on the first ring. She gave him a brief rundown of what had happened and where they were.

“I can be there in two hours,” he said.

After hanging up, she came back into the living room.

“You should sleep,” Finn said. “There’s nothing we can do until he gets here.”

“We should have a plan,” Cedar said, but her thoughts were sluggish and her body ached with exhaustion.

“Later,” he said, guiding her into the reclining armchair and covering her with a soft blanket. “Sleep now. We have no idea what tomorrow will bring.”

Cedar awoke a few hours later to the sound of muffled voices. She opened her eyes and winced at the crick in her neck. The voices were coming from the kitchen, and she stood stiffly and headed toward them. Liam, Felix, and Finn, who was holding Eden, were sitting around Logheryman’s rickety kitchen table. “Hey,” Cedar said groggily. Liam stood at once and pulled out a chair for her.

“Are you all right?” he asked.

“Um… I guess so,” she said, still trying to clear the cobwebs from her brain. “As well as can be expected, I suppose. What time is it?” In truth, she felt like she’d been hit by a train, but of the three females in the house, she certainly had the least reason to complain.

“Three a.m. I’ve looked at Eden, and though I’m no doctor, I’d say that Felix is right. She’s hiding in there,” he said in his soft lilt.

“So how do we convince her to come out?” Cedar said.

“Well, there is one thing that could work.… It’s a fairly advanced spell,” he said. “In fact, it’s one of the last things I taught Maeve. She was just starting to get the hang of it when—well, when we lost touch.”

Cedar wondered why he and Maeve had lost touch so completely when they had obviously been very close. She added it to her mental list of things to ask him when they had more time.

Liam continued. “I can create a potion that will allow you to enter Eden’s mind. She’s dreaming, you see, and this potion will allow you to join her in that dream. When she sees you, she’ll feel safe, and you can guide her out.”

“How will I do that?” Cedar asked.

“You are firmly tethered to this world, this reality,” he said. “I think it should be fairly easy for you to gently, and safely, bring her out of her own mind and back into the waking world. You
want
to come back, you
need
to come back. And if you’re with her, she’ll want to come back too.”

Cedar looked over at Finn and Felix. “What do you think?” she asked.

“I’ve heard of such a potion before,” Felix asked. “But I’ve never seen it used. I can’t say how it will work.”

“Can
I
do it?” Finn asked. “Instead of Cedar?”

Liam nodded thoughtfully. “You could, theoretically. But forgive me for saying that in this case the bond between mother and daughter is perhaps a bit stronger.”

Finn flushed but said nothing. He was well aware that he’d missed most of Eden’s life.

“Okay,” Cedar said. “Let’s do it. How long will it take?”

“That I cannot say,” Liam said. “But make sure she feels confident and relaxed before you suggest leaving the safe place she has created. Is there somewhere you can both lie down?”

“The bedroom,” Finn said.

“I’ll watch him prepare it,” Felix said.

“Of course,” Liam replied calmly, ignoring the implied suspicion. “I brought all the necessary ingredients, plus some extras in case you need them in the future.” The two of them headed into the kitchen, and Finn carried Eden into the bedroom. Cedar followed them. The room was plain, with chipped beige walls and musty blue curtains. The bed was unmade.

“Where do you think he is?” Cedar asked, pulling up the covers. She’d been so preoccupied with Jane and Eden that she’d barely spared a thought for the leprechaun. The last time she’d seen him, he had helped them—for a price. She hoped he was okay.

“I don’t know,” Finn said as he laid Eden down, resting her head against the pillow. “But from what I know of Logheryman, he can take care of himself. He may just be traveling.”

She looked down at the still, small figure on the bed, and smoothed Eden’s forehead with her hand. “It’s okay, baby,” she whispered. “Mummy’s coming to get you.”

There was a knock on the open door, and Liam came in carrying a tray with two mugs. Felix followed, and nodded at Finn and Cedar.

“This is going to work, right?” Cedar asked Liam nervously.

“There’s no reason why it shouldn’t,” Liam said. “And if it doesn’t, it just means she’s not ready yet. It won’t harm either of you. Are you ready?”

Cedar nodded, and Liam propped Eden up a little so he could pour some of the potion between her lips. She swallowed reflexively,
and then he eased her back down onto the pillows. “Now hold her hand, or put your arms around her,” he said. “The two of you need to be in constant physical contact.” Cedar gathered Eden into her arms, and then accepted the mug he handed her with one hand. She looked over the rim as she took a sip, and met Finn’s eyes, which were filled with worry.

“I’ll be back soo…,” she started to say, and then everything went black.

CHAPTER 9

W
hen Cedar opened her eyes, her first thought was that she had gone through a sidh… or back in time. She was standing on the veranda of Maeve’s house in the country, the house where she’d grown up. The sky was a bright blue, brighter than she’d ever seen it, and the smell of the ocean was so crisp and strong it made her eyes water. Was this the inside of Eden’s mind? She hadn’t thought it would feel so real.

She looked around for Eden, expecting her to be close by. When she didn’t see her, she turned to look inside the house. Then her ears picked up a faint scraping sound, and she stopped to listen.
Scrape, scrape, scrape.
It sounded like digging. She stepped off the veranda and turned toward the sound. That was when she saw her.

Eden was kneeling in the fresh soil of Maeve’s grave. Her arms were covered in dirt up to her elbows, and there were muddy smears on her cheeks and forehead. She was digging in the grave with her bare hands, making a small mound of dirt beside her. Eden was crying, and saying, “I want Baby Bunny, I want Baby Bunny…” in a small, plaintive voice.

Cedar rushed over to her daughter. “Eden!” she called, and then she slowed down, remembering Liam’s warning not to frighten her. But Eden acted as if she didn’t hear her. She kept right on digging. “Eden, it’s Mummy!” Cedar said, clearly but softly. Then she noticed another figure lying in the yard.

“Mum,” Cedar whispered. Maeve’s body was lying in the gravel where Nuala had shot her. Her white blouse and bright yellow skirt
were covered in dirt and blood. Cedar rushed forward, her eyes fixed on her mother. She knelt down, tears welling in her eyes. She reached out to brush the blood-matted hair off Maeve’s face, and then screamed and jumped back. Instead of Maeve lying dead on the ground, Cedar was now staring at her own lifeless body. Her green eyes were open and sightless, though they looked right at her. Her mouth was the most disturbing thing of all; it was wide open in a tortured, silent scream.

“What’s the matter, Cedar? Scared of your own mortality?”

Cedar ripped her eyes away from her gruesome doppelgänger and saw Nuala standing next to her. She scrambled to her feet. “What are
you
doing here? Are you part of Eden’s dream?”

Nuala paced around Cedar in a circle, like a lioness sizing up her next meal. “I am,” she said. “As much as you are. It seems as though we both share a bond with little Eden now, doesn’t it?”

Cedar grew cold. “What are you talking about?”

“Didn’t she tell you? Eden and I have dream-walked together before.”

“But you’re not with us now, not in real life,” Cedar protested, wondering if Nuala had somehow overpowered Felix, Finn, and Liam and was now lying on Logheryman’s bed with her and Eden.

“I don’t need to be,” Nuala said. “But I am glad that you’re here. The Council is being very… stubborn, shall we say. They insist on giving you a chance. Of course, if you don’t return from your little escapade, they’ll hardly be able to blame me. I’ve been in Tír na nÓg all this time, busy making friends.”

“I’m not afraid of you,” Cedar said. She could tell that Nuala’s power wasn’t having an effect on her, not here in Eden’s mind. There wasn’t any of the usual fogginess she felt when the other woman spoke to her. “You can’t hurt us here.”

“Mmm, maybe… but then again, maybe not.” She snapped her head around to face Eden, who was still digging in the grave. “Eden!” she called.

This time, Eden heard. She looked up, her eyes widening in horror when she saw Nuala. She jumped to her feet and started backing away. “No, not you,” she whimpered. “Leave me alone, please!”

“Eden?” Cedar said. “Can you hear me now?”

Eden stopped backing away and looked at Cedar. “Mummy?” she said in a small, hopeful voice. Then she noticed the body on the ground, and her face crumpled. She ran toward it, looking back and forth between Cedar and the body in confusion.