When the Stars Threw Down Their Spears: The Goblin Wars, Book Three (31 page)

“What is this light?” Seamus asked.

“Don’t ask Rosebud,” Abby said. “Because she’ll tell you. Just
accept
it.”

“It’s Mag Mell herself.” Finn touched the wall. “Celebrating the boyo’s existence. It’s his song that can heal her. Right, boyo?”

Aiden just stared ahead, tears trembling on his lashes.

“You cry if you need to, Choirboy.” Abby squatted down beside him. “But remember, you’re not alone. I came all the way here to stay with you, right? I’m like the first Italian ever to walk in Mag Mell.”

“The second,” Finn corrected. “Zoë was here.”

“Yeah?” Abby said. “But she was crazy. I’m normal.”

“That’s debatable, then, isn’t it?” Finn sounded almost like his old self.
How could he be, with Mamieo and her father lying dead?
Because violent death was a part of the Mac Cumhaill’s life.

Teagan brushed away her own tears with the palm of her hand. She had to turn off her heart and keep moving. She focused on the pain in her arm, on the dark, to hold her tears back as they started through the tunnels again. It seemed like they had been underground for hours before Teagan finally saw daylight ahead.

The sewage spilled into a stream in the middle of a wood. For all the time they had been underground, they hadn’t gotten very far. She could see the city walls and hear the battle raging behind them.

Lucy came out of Aiden’s hair and spun joyfully up and up into the light, executing aerial loops and curlicues.

“Someone’s happy to be home, at least,” Finn said. Gil seemed almost as happy. He raced into the woods. Peggish splashed in the filthy stream.

“Get out of here,” Teagan told the girl.

Peggish turned to her and hissed.

“Get out of here!” Teagan shouted.

“What are you doing?” Abby asked. “She helped us, right?”

“Rosebud’s trying to save the creature’s life,” Finn said. “With us is the most dangerous place this girl could be. Go on, Peggish. You’ve got to go.”

The goblin girl shook her head, but Finn picked up a stick and waved it threateningly. She gave him a hurt look and climbed back into the sewer.

“Crap.” Finn threw the stick down when they were sure she had gone. “I hate being the Mac Cumhaill.”

Teagan carried Aiden upstream from the sewer, until the smell of the lavender breeze was stronger than the stench of sewage, scrubbed the slime off him with clean water, then checked her arm. It wasn’t bleeding anymore, but the walk through the sewer tunnel couldn’t have been good for it.

Abby scrubbed her face and hands. Seamus and Finn had somehow managed to come through the entire tunnel without getting coated with slime.

Seamus was looking around at the woods. A woolly squirrelephant peered back at him, trumpeted a warning, and its whole herd came out of the underbrush and ran up a tree.

“This . . .” There was a look of complete wonder on Seamus’s face, like the expression Abby had when she watched Jing. “I’ve never felt anything like this.”

“I have.” Finn met Teagan’s eye. “You’ve finally found something worth fighting for, McGillahee.”

“Worth dying for.” Seamus shook his head. “And I have no idea where to begin.”

“It’s begun,” Finn said. “There were no shadow men in the market, were there? Not even the puddly kind. John Wylltson called them all out of Mag Mell, and Raynor . . .” His voice trailed off.

“Now we find a way to let him in.” Teagan wiped Aiden’s tears away. Letting in the angel who had killed her father— who would have killed Aiden and Finn—was the only way they were going to survive this time.

Teagan dried Aiden’s hands with the last clean patch of his shirt and checked his shoes. His feet were dry, at least, even if everyone else’s were sodden. She set him down, and primroses sprung up from the bare ground and bloomed at his feet.

“That’s
draíocht
,” Abby said to Seamus. “Irish magic. Choirboy told me Mag Mell is full of it.”

“I know what it is. I never thought I’d see it. Not like this.”

“The first thing to be done,” Finn said, “is to get the boyo to Yggdrasil, where he’ll be safe. Then we’ll have time to figure out the rest. Aiden, do you know the way?”

“How could he know the way?” Seamus asked. “He’s a child.”

Aiden took a step away from him and backed into Abby.

“And you’re an idiot.” She put her hands on Aiden’s shoulders. “You don’t know who Choirboy is. You never bothered to find out. You’ve got your own little prejudice going on, right? So you never bothered to get to know him. Choirboy could find his way
anywhere
. He can save this whole place! That’s the point.”

“Gabby,” Tea said gently, “McGillahee saved us in the market.”

“Whatever. He was saving himself, too. Those people fought for him because they thought
he
was the Mac Cumhaill, right?”

Twenty-eight

T
EAGAN
studied the dense underbrush around them, then glanced up. Even through the cloud cover she could tell the sun was west of noon.

Finn turned to Aiden. “Do you think you could sing to Mag Mell so she’ll open the way?”

Aiden shook his head, and Teagan frowned. Aiden hadn’t spoken since they’d arrived in Mag Mell. She knew her brother had a place inside where he locked himself away with his music when the world was too much to bear. He’d stayed there for months after their mom died, and stopped making up his own songs, stopped talking to strangers.

Finn squatted in front of him, but Aiden’s eyes slid away from his, toward the stream.

Finn looked at Teagan, and she shook her head.

“What’s going on?” Abby asked as Finn stood up.

“Mag Mell’s not like the Earth we’re used to,” Finn explained. “Paths here are twisty. They might lead one place today and another tomorrow, or walk you round in circles. You’ll not be finding your way here, not unless she wants you to. She’ll show us the way if Aiden sings.”

“Mac.” Seamus nodded toward the wall of greenery. It was moving. Mag Mell wasn’t waiting for a song. The trees and bushes beside them were shifting, making a path.

“That’s the way to Yggdrasil?” Finn asked as if Mag Mell would answer.

“Wherever it goes, it’s probably safer than where we are now,” Teagan said when there was no response. “Peggish can’t be the only one who uses that drain.” Lucy apparently agreed with her. The sprite hovered over Aiden, her tiny dagger in her hand, as Finn led the way. He was walking as warily as a hunted wolf, his boots making almost no sound on the forest floor. Aiden walked behind him, then Tea and Abby, and finally Seamus, Aiden’s whip in hand, bringing up the rear. Gil didn’t bother with the path, but paced them in the woods.

Teagan had seen both fir forests and oak woods in Mag Mell, but the woods they were walking through now were clearly rain forest. Ferns taller than Aiden lined the pathway, and smaller ferns grew even from the branches of trees above them.

She could sense Gil under the canopy, now on one side of them, then on another, scouting. She could feel other creatures as well, woolly squirrelephants and mice, swat-bats, and, once, several winged monkeys sitting in the treetops. But mostly she was aware of the trees themselves, awake and prayerful, holding everything around her in their electric net.

Grief
. The rain forest was full of grief. She didn’t know whether it was the trees’ or her own. Suddenly, there was what sounded like a massive explosion, and Teagan grabbed her brother as the ground shook.

“What the crap?” Finn had his knife in his hand. The forest had gone briefly still, but then the little animals started moving around them again.

“It’s all right,” Teagan said. “Whatever it was, it’s over.”

A misting rain started to fall, and she grimaced. So much for Aiden’s dry feet. Drops gathered on foliage above, collecting until they were too heavy for the leaves to hold, and splashed down on them. The sun came out long enough to light apologetic rainbows in the mist, then disappeared behind curtains of drizzle again.

“Mood changes much?” Abby said, wiping raindrops from her face.

The second time they stopped to let Aiden rest, Teagan leaned against Finn, and he put his arm around her. Abby was sitting beside Aiden, pointedly looking the other way to give them space. Seamus was studying them.

“Ignore the man.” Finn buried his face in her hair. She could feel his heart beating, the electric fire of his body filling her senses, a living shield between her and anything that would harm her. In all of Mag Mell, this was the safest place for her to be. Close to Finn. She wanted to close her eyes and stay like this forever.

“Mac,” she said, “Mab’s been one step ahead of me the whole way. I’ve made too many mistakes.”

“We both have, haven’t we? I was out walking when the Dump Dogs came.” The edge of grief seeped into Finn’s voice. “If I hadn’t gone . . .” He shook his head. “I said before, there’s no point in what-ifs. We just have to pick ourselves up and try again, don’t we?” His arms tightened around her. “When it comes to choosing between me and the boyo, I want you to choose Aiden.”

“What?” Teagan pushed away and turned to look up at him.

“I’m saying that Raynor’s not the only one who might have to make hard choices. I’ve lived with them all my life, but they’re new to you, girl. Sometimes you don’t have time to think it through. Barely time to act.”

“All right,” Teagan said. “But if it comes down to choosing between
me
and Aiden, I need to know you’ll do the same thing. Choose Aiden.”

Finn nodded.

She felt him tense as something moved in the bushes.

“It’s Gil,” she said before the phooka stepped out.

“I’ll carry the boyo.” Gil looked over his shoulder. “We should hurry faster. There are phookas in the woods, and they’re hungry. They’re not here yet.”

“I’ll carry him,” Seamus offered. “I’m stronger.”

Gil glared at him. “Lawyers can’t run.”

“Try me,” Seamus said.

“Let me guess,” Finn said. “You’re very good at running.”

“I am, in fact.” Seamus squatted down so that he could speak to Aiden, but the little boy’s eyes slid sideways again.
It hurts
, he’d told Teagan once.
Sometimes it hurts to look in eyes
. But even when he couldn’t look in eyes or speak, he could talk with his fingers.

Aiden, I love you
, Teagan signed.

Seamus looked from Teagan to Aiden—and started signing.

What Abby said was right, and I’m sorry. Your father welcomed me, even though I was an idiot, and wrong about you and
—his hands hesitated as he looked at Teagan—
possibly your sister
.

“What’s he saying?” Finn asked.

“He’s apologizing,” Teagan said. “He’s actually very good at it.”

Abby rolled her eyes. But it was true. Seamus was eloquent in ASL.

“I was saying”—he stood up—“that I have been wrong about Choirboy, and might have been wrong about Rosebud.”

“What was that?” Finn cupped his hand to his ear. “We didn’t quite hear the last bit, McGillahee. Speak up.”

“I said I was
possibly
wrong about Rosebud.” He looked at Teagan again. “I apologize.”

“So, what convinced you?” Abby asked.

“I spent all day talking to their father,” Seamus said. “And then I saw the man lay down his life for them. John Wylltson was a better man than I am, and he was no fool. Not even about those he loved.”

“Shhh.” Teagan put her finger to her lips. She could feel the band of phookas making their way through the woods, scavenging the way Gil’s pack had when they’d first encountered them, but there was an excitement building in them, too. Excitement for the hunt.

She motioned for everyone to get down, and even Abby sank into the ferns without speaking. The phookas passed close enough that Teagan could hear their voices as they called to one another about Samhain and the Great Hunt, bickering over who would taste the child.
They would be disappointed this year
.

Aiden put his hands over his ears and squeezed his eyes shut. He’d always believed that if he couldn’t see monsters, they couldn’t see him. Now he was trying not to hear them as well.

They crouched beneath the dripping ferns long after the voices had faded.

Finally, Gil stood. “They didn’t smell us because of the rain.”

“Not just mood changes, then,” Finn said softly. “Mag Mell’s hiding us.”

Aiden was still blocking out the monsters. Seamus touched his shoulder, and the little boy opened his eyes.

If you let me carry you, Choirboy
, he signed,
we’ll get away from them faster
.

Aiden nodded, so Teagan helped him onto Seamus’s back. The lawyer bounced a couple of times to settle him, and then Finn started out again, with Abby and Seamus behind him and Teagan and Gil bringing up the rear.

They walked without speaking, fast enough that she had to trot to keep up. The woods were changing around them as they went—the trees growing larger, more ancient. The ferns were larger as well, arching over Finn’s head. If the beetles and slugs had not stayed the same size, Teagan would have thought they were all shrinking. And then the path led through a grove of giants, trees so large the Wylltsons’ house could have fit inside a single trunk.

They passed one that had very recently fallen, its roots tearing a massive crater in the soil. This was what had shaken the forest, then—at least ten tons of tree, its upper branches falling from hundreds of feet.

Gil walked as wide-eyed as he had in the cemetery, clearly in awe of this place, while the rain still fell, hiding them from the creatures Teagan felt moving in the bushes.

She focused on the life around her. The giant trees were seeding electrical storms in the sky, pulling ions up from the water below and releasing them in the air. She could feel the storm’s shadow tingling at her feet and hear the trees’ muted music locked inside the bark.

When the path led close enough, she pressed her hands against one of the giants and almost fell to her knees. This tree was crying out for Mag Mell, for the fallen giants, for the creatures great and small. Mag Mell was dying. Joe had told Raynor as much after he’d spoken with the willow in the park. Teagan laid her forehead against the bark.