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I thought of Zara’s jealousy of Danu. “How familiar are ya with the guardians?”

Gale shrugged. “I know the ancient ones sit and watch without helping. They did nothing to stop the deaths of our people from happening.”

My mind could never quite stretch enough to see how infinite their involvement was. “The guardians I know claim to be tasked by the creators to not interfere with the destinies of the creatures sharing this planet. They are especially hands-off with humans. Rasmus said we remind him of how his original people were half a million years ago. Oh, and by the way, the guardians are aliens. They came from another planet.”

Gale chuckled. “So aliens are real.”

I laughed again. “That’s exactly what I said to him. Rasmus denied being an alien and gave me his ‘all people are one people’ lecture. Once we leave off reincarnating, we turn into balls of light. I think he was implying that all balls of light are equal.”

“Why would you welcome such a strange creature into your life much less your bed? You deserve someone more normal.”

I laughed. “It’s the great sex. The man adores me and my forty-year-old body. I’d like to say otherwise and pretend I’m a nobler woman than that but I’d be lying. And once in a while, I see a little light bulb go off inside his brain. When that happens, it makes me smile. On the downside, I never see him taking notes even though I’m sure he’s doing it. He’s a scientist and I’m his experiment.”

Gale was silent for a minute. Then she laughed as well. “No male is perfect.”

I smiled at her. “Yes. Mulan told me that too. She loves your son. It may not seem like it but she does. Can I ask ya about his first wife? Conn’s never talked about her, and with Mulan in his life, I don’t feel right asking. I’m just curious because her banshee sister is a close friend of mine as well as Conn’s.”

“The banshee he loved wooed him with her songs. She calmed his inner beast that raged over being unappreciated. She praised his sacrifice and taught him a higher tolerance for the humans he worked with. The banshee was with him through three of his human keepers. He grieved her death by throwing himself into his work with one of your predecessors. There were no women at all in his life for a very, very long time.”

Nodding, I smiled at Conn’s mother. “If she did all that, I’m grateful for her influence on him. Conn maintains a god-like control over his reactions. My work would be much harder if he was angry and rebellious all the time. We argue enough about what the right thing to do is.”

“Are you arguing about your snake shifter?”

I considered that and was surprised at my realization. “No. We haven’t argued once. Conn insisted we kill him the moment we learned he’d escaped. Stopping Hisser permanently is something we both know needs to be done. Finding him is our dilemma. That’s why I need to find a sacred space. It will take me a couple of days to create it.”

Gale touched my arm. “I may know where we can find a suitable spot. Henry and I work with a lot of different witches. I developed a keen sense of what witches need from a casting space. The place I have in mind is behind the yellow house. There’s a grove of ash trees. Let’s look there.”

We veered by the paddock to drop off the now weary demon wolves. Trekking to Fiona’s cottage took little time. All the homes sat on a professionally graveled path. When we passed the patio Fiona loved, I snorted at the pizza oven. I hadn’t even gone into the house to see how much updating it needed. It might be the worst one yet and my daughter could not have cared less.

The small grove of trees was only a few hundred feet away from the border of Fiona’s yard. The trees were grouped into two sets with a bare expanse in the middle where the sun would shine down through them freely.

Gale waited while I walked to the center and looked up. The breeze lifted my hair and it wafted around me like a living hood. I walked over and put my hand on one tree and heard it whisper my name in welcome.

Goddess, I’d sorely missed having a place to commune. “This is the perfect spot.”

Gale smiled. “Good. Do you need help to set it up or is that something you want to do for yourself?”

“I’ll get Conn to help me build a fire pit. He will ward it afterward to keep everyone out.”

“Perhaps we could build a small greenhouse nearby for your herbs.”

The idea of having fresh herbs made me smile. “I’ve been buying them because I had no way to grow them.”

“I see a greenhouse with a small garden opposite it and a rock fire pit in the center. I see a fence around the entire grove to discourage visitors from entering your space.”

My excitement grew as she talked. “Do we need to tell all this to Henry?”

“No, because I would like to take care of it. It would make me happy to build it for you.”

I nodded. “That would be wonderful, Gale. How quickly can it be done?”

“As you said, Conn can build the fire pit for you tomorrow. I suggest you consecrate it for your urgent use. In the meantime, I’ll find a tent to put over the fire pit after you’re done. That will make sure no one violates the space, even accidentally, while we’re building the rest.”

I sighed at how easy Gale made it all sound. “Henry and ya are spoiling me with yer help,” I said as I joined her again.

Gale waved a hand at my guilt as we walked toward the main house. “Don’t give thanking me a single thought. Everything we do for you is spoiling our son as well. It feels nice because we haven’t been able to spoil him in quite a long time. It’s been centuries since we could see him two days in a row. I’m still amazed to be able to see him every day. I’m very happy we came.”

One year of not seeing Fiona when she refused to visit me in prison had seemed like a lifetime. I couldn’t imagine ever going that long again without seeing her. It was like I told Fiona before I sent her to Ireland, she was the best work of my life and her survival was the most important thing to me.