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“Please do.” He meets my gaze with gentle kindness. This man is the essence of patience.

For half a second, I think about asking him if he’s ever heard of the Glade of Chimes. The air around me shimmers with spectral light as if nature itself yearns to provide the answer.

Stop, Eala. There is only one safe path for you.

Flickers fall across the bronze sculpture of a tree rising from the concrete in front of a pub. A plaque near its base reads:

The yew grows to a very great age and is connected with the processes of death and continuing life. Yew - Loho

As deeply as I wish it were a bad dream incapable of leaving the scars I now bear, my time with Sion was as real as the street musicians in front of us.

Máthair taught me to view life as a series of lessons. What I learned on the shores of the glassy lake in the Glade of Chimes pressed the disjointed pieces of my life into a picture I’d never choose, but it’s the one I’ve been given. Failed DNA tests, unknown parents, and the ability to travel through fucking time.

I am not what I seem to Colleen or Jeremy. My mind clears. It doesn’t matter. I’m determined to create a future that conforms to the boundaries of reality. My days of being powerless, swept out to sea on a wave of someone else’s obligations, are over.

I rest my palm against the trunk of the bronze yew, silently wishing my ex-partner success and ultimate peace. Sionnach Loho is on his own.

Reaching between us, I take Jeremy’s hand.

Chapter 23

The Angel

The twin turrets of Luttrellstown Castle are clad in blankets of velvet ivy. I wouldn’t turn down a nice ivy wrap given the icy bite to the air. Between the towers, tracery as white and delicate as the finest lace covers Gothic-style windows. I fully expect Cinderella’s glass coach to fly past me. The cornflower of today’s Beltane Eve sky harmonizes with lilac spurs peeking out from under the grape Popsicle petals of violets along the walkway.

This cool color scheme from the stroke of an artist’s paintbrush is perfect for the former digs of Aileen Plunkett, daughter to Arthur Guinness of the beer brewing dynasty. She’s one of the golden Guinness girls Jeremy likened me to last night. Remembering the compliment sends a pleasant sensation through me. It’s an encouraging sign I may yet be able to take charge of my future.

We enter a ballroom with butter yellow walls, white lacquered baseboards, and cornices. Maybe a nice cup of tea will mellow my still-agitated mind. Several long tables with wood polished to reflect the light are set meeting style to accommodate our group. White-gloved attendants standby, waiting for us uncultured Americans to settle onto the crimson leather seat cushions of ladder-back chairs.

“Do you want to sit closer to the fire?” asks Charlie. With sunlight blazing behind him through beveled glass windows, he turns to shadow. His dark arm extends slowly, reaching a finger toward me, and I jerk away. His shape and the gesture are disturbingly familiar.

“I’m fine here,” I say, nodding across the table to the white marble fireplace.

Charlie reaches around Colleen and taps a goose bump just above my wrist. There’s ice in his touch. “Your skin doesn’t agree.”

Unsettling thoughts writhe through my head as Charlie’s silhouette grows and shrinks. Could Charlie not be what he seems? I’m not. Sion isn’t. What’s one more sham player in this Faerie game? The line between paranoia and caution bleeds into a sloppy blur.

Charlie whispers to Colleen, and she beams at him. I pull a sleeve down over my pebbled skin, and vow to control the crazy. Am I doomed to envision shadow villains around every corner for the rest of the trip? Charlie defended Sion that day in the pub. Why do that if he’s the creep chasing Sion through the Veil?

Then again, if Charlie is the shadow priest, he’d want Sion close to track his movements through the Veil. Two new couples hanging together is the perfect ruse to keep tabs on your target. It was Charlie who found us coming out of the woods after my first Veil travel. Had he been waiting for us? He was the one lurking in the shadows in Enniscorthy when I returned.

Colleen pats my shoulder. “If you need to go back to the hotel, we’ll go with you.”

I lay my hand over hers. “I’m fine.”

“You were crying in your sleep.” A low sound rumbles in her throat. “When you weren’t yelling. That’s not fine. You should have stayed in bed.”

Charlie ducks behind her to get closer to me, adding his two cents. “I’m happy to take you so Colleen can check out the rest of the fancy castle.”

The thought of being alone with Charlie freezes my blood. “I don’t want to miss more than I already have.” I nearly say miss another Celtic day but catch myself.

Colleen shook me awake sometime after midnight. She’d slipped back into our room after her romantic rendezvous with Charlie. In my dream, Sion and I laid together in the grass at the base of the soulfall tower. The cries of the souls had vanished. He kissed me over and over to say goodbye because it was time to enter his banishment with Máthair in the Glade of Chimes. We peeled our clothes away until we stood naked under the full Veil moon. His hands brushed every sensitive place on my body, igniting a glimmering drop wherever they touched. The sweet quiver of Veil Sprites lingered within each spot until their collective light set my skin aglow. Sion’s lips followed the path over my breasts then lower to where I’d taught him to pleasure me. Stroke after stroke of his tongue was relentless bliss. With each pass, I hummed notes of want. I held tight to his shoulders as his hot mouth brought me to climax.

He begged to learn more about making love. I lay back on the soft damp grass, bending my knees to teach him where his circling fingers could make me scream. After my release, I eased him down to draw the tip of my tongue along his ready cock until he begged to finish inside me. Just before I gave in to his wishes, I took him deep into my mouth, slowly sliding up to savor the salty pearl of his eagerness. We relished each other’s bodies…until the cries of the soulfall tore us apart.

I woke to sweat dampened sheets, the smell of wet stone and river still in my nose as Colleen rescued me from the nightmare. Once she was asleep, I tried to purge my guilt from leaving Sion behind. I rationalized there’s still one Celtic day left before Beltane. He has a chance to free the last two souls on his own. Maybe it’s only the final soul that needs him. Vicars might already be free.

Then I remembered the priest.