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Justin may have disagreed, had questions himself, but he’d follow the rules. Mr. Rafferty had laid them down in front of the lawman in black and white knowing Justin would follow them to the letter.

At everyone’s acknowledgment that they would remain silent on this, Justin left without issue.

Danu stood, and everyone in the room watched with careful eyes as the woman made her way to the door with Callum’s help. That they all remained watchful told Bryn they’d felt the same strange feeling emanating from Danu.

“When can we speak again?” Bryn asked, breaking the silence as she stood to walk around the table toward Danu, stopping when Callum moved between the two women as if Bryn might harm her.

“Callum,” Danu chastised. “I may be dying, but I can still destroy anyone who dares threaten me.”

The breath froze in Bryn’s lungs right as someone’s chair scraped across the wooden floor.

“You are a witch...” Caden’s voice carried across the room, but Bryn kept her eyes on the woman.

Danu smiled benignly.

“Anyone who walks, talks, and fu... screws different is a witch in this place.” Niamh laughed, and Bryn couldn’t disagree. Danu looked at Bryn as she moved around Callum, reaching for her, but Bryn took a step back. If the woman was dying, she didn’t want to see and feel her death.

Not at all offended, Danu gave her an understanding look.

“We have a very limited time, so believe me when I say it will be soon. I will wait for the sheriff and governor to handle this disturbance before we convene again,” Danu stated as she looked over the people she had referred to as her children. “I know this is all a lot at once, but I cannot maintain against the evil that corrodes our world forever, and if I die...”

Looking back at Callum, he stepped forward, his hand taking hers, and she perked up a little, as if drawing strength from him. Turning back to them, her face held a graveness even with that boost of energy.

“If I die, so does our world.”

Chapter 13

IthardlysurprisedBrynthat Declan, Kessler, and Caden took off. She doubted any of what Danu had said made much of a difference in how they felt when she knew they didn’t believe a word of it.

Still, she wondered if it was actual disbelief or if they had their own weird happenings, like her visions, and Danu cut to the quick of it, scaring the men. Scared them enough that they were defensive and shutting it out of their minds until it was dropped in their lap again.

Bryn did not have that issue at all; in fact, sheneededto know. It was for that reason alone that she followed Sage to her cottage.

If there were answers, it was most certainly in the books Sage had hoarded from the time before she moved to Ifreann. Sage’s mother had been an avid reader and kept everything she could from her life in Tanwen. Before certain books were banned by the church, Sage’s family library was a wealth of information that very few were privy to.

While most of Sage’s collection had been burned after the death of her parents, Sage had found a way to copy many of them discreetly, though seeing the originals lost forever broke her teenage friend’s heart the way a first love might.

It had been the closest Bryn had ever come to fighting back, and it was at the sight of tears in Sage’s light-brown eyes.

Cyerra flew ahead of them from wherever she’d hid during the meeting, seeming to know where Bryn was going. She desperately hoped no one noticed the crow that seemed to have attached herself to Bryn.

Chances were slim Arioch would keep it to himself that Bryn was talking to a bird, and people would be paying more attention to her because of it. Midnight pyres were a beast all its own, but she couldn’t slip in and out at sunrise or sunset now. She’d have to be even more vigilant.

Looking up at Cyerra, the bird landed on the railing of Sage’s porch as Bryn waved Sage quickly inside.

Hands on hips, she leaned down to where she was eye level with the bird when she heard Sage’s door shut behind her.

“I met Danu.”

“Was she as annoyed with your thickness of the mind as I am?”

“Har har. Once I finish talking to my friend, I want some answers.” Bryn pointed to the bird as she stood. Once she had enough information from Sage’s texts, she could see what Cyerra could fill in for her.

“Looks like you’re not the only one.”

Taking flight, Bryn turned as Jace ran up, grabbing the fabric of her shirt and pulling her into Sage’s cabin, before shutting and locking the door behind him.

Sage already had a book in hand but merely raised her eyebrows at the scene before her.