Нора Робертс - Blood Magick

“That we can do.” Boyle rubbed a hand on Meara’s shoulder, turned to Iona. “It’s good you’ll be with her today.”

She hoped she could help, would know what to say—what not to say. And when Iona went into the workshop, Branna was already at the stove, with a dozen mirrored bowls set out on the counter.

“I’ve an order for these, so want to get them done straight off, and I’ve a mind to make up some sets—the small bottles—of hand lotion and scrubs and soaps. Put them together in the red boxes they sent me too many of, tie them with the red-and-green-plaid ribbon. Eileen can put them on special, as the company didn’t charge me for the overstock as it was their mistake. Some will wait till the final moment for the holiday shopping, so they should move well enough.”

Iona went with instinct, crossed over, and, saying nothing, put her arms around her cousin.

“I’m all right, Iona.”

“I know, but only because you’re so strong. I wouldn’t be. Just so you know, I’d get behind you if you just needed to cut loose.”

“Cut what loose?”

On a half laugh, Iona eased back. “I mean rant, rave, curse the heavens.”

“No point in it.”

“The ranting, raving, cursing is the point. So whenever you need to, I’ve got your back. I’ll get the bottles, the boxes. I know where they are.”

“Thanks for that—for all of that. Would you mind running the little sets into the shop once we’ve done them? I’d like them out as soon as we can.”

“Sure. But do you just want them in stock, or do you want me out of here?”

Her cousin, Branna thought, had finely honed instincts. “Both, but you, just for a little while. I’m glad to have you, but for just a little while I could do with some alone. And when you come back, we can begin the more essential work between us.”

“All right.” Iona got out the boxes, began to assemble them. “How many of these?”

“Half dozen, thanks.”

“I think you’re right if you want my opinion.”

“About the boxes?”

“No, not about that. About what happened. About it being another power that pulled you and Fin together.”

“I’m not sure I’m right, or I’ve concluded just that.”

“It’s what I think.” She brushed at her cap of bright hair, glanced up. “Maybe—I hope I don’t push too hard on a sore spot—but maybe both you and Fin want to be together, maybe that wanting stirs up from time to time, and maybe last night, for whatever reason, was one of those times.”

“A lot of maybes in your certainty, cousin.”

“Circling around the sore spot, I guess. There’s no maybe in the wanting or the stirring. I’m sorry, Branna, it’s impossible not to see it or feel it, especially the more we all bind together for this.”

Branna kept her hands busy, her voice calm. “People want all manner of things they can’t have.”

Sore spot, Iona reminded herself, and didn’t push on it. “What I mean is, it’s very possible the two of you were a little vulnerable last night, that your defenses or shields were lowered some. And that opened the door, so to speak, to that other power. Not Cabhan, because that absolutely makes no sense.”

“It hurt us.” And left a terrible aching behind. “He lives to hurt us.”

“Yes, but . . .” Iona shook her head. “He doesn’t understand us. He doesn’t understand love or loyalty or real sacrifice. Lust, sure. I don’t doubt he understands you and Fin are hot for each other, but he’d never understand what’s under it. Sorcha would.”

Branna stopped working on the candles, stared at Iona. “Sorcha.”

“Or her daughters. Think about it.”

“When I think about it, I’m reminded Sorcha’s the very one who cursed all that came from Cabhan, which would be Fin.”

“That’s true. She was wrong, but that’s true. And sure, maybe, considering he killed her husband, tore her from her own children, she’d do the same thing again. But she knew love. She understood it, she gave her power and her life for it. Don’t you think she’d use it if she could? Or that her children would?”

“So she, or they, cast the dreaming spell? Where we were together, and all defenses down, so we came together.”

She began to walk about, deliberately, running it over in her mind. “And when we did, used the power of that to send us back. But both too soon and too late.”

“Okay, think about that. Sooner, whatever happened in that cave might have pulled you in, beyond what you could fight. Later, you wouldn’t have spoken with the old man—potentially, and I think right again—Cabhan’s father.”

Iona got out the ribbon, the bottles as Branna worked in silence.

“I think you saw what you were meant to see, that’s what I’m saying. I think we need to find a way to see more—that’s the work. They can’t hand it to us, right? And I think—sore spot—it had to be only you and Fin together because the two of you need to resolve—not gloss over or bury or ignore—your feelings.”

“Mine are resolved.”

“Oh, Branna.”

“I can love him and be resolved to living without him. But I see now too much of it was hazed in my mind. All that feeling I couldn’t quite set down. You have good points here, Iona. We saw what we were meant to see, and we work from that.”

She glanced over, smiled before she poured more scented wax. “You’ve learned a great deal since the day you came to that door, in all that rain, in that pink coat, babbling away with your nerves.”

“Now if I could only learn to cook.”

“Ah well, some things are beyond our reach.”

She finished the candles, and together she and Iona made up the half dozen pretty gift sets. When her cousin set off to Cong, Branna took her solitude with tea by the fire, with Kathel’s head in her lap.

She studied the flames, let her thoughts circle. Then with a sigh, set her tea aside.

“All right then, all right.” She held her hands out to the fire. “Clear for me and let me see, through the smoke and into the fire, take me where the light desires.”

Images in the flames, voices through the smoke. Branna let herself drift toward them, let them pull her, surrendered to the call she’d felt in the blood, in the bone.

When they cleared, she stood in a room where another fire simmered, where candles flickered. Her cousin Brannaugh sat in a chair singing softly to the baby at her breast. She looked up, her face illuminated, and said, “Mother?”

“No.” Branna stepped out of the shadows. “No, I’m sorry.”

“I wished for her. I saw her when my son came into the world, saw her watching, felt her blessing. But only that, and she was gone. I wished for her.”

“I asked the light to take me where it willed. It brought me here.” Branna moved closer, looked down at the baby, at his down of dark hair, and soft cheeks, his dark, intense eyes as he suckled so busily at his mother’s breast.

“He’s beautiful. Your son.”

“Ruarc. He came so quick, and the light bloomed so bright with his birthing. I saw my mother in it even as Teagan guided him out of me and into the world. I thought not to see you again, not so soon.”

“How long for you?”

“Six days. We stay at Ashford, are welcome. I have not yet gone to the cabin, but both Teagan and Eamon have done so. Both have seen Cabhan.”

“You have not.”

“I hear him.” She looked toward the window as she rocked the baby. “He calls to me, as if I would answer. He called to my mother, now to me. And to you?”

“He has, will again, I imagine, but it will do him no good. Do you know of a cave, beyond the river?”

“There are caves in the hills, beneath the water.”