Нора Робертс - Blood Magick

As that was exactly her thought, Branna let out a pent-up breath. “Yes, another three. I’ve come to believe that. Now each of you must think it through, and decide if you’re willing to give them what is both gift and burden. I can show you how it can be done, how I believe it can be done, without draining any of us, or giving them more than they can hold. If any of us aren’t sure, aren’t willing, then we set it aside. If we are, but they aren’t, again it’s set aside. A gift like this must be given freely and with a full heart, and taken the same.”

“Should any come from me? If there’s willing on all sides,” Fin continued, “should any come from me, as what I have is tainted?”

“I don’t like hearing you say that,” Iona replied.

“This is too large a step not to speak plain truth, deirfiúr bheag .”

“I’ll speak plain truth when I say I asked myself the same while I worked this through my head.” After scanning the table, Branna looked directly at Fin. “Even before we learned you come from Daithi, I had come to believe—again with a full heart—that yes, also from you. They’re yours,” Branna told him, “as they’re ours. And you are of the three. What you have in you isn’t pure, but that—to my mind—makes the light in it all the stronger.”

“I’ll agree to it, if they do. They must be sure they can accept what comes from me.”

“You need to take time to think it through,” Branna said, and Connor snorted, grabbed a biscuit.

“And didn’t I tell you this one thinks too much? Haven’t you taxed your brain on this enough for all of us?” he asked Branna. “Fiddled and figured all the little steps, the ways and means, the pros and cons and the good Christ knows what else? If they’ll take it, it’s theirs.” He looked to Iona.

“Absolutely. I’m not sure how Boyle will react to the idea. He accepts all this—we all know. And he’ll fight and stand with us. But at the core . . .”

“He’s a man with feet planted firm on the ground,” Fin said. “That’s true enough. We can only ask, as Branna’s asked, and leave the rest to him, and to Meara.”

“Well, I can see I wasted time making copious notes for the three of you.”

Connor grinned at his sister. “Too much thinking,” he said, and ate the biscuit.

“When do we ask?” Iona wondered.

“Sooner’s better than later,” Fin decided. “When the day’s work’s done?”

“Then I’m cooking for six.” Branna shoved at her hair.

“Happens I’ve the fat chicken you put on the list for me,” Fin told her. “And the makings for colcannon.”

“As well. Dinner at Fin’s then. I’ll go over and start on that, but I think it best and fair we tell them what we’re thinking before a meal. They’ll need time to . . . digest it all, we’ll say.”

“Let’s say they go for it. When would we try it?”

Branna nodded at Iona, finally picked up her own tea. “Sooner’s better there as well. You know more than the rest of us, there’s a bit of a learning curve.”

• • •

SHE DID THE CHICKEN UP WITH GARLIC AND SAGE AND lemon, put the colcannon together, peeled carrots for baking in butter while the bird roasted. As she’d come up with the scheme, the others had decided she would broach it with Boyle and Meara.

As she worked she considered various ways of putting it all out to them, and finally concluded direct and frank the best possible route. It settled her down, until Meara came in.

“It smells a treat in here. And looks as though you’ve already done the work when I came soon as I could to give you some help with it.”

“No worries.”

“Well, I can set the table at least.”

“Don’t bother with it now.” She didn’t want plates and such cluttering up the table when they talked. “Just keep me company. Sure let’s break into Fin’s vast store of wine.”

“I’m for that. I tell you it’s scraping my nerves raw seeing Cabhan lurking about every time I take a guided through. It must be doing the same with Iona,” she added as she pulled a bottle of white from Fin’s kitchen cooler. “She was nervy today, at least toward the end of it. She and Boyle will be around soon.”

“So he shows himself to you, to Iona, even Connor now and then, but when Fin and I go out, he avoids us. We’ll keep at it,” Branna decided. “He won’t be able to resist trying to bully or taunt for long.”

“He doesn’t have long, and that’s my way of thinking.” Meara drew the cork. “It’s good we’re getting together, all of us, so regular like this. You never know when another idea might spark.”

Oh, I’ve an idea for you, Branna thought, but only smiled. “You’d be right. But let’s put that aside for now. Tell me how your mother’s doing.”

“Happier than I ever thought she could be. And don’t you know she’s started taking piano lessons from a woman at the church? All the time on her hands, she tells me, and she can put it to use with the lessons, as she’s always wanted to play. As if she didn’t have a world of time before she moved in with Maureen, and—”

Meara held up both hands as if calling herself to a halt. “No, I’ll say nothing negative about it. She’s there, not here, happy not unhappy and flustered, and Maureen herself tells me it’s lovely to have her.”

“Nothing but good news there then.”

“Well, she’s marking some of the world of time she now has by sending me a lorry-load of suggestions for the wedding. Photos of gowns that would make me look like a giant princess wearing a wedding cake, and require so much tulle and lace there’d be none left in the whole of Mayo. Here.” Meara reached in her pocket, pulled out her phone. “Have a look at her last vision for me.”

Branna studied once Meara had scrolled to the image, a dress with an enormous skirt fashioned of stacked layers of tulle, and that decked with lace and beads and ribbons.

“I’d say you’re a fortunate woman to be able to choose your own wedding dress.”

“I am, and she’ll be disappointed when she’s learned I’ve something more like this in mind.”

She scrolled to another picture of a fluid column, simple and unadorned.

“It’s lovely, just lovely, and couldn’t be more Meara Quinn. Worn with a little tiara, I’d see, as you’re not the flowers-in-the-hair as Iona is. Just that touch of fancy and sparkle. She won’t be disappointed when she sees you.”

“A tiara . . . that might suit me, and would give her a bit of the princess she wants.”

“You could find three—any of which you’d be happy to wear. Send her pictures, let her choose for you.”

Meara picked up her wine. “You’re a canny one.”

“Oh, that I am.”

As Boyle and Iona came in, Branna hoped Meara would think canny a compliment when she’d laid out the choice.

She waited while Meara passed out wine, while Fin and Connor came in, then asked everyone to sit around the table as there was something to discuss.

“Did something happen today?” Meara asked.

“Not today. You could say it happened a little while ago, and I’ve been working it out since.” Straight and direct, Branna reminded herself. “I’ve told you all the words I spoke on the day Fin and I completed the second poison,” she began.

And when she finished with, “It can be done, and the four of us are willing. But the choice of it is for you,” there was a long, stunned silence.

Boyle broke it. “You’re having us on.”

“We’re not.” Iona rubbed a hand over his. “We think we can do it, but it’s a big decision for you and for Meara.”

“Are you saying you can make witches out of me and Boyle, if only we agree to it?”