“Oh, it’s all right. The sea’s so close.”
Smiling, he gestured toward the door. “There’s some storage on this level,” he began as he led them out. “More bedrooms, a sitting area.”
“How big is this family of yours?” Sawyer asked.
“Including cousins?” With a laugh, Bran paused at a door in a rounded wall—a door of dark wood that looked ancient and had no knob, no hinges. “Well over a hundred, I’d think.”
“A . . . hundred?”
He laughed again at Sasha’s reaction. “Too late for you to back out now, mo chroí.”
Bran held his hand to the door, palm out. He spoke in Irish, had Doyle shooting him a look.
For me and mine only, open.
At the words, the gesture, a bolt of lightning scored down the wood, glowed and pulsed blue.
And the door opened.
“Better than a police lock, riot bar, and guard dog,” Riley said.
“It will only open for one of us. As will the doors on the second and the first level to this tower. What’s held inside is safe from any who try to take.”
Bran gestured them in.
Riley didn’t gasp, but it was close.
His workshop, she thought, or magick shop. Sorcerer’s den. Whatever the term, like the rest of the house, it rang all the bells.
It towered inside the tower—which shouldn’t have been physically or structurally possible.
Then again, magick.
Floating shelves held bottles, jars, boxes. She recognized some plants—under eerily glowing lights—the chalices, the ritual knives, the cauldrons and bowls.
Balls and spears of crystal. Books with leather covers, some probably centuries old. Mirrors, candles, charms, statues.
Brooms, she noted, and bones, runes, and tarot cards.
And above a stone hearth, Sasha’s paintings.
Here, of course, Riley thought. Magicks within magicks within magicks. Safe from evil, within the light.
“I told you I bought the first of your paintings before I met you, before I knew you.” Bran put an arm over Sasha’s shoulders as they studied them. “I saw it in a gallery in New York and wanted it. Needed it,” he corrected.
“My path through the woods, one I knew so well, leading here. Though only I knew it led here. I often walked that path, toward that light you painted so beautifully, and I thought to hang the painting at my flat in New York to remind me of this. But I brought it here, even then. I placed it here, in my most precious place.”
“I dreamed it.” Alone, and so long before she’d ever met him. “I dreamed the path and the trees and the light, but I couldn’t see the end of the path. Not until now.”
“And the second, its companion, you painted from visions as well, visions that guided us here. Not just to home, but to the third star. We’ll find it here.”
The end of the path, Riley thought, the magnificent house where they now stood, glowing under soft light, festooned with gardens, rising over a turbulent sea.
Things came in threes, she thought—not only the stars, but other things. Would Sasha paint a third?
“Inside your visions, inside your art, the stars shine safe.”
Bran lifted both hands. The paintings shimmered, an overlay of color. Red on the path, blue on the house. And they slid out of that world into his hands, closed in clear glass, bright and bold as truth.
“Ours to guard,” Bran said. “And the third, the Ice Star, to find.”
“And when there are three—fire, water, ice—in the hands of the guardians, the battles will not end.” As she spoke, Sasha’s eyes went dark, went deep. “When there are three, as three were made, as three were given to the worlds, the dark will seek more blood, more death. Defeat her in unity. Fall to her in chaos. Choices to make, paths to take. Hold true, hold three, one by two, and then, only then, will the Island of Glass appear. Only then will it open to the valiant and the brave heart.
“Will you travel the storm?” With the vision on her like a thousand suns, she whirled to the others. “Will you leap into faith? Will you see what lives inside the stone and sorrow? Will you hear what calls your name? And find the last, and finding, hold strong, hold true?”
On a long breath, Sasha closed her eyes.
“It’s cold.”
Immediately Bran shot a look at the hearth, had flames leaping to life.
“No, I meant— Sorry. Where it is, the star. Wherever it is, it’s cold. I can’t see it, but I can feel it. And I don’t guess any of that was much help.”
“Beg to differ.” Riley gave her a rub on the shoulder. “You let us know part three’s not the finish. No point looking at it as done when it won’t be. We find it, we fight the bitch, and we find the Island of Glass. And get there, with the three stars. Piece of cake, right? If you like rock-hard cake with dirt icing.”
“I’m up for it,” Sawyer said. “Cake’s cake.”
“I like cake,” Annika said.
“Wouldn’t be the first dirt I’ve eaten.” Doyle looked at the stars. “We find the star, we find the island. Whatever it takes.”
“I’d say unity’s been met, and we’ve already chosen the path.” Bran lifted the stars toward the paintings. They rose to them, slid inside.
To wait for the third.
CHAPTER THREE
With the stars again secured by magick, Bran led them to the central spiral stairs.