“A few possibilities we should check out,” Sawyer added. “Annika found a couple more caves farther up the coast, so there’s that.”
Riley picked up one of the cookies from the tray Annika put on the table. “I hear you’ve been librarian,” she said to Doyle.
“I haven’t found more than bits and pieces, and nothing that adds to the whole. You’re welcome to the position now that you’re back on your feet.”
Riley sampled the cookie, found it excellent. “Doesn’t anyone think it’s odd we haven’t been attacked while we were a man down?”
“The ravens came,” Annika said, still busy with the tea.
“More ravens—you said something last night. I’m vague on it.”
“They hit two days after you were attacked.” Doyle remained standing. “Shortly after dawn. The day after, we didn’t go out.”
“Bran sent for Móraí.” Annika set the pot on the table. “You were hurt so much, and we needed to help you, so we didn’t have calisthenics or training.”
“But when you did, she sent ravens?”
“A couple dozen.” Doyle glanced out the window, as if checking for more. “More nuisance than attack.”
“She’s weak.”
Attention turned to Sasha.
“Don’t be afraid of it,” Brigid murmured.
“I’m not. Only that she’ll find a way to use me. But I can feel . . . she’s weak. Growing stronger, but . . . Ah. Transforming Malmon, the illusion to disguise the creature, it took all she had. He failed. Even with all she gave him, he failed. She wants to bleed him. But she needs him. He feeds her; he serves her. He loves beyond reason. He has no reason. She is all. And the Globe of All . . . Wait, wait.”
Sasha held out both hands, palms out. “She drinks a bloody brew. It sustains her. And the Globe of All is murky, clears only for moments, and at such a cost. She sees the house on the cliff, and what was before. Oh, if she had destroyed what came before, there would be no now. There would be no guardians. Why did he not finish the woman, the wolf? Take one, take all. Why did he not finish before the immortal came? Bring me her dying body, bring me her blood. The blood of the wolf, the blood of a guardian. Their blood, my blood. I will gorge on it, and take the stars into the dark.”
Letting out air, Sasha sat.
“A drop in Sasha’s tea as well, darling,” Brigid told Annika.
“I’m all right. She felt me, and she pushed back, but she’s still too weak. He—Malmon—wasn’t meant to kill you, just nearly, and bring you back to her. You or whoever he was able to get to. To drain you, to bring her back to full strength—to restore her youth as well as her power. To keep you alive, draining you slowly. Blood of the living is more powerful than blood of the dead.”
“So it has always been in such matters.” Brigid picked up her tea. “Nasty business.”
“Almost enough to put me off this cookie.” Deliberately Riley bit into it.
“It’s the first I’ve been able to get past her defenses since you were hurt. I don’t know if that means I’ve been too distracted or if we just needed you back. Either way.” As deliberately as Riley, Sasha chose a cookie, bit in. “We’re back now.”
“We’re back,” Riley agreed. “Now let’s fuck her up. Sorry,” she said to Brigid.
“It’s a sentiment I’m behind altogether. I’ll be on my way in the morning and leave you to it.”
“Oh, don’t go, Móraí.” Annika wrapped her arms around Brigid from behind.
“I’ll come back when you’re done with this, and I expect you all to find a way to visit me and mine. But I want my own bed, and my man. More?” She patted Annika’s hand as she looked into her grandson’s eyes. “This is for you. For the six of you. All I am will be with you. Drink your tea,” she told Riley. “And have one of this lot go out with you for a bit of a walk. It’ll do you good.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Móraí,” Brigid corrected. “For I’m yours as well.”
“Móraí.” Grandmother, Riley thought, and drank her tea.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
As was his habit, Doyle took a last patrol after midnight. A soft rain fell, obscuring the waning moon, turning the world into a dark, quiet mist. It cushioned the slap of the sea so that its steady beat became the pulse of the world.
At his back, the house stood behind the thin curtain of rain with lights shimmering through here and there to give it life.
Though his route around the house had become routine, he remained alert and ready. And when he saw the hooded figure standing among the gravestones, his sword leaped into his hand.
Not Nerezza, he thought as he moved closer, silent as a cat. Too slight for that. For a moment, he thought: Riley, and his temper spiked at the idea of her standing in the rain when she’d barely gained her feet.
But the figure turned. His first jolting thought was: Ma.
The spirit of his mother rising out of the mist. To comfort? To torment? At times one felt the same as the other.
Then she spoke, and he knew her for flesh and blood.
“You move like the air,” Brigid commented. “But your thoughts are a shout.”
“I took you for Riley, and more than my thoughts would have shouted. You shouldn’t be out here either, in the rain and the dark.”