Awakenings

“Matt, where are we going?”

“He’d come out here sometimes to get some air. I’d tag along but stay out of his way. It’d be when he didn’t feel like talking. That’s why it’d be me. I’d just shut up and let him be.”

The implication was that the rest of us wouldn’t always do that—and it was probably true. It stung a little, though not as much as I might have expected it to. Sometimes the truth is as much balm as it is sting. I sighed and shoved my hands deep into the pockets of my coat. “All right. That answers my question a little. But where would you two go?”

“The Shakespeare Garden,” Matt said, breaking into a jog once we’d cleared the bridge. “He said that even with what the camazotzi did to it, it still felt safe and different. He’d sit on that old stone bench and stare out at the barrow. Sometimes he’d sing and I could almost understand the words—my head could almost understand the words. My heart already knew them.” He slowed, swallowing hard and looking at me with eyes that sparkled with unshed tears. “God, Marin, if he’s not—if he’s not okay, what are we going to do?”

“He’s going to be fine,” I said, refusing to consider the possibility that he wouldn’t be. “Dammit, we should have brought J.T. with us. How are we going to see him?”

“He’ll find us,” Matt muttered. “We just have to get there. It was that way with…I remember it being that way. I remember wanting to come back to myself even though I was afraid—to come back to you. I remember that it was all I wanted. All Ciar wanted.” Matt sucked in a sharp breath and exhaled it slowly. “I’m sure he’s just been waiting. Once we get there, once we come for him, he’ll come back with us and we’ll get the missing piece back to where it’s supposed to be and then everything will be fine.” His determined, certain façade cracked. “Right?”

“Yeah,” I whispered, heart thudding painfully against my breast. “You’re absolutely right.”

Gods and monsters, I hope we’re not lying to ourselves. I hope you’re right.

I grasped his hand tightly and we headed for the Shakespeare Garden together.

“Matt, wait.”

“Not waiting. Walk faster, Marin.”

My brother walked with his head down, hands shoved deep into his pockets. He was headed straight for the bridge and I had to jog a few steps until I caught up. He didn’t look at me as I fell in with him, his expression grim and tight and his eyes hard.

“What’s wrong?” I asked, all but breathless. The cold was almost enough to steal the air right out of my lungs. “Matt, talk to me.”

“Not until we’re out of earshot of damn well everyone,” he said, barely looking at me. “The last thing I need is everyone thinking I’ve jumped off the deep end with the rest of you.”

I glared at him. “Cut the act. You believe us.”

“Of course I do,” he said in a bare whisper. “You’re my sister. I love you. I wanted to doubt it for a long time but I know that I can’t. I know I can’t deny what the lot of you can do, I know that I believe you. That doesn’t mean I want to believe that I’ve got some kind of crazy destiny or past or whatever.” He blew out a breath. “At least, I don’t want to admit it.”

“Matt,” I whispered. He reached out and squeezed my arm, sighing.

“I think I know where the missing pieces are,” he said, his voice a little stronger now that we were crossing the bridge, out of earshot from any of our friends. “I have some ideas.”

“How–” I stopped, staring at him. “You don’t have to tell me how you know if you don’t want to.”

The bare ghost of a smile touched his lips. “I dream about being the Ridden Druid, sis. I loved being your brother then–I loved my sister. I love my sister.”

He hugged me fiercely then and I hugged him back, not knowing what to say.

How do you respond to that?

I walked right into the forge from the chill of the outdoors a few minutes later, Neve still trailing in my wake. “Jay, I need you.”

He glanced up from the sword he was sharpening for my brother and looked sidelong at my husband. “You hear that, Thom? Your wife needs me.”

“I heard her,” Thom said, closing his sketchpad and turning toward me. “What’s wrong?”

“Phelan’s still not awake,” I said, as if that would explain everything. “Put the sword down, Jay.”

J.T. blinked at me but did as I asked. “What do you think I can do about that?”

“She said you’re really the only one seeing ghosts right now,” Neve said as she edged closer to the warmth of the forge.

Matt frowned at her. “Careful, don’t get too close. Why’s that important, anyway?”

I looked at Neve and nodded for her to repeat what she’d told me. She winced and sighed.

“We talked to Thesan,” she said carefully, “and she told us that she did what we were afraid of.”

“What you were–” Matt stopped short, going pale in the forge’s dim. “What happened to m–to the Ridden Druid. To Ciar. That’s what she did to him?”

“Exactly,” Neve said, her voice barely audible over the sound of the flames and the bellows. “That’s exactly what she did. We need to–”

“Excuse me.” Matt abandoned the forge and the piece he was working on, ducking past me and stepping out into the snow. My heart dropped to my knees and my breath caught.

Dear god. What does he—

“Go after him,” Thom said.

I startled, looking at him, momentarily not realizing what he’d just said. “What?”

“Go after your brother,” he said. “Neve can fill us in on what Thesan said. She’s already told you. Go after Matt and figure out what the hell he’s thinking.”

“He’s right,” Neve said. “Hurry.”

I swore under my breath and ducked back out into the snow.

“So let me get this straight. She said that she did what we hoped she didn’t do and now we don’t know where the missing piece—or pieces—of Phelan are. Do I have that right?”

“Basically,” Neve said, her jaw tight and her eyes worried. “Marin, I’m not sure where we go from here.”

I grimaced, standing up. “I assume that Seamus tried to get it out of her and she wasn’t budging?”

“She claims she doesn’t know,” Neve said, glancing back over her shoulder toward the white world beyond the tent. “I was pretty sure that Jacqueline was going to break her in half after she said that. Seamus is trying to calm her down right now.”

Well, if anyone’s got a chance, I’m thinking it would be him—maybe. I exhaled. What the hell are we going to do? “I need J.T.”

“Why?”

“Because right now, he’s the only one of us who actively sees ghosts, Neve.” I shot her a tight smile and grabbed my jacket as I headed out into the snow. “And the fragments of Phelan’s…whatever the hell we’re calling it…are probably pretty close to that.”

She grimaced, hurrying after me. “I guess. Shit, Marin. I don’t know what to do.”

“He makes it through this, Neve,” I said, jaw tightening. He must. I’ve seen him. He has to make it through this.

But does he make it through this whole?

I thought of the memories I had that belonged to Brighid, the memories of her brother, the pain that she felt and the guilt that she carried after he’d been sundered and then put back together again. What had happened to him hadn’t been her fault, but she’d blamed herself–and he’d never been the same as he’d been before the sundering after he’d been restored to her.

We have to hope that won’t be the case.

I set my jaw and marched up the hill toward the forge and J.T.

Thesan sat sullenly in a tent that they’d leant out to the Wild Hunt, cross-legged on the cold ground with a blanket draped over her shoulders. The huntsman guarding the tent gave Seamus a slight nod and stepped away from the flap to let he and his two companions enter.

The woman looked up and smiled. “Father. You’ve finally come to free me? To come away with me?”

Seamus suppressed the urge to close his eyes and sigh. “Thesan, what did you do to Phelan?”

Her eyes narrowed. “Why do you care? All he’s ever brought you is pain.”

“That’s your mother talking,” Seamus said quietly. “What did you do to my cousin, Thesan? You don’t want me to ask a third time. With a third time, there’s consequences.” Truth be known, he had no idea what those consequences might be, but he hoped that the girl would fold before he had to figure out what they might be.

She snorted, looking past him toward Neve and Jacqueline. “You two put him up to this, didn’t you?”

“It was our idea,” Jacqueline confirmed. “You’d best count yourself lucky that he decided to intervene. Answer his question.”

Thesan leaned back, her eyes sliding closed for a moment as she tilted her face toward the curved ceiling of the tent. “Why do you care?”

“Because he’s a good man and you’ve hurt him,” Jacqueline snapped. “Now tell us what the hell you did and why he’s not waking up. Marin poured his freaking soul back into him already.”

Her head snapped back into position and she sat up a little straighter. “Oh. You found it, then.”

“We found it and disarmed your trap,” Seamus said, crossing his arms. Come on, just spill it. Just bloody well tell us what we want to know. Damnation, Phelan, you always did find your way into the worst sorts of trouble.

“And you’ve discovered it wasn’t enough.” Thesan smiled. “It wasn’t enough because you’re missing something.”

“Oh hellfire,” Seamus breathed. “Tell me you didn’t.”

“That would be a lie, Father,” Thesan said softly. “And I don’t lie.”

“Wait, what?” Jacqueline stared at him for a long moment, then shook her head hard. “You know what, never mind. We’ll deal with that later. I’m not going to worry about that right now. I’ll help you talk to them, but you’ve got to do something for me first.”

Seamus sucked in a ragged breath. “You need my help with Thesan.”

“Bingo.” Jacqueline’s eyes narrowed. “He hasn’t woken up, Seamus. I need him to wake up. Do you understand?”

His gaze flicked momentarily to Neve, who looked a little helpless, her shoulders rising and falling in a shrug. He sighed quietly and nodded. “Maybe I do. I’ll help.”

“And I’ll help you talk to the others about…about what the Hunt’s asking for. Do they all want to stay?”

“I don’t even know,” Seamus said, then sighed again. “I’m still in shock myself. I’m going to have to ask him to repeat everything he said in a way that’ll sink in.” He pushed himself to his feet and offered Neve a hand up. “Although it probably won’t make much more sense when I hear it the second time.”

“We’ll figure it out,” Neve said softly. “Right now, we’ve got to figure out Phelan.”

“Yeah.” Seamus shook his head. “I can’t believe—there must be something more to all of this. He should be awake by now. Unless…” Dread coiled in his belly. It couldn’t be that, could it?

Bloody hellfire and monsters. What else could it be?

“Seamus?”

The tremor in Jacqueline’s voice made him shiver. “Don’t ask me,” he whispered. “Not until we talk to her. Let her say it.” He started to walk toward where they were keeping her, his daughter by blood though not in spirit.

Neve frowned, hurrying to catch up, her limping gait paining him as much as it must have pained her. “Seamus, you’re not making sense again.”

“I’m not sure I want to,” he said. “And I hope by all the powers above and below that I’m wrong.”

If she sundered his soul, I don’t know what we’re going to do about it now.

“Seamus? Seamus, are you all right?”  Neve touched his arm and he jerked, startled by her sudden presence.

“Neve. Weren’t you with Phelan?”

“I was,” she said, her brow creasing in concern. “We’re on our way to ask Thesan probing questions until she tells us why he’s not awake yet, but never mind that. What’s wrong? You look ghastly.”

Tremors hit him in that very moment and he looked around for something to lean against. “I—I need to sit down.”

Jacqueline gasped his shoulder. “Here, lean on me.”

He did as bidden, settling his weight against her and she brought him to a broken slab of concrete resting against a pile of rubble. He sank down against it, burying his face in his hands. “Déithe agus arrachtaigh,” he whispered.

Neve sat down beside him and wrapped her arm around his shoulders. “Seamus, what’s the matter? I’ve never seen you like this.”

“Jacqueline…Neve…will your friends let them stay?”

His sister frowned. “What?”

“They want to stop, want a place to call home. They’re tired. I—I’m tired.” He scrubbed hand roughly across his eyes. “Hellfire and bloody madness. What is this world coming to?” He felt like he was spinning out of control, and a piece of his mind that was still rational decided that he probably was.

“Seamus, I don’t understand what you’re saying. Please, for the love of everything holy and sacred, make sense.” His sister’s fingers dug painfully into his arm. He winced, looking at his boots.

“They’ll release me,” he whispered. “But they’ve asked a heavy price for my freedom and its’ not a price that’s mine to pay.”

She went rigid, eyes wide. Jacqueline cleared her throat and asked the question Neve could not, her voice calm and gentle.

“What’s the price, Seamus?”

“They want a home,” Seamus said hoarsely, the words barely audible. “And they hope it can be here.”

“Mon Capitain.”

Seamus took a deep breath and exhaled it slowly before he turned to his longtime second among the Hunt, a slender Frenchman with dark hair and gray eyes. He’d grown used to the nicknames the rest of the Hunt had saddled him with over the years and the one that Ghyslain had given him had been the one that stuck the most easily. He couldn’t say that he minded–though there were other things that he’d have liked to be called.

“What is it, Ghys?”

“We’ve been talking,” Ghyslain said slowly, the wings of his cloak falling closed in front of him, the dark wool hiding the leather breastplate the archer favored. “The lot of us have been talking.”

Seamus arched a brow. “About what?”

“About you, my old friend. You have kin, Seamus. Living kin.”

His throat tightened and he bobbed his head once in a nod. “I do. An abundance of it, in fact, if what I’m being told is to be believed.”

“You’re the only one amongst us that has that, you know.”

Seamus winced, squinting at the late morning sun and the glare of its light off the ice and snow. “I’m sorry, Ghys.”

“Bon dieu, Seamus, don’t be sorry. We’re glad for you, glad that you’ve found them, found this.”

“But I can’t stay.”

Ghyslain was quiet for a long moment before he cleared his throat. “About that–we know that they’ve been digging for a solution to that problem, mon Capitain, and we’ve been looking at the records that old Anselm has been carrying around for nigh unto forever.”

“No one leaves the Hunt unless death finally takes them, Ghys.”

“The Ridden Druid did,” Ghyslain said softly.

“You sound like my sister.”

Ghyslain shrugged slightly. “Perhaps there’s something to what she’s said and what she’s thinking. Seamus, listen. It’s not written anywhere that you can’t be released from the Hunt–that the Hunt can’t decide to simply let you go.”

Seamus blinked at him. “What?”

Ghyslain smiled. “That’s what Anselm told us, anyhow. There’s just one thing we want in return if you can convince them.”

He couldn’t breathe, felt light-headed. “I–what?”

“We want someplace to call home, Seamus. If we let you go, we want to be able to return and stay, too. It’s been a long while since any of us had a place we could call home. We want that for ourselves and each other–as much as we want you to have a future with the people you love.”

“I–”

Ghyslain clapped him on the shoulder. “Think on it, Seamus. It could benefit us all.”

“Ghys…”

His friend smiled and shrugged. “It may be that it’s time for the Hunt to fade, mon Capitain. There’s nothing written that says that can’t happen, either.”

He walked away, leaving Seamus to stare at his retreating back, too stunned to speak or follow.

That was how Jacqueline and Neve found him fifteen minutes later.

“Jac, wait.” Neve lurched to her feet and stumbled after the healer. “You can’t go alone.”

“I’ll be fine,” Jacqueline said over her shoulder. “Just stay here and keep an eye on Phelan.”

“Cameron can do that. I’m coming with you.” One look at Cameron confirmed that he’d do what she wanted him to do–no matter how much he might not like doing it.

Thanks be to the gods.

For a moment, it looked like Jacqueline might continue the fight, but she apparently thought better of it and sighed instead. “All right. Just…stay out of the way?”

“I’ll only help,” Neve said, hobbling gingerly after Jacqueline. The other woman took pity on her a moment later and offered her shoulder to lean on. “I don’t want to screw this up for anyone. I want him back as much as you do.”

“Are you sure about that?” Jacqueline muttered. Neve choked on a quiet laugh.

“Well, maybe not quite as much. It didn’t take long, did it?”

“There’s something about him,” Jacqueline said softly as they made their way toward the tent and the world beyond. “I can’t even tell you what it is. It’s not that he needed something even though I know that he really, really did. I just—it just felt right. Being with him feels right. He just pisses me off.”

“He pisses everyone off,” Neve said with a faint smile. “It’s part of who he is. He finds his way into the worst sorts of trouble and then somehow finds his way out again.”

“He’s not going to find his way out of this one without help,” Jacqueline whispered. “You know that, right?”

“I’m abundantly aware of that,” Neve said, then sighed. “That sort of thing doesn’t happen often, but when it does, it’s a doozy. This is a doozy to top them all.”

Jacqueline paused, biting her lip. “Neve, what am I going to do if she can’t tell us what she did, what’s wrong with him?”

“She’ll tell us,” Neve said. “She doesn’t have a choice.”

“Three days,” Jacqueline practically snarled. “It’s been three days. Why hasn’t he woken up yet?”

“Unfortunately, the one you need to ask is the one that’s currently unconscious,” Neve murmured, hugging one knee a little tighter against her chest.

“Maybe it’s just the shock,” Cameron said, sounding doubtful. “It could be, right? Between the attack and getting his anima ripped out unexpectedly…”

Gods safe keep you, Cameron. Thank you for trying. Neve bit down hard on her lip and stared blankly at her unconscious cousin, stretched out in his bed, cocooned in so many blankets he looked three times his normal size. “As far as I’ve ever known, he should have been awake by now. We must have missed something.”

“What could we have missed?” Jacqueline asked, her tone edging into desperation territory. “Marin found the urn. Thesan said that’s what it was in and she found it. She put it back in him—God only knows how, because I haven’t got a clue—and he should be fine now. But he hasn’t woken up.” She sucked in a breath. “Is the Hunt still going to take her when they go?”

“I don’t see how they have a choice,” Neve said quietly. “We can’t keep her here. We don’t have a safe place to hold her. At least among the Hunt they’ll have a hope of containing her.”

Cameron snorted humorlessly. “And she’ll have what she wants—proximity to her father.”

A shiver shot down Neve’s spine. There was that. “I’m still not sure that we’re going to let the Hunt take him when they leave.”

“He leads them, Neve. How the hell would he stay behind when the rest of them go?”

“There’s got to be some kind of loophole,” Neve said. “Leinth and I have been trying to figure out how to make it work. Sif’s been wracking her brain to find a way. She said that she thought she’d heard a story long ago that might help but she can’t quite remember what it was. She’s been digging through the books Marin and the others rescued from the library trying to find something that’ll spark her memory.” Her lips thinned. “I’m not going to give up my brother so easily right after we’ve found him, Cam. I can’t do that. It’s not in me.”

“You left Teague easily enough.”

“Teague’s a pain in my ass and Kira is more than capable of keeping him well in hand. Never mind the fact that we never thought he was dead. We thought we lost Seamus more years ago than I care to count.” Neve’s fingers dug into the fabric of her pants where she hugged her leg against her. “Now we have him back and I’ll be damned if I let him just vanish again.”

“We need him to talk to Thesan,” Jacqueline said. “She did something—more than just rip Phelan’s consciousness out of his body. If she didn’t…”

“We’ll find out what she did, Jac,” Cameron said. “But we’re not going to ask Seamus to be the one to do it.”

Jacqueline’s eyes blazed. “Fine. I’ll do it myself.”

She was out the door before either of them could stop her.