I pushed to my feet before J.T. was a few strides away and jogged to catch up with him. “Jay, wait up.”
He paused, half turning back toward me. “You’re not going to stick around here and watch Matt and Thordin after you’re done with that holly?”
“I don’t think I’ve got the stomach for it.” Watching my brother possibly get his arm taken off in a training exercise? No thanks. I shook my head slightly. “I’ll just head back with you and we’ll rescue Thom from Tala.”
J.T. nodded. “That sounds like a plan.”
We went three steps before J.T. stopped, brows knitting. He touched my arm to stop me.
“What’s wrong?”
“Phelan’s coming.”
I blinked at him. “How the hell do you know that he’s coming?”
“Because I can feel the spirit that’s with him.” J.T.’s lips thinned and his fingers tightened around my arm. “I don’t like it, Mar. I don’t think the spirit’s going to hurt him, but I don’t like the fact that it’s lingering around him and I don’t fully know why.”
“Who is it?” I asked him.
He shook his head. “Someone he knew. His goddaughter or something, he said. He didn’t elaborate much more than that.”
I frowned, looking beyond him and toward the rest of camp. Phelan was walking, head down, hands shoved deep into the pockets of his jacket, but I could see his lips moving.
“God,” I muttered. “Everyone’s going to think he’s flipping nuts if they see him talking to something no one can see like that.”
“You say that like half of camp doesn’t already know he’s nuts,” J.T. muttered back. He squeezed my arm again and stepped away, heading to intercept Phelan with me on his heels. “Phelan!”
His head jerked up and he stared at J.T. and I for a moment before he just kept walking—no hint of a smile, no nothing.
I barely managed to suppress a shiver. What’s going on with him now?
I don’t like this. I don’t like this at all.
Phelan crossed the holly hedges and headed for the bridge, leaving J.T. and I to jog after him.
“What’s gotten into him?” I hissed at J.T.
“I was going to ask you the same thing.”
We caught up to Phelan a dozen feet before he hit the bridge, his head still bowed and his voice a soft murmur in his native tongue. I grasped his shoulder and he jerked away, spinning toward me. His eyes grew wide for a moment, pupils huge, then he shook his head hard and exhaled quietly.
“Déithe agus arrachtaigh,” he murmured. “Sorry. Did you need me for something?”
J.T. was looking at something—someone—I couldn’t see. I swallowed hard, struggling to keep my gaze on Phelan and to keep my voice steady.
“Who was she, Phelan? Who is she?”
His eyes widened slightly, then he looked away with a quiet sigh. “A friend,” he said. “Brighid’s daughter. The one she took from the sea.”
My lips formed the name even before I realized what I was saying. “Ériu.”
He nodded slightly, pain flickering through his gaze as he glanced toward the spirit J.T. was watching. “I didn’t know that she was still lingering,” Phelan said softly. “I’ve been trying to convince her for hours to move on. She keeps telling me she can’t.”
A voice I felt more than heard shivered through my bones.
“It’s true. I can’t.”
The voice was achingly familiar, heartbreakingly familiar. I could hear the child from my vision in the woman’s voice that shivered through me.
“I can’t leave until the children are born,” the voice said. “I have to watch over them, Phelan. I have to.”
“Children,” I echoed softy. “Which children?”
I felt the smile even though I couldn’t see it. “Yours, Seer, and Princess Neve’s.”
I wanted to puke all over my boots. “That’s going to be a long time,” I said, mouth suddenly dry.
“No. I’m afraid not.”
