“Why didn’t you tell them?”
“How could I?” he whispered. “She’d have freaked out and gone sideways. I don’t know what he would have done. It didn’t matter then. I’m not sure it matters now.”
“How could it not matter now?” I leaned forward and put my hand on his shoulder. “Phelan, they know the truth. Of course it matters. It impacts their entire lives from this day forward and the life of that baby.”
“Babies,” Phelan said softly, his voice distant. “There will be two.”
“Two?” I blurted, blinking rapidly. “Two? How do you know there’s two?”
Evan as I asked the question, I knew he was right. I could see Cameron and Neve cradling two bundles, one dark like Neve and the other with Cameron’s looks. I could see them running in the fields, chasing after the dogs, after the sheep, my own son and Tala’s children—oh god, five at once, how are we going to cope with that?—laughing and happy in the autumn sunshine.
“There was a legend, wasn’t there?” I asked in a bare whisper. “There’s a legend or a prophecy or something that you knew, that you read, something. Something you never talked about, never told anyone.”
“There are some burdens that I’ve had to shoulder alone,” he said, his eyes closed. “There are things that Seamus knew, that he told me, that I’ve never been able to share. This…this was one of them, Marin. He knew. Somehow, he knew, even all those years ago, what would happen someday—with his sister and with his many times over grandson.” He sighed and opened his eyes again, staring at me tiredly, seeming like the weight of the entire world had settled on his shoulders again. “I never thought that I’d ever have to deal with it, though. I thought I’d somehow get myself killed before I ever needed to.”
“Phelan, you should have told me,” Neve said, at my shoulder now, staring down at her cousin. His fingers twined through mine and squeezed hard.
“You weren’t ready,” he whispered.
“And I never will be,” Neve countered. “But that doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t have told me. I deserved to know. Cameron deserved to know.”
“What would it have changed?” Phelan asked, staring up at her.
“I don’t know,” Neve said. “But we’ll never find out, now.”
“And that’s the way it should be,” Phelan said. “That’s the way it should be. Things should happen the way they’re meant to happen, with or without our knowledge.”
There was a lie in his eyes that Neve didn’t see, but I did. My lips thinned and my fingers tightened around his.
There are some things that are meant to be changed. Nothing is certain.
Everything changes. Everything changes.
