“Where’s Phelan, anyway?” I asked, scrubbing a hand across my eyes. “I thought he was with you, Sif.”
“A young lady waylaid him,” she said. “Blonde, lovely, steel like a sword’s blade beneath everything. I could see it in her eyes. From the sound of it, she’d be tucking him back into bed soon enough. What happened to that bloody idiot, anyhow?”
“This last time? The Hecate.” I exhaled quietly and nodded my thanks to Thom as he pressed a fresh cup of tea into my hand. “Before that, it was Vammatar’s sisters, and before that it was Menhit and then Vammatar before that and Cariocecus, too. At least one’s dead and the other is our ally.” My gaze slid toward Thordin for a moment. “Hopefully, we’ll never have to deal with Vammatar ever again.”
I took a deep swallow from my mug, shuddering slightly as the heat from the liquid bled through my chest and throat. Thom settled an arm around my shoulders and hugged me against his side.
“Too many enemies,” he murmured. “Not enough allies. We’ve been lucky that we’ve had the time to react, warning that they might be coming—Menhit was the only one that took us by surprise. She subverted Cariocecus’s control over some supernatural minions he’d gathered and launched an attack during what he intended to be his moment of triumph over us.”
“She was working with the Hecate,” I said quietly. “At least at the time. She may have broken away by now, double-crossed her…or the Hecate might have taken exception to the camazotzi trying to murder Phelan.”
“Well, if she wants him for a partner…” Neve shuddered, her voice trailing away. “I don’t like it. There’s too much we don’t know.”
I snorted humorlessly. “Yeah. Story of our lives, right?”
She choked on a laugh, nodding. “Exactly.”
I stared at the fire for a long moment, holding my mug against my knee, turning the memories of the encounter over in my head. “Neve…do you know if Brighid of the Imbolg ever stepped up against her?”
“Against who? Menhit?” Neve grimaced slightly, swirling her own tea around in its mug. “I’m not sure. Why?”
“Something tells me she did,” I said softly. “And it didn’t end well at all for either side.”
“How would you know to suspect such a thing?” Sif asked curiously.
Neve laughed, shaking her head. “They didn’t tell you?”
Sif’s tone was bone-dry, like a desert in high summer. “I just met them less than an hour ago. There’s a great deal that no one’s told me, apparently.”
The last princess of Avalon just smiled weakly. “Thordin’s soul isn’t the only one that was spun back out into the world. You share a fire with Brighid of the Imbolg and Finn mac Camulos.”
“The man you shot this morning with that arrow was Ciar mac Dúbhshláin, a ghlac Cernunnos,” Thordin added, his voice quiet.
Sif’s eyes widened and her gaze snapped to Thordin. “You’re telling me I shot the Ridden Druid this morning?”
“She shot Matt?” Neve asked, looking at me and Thom. “No one mentioned that.”
“She just knocked him off the wall,” Thom said quietly, carefully avoiding Neve’s gaze. “It wasn’t a reason to get the whole world worried. She did it to get his attention and to show that she was serious about talking to Marin and I this morning.”
“It was an idiotic stunt,” Thordin said in response to Sif. “You should know better.”
“There was no sense of—”
All he did was smile. “In this world, in this awakened world, nothing is at it seems, Sif. Absolutely nothing.”
