Sorcha truly wasn’t sure she could survive much more. She’d been through so much in the last days: war, loss, banishment, illness, nightmares. And yet she’d felt so hopeful. She would find the Stone. She would sneak it away from these kind people and return it to safety, so the world would realign itself. She would earn the right to go home where she belonged.
But now…
She wasn’t strong enough for this. She didn’t have the fortitude or the courage. She was just a teacher. Just a seamstress who lived in a tiny house by the river. She wasn’t a warrior to face off against the Dubhlainn Sidhe. Not alone. Not without an army behind her, her mother at its head and her sisters alongside her.
She was alone. She was so very afraid. And she was about to fail all over again.
“What do you mean it isn’t the Fairy Diamond?” Phyl demanded. “Isn’t that the Diamond, Harry? Isn’t that what we’ve had on display for the last hundred years or so?”
“Of course it is.”
“Theo,” Sorcha said, looking down at the solemn little boy who had his uncle’s grass-green eyes, “have you ever noticed the Stone do anything…odd? Like, make you feel as if it’s, oh, I don’t know, singing? Humming? Especially when you held it. Have you known where it was before you saw it?”
Harry took an impatient step forward, but Theo wasn’t attending. “No,” he said. “Should I?”
She thought of asking Harry, as well, but it seemed pointless. Theo was nine. He’d certainly felt the arrival of the Dubhlainn Sidhe quickly enough. It was inconceivable to her that he wouldn’t have felt the true Stone’s presence.
She took a moment to consider the crystal that sat nestled in her left palm, for all the world like a glittering stone egg. Even with the interference of the house, even with the damage that might have been done by the mortal illness she’d had, there was simply no way she could not feel one of the three Filial Stones as it rested in her heart hand.
This stone was silent.
“If it isn’t here,” she said, “then where could it be?”
“If it isn’t here, it doesn’t exist,” Harry said.
She pulled in a halfhearted breath. “Then all is lost. If the Stone isn’t here, I know not where to look for it. And the Dubhlainn Sidhe have already breached the veil in my wake.”
She felt tears welling in her eyes. She felt the expectations of her people all but crush her. She couldn’t think what to do. She couldn’t…
“Fairy!” Lilly called and leaned out from her mother’s arms. “Fairy! ’Lo!”
Sorcha turned to see the little girl’s frowning face. “Yes, my Lilly?”
“C’mere!”
Sorcha walked over to take the little girl from her mother’s arms. Immediately Lilly cupped her face in her sweet little hands. “Smile,” she said, sounding very serious. Then she gave her a big, gleaming smile, as if all Sorcha had needed was an example. Well, what could a fairy do but smile back?
Satisfied, Lilly patted Sorcha again, and then reached down to where Sorcha still held the Stone in one hand. “My di-mond.”
“No, sweetheart,” Phyl said. “It’s Gran’s diamond. She’ll cry if you keep it from her. You don’t want Gran to cry, do you?”
Lilly had to think about that for a minute. “No,” she said with a shake of her head. “Go Gran. Now.”
Sorcha fortified herself with a long hug from the little girl. It was a rare privilege to be able to bask in the joy of one of the cherished ones. That alone might save her from despair.
But then, what was she bringing to this beautiful little flower? Endless winter. Cold and darkness and loss.
And the heavy hand of the Dubhlainn Sidhe, who would have no restraint now that they had the Coilin Stone in their hands and no Dearann Stone to temper their power.
“All right, then,” Harry said, reaching for Lilly, who happily changed hands again. “Here’s the plan. We smile and give Gran her kisses, and hand over the Fairy Diamond. No talk of dreams or bad fairies or the possibility that this might not be her Fairy Diamond. Am I clear?”
The children nodded. Sorcha couldn’t scrape up the energy to do even that. Harry scowled at her.
“If you can’t figure out a way to keep from looking like you’ve just lost your last friend,” he suggested, “might I suggest you stay behind?”
“No,” she said, shaking herself. “I’ll be grand. You’ll see.”
He was right. She had no business burdening that gracious old lady with her problems. But she had to be there to see how the old woman reacted. To see if she recognized the Stone as different, maybe. As less than what it had been before Theo had made off with it. Maybe the old woman would see something the rest of them had missed.
“Well, now, Theo,” she said, smiling as she held out the perfectly ordinary oval of quartz, “wouldn’t you like to be the gift-bearer, then?”
The boy eyed the Stone as if it would attack. In the end, though, he took it.
“Lovely,” Sorcha said, turning him toward the door. “Won’t we make a grand parade, now, for your gran?”
Harry just snorted and turned to go.
Again they marched in a line, this time even more purposefully as they descended the stairs from the third floor to the second, where Harry’s grandmother lived. Lilly was singing again, something indistinct and atonal, and trying her best to play hide-and-seek over Harry’s shoulder. Bea was riding her mother’s arms and Theo led the way like a small soldier.
Sorcha spent the time stoking up her courage. Oh, to be able to just disappear right now, she thought. Would they really miss her if she slipped back out to the fairy hall and simply rested? She was so tired. She was so sad.
She was so afraid.
Mary met them at Gran’s door. “Please tell me you got good news,” she said. “That ole woman been frettin’ all night long.”
“Theo?” Harry asked, motioning the boy forward.
“Harry!” Gran barked from within her room. “Get in here and tell me what’s going on!”
When Theo balked at the sound of his grandmother’s voice, Harry gave him a little shove. “Look what Theo found, Gran!” he called, ushering the whole family inside.
Sorcha remained in the doorway. Gran hadn’t even made it to her throne chair this morning. She was still abed in the room beyond, propped up by a half dozen pillows and looking even smaller than she had before.
Phyl let Bea down, and the girl raced into her great-grandmother’s room, followed more slowly by Theo. Lilly bounced in Harry’s arms, singing what must have been her grandmother song, arms wide, face alight.
“My di-mond!” she called.
“You just be patient, young lady,” Gran said, laughing as she accepted the Fairy Diamond from her grave great-grandson. “Wait your turn.”
“Your turn,” Lilly answered.
“That’s right, you little scamp. It’s my turn.” The old woman had the crystal cradled in her papery palm, and there were tears streaming down her face. “Excellent job, Theo. You found it?”
“He did, Gran,” Harry said, stepping through the door. “The fairies must have tried to steal it back, but he got it before they got away.”
He was smiling. Gran was smiling. Phyl was smiling. It was a joke. A celebration wrapped in whimsy. Sorcha was smiling, too. Hers was a lie, though. Gran hadn’t noticed a thing. She hadn’t jumped up and cried, “But this is a fraud! The real Fairy Diamond was here only last week! This doesn’t feel right.”
And while Harry’s family comforted and cossetted his grandmother, children tumbling around her bed, Lilly tucked up against her shoulder and patting the old woman’s cheek, Sorcha stepped away.
She didn’t really pay attention to where she was going; she just knew she had to get away. She couldn’t bear the sight of that close, happy family, especially not now.
She walked the long hall from Gran’s suite and down the endlessly winding stairs that were warmed by the morning sun that poured through the glass dome high above. She thought maybe she would walk back to the kitchen and see if Mrs. Thompson would return her attire to her. She thought she would move on.
The Fairy Diamond had been here. There was no question at all. A hundred years ago, a fairy prince of the Dubhlainn Sidhe clan had been caught on the wrong side of the veil and kept by a mortal woman who had loved him, and he had gifted her with the most precious prize in the fairy realm.
Had he meant to bring it? Had he simply not been able to get it back? It didn’t matter. He’d kept it here, where his descendants had built a shrine worthy of the Dearann Stone, where they’d spent their lives and fortune trying to find their way back across the veil. And some time during those ensuing years, they had lost the very thing that had given meaning to it all.
Sorcha walked all the way down to the front salon, which Harry’s grandfather had painted with the memories of a perfect fairy glen, the sacred trees arched and leafy and sweet, the ceiling a breathtaking sky with just a suggestion of the sun. Here there were painted horses and foxes and salmon to keep a fairy from feeling too homesick. Here there was the hot spring green of Irish fields to salve her soul. Here, even with the formal furniture that kept her from truly believing she was home, Sorcha settled down onto the rug. Bringing her knees up, she crossed her arms atop them and laid her head down. And here she stayed. She had nowhere else to go.
If mortals weren’t so ridiculous, Cian could easily hate them. They were insignificant creatures, with no power, no wit, no sense of the gifts they’d been given and certainly no beauty in their pusillanimous little souls. What right had they to hold hostage one of the three Filial Stones? How could they possibly think themselves worthy of it? No mortal being was. Come to think of it, most of the world of faerie wasn’t, either.
He was. Born to the clan of the high king himself, cousin to the Avenger and holder of the keys to the treasury, he alone could withstand the pull of so mighty a stone in order to bring it back to the other side, where it could be safely tucked away in a place where it couldn’t do any harm. Where it couldn’t interfere with the burgeoning power of the Dubhlainn Sidhe.
Cian smiled to himself, and it was a terrible thing. He would reclaim the lost Stone. There was no question. No cringing coward of a Tuatha would succeed where the Dubhlainn Sidhe had not.
As Cian tucked himself into the grove of plane trees out beyond the gardens of the big house, he paid no attention to the cold or the damp or the darkness of the days here. Neither did he waste his time worrying about the Stone’s great power or how it could have remained lost in this miserable place for so long. He was much too occupied by just how he would go about reclaiming it. And how much he would enjoy hurting that little blond flyspeck of a child of Mab who thought she could outwit him in time to claim it for herself.
Sorcha wasn’t sure how long she sat alone. Time held little meaning for fairies, and here, where she finally gave in to the inevitable, it disappeared completely.
She was caught here, just as surely as Harry’s ancestor had been a hundred years earlier. Without the Stone, there was no way home. Without the Stone, there would soon be no home to return to. And yet, what had she here? What worth did she have in a mortal world?
It was much later when she heard the children clattering down the stairs.
“Well, what do we do with her, Harry?” she heard Phyl ask from at least two stories up.
Maybe she should tell them that fairies had exceptional hearing. She didn’t want Phyl to be upset at being overheard.
“How the bloody hell do I know?” Harry asked. “Gran won’t let her go, and I can’t let her stay. So, do we turn her over to the police? I’m sure they’d just love to hear her fairy story.”
“Oh, Harry, you can’t do that to her.”
“Do you want to house her till we find out what’s going on? I certainly don’t.”
And then, silence. Sorcha closed her eyes, completely incapable of reaction. Somehow these last words pierced even beyond the despair she’d felt already. No place in her world, no place in his. And no place, certainly, in his regard. Ah, and wasn’t that the worst cut of all?
“Miss Tuatha?” she heard from the doorway.
She didn’t bother to lift her head. “Yes, Theo?”
“Are…are you all right?”
“Oh, aye,” she said, “Just restin’. I’m after taking a fairy nap.”
“Oh. All right. We’ve been looking for you. You missed dinner.”
“Thank you, but I’m grand.”
Silence.
“Would you teach me how to ride like you do?”
Finally she lifted her head. “Theo, you’re a brilliant rider. Whatever could I teach you?”
“How you talk to the horses,” he said, taking a step into the room. Inevitably, just like his uncle, his eyes were drawn to the walls where other horses ran. “They seem to listen to you.”
She dredged up a smile. “Ah, sure, that’s no secret. You have the ability within you. You just have to take more time to listen. Horses are always telling us what they need to. They just don’t talk in words, now, do they?”
“Will you show me?”
She tried very hard to dredge up even an ounce of energy. “Could we postpone it till tomorrow, Theo? I think I’ve overdone it today altogether.”
“Oh…of course.”
He looked so very earnest, Sorcha couldn’t help but smile. “First thing tomorrow. Before I leave.”
His bright young features fell. “You’re leaving?”
“Oh, I think I must,” she said. “I’ve seen the Fairy Diamond, now, and I don’t think I should be after harassing your uncle anymore.”
“Where will you go?”
“Why, back across the veil,” she lied, because Theo was a child who would worry.
“Will you take me with you?” he asked.
She gave him the consideration of thinking about her answer. “Maybe one day,” she said. “Not now, though. You have too much learning to do right here. And I’m thinking your mam would miss you, now, wouldn’t she? And Bea and wee little Lilly? Sure, they’re depending on their big brother.”
He squirmed a bit, but finally nodded. “As long as I know how to find you again.”
Since she had no idea where that would be, she just nodded.
Still, he didn’t leave the room. “What about the dreams?” he asked, eyes focused on the carpet at his feet.
Sorcha stiffened. “The nightmares.”
He managed to look up. “Did you have them, too?”
“Oh, aye, Theo. I had them. And I’m that sorry you suffered, too. The Dubhlainn Sidhe are not respecters of innocence.”
“Will they go away?”
Would they? Suddenly Sorcha felt energy flowing back into her. Goddess, she thought. She’d forgotten. The diamond wasn’t here. The Dubhlainn Sidhe, however, were. And she had to find a way to protect her new family from them.
Her new family. She caught herself smiling. Finally she understood how her sister Nuala had found herself adopting a whole family of mortals as her own all those years ago. They were irresistible. Especially the children. The children on this plane were as bright as shooting stars.
Taking one last look around the room, she climbed to her feet and held out a hand. “How ’bout we work on that together?” she asked.
For the first time, Theo really smiled. “Brilliant,” he said, and, taking her hand, led her from her exile.
What had happened to his nice, normal, unbearably frustrating life? Harry wondered. Any other weekend of his life, he would be taking the regulation Saturday afternoon away from Gwyneth to sit with Phyl over the estate books as they tried to squeeze money from the estate like blood from a stone, so the two of them could realize their dream of creating the finest breeding program for Irish-bred thoroughbreds in England. They had already made a great start. Phyl had an unerring eye for good horseflesh. The newest mare she’d chosen, a leggy chestnut with beautiful conformation, strong lines and great, intelligent eyes, was proof of that. Now they just had to be able to afford her.
Now was when he and Phyl should have been figuring out how to do that very thing. Now was when he and Gwyneth should have been putting the final touches on the wedding they’d been planning for the last year.
But Phyl was up settling Gran, and Gwyneth was still in York. On the phone.
“You can’t get back down this weekend?” he said to her, as if she hadn’t just told him that very thing.
“I’m sorry, Harry. Something…big has come up.”
She sounded stiff and uncertain. And if there was one thing Gwyneth could never be accused of, it was sounding uncertain. “Gwyn? Are you all right?”
For that he got a long silence and a funny little huffing sound in his ear. “I think I am, Harry. I really think I am.”
And what the bloody hell was that supposed to mean? Harry closed his eyes so he couldn’t see the account books piled up before him in Phyl’s meticulously kept estate office, and rested his head in his hand.
“I think you have to be more specific than that, Gwyn.”
“But I can’t, Harry. I truly can’t. I think it might be best if we met next week, maybe Thursday after work. We need to talk.”
Oh, God, not her, too. “Talk, Gwyn?”
She cleared her throat. “I know I’m not making much sense right now. I promise I will Thursday. All right?”
Harry rubbed the bridge of his nose. “All right, Gwyn.”
He was just about to say goodbye when her voice came again, and suddenly it sounded small and young and uncertain. “Harry?”
“Yes?”
“Do you think your grandfather could have been right all along?”
“What?”
“Never mind. Bye, Harry.”
Harry hung up and thought seriously about pouring himself a full tumbler of whiskey. What the bloody hell was happening to his world all of a sudden?
Of course, he knew. Nothing had been right since that bedamned fairy had tumbled into it. Nothing looked the same or felt the same. Nothing that had once been enough was anymore.
He lurched to his feet and walked to the window, where he could see the paddocks that held his horses. It had been all he’d ever wanted in his life: the ability to stand right here and see the product of his hard work. The chance to interact with these magnificent creatures, to breed the most beautiful horses in England.
To his mind, they had succeeded. Their horses were beginning to be recognized around the country. Harry could name the pedigree and character traits of each one. He had personally picked out Moonrise as their first stud, a magnificent, almost otherworldly gray who had thrown off perfect replicas of himself every time they’d bred him to any mare in the country. Moonrise bred true and Harry had to admit that his get were his favorites. These were the horses that seemed to meet their world with the most intelligence.
It should have been enough. He had his family. He had a fiancée who would match him perfectly. He had a career that could support them all and one day pull them all into not only permanent solvency but true comfort again.
Instead, his fiancée was suddenly unrecognizable, his family was in turmoil, and his own dreams were caught somewhere between impossibility and terror.
And all since she’d stumbled into his life.
She couldn’t know.
She couldn’t possibly tell the difference. He wouldn’t believe it.
He rubbed at his forehead again, when what he really wanted to be rubbing at was the sharp pain in his chest. No one in his entire life had ever thought that bloody stone might do more than just sit like a lump in its cradle. Nobody had once intimated that just being near it could provoke flashes of vision that were no less than impossible. Nobody had ever, ever tried to tell him that the bloody thing sang, for God’s sake.
He was rubbing at his chest now.
How could she know?
As if called by just his thoughts, she appeared out by the mares and fillies paddock. She was talking to Theo, motioning to Starchaser, one of his fillies, and Starchaser, the little flirt, was responding as if Theo were her date to a formal, tail up, head nodding, dancing around him in delight. Sorcha and Theo had spent the last couple of hours collecting tree branches and holly leaves. He had no idea why, but now Theo held a short hawthorn branch in his hand, like Harry Potter. Sorcha had holly in her hair. And there, inevitably, were Bea and Lilly, coming to join them at the paddock rails, more branches and leaves decorating them. They all looked like they were rehearsing A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
A couple more of the fillies joined them at the rails. Moonbright and Starchild. Almost indistinguishable one from the other to anyone but him. The brightest of this generation. The fastest, surest. Breathtaking, both of them, with the dished noses of an Arabian, the strong haunches of an Irish jumper, and the color of a morning mist. Sorcha lifted a hand and Moonbright bent her head as if asking benediction. Bea laughed and Lilly clapped. Sorcha seemed to be instructing.
What was the woman up to now? Harry wondered, and got to his feet. He was not about to have her disrupt his horses with her nonsense.
He made it outside to find Phyl approaching from the other direction.
“She’d better not hurt those horses,” Harry growled.
Phyl laughed. “You obviously haven’t seen her with them.”
He would have answered, but when he looked back, there was his premiere mare, Moondancer, prancing in a circle, with the fairy child already on her bare back.
“Bloody hell,” he snapped, ready to take off.
Phyl held him back. “Oh, leave her alone. She’s magic, Harry. You know how the Dancer is. She won’t allow anybody but me on her back now she’s breeding. Well, you would have thought your Sorcha was a big lump of sugar, the way she took to her.”
Harry saw perfectly well how the mare took to her. He had seen fine horsemen in his life. He was accounted one of the best himself. Certainly Phyl held her place in the pantheon. But he’d never seen anything like this. Not only did the girl look as if she were one with the animal, but he’d never seen Dancer move with such fluid grace. Dancer was a jumper, a dark bay Irish-bred with powerful movement and the stamina of a warhorse. With that small girl on her back, she looked like a ballerina.
“Me, now!” his niece Bea demanded from the top rail of the fence, already wearing her helmet.
Without seeming to pause, Sorcha rode past and lifted the girl to sit before her. “What do you say to her now, Bea?” Sorcha asked.
“I thank you, Moondancer,” Bea recited, patting the great animal’s gleaming neck, “for the privilege of your generosity.”
“Ah, grand,” Sorcha said, briefly laying her cheek against the five-year-old’s head. “She’ll carry you on forever now.”
That was when Harry realized that at least a dozen of his prime stock were standing about as if waiting their turn, the colts leaning their powerful necks over the far fence like children lining up for a ride.
“Unbelievable,” he muttered.
Phyl chuckled and patted his arm. “You should hire the girl, Harry.”
Harry had no intention of telling Phyl what he really thought. “You want to hire her, go right ahead. That’s your job.”
Phyl laughed again. “I just might.”
“Could I try?” Theo called to Sorcha from the fence.
“Ah, sure, you can do it yourself, Theo,” she assured him, still circling with Bea.
For a second Theo just watched. Then he approached Starchild and lifted his hand to her muzzle. The horse dipped her head, and Theo put his own head to hers. Starchild whuffled at him, and he grabbed her mane and vaulted cleanly up atop her.
“Brilliant, Theo!” Sorcha called.
Starchild whinnied and tossed her head. Theo beamed. The little cavalcade went prancing over the grass like a parade.
That was when Harry saw Lilly. There she was, standing at the fence, her little helmet dangling from her pudgy hands, looking as lost and yearning as he’d ever seen.
“Me,” she whimpered, almost to herself. “Me.”
There were tears on her face. Ah, damn it. He couldn’t stand it. He took a step toward her, but Sorcha must have seen her.
“Ah, mo chroidhe,” she crooned, swinging off the great bay and setting Bea down before her. “What is it, now?”
Lilly pointed her pudgy little hand toward where Theo trotted happily atop Starchild. “Ride,” she said in a hopeless tone. “’Lone.”
Sorcha hopped the fence and sat right down at the little girl’s feet. “You’re wanting to ride, then?”
“She can’t, Sorcha,” Phyl said. “Not alone. It’s too dangerous.”
Sorcha looked up, saw Phyl, then saw Harry and bestowed a gleaming smile on him. “Ah, well, that might not be true,” she disagreed. “Has she been atop one of the ladies yet?”
“Of course not,” Harry said. “Not without one of us holding on to her. She doesn’t have the fine motor coordination. She’ll never—”
Sorcha waved him off and settled the helmet on Lilly’s head. “It’s just a matter of asking, Harry Wyatt.”
And she walked Lilly to where Starchaser stood patiently waiting by the side of the fence.
“Now then, mo stoir,” Sorcha said, buckling the helmet on and lifting the little girl into her arms. “What do you say to this fine, gracious lady?”
Harry knew he should interfere, but he couldn’t seem to move. Next to him, Phyl grabbed hold of his sleeve. “Harry…”
“Please,” Lilly said in a piping voice, her little hand flat against Chaser’s dark gray muzzle. “Carry me.”
The horse actually lifted her head, as if considering the little girl.
“Ogbheann,” Sorcha crooned with a regal dip of her head, “I ask your favor for this wee sprite here. You see the great heart of her, the pure spirit of her. I give you the greatest honor a fairy can bestow, the chance to guard one of the cherished ones. Will you carry her, then, with all the care you would your queen?”
The horse held still. Everyone in the yard held still, except Lilly, who chortled as she ran her hand down the horse’s nose. Then, unbelievabley, Chaser bowed her head, as if in obeisance. Before Harry could protest, Sorcha had Lilly up on the horse’s bare back and was wrapping her pudgy little hands in the filly’s mane.
“Now then, mo aoibheann,” she was saying to the little girl, “you hold on here, and your lovely friend will do the rest. All right?”
Lilly nodded enthusiastically and Sorcha let go.
“No!” Phyl cried, and started running.
Harry followed right behind. But before they could reach the fence, Chaser set off in the most amazing stately trot he’d ever seen. She moved over the ground as if gliding on ice. Lilly, her little legs sticking almost straight out, held on to Chaser’s mane as if she’d done it her whole life, and rode her like a rocking horse.
“Get her off, Harry,” Phil insisted. “She’ll fall.”
“Ah, no,” Sorcha said, walking over. “I swear an oath, that as long as it’s your Starchaser who has her, she’ll be perfectly safe. Sure, a fairy horse would rather die than harm a cherished one.”
“She is not a bloody fairy horse!” Harry said, trying to step past.
Sorcha took hold of his sleeve. Harry spun on her, ready to fight. Then he heard it, and his heart tumbled right over. Lilly, who just moments ago had been standing alone, left behind by what everybody but she could accomplish, what she ached to do, called to him.
“Ha—rry!” she cried, her little voice shrill with delight. “I ride! I ride!”
And then she was laughing. The pure, sweet notes of it skipped through the air like a melody. The horses stopped, each one. Stable boys stepped outside to see and smile. Somehow Harry knew that even his grandmother had heard from her room.
“Yes, my piglet!” Harry called back, his voice rough. “You ride!”
She rode all alone, and she was so happy the sun shone. And seeing that, Harry suddenly wasn’t sure what he’d thought could have been dangerous. Chaser literally floated across the ground, carrying that little girl like a precious gift on a cushion, and Lilly, perched motionless atop her, absolutely gleamed.
“Oh…my…God, Harry,” Phyl whispered.
“Mama!” Lilly cried out. “See me!”
Phyl was in tears. “Yes, my love. Yes!”
Lilly laughed. Chaser whinnied. Sorcha clapped her hands and laughed, as if she’d created horses just for the pleasure of letting little girls ride. Harry felt the oddest bubble of joy build in his chest. And then he felt the sharp knife of ambivalence. How had she done it? How could he believe it possible? But it was. Lilly, his little miracle of a niece, was doing the thing she most wanted to on earth, something he’d failed to provide for her. But the fairy girl had.
And suddenly he was laughing along with Lilly. Everyone turned. He knew they thought he’d suddenly lost his senses. He couldn’t help it. The most unexpected shaft of joy shot clear through his chest, the same chest that had just been hurting so hard. He simply couldn’t think of anything more wondrous than to see Lilly atop a horse of her own.
“Ah, Harry,” Sorcha said with a beaming smile, “I know Saoirce is one of your most lovely horses, but you see, don’t you, that she’s Lilly’s horse?”
“Saoirce?” Phyl asked.
“Her real name, so. Her fairy name. It means Freedom.”
Harry was nodding, wiping tears from his own cheeks. “Lilly!” he called. “How do you like your very own horse?”
At his words, Chaser came to a fluid stop right in front of him and waited as the little girl carefully unwrapped a hand and patted her. “Mine!” she crowed.
“Indeed,” Harry assured her. “All yours. Saoirce doesn’t mind?”
He knew Phyl was staring at him as if his hair was afire. He didn’t care. He couldn’t think of anything he’d accomplished in his life as satisfying as this.
“Saoirce says it would be her great honor,” Sorcha said.
As if in emphasis, Chaser—Saoirce—carefully bent a knee and lowered her head, as if paying homage.
“Then Lilly’s horse she is.”
“And just to make sure,” Phyl said briskly, as she scrubbed her cheeks of tears, “the minute she gets off, I’m fitting a saddle with straps.”
Harry stayed there for another hour, just watching. Just listening to the laughter that tumbled around the yard like bright water. Just watching that fairy child ensorcell his family. He stood alone outside the paddock fence, wishing he could join them and not knowing how. Sure, though, that if he just had the courage to ask her, Sorcha would make it so easy that he would wonder at his worry.
It shouldn’t have surprised him then, that when he finally gave up on sleep hours into the night and headed out to the little fairy house for some peace, it would be to find her there before him.