Lights were on all over the stableyard. Harry could see some of the grooms running for the block that held the mares. He saw lights pop on in the estate manager’s house on the other side of the far pasture. And then he heard the most terrible sound he thought he would ever hear in his life. Small, thin, a keening in the wind unlike anything he’d ever experienced, a terrible, despairing cry that could threaten a person’s soul.
Lilly.
Saoirce screamed again, and battered at her stall.
“She needs to get out,” Sorcha panted behind him. “Please, Harry.”
“Let her go!” he yelled as he neared the stable yard.
His stable manager, still shrugging into his coat, turned on him. “Are you sure, sir?”
“Do it!”
“Open her box!” the gnarled old man yelled to the men inside.
There was another burst of thudding, hooves against wood, and suddenly a second of silence. Then Saoirce came bolting out of the building, her nostrils flared, white showing around her eyes, her lips curled in a snarl of fury. The men scattered before her, but she had no time for them. She thundered out of the yard, her coat gleaming wet in the harsh halogens as she pounded straight at Harry and Sorcha.
Harry pulled Sorcha aside just as the horse clattered past, not even seeming to notice them.
“She’s getting loose!” one of the lads yelled.
“She’s after the one who’s hurting Lilly,” Sorcha told Harry.
“Let her go!” Harry told his staff. “Follow her if you can, but don’t stop her.”
They stared as if Harry had just gone mad. Maybe he had. He didn’t have time to discuss it, though. Lilly was still keening up in her room, a room Phyl had painted with bright clouds and whimsical storybook characters. The sound Lilly was making was a violation of such a special place.
Harry didn’t wait for anybody to answer Phyl’s front door. He reached into the flower pot by the porch, grabbed the key and shoved it into the lock, his hands shaking so hard he could hardly work it. Then, unlocking it, he pushed the door open and led the way inside.
He could hear Phyl’s panic-stricken voice all the way down in her front foyer, a pragmatic horse house space crowded with cast-off boots, anoraks and helmets. Not a place for what he was hearing. He could hear Theo, and he heard Lilly, who couldn’t seem to stop. Who was ripping his heart out with her wild, endless cries.
He was hearing the screams he’d been hearing in his head for the last four weeks.
Oh, God. Not Lilly. Please, please, not Lilly. It was too obscene to even consider. Harry took the stairs two at a time, up two stories, not even hearing Sorcha’s feet strike wood behind him as she followed. He didn’t think he was breathing. He couldn’t imagine what was in Lilly’s head. Worse—dear God, worse—he couldn’t imagine how to stop it.
Phyl must have heard them coming. When Harry slammed through the nursery door, she was already looking for him, her eyes wild, her body, incongruously clad in a frothy lace nightgown above bare feet, taut, her arms filled with Lilly, who was arched and stiff, her eyes open and staring, her mouth gaping, letting loose those terrible sounds. Tears coursed down Phyl’s face, and Theo, standing to the side in his pajamas and sleep-tumbled hair, had his hand up on Lilly’s back, his own eyes far too knowing.
“Oh, God, Harry,” Phyl choked, “do something!”
That brought Harry to a crashing halt. There was nothing he could do. He had no idea how to stop this. He couldn’t even stop the screams in his own head. As if he’d heard Harry, Theo looked over at him, and Harry knew he was thinking the same thing.
“Piglet,” Harry crooned, lifting his arms to take her from her mother, “hush, piglet, hush…”
But Lilly didn’t see him. She didn’t react at all when he took her to his chest. She vibrated with the terror that infected her and kept shrilling as if it were the only thing left in her.
“Goddess,” Sorcha breathed, sounding shattered. “How could he? This breaks ever fairy oath, every one!”
She reached out to Lilly, but Harry stepped away. It was illogical, but he couldn’t help it. She’d brought this to his niece. The baby they’d long since dubbed their own fairy child. Well, he wouldn’t have it. He wouldn’t allow some malevolent creature to rip at her soul this way.
“You do something,” he snarled, knowing he looked much like his horse had as she’d stormed past him. “This is a plague you visited on this house.”
She flinched at his words, but he couldn’t seem to stop. He couldn’t bear the terrible weight of Lilly in his arms, so stiff and staring. So tormented that he was sure people were crying in their sleep miles away.
“Well?” he snapped. “Have any brilliant ideas? Any tree branches or holly leaves you think will suffice?”
Her eyes gleamed with unshed tears. “I thought I’d kept them protected,” she said. “I thought…” She shook her head and looked away, and Harry could feel her own despair.
“Theo,” she said, very quietly. “You must go to that room where I’ve been sleeping and bring my bag to me.”
“What bag?” Harry demanded, as if his niece weren’t shrieking her sanity away in his arms. “You have no bag.”
“I have one. You can’t see it unless I will it so.” She turned to the boy. “Get on your coat and shoes. The bag is tucked under my pillow. There’s a smaller bag inside, green and soft, yes? Bring it to me as fast as you can.”
Theo never questioned her. He just spun on his heel and ran. Then Sorcha faced Harry and held out her hands for Lilly. He backed away.
“Oh, no,” he said. “I think you’ve done quite enough already, don’t you?”
Her breathing hitched, but she didn’t back down. “Maybe so, Harry, maybe so. But I can also do you the only good that can be done this night. Theo will bring my herbs, the ones that saved me from the mortal illness—”
He snorted. “It was a cold,” he growled.
She briefly closed her eyes. “To you, it was. Not to a fairy body.”
“And what good would those herbs do you now?”
“Nothing. But there’s another mixture in the bag that would. Our bean tighe gave it me to help any mortal struck with a fairy ill. I think it will help Lilly.”
“You think? That’s not a hell of a lot of help, Sorcha.”
“Harry,” Phyl said, “enough. If she can help Lilly, let her. Unless you have another idea?”
Harry curled himself around the tiny body in his arms and battled the wash of fury. Of course he had no other idea. He’d never been faced with anything like this in his life. He could never have imagined in his wildest fears something like this. He closed his eyes and rested his cheek against Lilly’s head.
She never reacted, never softened, her tiny body rigid with distress. It ripped into him like a saw, and he couldn’t bear it.
“If you hurt her worse…” was all he could say.
They waited, second by second, the sharp, terrifying thread of Lilly’s voice slicing them into bits as the sun finally topped the far moors and sent a shaft of pure gold into the bright room.
Pooh Bear smiled down from the wall, along with his friends. The Three Little Pigs, whom Lilly had named Spot, Bill and Harry, danced a jig to the Pied Piper’s playing. Little Red Riding Hood stood defiant over the vanquished wolf. All bright, whimsical, playful. Harry swore they all looked frightened.
He couldn’t stand this. God, he couldn’t.
He saw Theo slide around the front corner of the house and disappear beneath him. He heard frantic footsteps and turned to the door. He saw that Bea was already there, the hem of her fairy princess nightgown pooled around her feet and her thumb in her mouth. He wanted to go to her. He couldn’t bear to put Lilly down.
“Phyl,” he whispered.
She jerked as if pulled by strings, but then she caught sight of her other daughter and rushed over to gather her into her arms. “It’s all right, baby,” she said, clutching Bea to her.
“Lilly,” the little girl whispered, every question and fear resonating in her voice.
“Yes,” her mother said. “Lilly.”
Phyl came and stood beside him so that the girls were together. So that they were together to bolster each other. It wasn’t until he heard Theo approach and turned to the door that he realized Sorcha was standing apart from them, completely alone, rigid and silent in the shadows at the edge of the sunlight.
His chest caught at the sight of her. He suddenly wanted to pull her to him, to collect her to his family. And yet he couldn’t help but blame her. As if he’d said the words aloud, she raised her eyes to him, and he saw her raw pain.
“Here, Sorcha,” Theo gasped as he skidded into the room.
Sorcha accepted what looked like a small green drawstring felt bag, the kind jewelers loved to fill with silver chains. She thanked him and balanced the bag in her hand.
Harry could almost hear it in her head. There wasn’t much in the bag. Would it be enough? Would it be what Lilly needed? He wanted to shout at her that of course it wasn’t what Lilly needed. She needed Sorcha and all her freakish friends to just leave them all the hell alone.
“We need to get her to swallow this,” Sorcha said, pulling open the drawstring. “I’ll begin with a small amount and increase it every few minutes until we see a result.”
She sounded so hesitant.
“What’s in it?” Phyl asked.
Sorcha gave her a sad little smile. “Ah, sure, I don’t know. Our healer mixed it. But she’d never hurt a cherished one, I swear that oath on the goddess. The herbs are to help a mortal overcome any fairy ill. I think they can help Lilly.”
Phyl gave Bea a strong, quick hug and then set her down by Theo. “Then do it,” she said, the warrior queen, looking oddly like Boadicea, even in her nightgown.
Sorcha nodded and bent to spill a tiny amount of dusty green herb into her palm. “If you have a bit of water, that might help her manage this. But carefully. The herb has to go down, but, sure, we don’t want her chokin’ on it.”
It was a struggle. Harry changed his hold on Lilly so she lay back in his arms, still stiff and unyielding. Phyl wet a little T-shirt in the pitcher on Lilly’s dresser. Sorcha reached over and dropped a few grains of herb in Lilly’s mouth, and then Phyl squeezed the cloth so that a few drops of water followed. At first Lilly sputtered. She coughed. She screamed, her face unchanged.
Sorcha waited. She watched. Harry couldn’t bear the wait. He wanted to scream himself. He wanted to batter something to splinters with his hands. He wanted to emulate his own horse, and charge after the enemy with a battle cry echoing in his head.
Sorcha stroked little Lilly’s throat, as if encouraging the herb to slide down it. She brushed the little girl’s hair back off her forehead and caught the tears that slid from her eyes with her fingers. She chanted in Gaelic and shook her head.
“Again,” she whispered.
They repeated the process with much the same results.
“This is bollocks,” Harry grated, his heart beating like a bass drum. “We need to call the doctor and get her sedated.”
Sorcha stiffened. “No! Mortal medicine will kill her sure. Let the bean tighe’s remedy work. Give it a bit of time.”
“She doesn’t have a bit of time!” he all but howled. “Look at her!”
Sorcha looked at him, and he saw that pain ravaged her, as well. “I can see her perfectly well, Harry. Please. Trust me.”
He opened his mouth to tell her exactly what he thought of that bit of absurdity but somehow couldn’t say it. He couldn’t look away from her, from the soft well of determination in her eyes, from the sudden, sharp memories of what they’d shared not an hour earlier. She stepped forward, and the rising sun caught her, bathing her in warmth, and suddenly Harry couldn’t think why he shouldn’t trust her.
“Do it again,” he snapped, and turned back to Lilly.
Sorcha tipped the bag over her hand. Phyl wet the shirt. Harry held Lilly where they could reach her to feed her whatever the hell it was Sorcha carried in her magic bag.
And by damn if almost immediately Lilly’s cries didn’t wane a bit. She softened by millimeters in his arms. The room, where the Three Little Pigs were friends with the Cowardly Lion, began, oddly, to warm.
“Ah, there,” Sorcha breathed, stroking Lilly’s face. “There, mo chroidhe, see? You’re feelin’ better already.”
“Lilly?” Phyl said in a strange hiccup. “My piglet?”
Harry felt it before he saw it. He saw it before he heard it. He heard it before he believed it. Lilly’s terror was easing. The dream, or whatever it was, was loosening its hold on her. Her body softened in his arms. Her cries eased away into sporadic sobs. Her eyes, those horrible, staring eyes, slid closed.
Suddenly, shockingly, the room was silent. The four of them stood there wide-eyed and stared at the now-sleeping child in Harry’s arms.
“Oh…my God,” Phyl breathed, taking Lilly from Harry’s arms. “Oh, my God.” Then, burying her face in Lilly’s hair, she burst into sobs.
“Mama?” Bea said, staring.
It was Sorcha who knelt to her. “Let your mama comfort Lilly a bit, sweetheart. Would it be all right, then, if you comforted me?”
Bea said not a word, but lifted her arms. Sorcha picked her up and just held her. Just stroked her bright hair and rubbed her back. And Harry, because he knew just how Theo felt, held the little boy to him until both their trembling eased.
“Crikey,” the little boy said. “I never want to see that again.”
Harry met Sorcha’s gaze and saw the uncertainty there.
“Why didn’t the hawthorn work?” Theo asked. “And the holly and hazel? I thought they were supposed to protect us?”
Sorcha gave him a chagrined smile. “We only surrounded the big house with them.” She shook her head. “We just didn’t think about this one.”
His eyes grew great. “I forgot….”
Harry knelt before him. “You didn’t forget anything. Who could figure something like this?”
Theo’s eyes were grave. “Sorcha did. She said that we had to protect ourselves when she left to find the Dearann Stone. She said she’d make sure to—”
“Ah, now, Theo,” she said from where she was still holding Bea, “it doesn’t matter now. What matters is that we spend this morning laying the circle around your home, too.”
“And the stables,” Theo said. “I thought I heard one of the horses scream.”
Sorcha looked out the window, as if she could see the path Saoirce had taken. “Ah, no,” she said. “That was Saoirce fulfilling her responsibility as Lilly’s guardian. She’s after the beast that visited this on you tonight.”
Theo looked in the same direction. “Will she find him?”
Sorcha shook her head. “I don’t know, Theo. I do know that if she does, he can’t possibly outrun the punishment due him.”
“Mama?”
Everybody turned to see Lilly’s eyes open.
“Yes, my piglet?” Phyl asked, tears once again streaming down her face.
Lilly rubbed a hand over her own cheeks, where Phyl’s tears still gleamed. She scowled. “Wet.”
Phyl’s laugh was a bark of surprise. “Well, that’s because I was watering you, Lilly.”
Lilly’s frown grew. “Why?”
“To help you grow, of course,” Harry said, taking Lilly from Phyl’s arms. He couldn’t help it. He had to hold that little body to him. “Don’t you want to grow?”
“I grow,” she assured him, then gave a great yawn. “Tired.”
“Yes, piglet,” he said. “I imagine you are. If we let you get back to bed, do you think you could take care of that?”
She nodded and nestled her head against his shoulder. Harry couldn’t think of any sweeter feeling on this earth. He looked down to see that her eyes had closed again, her little hand splayed against his chest.
“’Lo, fairy,” she said to Sorcha.
Sorcha’s smile held a myriad of conflicting emotions. “’Lo, Lilly.”
Harry was just about to turn and settle Lilly in her bed when he heard footsteps clambering up the stair. Two sets. Every person in the room turned for the door, ready to do battle to protect the little girl in Harry’s arms.
When the two reached the door, they were winded and wide-eyed.
“Gwyneth?” Harry said, stunned at the windblown woman leaning against Lilly’s door.
Beside him, Sorcha stiffened. “Darragh?”
The beautiful young man standing next to Gwyneth proffered a sheepish smile.
“Who’s he?” Theo asked.
Sorcha opened her mouth but couldn’t seem to get any words out.
“Sure, I’m a bit of extra help, if you’ll have me,” the man Sorcha called Darragh said in a soft, melodic voice.
Then, by damn, he wrapped his arm around Gwyneth.
Harry let an eyebrow rise. “I assume this is what we were going to talk about Thursday, Gwyn?”
She at least had the grace to blush. “I’m sorry, Harry. I can’t explain it.”
He sighed. He could. There was just something about these fairy folk that set reality on end.
“Are you the one who flew over the car?” Theo asked.
Darragh nodded. “Aren’t those beasts a marvel, then? Sure, they’re the fastest things in two worlds altogether.”
“And as interesting as that is,” Harry spoke up, “I think it would be a better discussion for downstairs. Right now, we need to settle Lilly.”
Darragh turned to Sorcha. “I heard her all the way across the moors. The Dubhlainn Sidhe?”
She nodded her head, and Harry thought he’d never seen her look so dispirited. The young man’s shoulders slumped. “I brought him,” he said. “When I kept the gate path open. Ah, Goddess, Sorcha, I’m that sorry.”
Sorcha gave him a brisk nod. “Well, if you are, you can help us track him down and force him back. See what he did, Darragh? See who he did it to?”
Which was when, Harry assumed, Darragh realized that it was Lilly who had been tormented. Darragh sucked in a sibilant breath and shook his head.
“It’s so much worse than we thought. What, then, are you to do, Sorcha?”
“Me?” she echoed, looking small. “What can I do? At least you could visit storms on them.”
“Ahem,” Phyl interrupted, reaching over to reclaim a sleeping Lilly from Harry’s arms. “Downstairs, all of you. I’ll join you when I know Lilly’s really asleep.”
Harry handed off his burden, and thought again how precious the feel of that trusting little body was in his arms. How empty they suddenly were. And would stay, if the look Gwyneth was giving Darragh was any indication.
He stopped long enough to help Theo and Bea settle back into bed. Then he made a brief sojourn out to the stables to find that his filly hadn’t returned to her stall. Half a dozen men had set off in Land Rovers and on horseback to follow her across the moors.
There was nothing he could do to help there, so he returned inside to join the other three in the back salon, where comfortable overstuffed furniture shared space with paintings of the Wyatt horses of the past. Gwyneth was all but sitting in Darragh’s lap on the sofa, her hand wrapped in his, and Sorcha was perched on a footstool, a fairy on a lily pad. Harry shook his head at the whimsical thought. There was no place for that now. Not considering what had just happened in this house.
“You’re really staying?” Sorcha was asking Darragh.
He nodded, looking a bit sheepish. “It’s better, so,” he said, taking hold of Gwyneth’s hand. “Didn’t I forfeit my place in court when I conspired with Orla to bring herself the queen low? I’ve nothing to return to.”
“And what would you be doin’ here?”
His grin was bright. “Sure, my Gwynnie says that there’s a calling for a man who can predict the weather. Especially to someone who trades futures, as she does.”
“Futures?” Sorcha asked.
Darragh shrugged. “It’s a mortal thing, I’m told.”
“All well and good,” Harry interrupted, leaning against the door. “Right now, though, we have a more immediate problem.”
Sorcha leapt to her feet. “Is Saoirce back?”
He shook his head. “Will she find him, do you think?”
Gwyneth was closely watching. “Saoirce? Who—”
“Starchaser,” Harry clarified.
“What’s she got to do with this?” Gwyneth asked.
“She’s after, bein’ Lilly’s guardian,” Sorcha said, as if Gwyneth would simply understand. “She’s trying to track down the fairy who did this thing.”
Gwyneth didn’t even hesitate. “And if she does?”
“She’ll do what we couldn’t. She’ll stop him.”
“And if she doesn’t?”
Slowly Sorcha sat back down. “Ah, then, I don’t know.”
“You’re going to stop him,” Darragh said. “Aren’t you?”
“I don’t know,” Sorcha said. “The Stone is lost, and without it…”
This time Darragh went on alert, looking over at Gwyneth. “Lost? But Gwyn said it was here.”
“So everyone thought. The Stone here isn’t the Dearann Stone, though. It isn’t a fairy stone at all, I’m afraid.”
Harry saw Darragh slump in sick surprise and felt at least a bit better. So Darragh hadn’t been the one to bring this poison then. Darragh, it seemed, had been off charming his fiancée. And out of all this, the only thing that surprised him was how little that thought bothered him.
“You must do something, Sorcha,” Darragh demanded. “Without the Stone, we are lost.”
Sorcha seemed to shrink from those words. “Me? What can I do? I’m but a teacher of children, Darragh. I have no great power, no mighty gift for the settling of nations.”
“Sure, you’re the daughter of Mab,” Darragh protested. “She chose you as her heir. She sent you on this task. She must believe you have the gifts.”
Sorcha shook her head. “She believes nothing, except that it’s her time to go. I have failed my own people, and now I have failed the world of mortals, as well. There is nothing I can do that will matter, Darragh. Nothing.”
Harry saw the true despair in those otherworldly eyes and pushed himself away from the door. “Then I guess I’ll have to,” he said.
Everybody looked at him. Sorcha sat very still, her hands clasped tightly together, her posture rigid with distress. “Ah, no, Harry,” she said. “I’m afraid it’s not possible.”
“What can you do, Harry?” Gwyneth asked.
Harry rubbed at the bridge of his nose, where a headache had taken up residence. He’d known all along he couldn’t keep this secret. That one day he would at least have to tell Theo, to pass along the truth he’d so assiduously hidden to protect his own sanity. He just hadn’t anticipated having to take care of it himself.
“I can recover the true Dearann Stone,” he said.
“Harry,” Sorcha gently admonished, climbing to her feet. “Even a fairy might not be able to find it.”
“They could if they knew where it was.”
Now even Gwyneth was on her feet. “You know?”
There was no more chance to back down. “Yes. I’m quite afraid I do.”