Harry dropped the Dearann Stone at his feet.
“Noooooo!”
He was only a step away when Sorcha fell, still caught in the clutches of the other fairy. Her eyes were open. She was completely limp, a rag doll tossed aside by an impatient child. Harry’s heart stopped as he reached for her. He unwound her from the clutches of those bloody, rigid fingers and clutched her to his chest.
“Ah, Goddess,” he heard behind him as he pulled her into his arms. “No. Not Sorcha.”
Harry looked up to see Darragh collapse to the ground not three feet away.
“Do something!” he demanded.
Darragh closed his eyes and shook his head. “Get her across,” he said, sounding lost. “Her and the Stone. It’s her only chance.”
Harry looked down at her, but he couldn’t tell if she still breathed. He couldn’t feel her heart beating. “God, Sorcha, please don’t do this. Not now. Not now!”
He wanted to crush her to him, to beat on her, to force air into her mouth.
“Now, man! She doesn’t have any time!”
Harry looked up, and suddenly there, right in front of them, not five feet from where the other fairy lay, twisted and blackening even as he watched, the mists cleared to reveal a gate. Ornate, stone, empty. Harry couldn’t think, could do only what he’d been told. Grabbing the Dearann Stone, he lifted Sorcha into his arms. Then he carried them both through the gate.
He didn’t know what he’d expected. What he first saw wasn’t that different from what he’d left: long, cold hills and an indifferent sky. In fact, he turned back to make sure, because he was certain only fairy magic would save Sorcha, and if this wasn’t the land of fairies, they were lost.
“Please,” he prayed, tightening his hold on her.
She was warm. Wasn’t she warm? Could she be alive, in some place mortals didn’t know how to get to? He looked around the long valley, where trees were shedding their leaves, and he panicked.
“Help me!” he yelled as loudly as he could. “Help Sorcha! I have—”
He never got out the rest. Suddenly there were throngs of people there. No, not people. Beings. Some rode on horseback. Some flew. He would think about that later. Right now, he ran toward them.
“Save her. Please, save her. She brought the Dearann Stone home to you. You have to help her!”
In the front of the throng a woman stepped forward. Tall, lithe, elegant, so blond that the sun seemed to shine from her hair. Harry didn’t even have to see the crown on her head to know who she was.
“You’re her mother,” he begged. “Do something!”
She slowed to a regal halt and smiled, her green cat’s eyes amused. “And what have you brought me, then, mortal?”
He shook suddenly with rage. “Your daughter, damn it. And if you don’t help her, you’ll lose her faster than you lost your precious bloody Stone.”
Her eyebrow lifted in regal disdain. “You certainly have a way with an insult, little man. Do you know who it is you accuse?”
“A woman who worries more for her prestige than the life of her daughter.” He turned away from her. “Is there anybody here who can help us?”
The queen waved a languid arm. “Fuist, little man. Even a queen would never forfeit her own daughter. Let the bean tighe see her.”
Cold bitch. He wasn’t sure he should leave Sorcha here after all. She would be better off with his family, even if the mortal world fretted at her. At least she would know his gran loved her, that Lilly would always delight her.
“Peace, mortal,” the queen soothed, her voice suddenly soft. “Leave her with us. I promise she will be well.”
Harry didn’t move. He didn’t let go of his precious burden. He looked down at Sorcha’s face, so unspeakably pale, the circles beneath her eyes darkened, the life that was so much a part of her absent. He saw a tear splash against her cheek and thought how he never cried.
“Here,” he said, not bothering to look up. “It may not mean as much to you as it did to her, but she brought this to you.”
He lifted his arm and opened his hand. The green velvet pouch that had protected the Dearann Stone fell away, and the sun struck what was left behind. A thousand colors of light shattered over the hills and seemed to make the trees shudder. A long, heartfelt sigh rose from the throng. The queen went perfectly still.
“Ah, well, and didn’t I say that our Sorcha was the very one to recover our precious Dearann Stone?”
Harry thought he heard singing in his head. He saw the sea of fairies bow as reverently as priests at high mass. Then the crowd parted, and a tiny, unspeakably ugly being came trotting up.
Harry took an instinctive step back, pulling Sorcha closer. The gnarled, wrinkled old woman seemed to be grinning.
“Hasn’t the girl spoken of her own bean tighe, then?” she asked. “If I’m not much mistaken, it’s the smell of my own herbs that’s about you.”
Harry bent over and squinted, as if it would help pull her into some kind of focus. “You gave her those?”
She squinted right back. “And weren’t they after helping?”
“Will you cure her?”
The little creature settled a nut-brown hand on Sorcha’s forehead and closed her eyes. Harry swore her pointed little ears quivered. The vast plain fell into absolute silence as every creature waited for the beantighe’s words. He held his breath, frantic with impatience. Please. God, please…
Finally, drawing a great breath, the old woman lifted her head. “Aye, mortal,” she said, her voice impossibly soft, a mother’s voice that conjured memories Harry didn’t even think he had. “She’ll do. Leave her with me, so she can heal.”
“Will she be whole again?”
She nodded. “In time. In time. But first we’ll put her to her own bed, so she recognizes herself as being home. She’s suffered greatly in your mortal world, hasn’t she?”
He could barely get the words out. “She has.”
Suddenly the bean tighe beamed and patted his arm, just like Lilly. “And she has gained much, as well. The queen there might be a bit stiff on it, but we who revere our princess thank you for bringing her home to us.”
This time he could get no words out at all. His throat simply closed up. Two tall men stepped forward and held out their arms for her. Harry couldn’t let go. He couldn’t give her up after all. He couldn’t go home.
“Take care with her,” he warned, not caring that there were tears in his voice. He handed her over to them, where she would be safe. Where she would be home.
“Tell her…” He shook his head. “Tell her…”
The tiny woman reached up to pat his hand. “Aye, lad. I’ll tell her, and be happy to.”
He nodded. He watched as they carried her away. He didn’t notice that the queen had stepped forward.
“Will you stay and tell us what adventures our little Sorcha has had?” she asked.
From the reaction of the crowd, he knew not many people got such an invitation. He looked around at them and finally saw what had existed beyond his focus. And he recognized it all. The soft glen, the creatures, the horses that looked so much like his own, the trees that seemed as if they could talk to you.
For the second time in moments, his heart broke. He had brought Sorcha home, only to realize that he was home, too. Except that he wasn’t. He had no place here while his family needed him.
“Mortal?”
He turned back to see the queen assessing him with her odd cat’s eyes. “Harry,” he corrected her, straightening to his elegant best. “Harold George Cormac Augustus Beverly Wyatt, ninth Earl of Hartley.”
For some reason that caught the queen’s attention. She offered a frosty smile and seemed to suddenly look more closely at him. She stepped closer and stilled. Harry thought for sure that her eyes widened in surprise.
“Yes,” a little boy alongside her said. “He bears the look.”
“Goddess,” the queen said. “He’s the very butter stamp of him.”
“You knew my ancestor, did you?” Harry asked.
For some reason the queen and the boy exchanged significant looks.
“And it’s you who’s had the Dearann Stone all this while?” she asked him, her posture minimally different. Less haughty.
“My family. It’s said that Cathal was the one who left it with us.”
She nodded. “And you allowed Sorcha to bring it back?”
“Sorcha fought like a warrior for it. You might want to know that there’s a dead Dubhlainn Sidhe just on the other side of your gates.”
She frowned. “And who might have been responsible?”
“Your daughter.”
He thought he actually saw a smile on her face. She nodded again. “Will you stay and give us the tale?”
Harry took another look around and thought how magnificently eccentric it was that he felt more at home with these creatures than the population of London. Too much at home. The longer he stayed, the harder it would be to leave. He handed the stone to the queen.
“No,” he said. “It’s Sorcha’s story to tell. I was just there to help.”
The queen lifted a regal eyebrow. “And you’ve no curiosity about what lies on the underside of the hill?”
He lied, and he knew she knew he lied. “No, thank you. I need to be getting home. My family will be worried.”
She looked as if she were about to object again. Harry never gave her the chance. He simply turned around and walked back through the gate. Back to the only world he’d always known. Back where he didn’t belong anymore.
Sorcha healed slowly. She wasn’t sure how long she spent lost in the nightmare of a Dubhlainn Sidhe’s revenge. Time, after all, wasn’t a faerie concept. She just knew that again and again she woke screaming, sure he’d come back for Lilly or Theo, or that he’d stripped Harry of his soul out on that barren hilltop.
Every time she woke, it was to find the bean tighe by her bedside, when it was Harry she looked for. Every time she begged to know if her bairn would be harmed by what had happened.
“Ah, no, child. How could you be thinkin’ I’d let any harm come to such a precious gift as you’re bringing us? The babe is protected and will retain nothing of this on his journey to us.”
Each time Sorcha eased back to sleep, to the realm of healing and renewal. Each time she checked out the window to see that the spring had reawakened in the land of faerie with the return of the Dearann Stone. She felt her in her heart, the soft singing of her, the sweet spring greenness of her.
She had no idea what her mother the queen had done with her. No one would say. She knew, though, that the queen had set a plan in motion, and that her sister Orla was involved. And didn’t she wish she had the energy to enjoy the idea of that? But the only energy she wasted was in thinking about Harry. Wondering whether he’d settled in back home. Wondering if he missed her with the same bone-deep pain with which she missed him. Wondering how she would ever raise his babe without him.
She wasn’t sure how long it took, because time was elastic, but one day she woke to hear birdsong and smell the sharp spice of wild iris, and she knew it was time to rise. And when she did, it was to find her mother at her bedside.
“Well, little Sorcha,” the queen said where she sat looking unconcerned. “You’ve decided to return to us, then.”
Sorcha lay very still. “I have.”
Her mother nodded slowly, and Sorcha thought there was something different about her. Something that bespoke new flexibility, maybe. With some care, she rose to sit before her mother.
“And have you great stories to tell us that will be sung by the bards when we meet at the great hall?” Mab asked.
“I have no great stories, lady. Just a small one, as befits a teacher of children.”
Her mother smiled, and Sorcha saw something she had never seen in Mab’s eyes before. A measure of pride. “Oh, I wouldn’t be saying that, daughter. You are a princess of the blood. No matter your gift, it could never be small. And now you have the tale of the Dearann Stone to add to your song.”
“She is safe, then? She is back where she belongs?”
“Well, she’s still here, now, isn’t she? She was needed to heal one who is precious to her queen.” Her mother raised an imperious eyebrow. “Lookin’ at you, though, I’d say her work is fair finished altogether. It’s time you were returning to court, little girl.”
“I will not be queen,” Sorcha said, just to be getting that out of the way.
There was a long silence, and Sorcha thought even the birds had gone quiet. Sorcha knew her voice carried the change in her. She wondered how her mother would accept it.
“You have the right,” the queen said with a vague wave of her hand, as if it had never mattered. “Haven’t you carried out the task I set you? You brought honor to your clan, and, whether you like it or not, with your small claims and your humble aspirations, your name will be recorded in the list of great deeds.”
“And I have your blessing to continue as I am?”
“You would want that?”
Sorcha wasn’t surprised anymore by the shaft of pain that seared her at the thought of what she really wanted.
“Aye, my lady. It is what I would want.”
“And what of the mortal who looked on you with besotted eyes, little Sorcha? You mean to tell me you’ll not keep him?”
“He doesn’t belong here.” Her voice was small and sad.
“Faith,” her mother snapped. “If that isn’t a statement I’m tired of hearing. First from your sister and now from you. Just how doesn’t he belong here when he bears the perfect stamp of his faerie blood? When he looked at these hills as a man in exile looks on his homeland?”
Sorcha felt tears welling in her eyes and thought her mother would be appalled. “Ah, no. Did he?”
“As well you know, or you wouldn’t be after threatening to water your linen. What is it keeps this one away, then?”
Sorcha would never have thought she could share such a thing with her mother. She never would have thought the great queen could care for such mundane problems. But then, would she ever have thought to hear the queen call her precious? Suddenly, she found herself opening up to her mother.
“Just as the queen can’t leave her people for her own comfort when they are in need, so an honorable mortal man cannot leave his family to ruin so he might find his own peace.”
“And doesn’t it serve them right for holding the great Dearann Stone hostage all these years?”
“It does not,” Sorcha said, sitting straighter. “How could they know, then, what a treasure it was they had? The one who brought it is long gone, and Harry was the first to even feel the pull of her. For all the faerie blood in them, only a few are fully aware.”
“Did he tell you of the one who brought it across?”
“Just his name. Cathal. A royal name for certain.”
“Oh, aye, and all that.” The queen enjoyed a private smile. “And another surprise for the mortal if he would wish to discover it.”
“Why?” Sorcha asked.
Her mother shook her head. “Ah, no, little one. He’d have to come for it himself. Now then, what ruin does he face, this mortal you love so deeply you’d bear his child?”
“Conceived in a sacred grove, lady,” Sorcha said, her hand protective over her belly. “A gift to us all, I’m thinking.”
“A gift he’ll never share, for want of a walk through the gates.”
“Ah, but he can’t. The place where they’ve guarded the Stone these years, a good place with the sacred grove and black bog oak for comfort, would be lost to them without Harry’s help. His family would be lost, for his ancestors, once acquainted with the land of faerie, spent all their gains trying to get back. There is nothing left to sustain them. And not simply those he loves, but one we of faerie love, as well. A cherished one, who is in great risk if he fails. How in honor could he desert them simply to be with me?”
Her mother’s face actually softened. “A cherished one? You had the privilege?”
“Oh, aye. And no matter the pain to me, I would never cost Harry the safety and comfort of that child.”
“No,” the queen mused, looking out the window. “No, you couldn’t. What of the copy stone I sent with you, Sorcha? Did you give it to them?”
She shook her head. “They already had a copy. One that didn’t torment my poor Harry with visions of places he could never go.”
Her mother looked up at her. “Where is it?” she asked. “The stone you carried away?”
Sorcha shrugged. “It was carried home with me.”
The queen laughed suddenly, a short, harsh bark that sounded odd coming from one so elegant. “And you never thought to tell them, Sorcha. Did you?”
“Tell them what?”
It was the weekend, and Harry was on horseback. It was the only place he felt alive anymore, throwing himself over jumps and measuring the moors on one of his ghost-gray horses. It had been five months since he’d left Sorcha on the other side of the gate. Five months of sleepless nights and long silences. Five months of trying to convince Lilly that her fairy was gone. Five months of Phyl’s sympathy and Gwyneth’s delight. She’d married her own fairy, and they were madly happy. Harry wanted to hurt them both.
He couldn’t help it. He felt more out of place than ever before. He found himself again and again standing before the murals in the front salon, aching to walk back through that gate. He found himself hearing Sorcha’s voice in the dawn, smelling the cinnamon and honey scent of her on the wind.
He was on Moonsilver today, one of his fey gray colts who looked to be an excellent eventer. Harry was taking him over the low jumps, getting him used to the rhythm and pace of them.
He should quit. It was getting on toward dusk, and he knew Phyl would be yelling at him to for heaven’s sake eat something, but he wasn’t hungry. He was in need of a way to exhaust himself to sleep. The nightmares were gone. The sense that he should wake to find Sorcha next to him wasn’t.
He heard Lilly over by the stables, but he couldn’t turn his horse toward her. Every time he’d seen her lately, she’d patted him and sighed.
“You go, Harry. You go.”
He didn’t even want to ask her what she meant. He knew what he wanted, and that was hard enough. At least she was thriving. They could hardly keep her off Soairce these days, and it was helping her coordination and stamina. Whatever else Harry did, he would make sure that little girl never lost her home.
“Hi, fairy,” he heard her say, and jumped so hard in the saddle that he startled his horse.
He shook his head. She shouldn’t do that. A man could die of disappointment when he turned around to find she was playing a game. He turned around anyway. And almost fell off his horse.
Moonsilver came to a shuddering stop, almost upending him. The horse whinnied. The horse bowed. The other horses perked up ears and heads and headed for Lilly’s voice.
Harry couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t think. He couldn’t move.
It was the dying light, he swore. It was his own wishful thinking taking form in the shadows.
“Is it so disappointed you are, then, to see me, Harry Wyatt?” she asked.
Here. She was here. The enormity of it lodged in his chest and blocked his breath.
“Sorcha?”
She laughed and walked toward him. She was in her fairy dress, and it swirled around her lovely legs. Her hair shone like gold, and her eyes were the color of spring leaves. And she was here. He swung down off Moonsilver and stalked toward her.
“What are you doing here?” he demanded.
“You go, Harry!” Lilly yelled from over by the paddock fence.
Sorcha walked right into his arms. He couldn’t believe it. He pulled her so tightly against him that he was sure she couldn’t breathe. “What have you done, Sorcha?”
“I’m in good health, thank you, Harry,” she said with a chuckle. “You’re a bit thin, altogether. Are you well?”
“I’m dying for want of you.”
She cupped his face in her hands and kissed him. He met her openmouthed and all but devoured her. “Please tell me you haven’t sacrificed anything.”
She pulled back a bit, so she could see him better. “You wouldn’t want me to?”
“God, no.” He couldn’t help it. He kissed her again. He hugged her hard, as if he could better convince himself of her presence that way. He closed his eyes and buried his face in the silk of her hair and never wanted to leave.
“Ah, I’ve missed you so, Harry,” she whispered, her arms just as tight around him.
“You have no idea, Sorcha.” He straightened and ran a finger down her cheek. “The Dearann Stone. Were we successful?”
“Oh, aye. Haven’t you noticed the spring, then, Harry? The lambs are birthing.”
“And it’s over?”
“Well, now, that’s a different story entirely. The tale isn’t full told yet, as Orla is still completing her part of the mission.”
“What’s that?”
“Ah, well, herself the queen won’t say. We’re all supposed to wait like good subjects.”
“Hi, queen,” Lilly was saying.
It took Harry a minute to pull himself away from the beauty of Sorcha’s eyes to comprehend that.
“Queen?” he finally asked.
By then his entire family was out there. He picked every one of them out of the gloom, even Gran in her chair. The staff was clustered in the nearest doorway, staring at their surprise guest. And not at Sorcha.
“Good God,” he muttered.
“Ah, well, it was the cherished one,” Sorcha admitted. “Herself couldn’t pass up the opportunity to meet our Lilly. She also thought to deliver the invitation in person, which I thought to be unusually generous of her. Don’t you?”
He couldn’t quite take his eyes off the queen where she knelt in the grass before Lilly, her white dress only a shade lighter than her moon-pale hair. Phyl and Ted stood a few feet away, mouths agape. Mary stood behind Gran’s chair, with Sims and Tommie beyond her. Theo had placed himself next to Lilly, as if to protect her from the queen.
Harry was already smiling. Lilly needed no protection.
“Harry go,” Lilly demanded of the queen, patting that impossibly sleek cheek. “Gran go.”
“Ah, and aren’t you the wise one?” the queen said with a startlingly sweet smile. “They’re just who I’ve come for. Is it all right, then?”
Lilly considered the queen as if Mab herself were the supplicant. “I not go.”
“Ah, no, sweet. Wouldn’t your parents weep for it if you did? But we’ll always be nearby, sure, to watch you.”
Lilly nodded emphatically. “Good.”
Harry’s heart stumbled at the words. “Sorcha, I told you—”
“Fuist, Harry,” she said, and lifted something in her hand. “I’ve brought you a gift.”
He looked down to see the last light of day gleam on the egg-shaped stone in her hand. “You don’t have to bring us another stone,” he said. “We have one.”
“Not like this,” she said, and smiled. Reaching over, she took his hand and dropped the stone into it. Then she curled his fingers around the stone. “How big would you say this is, Harry?”
He wasn’t sure what to say. “Size of a cricket ball, I’d say. Why?”
“Is that considered a big diamond, Harry?”
“Of course. But this is quartz. You know that.”
“No, Harry. The other stone is a quartz. This, I’m afraid, is a diamond. It was what I brought to replace the stone I stole.”
“A diamond?”
She looked chagrined. “And how was I to know how important the thing was? Sure, we’ve got them by the wagonload. Else how could we give fairies their soulstones?”
“Diamonds.”
She grinned. “Herself the queen rather thought you might accept it as thanks for your help.”
Harry couldn’t think. Suddenly the rock was heavy in his hands. Impossibly large, if it was, in fact, a diamond.
“And she has a few more, as well,” Sorcha said. “She doesn’t want the cherished one to ever find herself in need, Harry. I’m thinking she found the way to do it.”
“Lilly isn’t the only cherished one, Sorcha.”
“Oh, aye, that we know. But she’s crossed the world of fairy, and when that happens, she becomes a thread in our weave. We are obliged to protect her.”
As if to punctuate Sorcha’s words, the queen was even then standing to raise a hand to Lilly’s horse, who was literally kneeling before her.
“I honor you, my lovely Soairce,” the queen proclaimed, “and make official my daughter’s choice of you as guardian for this cherished one. Your name will be linked to hers in the rolls of honor.”
Harry was sure the horse shivered. She bent her head to receive the queen’s benediction, and Lilly laughed in pure delight. Harry looked back at the glittering egg in his hand. “Good sweet God,” he breathed. The thing had to be worth millions.
Millions.
He was having trouble breathing again. Dragging air into his lungs, he raised his head and looked at his surroundings. The universe of his early life. The only home he’d known, the one he’d fought for and protected and sacrificed for.
The one in which he’d never really belonged.
Did he have the courage? Did he have a choice?
“Phyl,” he said, focusing on Sorcha’s hesitant smile rather than the anxiety in his voice. “Do you think you and Ted would like to take over this enterprise for your son?”
His heart was beginning to beat hard. It couldn’t be possible.
Phyl never hesitated. “Hand over the diamond and I’ll work for your investment bank if you want, Harry.”
He looked over to his cousin to see the wistful smile on her face. “Truly?”
“I want you to be happy, Harry.”
Harry reached out to take Sorcha’s hand and turned to face the gathered audience. Especially the queen, who was now holding on to Lilly’s hand.
“I hear you have need of a master of horse,” he said to her.
The queen’s smile was ghostly in the fading light. “That I do. Are you interested in the position, then, little man?”
Harry grinned like a ten-year-old. “That depends on what’s being offered.”
“I see. You have demands, I presume.”
“A request, rather.” He turned to Sorcha, unable to believe this moment. “Your daughter.”
“Ah, you wish to be consort.”
“I wish her to be my wife.”
Sorcha folded her arms around him. “A good thing,” she said. “I know you mortals are fierce protective of your children.”
Which was when she laid his hand against the new roundness of her belly. Harry stopped breathing all over again. Then she was in his arms again, and he didn’t think he would ever let her go.
“Gran?” he asked, his eyes closed as he inhaled cinnamon and honey. “What would you say to a bit of a trip?”
“Me?” He’d never heard her voice so small and uncertain.
“Go, old woman,” Mary said. “I want to go back to the sun. You want to ride your horses and meet fairies.”
And so it was. It took longer than that evening, because good wishes demanded legal documents in the mortal world and goodbyes were never swift. But by the time spring was in full bloom, with new foals to fill the paddocks and Sorcha swollen with their child, Harry and Sorcha said farewell to his family, whom they would see on the odd Halloween and through Lilly’s eyes, and they accompanied his grandmother through the great gate into the world of fairies.
The story of the Dearann Stone was still not finished, but with the Stone back in the world of fairy, there was hope. There was new life, and there was a new master of the horse, who was often seen mounted alongside his new wife and his laughing grandmother as they raced over the fairy hills into the sunset.
Left behind, the family happily embellished the tale of the Fairy Prince and his great-great grandson. They closed the house back up and built a small shrine at the far edge of the property to house the rock the world thought was the Fairy Diamond and let the hordes ogle it there. They cashed in the real fairy diamond and built one of the finest horsebreeding estates in the world. Nobody had to know that not all their stock came from Ireland. Some came through a gate on a high hill on the moors. And as they arrived, each paid obeisance to the laughing girl named Lilly, who was so beloved to two worlds, and gave greeting to her brother, who protected her.
And in the land of faerie, Harry kept track of it all. Well, when he wasn’t too busy cherishing his new role and the love who had tumbled into his arms on a cold moor. He wore clothing that made him look like Robin Hood and rode horses that spoke in his mind, and he made love with the woman he’d married beneath a bower in a fairy glen. And there in that glen was where he found his peace. Because it was there, with a fairy princess named Sorcha, that well into his thirtieth year, Harold George Cormac Augustus Beverly Wyatt finally came home.