Bronwyn woke with her chest on fire, the pain almost unimaginable. Outside her window, a pale early morning sky hung low over a wind-whipped sea. She tried to breath, but it hurt too much. Then the pain stopped.
The door flew open, and Roderick ran in looking like he’d gone twelve rounds with Mike Tyson and a velociraptor. Arms braced, poised for action, he searched her chamber. “What’s amiss?”
The state of him pushed her nightmare from her mind. “What happened to you?”
Roderick paced her room. “You screamed.”
“This pain woke me.” She placed her palm over her chest for the reassurance of her still beating heart.
He frowned and looked at her. “A pain in your chest?”
“It was intense, but it’s gone now.” She tried to reconstruct the dream she’d been having before the pain had ripped her out of sleep. “I was sleeping and then this pain.” She clenched her T-shirt over her breastbone. “It was like I was having a heart attack or something.”
“And now?” Roderick frowned down at her.
Bronwyn took a deep careful breath, but everything seemed fine. “It’s gone.”
“And you are well now?” He studied her.
The irony caught up with her of him standing there sporting a swollen jaw, a split lip, a bruise on his cheekbone, and that was the damage she could see. “Right back at you, big guy?”
“I had some difficulties.” He drew himself up.
The tough guy routine—surprise, surprise! Their medieval meathead didn’t want to acknowledge he was in pain. She threw back her covers and climbed out of bed. “Let’s have a look at you.”
“Blessed.” He drew his shoulders back and looked down his crooked, puffy nose at her. “I—”
“Save it.” She was wise to him now, and he wasn’t that scary.
The stone floor was warm beneath her feet, and she pointed at it. “Did you do this?”
“The floor?” He eyed her warily.
“It’s warm.” She had to peer up at him. “It was cold when I first got here. You arrive, Baile wakes up, and now we have warm floors.” Amongst other things that threatened to blow her mind. Rooms with enough light and no visible light source. Dust that never settled on anything. Your everyday sentient castle type stuff.
He shrugged. “It’s not like Baile and I have entire conversations.”
“Whatever.” He was so much taller than her that getting a good look at his injuries was never going to work. “Could you conjure up a chair or a stool and sit on it?”
He cocked his head. “There is a healer’s hall, you know?”
“No.” She hadn’t known that because there was more to learn and get comfortable with every day. “Would you be less of a pain in the ass about me checking you out if I took you there?”
“Blessed.” He growled and loomed over her like a street dog caught after a fight.
“Warrior.” She hadn’t even attempted to pronounce coimhdeacht yet. “I’m nearly hundreds sure this is not your first brawl, and as certain it won’t be your last. You know how this goes.”
His cold, cold blue eyes seared her, and then they warmed a moment before the most beautiful smile split his somber face. And, holy shitballs! That smile, though. It bore repeating, so she did—holy shit balls. With Roderick marching about being all toxic masculinity and arrogant male throwback, it was easy to forget what a good-looking son of a bitch he was. There was a reason he’d manwhored his way through the coven, and she was seeing it now.
“You have large opinions for such a small woman,” he said.
“And you’re a huge wuss for someone built like a brick shithouse.”
He shook his head. “Only half of that made sense, but come along, and I’ll show you the healer’s hall.”
“Then I check you out,” she said as she trotted along in his wake. “Where’s Maeve?”
“Sleeping.” He glanced over his shoulder. “It’s still early and she does not sleep enough, so I did not wake her.”
He might do so in an outdated manner, but Roderick did care for his witch. “How old are you anyway?”
Not breaking stride, he laughed. “A gentleman never tells.”
“You know I can google this right?”
“No.” He strode across the great hall and down the stairs into the kitchen. “I am fairly certain I have never googled anything in my entire life, nor will I want to.”
“I wouldn’t go that far.” Bronwyn had to run to keep up. “You’ll become a slave to the almighty goog like the rest of us.”
He stopped and shook his head at her. “You are a peculiar little thing.”
“Ah, no.” She made a grab for his arm, missed and had to run after him through the kitchen and into the bailey. “You did not just call me that.”
“Pretty sure I did,” he said. His attempt at an American accent was not bad, all things considered.
“Are you mocking me?”
“Come, Blessed.” He stopped at a large set of double wooden doors. Like most of the outer doors in Baile, they bristled with thick metal hardware. Roderick pushed them open and stepped aside. “Behold, the healer’s hall.”
Bronwyn stepped into a wide room with vaulted ceilings and stone floors. West facing windows occupied the wall opposite the door. “This is amazing.”
“It used to be a kitchen when Baile was first built.” Roderick stayed beside her. “Then we decided we liked hot dinners better and moved the kitchen into the main keep. This became the healer’s hall.”
“It’s amazing.” The air smelled like astringents and drying herbs. The source of the lovely smell was a bank of floor-to-ceiling wooden shelves filled with neatly labeled glass jars. Bronwyn moved closer. She wanted to touch but dared not, so she read the labels. “Valerian root. That would help Maeve sleep.” Beside the valerian was vanilla, then verbena (lemon), vervain, vetiver oil, and vinegar (apple cider)—everything neat, orderly, and in its place. “I know these.”
Roderick nodded. “You are a healer.”
“I am.” She kept reading. Self-heal for bruises, cuts and sprains, and wounds. The fresh leaves and flowers could be bruised and applied directly to a wound. Dried, it combined well with other herbs in a tea as an antibiotic, particularly good for eye infections and conjunctivitis.
She stood on her toes to read the higher labels. Comfrey, used in a salve or an ointment for the treatment of burns, skin ulcerations, abrasions and lacerations. It also worked a treat on flea and insect bites. Almost any skin irritation including eczema.
Perhaps it was only the herbs, but she felt like she belonged in that place.
A scrubbed wooden table dominated the center of the room. In its kitchen days, the table must’ve been used for pounding bread dough and chopping the heads off chickens, but now it was littered with jars, vials, mortars and pestles, and surgical instruments. All the tools of her trade, all spotlessly clean and looking like someone had left them not ten minutes ago. They also looked like they were waiting for her to pick them up and use them. “Do the others know this is here?”
“I’m uncertain.” Roderick shrugged. “Baile is often selective with her many secrets.”
Hanging above the table, were bushels of drying herbs. Near the windows, in soldierly rows, sat empty window boxes. Positioned as they were, they would catch maximum light. She could plant all kinds of medicinal plants in those boxes.
“There is more.” Roderick led her to an arched stone doorway to the left of the window boxes. A short flight of stairs opened into another large room—vaulted ceilings, stone floors, lots of wood, and even more light. The windows faced east, and the sun was forcing its way through the clouds.
“This was the infirmary.” Roderick looked grim. “That last time I was down here, it was full of gravely ill witches and villagers.”
The sadness in him drew her. “How did they get sick?”
“Rhiannon.” His jaw tightened. “She managed to spread contagion through the village. The healers, of course, had to go and heal it.”
Pieces dropped into place. “Ah! When Maeve went to the village with them.”
“She told you about that?” He raised an eyebrow.
“She told us she nearly got you killed.”
He snorted. “She exaggerates.”
“Maybe.” For two people who’d been bonded such a brief time, Maeve and Roderick had shared a lot. “But there is some truth to be found at the bottom of a bottle.”
Roderick laughed, and that smile…wow! “Along with a fair amount of bullshit.”
“True that.” She motioned him to a small wooden stool close to the windows. “Now, let’s get to why we’re here.”
“It is no longer necessary, Blessed.” Roderick’s grin was more than a touch smug. “I am healed.”
Bronwyn didn’t intend to take his word for it, so she carried the stool over to him and stood on it.
His eyes twinkled with amusement as she got eye to eye with him. “Son of a bitch!” The bruise around his eyes had faded to a shadow, and his lip was normal. His nose had lost the swelling and knit itself back straight. “You did this on purpose, didn’t you?” She glared down at him, because she could. “You distracted me by showing me this wonderful hall so I wouldn’t check on your injuries.”
“Blessed.” He did a passable attempt at looking innocent. “That would make me duplicitous.”
“Yes, it would.” She fixed him with a stare. She was wise to him now, and this wouldn’t happen again. “Where I come from, we’d even go so far as to call you a low down, sneaky varmint.”
“What, by all that’s holy, is a varmint?”
Bronwyn grim eyed him. “I’m looking at one.”
“I showed you this hall, Blessed, because this is where you belong,” he said, and his eyes grew serious. “You are a healer, and your place is in this hall. You are a cré-witch; your place is at Baile.” His gaze bored into her. “You are called, water witch. Your Goddess needs you.”
Maeve couldn’t believe she was awake this early after her night with Alanna and Bronwyn. She could sense Roderick in the healer’s hall and guessed he would be with Bronwyn. If there was any justice in the world, Bronwyn would also be feeling the effects of their night. Unable to sleep and needing the comforting presence of the sigils, she’d slipped out of bed and come to the caverns. Roderick thought she was still sleeping. She liked Bronwyn, but she was worried. Bronwyn had yet to accept who she was and where she fit into the future of the cré-witches.
Strange that, but it was a familiar confusion to what she felt.
Keeping a tight hold on Roderick’s bond, she wandered through the caverns. She stopped at the wall and laid a hand upon the nearest sigils. The sense of witches past was so faint. The place where her magic bloomed was like a tiny spark to the inferno that had once been hers to command. Her loss of magic was an empty void within her.
She refused to believe she would never walk with the spirits again. Pressing her forehead to the rock, she whispered, “I am here. I will walk with you again.”
“Sister.”
“Spirit walker.”
Voices that had once sounded so clearly in her mind where now muted to almost imperceptible.
“You’ll have to show me how to reach you.” She raised her voice. It echoed through the caverns. “I don’t know how.”
A particular sigil stopped her. Maeve brushed her fingertips over it. Here, she had scribed Rose on the cavern walls. Rose, so young and such a talented healer, and the first witch carried to the sacred isles by the village contagion. It was also the first time Roderick had witnessed her scribing magic. After, as she lay exhausted and devastated by the passing of a life, he had picked her up and cradled her. For the first time when Roderick had found her and comforted her, she had shared the burden of grief that passed over her once she had scribed a life on the cavern walls.
Roderick must have perceived her emotions because he quested for her through the bond.
Maeve reassured him and walked into the central cavern. The pool was a milky opalescent this morning. She approached the rock outcrop at the far end of the cavern, behind Goddess Pool. Her mind veered from the last time she had taken the secret tunnel to the village. Thomas had rushed them all into the tunnel, thinking he was hurrying them to safety. He had given his life to ensure they got to the village.
In the end, it had all been for nothing, because Rhiannon had been waiting for them on the other side.
A cold draft stroked her nape, and Thomas wove into view. He looked so corporeal, as if she could reach out and touch him.
“Go ahead and try.” Hands held out to his sides, Thomas grinned roguishly, and it was heartbreakingly familiar.
Heart in her throat, Maeve tried to keep it light. “You can read my mind now?”
“A small perk.” He shrugged. “And not entirely how this works. I’m more connected to Roderick somehow, and he can read your mind, so I can catch echoes of that.”
“Ah.” One man plundering her thoughts was enough. She hardly needed another.
“I did it willingly.” Thomas sounded serious, and she looked at him. “My death,” he said. “I don’t regret it, even if matters didn’t transpire as any of us would have chosen.”
“We had no idea her poison ran so deep through the coven.” Maeve relived those last days of the coven more than she would have liked. Roderick chastised her that it was purposeless, but she couldn’t stop herself. Questions circled her mind constantly. Why had they not seen what Rhiannon was up to? Why had they waited to accuse Fiona?
Thomas folded his arms and shook his head. “It serves no purpose, Maeve, it really does not. Hindsight is always so exact. It was hard to believe so many of our own could turn against us.”
She nodded because he expected it, but the guilt lingered. If they’d acted faster, they might have prevented all those deaths.
“I need to show you something.” Thomas moved closer. His legs went through the walking motions, but his feet made no contact with the ground. It was disconcerting. “Roderick should come with us. We’re going to the village.”
“In the daylight?” Maeve had never risked discovery like that.
Thomas shrugged. “It is still early and there is nobody about. What I need you to see can only be glimpsed in the morning light.”
Last time she’d gone to the village without Roderick was one time enough, and she nodded. “Roderick is with Bronwyn.”
“She is the one?” Thomas tilted his head. “The daughter of life?”
“We believe so.” She sent a surge through the bond for Roderick to hurry. “Alexander appears to believe so as well.”
Thomas grew thoughtful. “That one has changed much, but he has to hide it from Rhiannon.”
That name made her shiver. “He killed witches.”
“No.” Thomas shook his head. “Mainly he fought coimhdeacht, and he did not use magic.”
“Shall we give him a medal?” Maeve couldn’t keep the anger out her voice. “Because I remember clearly how he tried to have the village drown me.”
“I have thought on that.” Thomas stroked his chin. “He had to have known Roderick would get there before you were drowned.”
Maeve snorted, because she was certain of no such thing.
Roderick strode into the caverns. “What is this about?”
“Hi.” Bronwyn was almost running to keep up with him. “I came along for the ride.”
Maeve didn’t bother to ask. When Bronwyn made statements like coming along for a ride, it sounded nonsensical at first, and then the meaning became clear in context.
“Brother.” Thomas greeted him with a raised hand. “Maeve is needed on the green.”
“No.” Roderick folded his arms.
“Way to go on the seeking consensus thing, big guy.” Bronwyn slapped Roderick on the shoulder.
Bronwyn wasn’t interested in Roderick that way. Maeve reminded herself one more time for luck and let it sink in. Also, Roderick may be her coimhdeacht, but she did not own him mind, body, heart and soul.
With a chuckle, Roderick glanced at her. “Near enough you do.”
Blast! She really needed to master the masking her thoughts thing better. She turned to Thomas. “Why do you need me to go to the green?”
“It matters not.” Roderick thrust his chin out and scowled at Thomas. “She is not leaving Baile’s wards, and most especially not when it is light outside.”
Thomas thrust his chin out and scowled back. “Rhiannon is not there. I would know if she were.”
“I care not.” Roderick glared. “Last time Rhiannon was not supposed to be there either.”
“She can’t go near the part of the green where I want Maeve to go,” Thomas said. “When you were cast into stasis, it extended Baile’s wards to that point.”
“Still no.”
Bronwyn was studying Thomas. “Not to be rude, but how are you even here?”
“Magic.” He widened his eyes at her and then chuckled. “Roderick.” He jerked his chin. “He is the original coimhdeacht, and he will call more to him.”
“More ghosts?” Bronwyn made a face. “Yay.”
Thomas laughed, his hazel eyes crinkling at the corners. “Not all of them will be ghosts.”
“Are you a seer now?” Roderick raised an eyebrow at him.
“Perhaps.” Thomas shrugged. “Brother, you know I would not ask her to go to the green, and at this time, if it wasn’t important.”
Roderick frowned and mulled this over. “What is there that is so important?”
“You need to see it.” Thomas looked serious. “Maeve needs to see this.”
Shaking his head, Roderick said, “The passage may not be safe.”
“What passage?” Bronwyn looked from Roderick to Thomas, her eyes alight with interest.
“It’s safe, as you already know because you came that way on first waking,” Thomas said.
Bronwyn gasped. “No! Are you guys talking about a secret passage?”
“Not as secret as I would like.” Roderick gave her a repressive stare.
Clearly Bronwyn had recovered from her awe of him because she grinned back. “That is so cool.”
“A secret passage impresses you?” Thomas smirked. “Goddess Pool, the sigils, the magic, Baile being sentient, even me—these things you take in your stride. But a secret passage makes you smile like a delighted child.”
Shrugging, Bronwyn grinned wider. “This is very Hogwarts.”