Clare’s mouth was dry, and her heart flailed. All he had to do now was walk out that door, call the Garda and his grandfather, and she would be marched to prison after giving the location of the fairy mound whereshe’d hidden the precious gemstone she’d stolen from him.
Taking Griffin’s hand, she pulled him back to the room and shut the door.
“How did you guess? Or did you remember? What are you going to do now?” Panic was in every beat of her heart, and her breath caught on ragged puffs.
“Relax, love.” He squeezed her hand. “I wondered when you’d realize your dual or triple identity.Do you often find yourself transported to a different time, place, and body?”
“I, uh, what do you mean?” Her tongue felt too big for her mouth, and tightness gripped her throat.
“Come, dear. You can tell me.” He sat down on the bed and pulled her onto his lap. His arms around her were comforting, and somehow, he was consoling her as if he felt sorry for her.
“Tell you what?”Her eyelids blinked of their own accord, and he seemed to transform right in front of her into a chieftain prince. His hair curled, shoulder-length, and a beard sprouted over his clean-shaven face. The knife mark was gone, and his nose was perfectly straight. He wore a crown with a single jewel in the center.
It sparkled purple, red, and blue, but instead of being rough and misshapen, itwas a fully faceted and cut diamond.
She gasped, reaching up to touch the Heart of Brigid, but he caught her hand. “What are you reaching for, my little thief? Are you thinking of taking what isn’t yours?”
“I only wanted to know if it’s an illusion. Is that my heart on your crown? Are you king of Ireland?”
“Only if you’re the queen of the Fae,” he replied. “Your stone mustscream for me to make me the High King. Touch it, and tell me if I am worthy.”
A keening sound, like the shrill wind screeching through a gap between the walls of the ends of the world, whirled around Clare, and her entire body quaked and rattled, ripping bones from joints and scattering them to the four winds.
“Clare, Clare,” shrill voices called. “Wake up, Clare.”
“Clare,”a man’s voice commanded. “Come out of it, my dear. Come, Clare, to me.”
Clare couldn’t catch her breath. She coughed, sputtered, choked, and wheezed. Her shoulders shook, and her ribcage heaved. Her arms and legs twitched on their own, and spittle flew from her mouth.
And then there were the tears, rolling like rivulets down the sides of her nose. She buried her face into the crispcotton shirt with the strong shoulders and the even stronger, beating heart. His arms were like bands of protection, and his body sheltered her.
“I’m so-so sorry for ly-lying. I-I’ll m-make it r-right. I on-only want to-to help you, my l-love.”
“You could not help it.” His calming voice soothed her. Firm lips kissed the side of her head, and a warm hand caressed her back. “Your storyworld is so real to you that you hallucinate. You are the goddess of poetry and your worlds meld together, blending and stretching through space, time, and identities.”
“How did you know?” she cried, quaking and shaking. All her life, she’d had visions, but she hadn’t told anyone—not even Sorcha and Maeve. The nuns had called her possessed. The abbess would have thrown her out of the orphanage.
“I see it in the way your visions carry you away,” he said. “There is an aura, a sparkling of energy, a crackling of sensations. I can feel the force take over your body and mind, and then you’re not there anymore, or at least not the part of you who can communicate.”
“Who am I?”
“Whoever you are in the moment.” His words were like balm, smooth and creamy lotion over the rawpain of the gashes scratched onto her soul.
Her shaking subsided, and she was able to catch her breath. In and out. In and out. Her tears trickled to an end, and she lifted her head from the rock of Griffin’s shoulder.
He was her high king, but modern and back to the twenty-first century. She was back in her apartment in the old section of Dublin.
A rolling sensation, likerocking on a rowboat, floating down a gentle river filled Clare with a springtime of hope. Flowery flavors and scents of green grass swept the worries and dark cobwebs from her scalp. Her bones felt fluid and her muscles limber. She uncurled from Griffin’s embrace, stretching like a lazy cat—refreshed and renewed.
“You understand me,” she said, gazing at his rugged face, as ageless as theCliffs of Moher. “This is why the nuns called me a changeling and the abbess said I was demon-possessed.”
“You are not a demon, but an angel,” he said. “Don’t worry about me walking away. I can’t wait to see and feel how you love me.”
