“You know too much,” Seamus said. “Fortunately,the line of Richard “Strongbow” de Clare will finally be silenced when you are gone.”
“You’re never going to get away with this,” Clare yelped. “Never. Griffin will rescue me. You’ll see. I’m to be his bride tonight.”
Seamus guffawed and slapped his thighs. “Maybe your blood will run through the veins of Brigid, but it’s she who will be a bride tonight. Not you. Did you really thinkGriffin had you dress up because he wanted to marry you? All he wanted was the Heart of Brigid. How convenient of you to return it to him in time for the resurrection. You silly, silly fool. This is not one of your novels, what was it, the one about the fairies who seduced your boyfriend? Do you remember how that one ended?”
Clare clamped her mouth shut and turned her face to the back window.Tears welled in her eyes, and she didn’t want Seamus to get the last laugh. In her story, the dastardly boyfriend double-crossed the heroine and turned her into a changeling, possessed by the fairy queen. She’d lost her mortality, true, and gained immortality, but she could no longer feel strong emotion—no pleasure, no pain, no desire, no repellence, no love, and no hate.
Had Griffin trulymeant to marry her, or to use her blood to bring his Brigid back to life? How could she have been so gullible?
The nuns had always warned how dangerous it was to play pretend with fairies. Well, it now looked like she’d been caught in her own playacting, and her blood would run in a fairy queen’s veins.
Where did that leave her? The soul known as Clare Hart? Would God have mercyon her and keep her? Or was she past redemption? Caught in a web of fiction, imagination, and fantasy?
She let the images of the streetlamps and traffic bombard her eyes, and retreated from thinking. She’d stay in the moment and let her thoughts go. The right answer would come to her. It always did when she least expected it.
Griffin staggered his way through the drizzling feathers of rain, retracing his steps. It wasn’t too difficult because of a pair of distinct hiking boot footprints.
He spotted a luxury car sitting outside a gap in the stone wall and made his way to it. It unlocked itself, and he fumbled in his pocket, finding a key fob.
About time he had some goodluck.
Now, he had to figure out what happened to Clare and go to her rescue. He put the backpack on the back seat next to the bags of souvenirs and knick-knacks purchased at the tourist traps he didn’t remember visiting.
A green spiral-bound notebook was wedged in between the seat and console. Griffin’s heart jumped, and he opened it.
It had a big note on the inside of thefront cover. “If found, please return to Griffin Gallagher, Gallagher Castle, Malin Head, County Donegal.”
This was his book full of clues.
Knock. Knock. Knock.
Someone rapped on the partially open car door. He looked up to see a rideshare car depart, leaving two women wearing trench coats and rainhats.
“Griffin? It’s us, Sorcha and Maeve,” the women said.
Heblinked at the two beautiful creatures, one blonde and one brunette. “Please excuse me if I don’t remember which one of you is which.”
“I’m Sorcha,” the brunette wearing glasses said.
“And I’m Maeve,” the blonde added. “Do you seriously not remember us?”
“The memories may come back,” Griffin said. “But I’ve found an important clue. This green notebook seems to be mine andhas a plan for my actions.”
“Great!” Sorcha said. “Then let’s see what it says. May I see Clare’s phone in case she left more clues?”
“Sure, come into the car where it’s warm,” Griffin said, handing over Clare’s phone. “We need to hurry. Whoever kidnapped her might be dangerous. They coshed me on the back of the head.”
“We can’t blindly chase what we don’t know,” Maeve said.“What’s in the notebook?”
“It’s mine, and it looks like it has detailed instructions,” Griffin said. “Some of it is in the Old Irish language.”
He flipped through the pages quickly, blinking at the tree-like strokes and parallel lines of the Ogham alphabet. “This isn’t good. I’ve forgotten how to read this.”
“I can help,” Maeve said, taking the notebook. “I’ve studied OldIrish.”
“Looks like Clare was wearing the Heart of Brigid,” Sorcha said, pointing to a selfie on Clare’s phone. “Where is it now?”
“Oh, I almost forgot,” Griffin said. He took the crystal out of his pocket and held it under the dome light.
