He cocked his head, curious but wary.
“Before I became a Treasure, I was able to breach a Gate from dusk to dawn on the night of a full moon.” I held out my arm, as if he could see beneath my skin to the green-dark blood beneath.“It required my blood and an incantation. Do you think you could replicate the effect? To create a…key?”
“For a Gate?” His eyebrows lifted. “The Gates are powerful magic—they were forged in tandem with the Treasures, which have now all been renewed. I’m not sure your blood would be sufficient.”
“Treasures can open the Gates at will.” I leaned closer. “What if weallgave blood? All four heirs?”
Wayland frowned, reaching for a sheaf of vellum already half-scrawled with notes and ideas. “If we could somehow isolate that effect and amplify it—” He muttered to himself as he scratched charcoal over the paper. “Tell me why?”
“I need thirteen keys so I can give them to the thirteen bardaí. In return, I believe the bardaí will follow us into battle against Eala. True mastery over the Gates is all they’ve ever wanted.”
“The bardaí.” Wayland stared at me, then whistled. “They are dangerous bedfellows, Thorn Girl. You cannot count on their loyalty.”
“I’m counting on their betrayal,” I told him. “Will you please trust me?”
He gave me a considering glance, then nodded. “I can do it, although a day may not be enough time.”
“Can you make me just one, then? Like a prototype?”
“I’ll try.” He shoved the paper at me. “Write your incantation.”
I tried to remember the words Cathair had taught me over a year ago, while trying not to remember that he was dead. But when Wayland pulled the paper from my hands, I held on, careful not to let our fingers touch. Now that he was a full-fledged Treasure, my starshine was a danger to him as well as Irian and Laoise. And Eala.
“I have another favor to ask you. Well. Two, really.”
“You know, I was actually beginning to miss you.” He whistled again. “Remind me again where you learned to be so demanding?”
“I refer to it as persuasive,” I said sweetly.
“Persuasion rarely involves a knife to the throat,” he grumbled. “Metaphorical or otherwise. Go on, then. What invaluable services might I render you, milady?”
I sat heavily on a three-legged stool, pulled close another sheaf of papers, and tried to explain.
The bardaí began to arrive the next morning in their most extravagant regalia, surrounded by expansive retinues.
I’d left Wayland in his tiny workshop to return to the rooms the Summer Twins had given us, desperate for my promised meal, bath, and heavy pour of summer mead. Instead, I’d gotten a lesson on the current politics of Tír na nÓg from Laoise, which I only half listened to but could sum up: Everyone was still fighting. With the Treasures renewed, the wild magic many of the bardaí had drawn on for power had dissipated, leaving them scrambling for sovereignty in the vacuum Eala’s retreat to the human realms had left behind.
That suited me fine. I didn’t need true unity—I just needed the illusion of it.
Now I borrowed some clothes from Laoise, then descended with Irian into the Underbrush, a cheerful if unsophisticated slum below the city. Taverns and brothels and gambling dens were patronized by citizens of the Summerlands and soldiers from the encampments alike—I saw many Gentry concealed beneath hoods or hiding behind masks as they fulfilled their basest desires.
Balor wasn’t hard to find—he sat outside a tavern whose roof barely cleared his shoulders, collecting bets on what appeared to be water wrestling. The main contestant was Linn, waiting fetlock deep in a spring-fed pond for her next opponent, a hairy gruagach whose gemstone eyes gleamed with greed.
“Balor!” I pushed back the hood of my mantle, shocked but amused. “Tell me you are not running a fight club down here!”
“Lady!” He stood swiftly, banging his head on a branch that wouldn’t have been low-hanging for anyone else. “Lord Scary Husband! You have returned!”
Linn clambered from the pond at the same moment, shaking moisture from her dark mane and sea-foam pelt. She nudged her delicate nose into my shoulder, favoring me with an image of her dragging me into the spring instead of the gruagach and merrily dunking me beneath the surface.
“Is that your way of saying you missed me?” I gently stroked her inky forelock and smiled. “Now, if you lot are finished swindling the locals, I have some jobs for you.”
Behind Irian, Abyss stomped his feet as if to say,Finally, some honest work.
The aughiskies’ jobs were straightforward. For Balor, I hoisted myself onto the thatching of the tavern, then leaned to whisper my request in his ear. He turned his huge head in surprise, but the glimmer in his terrifying eyes was anything but lacking in comprehension. His smile revealed all seventy-nine of his sharp, rock-eating teeth as he said, “I thought you would never ask, lady!”
As afternoon pressed toward evening, I donned a hastily made gown I’d basically coerced from a poor seamstress in the Underbrush. Luckily, the greens and golds of the Summerlands suited the role I knew I must play—the resentful darrig had bolts of emerald silk and forest-green satin already in her shop. The gown swept low to the breastplate of red leather I’d wheedled off Laoise, exposing the Heart of the Forest like a beacon on my chest. I wore chain mail over my arms and belted the skeans I’d bought off a Gentry armorer at my waist. Chandi—still thin, still mostly wordless, but with a little color in her cheeks—helped me smooth my short hair until it lay like a blade against my throat. I painted my face to match my mood—blood, for my lips. Ashes, for my eyes. Fury, for my cheeks.
In the late afternoon, the Summer Twins paraded from the city toward the council table they’d erected beneath a vast tent in thecenter of the golden plain. I let them have their moment—as if they’d called this convocation, instead of me. As if they had any authority here at all.
