Branna shook her head. “I don’t. Or only a little,” she admitted. “Not enough to stop doing what has to be done. What I understand is this can’t be done without you, and shouldn’t be. Isn’t that enough?”
“It’ll have to be, won’t it?”
Their eyes held, a long, long moment. In it Iona felt thousands of words, scores of impossible feelings passed between them. Only them.
“I’ll get him there,” Fin said, and broke that moment.
“Meara and Boyle must stay inside the circle—at all costs. Not just to protect yourselves.” Branna turned to them. “But to hold it strong. And Fin as well must stay within it.”
“Damned to that.”
“Fin, you must,” Branna insisted. “Within the circle he can’t use what runs in you against you, or against us. And what you have will hold it without chink.”
“Four of us outside it, against him, are stronger than three.”
Facing him, Branna lifted her hands, palms up. And the flames of every candle burned brighter. “We are the three. We are the blood, and we must be the way.”
“Within the circle I’ll stay,” Fin told her. “Until or unless I feel we’ve more chance ending him with me outside of it. It’s the best bargain I can give you.”
“We’ll take it.” Connor spoke up, shifted his gaze from Fin to Branna, left it coolly on her. “And done.”
Branna started to speak, sighed instead. “And done then.”
“We have to take our guides,” Iona realized.
“We do, yes.” Branna drew her amulet from under her sweater, ran a thumb over the carved head that so resembled Kathel’s. “Horse, hound, hawk. And weapons and tools. I have a spell I’ve worked on for some time, and I think it’s an answer, but only if we draw him to the right place, the right time. And then we’ll need his blood to seal it.”
“What spell is this?” Fin demanded.
“One I’ve worked on,” Branna repeated. “I’ve used bits of Sorcha’s spells, others that have come down, something of my own.”
“And practiced it?”
Irritation flickered over her face. “It’s too risky. If he learns of it, he can and will block against it. It must be done the first time on Sorcha’s ground. You need to trust I know what I’m about.”
“You must be trusted,” Fin repeated.
“Bloody hell.” Branna started to shove back from the table, but Iona raised a hand.
“Just wait. What kind of spell? I mean, a banishing, a drawing, a vanquishing spell? What?”
“A vanquishing, a light spell, a fire spell. All of them in one, sealed with blood magick.”
“Light defeats the dark. Fire purifies. And blood is at the heart of all.”
Branna smiled. “You learn well. But it may come to nothing if not done at the right time, at the right place. It will come to nothing if we all, each one, don’t agree and stand together, in that time and place.”
“Then we will.” Iona lifted her hands as she looked from face to face. “We all know we will. You’d do anything you could to destroy him,” she said to Fin. “For Branna, for yourself, for the rest of us. In that order. And Branna would do anything to sever whatever link he might have with you, so you’d be free of it. Connor and Meara would stand for love and friendship, for what’s right and good whatever the risk or cost. Boyle would fight because that’s how he works. You just have to say when and where, and he’d be with you. And because, whatever’s changed between him and me, he’d never want anything to happen to me. And I would never want anything to happen to him.
“For love and friendship, for family and friends, we’ll stand together in the right time, in the right place and fight with each other. Fight for each other.”
After a moment’s silence, Fin picked up the champagne he’d ignored, lifted the glass toward Iona. “All right,deirfiúr bheag. We’ll be your happy few.” He shifted toward Branna. “Trust,” he said, waited.
“Trust.” She lifted her own glass, touched it to his. In that quiet clink a spark of light flashed, then softened away.
“With that settled, let’s get down to the nitty of it then.” Connor leaned forward. “Step-by-step.”
Boyle said nothing as Branna walked them through her plan, as that plan was revised, questioned, adjusted. He said nothing because looking at Iona as she’d spoken had given him all and every answer.
