“The time. The day we end Cabhan. Right in front of my face. I need my book. I need my star charts. I need to be sure. I’ll take the table here for it—it shouldn’t take long.”
She grabbed the wine Fin had just poured, and walking toward the dining area, flicked fingers in the air until her spell books, her laptop, her notepad sat neatly on one side. “Iona, you’ll need to quarter those potatoes once scrubbed, lay them in a large baking dish. Get the oven preheated now, to three hundred and seventy-five.”
“I can do that, but—”
“I need twenty minutes here. Maybe a half hour. Ah... then you’ll pour four tablespoons, more or less, of olive oil over the potatoes, toss them in it to coat. Sprinkle on pepper and crushed rosemary. Use your eye for it, you’ve got one. In the oven for thirty minutes, then I’ll tell you what to do with them next. I’ll be finished by then. Quiet!” she snapped, dropping down to sit before Iona could ask another question.
“I hate when she says more or less or use your eye,” Iona complained to Fin.
“I’ve an eye as well, but I promise it’s worse than your own.”
“Maybe between us, we’ll make one good one.”
She did her best—scrubbed, quartered, poured, tossed, sprinkled. And wished Boyle would get there to tell her if it looked right. On Fin’s shrug, she stuck it in the oven. Set the timer.
Then she drank wine and hoped while she and Fin studied Branna.
She’d pulled one of her clips from somewhere and scooped up her hair. The sweater she’d rolled to her elbows as she worked from book to computer and back again, as she scribbled notes, made calculations.
“What if she’s not done when the timer goes off?” Iona wondered.
“We’re on our own, as she’d skin us if we interrupted her now.”
“That’s it!” Branna slapped a hand on her notebook. “By all the goddesses, that’s it. It’s so fecking simple, it’s so bloodyobvious. I looked right through it.”
She rose, strode back, poured a second glass of wine. “Anniversary. Of course. When else could it be?”
“Anniversary?” Iona’s eyes went wide. “Mine? The day I came, met you? But you said that hadn’t worked. The day I met Boyle? That anniversary?”
“No, not yours. Sorcha’s. The day she died. The anniversary of her death, and the day she took Cabhan to ash. That day, in our time, is when we end it. When we will. Not a sabbat or esbat. Not a holy day. Sorcha’s day.”
“The day the three were given her power,” Fin stated. “The day they became, and so you became. You’re right. It was right there, and not one of us saw it.”
“Now we do.” She raised her glass. “Now we can finish it.”
15
SHEFELTREVIVED,REENERGIZED. BRANNAACTIVELYenjoyed preparing the meal—and Iona did very well with her end of it—enjoyed sitting around Fin’s dining room with her circle, despite the fact that the bulk of the dinner conversation centered on Cabhan.
Now, in fact, maybe because of it.
Because she could see it clear, how it could and would be done. The when and the how of it. Risks remained, and they’d face them. But she could believe now as Connor and Iona believed.
Right and light would triumph over the dark.
And was there a finer way to end an evening than sitting in the steaming, bubbling water of Fin’s hot tub drinking one last glass of wine and watching a slow, fluffy snowfall?
“You’ve been a surprise to me, Finbar.”
He reclined across from her, lazy-eyed. “Have I now?”
“You have indeed. Imagine the boy I knew building this big house with all its style and its luxuries. And the boy a well-traveled and successful man of business. One who roots those businesses at home. I wouldn’t have thought a dozen years back I’d be indulging myself in this lovely spot of yours while the snow falls.”
“What would you have thought?”
“Considerably smaller, I’d have to say. Your dreams grew larger than mine, and you’ve done well with them.”
“Some remain much as they were.”
