Page 188

Its shoulders roll once beneath that ragged grey-black coat, a gathering of monstrous strength so deliberate it’s almost elegant. One forepaw slides forward into the mud. Its claws spread. Its jaws part enough for me to see the wet gleam of its teeth.

Its mouth draws back by with terrible slowness. Not in any natural snarl I’ve ever seen, but lazily, consciously, with something almost human in the meanness of it.

I’ve failed them.

I’ve failed them so quickly.

Then the beast lunges.

EPILOGUE

TRIONA SINCLAIR

Present Day

Friday, 28 June 1823

County Meath, Ireland

Former Province of Mide: Seat of the High Kings

“Manannán.”

We all turned at once, startled by the sudden intrusion.

Dana stood there, half in shadow, one hand braced against the frame. Although it hadn’t been named outright, I could feel she was every bit as powerful as Mannie. She was plainly no stranger to him and came and went with the quiet ease of one already trusted.

I hadn’t heard her come in. There was nothing hurried in her bearing, nothing raised in her voice, but Mannie peered up at once when he heard her, and in that look, there was enough to tell me she hadn’t interrupted him on some small matter.

She said nothing more. She simply waited. It was strange, I thought, how much force there could be in waiting. I had no patience for it these days, knowing how quickly life could turn. In less than the blink of an eye, your entire world could crumble if the fates deemed it necessary.

The fire had burned low while Mannie was speaking, and now it gave only a red, unsteady light, enough to catch the rims of faces and the curve of the cup forgotten at Callan’s knee.

Outside, the wind moved once against the walls and was gone again. The room itself had not yet recovered from the last image he had left us with: the beast ready to pounce.

For the first time that evening, Mannie seemed pulled back into some other duty, one older than the story.

With a sigh, he pushed himself up, brushing at his coat with his free hand, the journal still held fast in the other. “I need to step away for a bit,” he said, glancing toward Dana. “I will return as soon as I am able.”

Callan leaned forward, elbows on his knees, staring hard at Mannie as if he thought he might force the rest of it from him by sheer will.

“That cannae be how ye mean to leave us.”

Mannie didn’t answer at once. He stood with his gaze lowered to the fire, one hand braced beneath the old journal, the other moving over it without thought, his thumb brushing the top and worn edges as though he knew every page inside it by heart.

I let out a sharp breath. “Nae.”

Mannie’s eyes moved to me.

“I agree with Callan,” I said. “Not after that. Not there. What about Alex? Charlotte? Aileen? You can’t bring us to the edge of it and then walk away.”

Something like tiredness passed over Mannie’s face, though it was not the tiredness of the body. It was the look of a man who seemed to carry too much, all at once.

“I said I would tell you the story,” he replied. “I meant it, and I will finish it once I return.”

Callan swore under his breath and stood properly now. “How bloody disappointin’.”

At that, Mannie’s mouth twitched into the faintest smirk, as though he knew Callan’s temper had less to do with annoyance than with how deeply he had been drawn in, and perhaps with the fact that he was beginning to warm to him.