She’d thought he’d take a couple, but it turned into a couple dozen. Standing with Bollocks with the water behind them, sitting on one of the patio chairs with Bollocks sitting beside her, sitting on the grass together.
Then Bollocks planted his forelegs on her thigh, lapped at her face. On a laugh, she hugged him to her.
“There’s the money shot! I’m gonna pick out the best five, send them. Don’t know why five, it just seems right.”
“We really need to go.”
“Give me five for the five, and we’re off.”
When they finally walked into the woods, Bollocks dashed ahead to chase a squirrel, then splashed in the little stream, shook, and raced back.
“There’s a dog who makes his own fun,” Marco observed. “So … what will I be doing over there?”
“I guess that’s up to Morena.”
“She’s not going to want me to do something with that big bird, is she?”
“Amish. I don’t know why she’d want you to train with her hawk.”
“What’ll you be doing?”
“I usually practice with Nan for a while. Magick takes practice.”
“Like yoga.”
“You could say.” Because she sensed his nerves, Breen slid an arm around his waist. “You could come with me today, just give the rest more time.”
“Might as well get started. It’s stopped feeling real again. Hanging out with Keegan last night—that’s like a usual sort of thing. Both of us working this morning. Thinking I’m going to go through a big-ass tree into another world? That’s the not-real part right now.”
“It’s about to get real.” She gestured ahead to the Welcoming Tree.
“There it is, all right. Never seen anything like it. So they, ah, put it there?”
“Nan told me a millennium ago—or so—Birget the Wise, then taoiseach of Talamh, brokered a treaty with the other realms. As man turned from magicks, they became suspicious of them, condemned them and all who held powers. Many who didn’t.”
“Like Salem, and all that crazy shit?”
“Yes, like that, and before that, after that. Talamh chose to preserve what they were, what they had, so the Fey and the world of man used this tree as a boundary, and as a door when Talamh separated from Ireland. Not all respected the treaty, and most on this side of it simply forgot it existed. Most forgot other worlds existed. Talamh remembers, and preserves its peace. Fights for it when it must.”
“Like now.”
“Like now,” she agreed, and took his hand. “Are you ready?”
He sucked in a breath, and his courage with it. “We’re going to find out.”
He stepped onto one of those thick, curved branches with her.
Then another.
“Go ahead, Bollocks,” he heard her say. And with a happy bark, the dog bolted through, and vanished.
The light flashed, but it seemed less shocking. And the wind rose and died. He stood with Breen on a bright, breezy day with the dog deviling the sheep in the field below.
“Okay?”
“Yeah. Weird,” Marco admitted. “It’s probably always going to be weird. But I don’t feel all dizzy and shaky. It’s really a sight, Breen, the way it just rolls and rolls. There’s Keegan out there doing some farmer thing. No, that’s the other one. Harken. And I think that’s your friend Morena with those horses. There’s a house back there. I don’t think I noticed that before.”
“Aisling and Mahon’s cottage. Keegan’s sister—you met her and her boys yesterday. Mahon’s her husband, and he’s Keegan’s good friend. I guess sort of his lieutenant. A soldier. He’s of the Sidhe.”
“Okay. I’ll get it all straight.”
He started down the seven steps with her.
After they crossed the field, the wall, the road, Morena hailed them. She had her hair in a long tail with a blue billed cap over it, and the hawk pin Breen had given her on her jacket.
Breen wondered if she spread her wings and flew toward them to give Marco more of a taste of what was.
“I thought to see you about now,” she said as she landed. “I’ve horses saddled and ready for us, Marco.”
“Okay.” But he was too dazzled by the wings to register horses. “They’re beautiful. Can I touch—is that rude or, you know, creepy?”
“Not when you ask. Go ahead.”
He reached out, very gently touched his fingers to the silver edges of her lavender wings. “They feel like silk. They just … pop out when you want?”