Breen shook her head at Finola. “Word travels.”
“In Talamh it does for certain. I’m looking forward to seeing him again. Is he with Morena now?”
“He’s with her, and doing better on a horse in five minutes than I did in five hours.”
“I hope I see him on my way back home then. I’ve got to get along. I just came by to give Marg some of our peach brandy. It has a good kick, it does. You come and see us now, Breen, and bring the handsome Marco.”
“I will.”
“Take this along.” Marg handed her friend a small jar. “Remember, just a pinch when you want to add a kick—like your brandy—to a stew.”
“Thanks for that, and thanks from Seamus, who does enjoy that kick. Blessings on you both.”
When Finola left, Marg went to the jar of dog treats. Bollocks’s ears perked up.
“And what will you do for this?”
“He can dance,” Breen told her.
“Is that the truth of it?”
“Dance for Nan, Bollocks. Boogie time!”
He rose up on his hind legs, wagging as he stepped right and left. On a long laugh, Marg tossed the treat so Bollocks snatched it out of the air. “Aren’t you the clever pair? Well now, will we go to the workshop?”
“Please. I’d like to make some protection for Marco, since I can’t talk him into going back.”
“Then we will. Come on, lad, bring your treat. It’s a fine, bright day for you to run about outside and splash in the stream. He’ll let you know, won’t he, when he wants to come in?”
“Yes.” They walked out, and since there was no one inside to welcome a visitor, Marg shut the door. “I can just feel him asking. Not words, not really, but a knowing.”
“You’ve bonded well and true.”
They walked into the woods, Bollocks prancing with the dog biscuit in his mouth, and to the bridge over the stream.
“You have a gift of connection with living things, and it serves you well.” She stopped there, on the arch of the stone bridge with the cottage workshop tucked into the trees ahead of them.
“Do you know the horse they put Marco on today?”
“Morena called her Cindie.”
“Aye, a good choice. Sweet-natured, patient, eager to please. Hold her name in your mind, as she knows it well. See her as you did in your mind’s eye. Bring her into you.”
“Call her?”
“No, no, mo stór. Bring her in, as you would with our lad here. Bring her in. Feel what she feels.”
She’d seen the mare in Harken’s fields before, of course, and had gauged her before Marco mounted, but to connect when she had no idea of distance or …
Distance meant nothing, Keegan had told her once.
So she held the name, the image, reached out. For a moment, it felt as if she moved outside herself, then all the deeper in.
“She’s content. She likes the human, and the smell of the air. She likes to walk with Blue. She … she’s mated with him before.”
Marg smiled into Breen’s eyes. “She has indeed, twice if memory serves. You did very well.”
“I didn’t know I could do it at all.”
“You can, and more. And how is our Marco feeling?”
“I can’t—”
“Don’t think, just feel. It’s not his thoughts, and it takes more, as humans and Fey have filters, you’d say, that horses and dogs and the like don’t. But your connection there is already strong. You’ve already done this without the knowing because you’ve had this bond with Marco for so long. What does he feel at the moment?”
“Excited.” Truly shocked at the clarity of it, Breen laughed. “Proud of himself. A little smug. Oh,” she corrected, “more than a little.”
“There you are.” Marg patted Breen’s arm before continuing to the cottage. “So when you worry, you can look. But remember your manners. Don’t intrude unless there’s cause.”
“I won’t.” Breen followed her grandmother into the cottage, where Marg set the fire to light. “Is it like when I saw the deer—a buck—when I turned to your cottage, and I knew he wasn’t a Were, but a buck?”
“It’s more. All Fey have this knowing. No one would loose an arrow on the hunt without looking and knowing. But not all have what you have. It’s one of Harken’s gifts as well. And Aisling in her way, the way of healing a wound or an illness. You have both.”