Breen lifted it, turned it over, studied the smooth flat braid, then laid it upside over her wrist to examine the look of the stones. “I’ve missed this,” she murmured, and turned her head to look up at Marg. “And you. Missed all of this and you more than I realized.”
“We’ll sew a fine pouch for the gift.”
Breen took Marg’s hand before she could turn back to the shelves. “Odran doesn’t see me yet. It’s like a curtain, but there’s a chink letting in dark instead of light. It’s your curtain, your spell holding it.”
“For now. You need time yet, as do we all.”
“He’ll shove it open soon.”
“He will, aye, he will. But we have today.” Now she cupped Breen’s face. “He knows you have more than he thought, but he doesn’t understand you have more even than that. Neither do you know it, but you will.”
Marg walked back to the shelves. “A red leather pouch, I’m thinking, done with gold cord. Would that suit Marco?”
“To the ground.”
And because she sensed Bollocks patiently waiting outside the door, Breen rose to let him in.
“I won’t leave again until it’s done, Nan. That’s my promise, that’s my choice. Help me find the more in me to get it done.”
“I’ll always help you, mo stór, but it’s you who’ll find what you have and what you need.”
Soon, Marg hoped, as the tugs and pulls on the curtains grew stronger every day.
CHAPTER FIVE
After the sublime—an afternoon of conjuring, practicing, and creating with her grandmother—Breen walked to the farm for, if not the ridiculous, the most likely painful.
She felt a spark of hope when she spotted Morena giving Marco pointers in hand-to-hand on the training field. Keegan leaned back against the paddock fence watching. Harken, most usually busy in the fields or with the stock, sat on the fence beside his brother.
The resemblance struck her as Keegan, hands in the pockets of his duster, turned his head to say something that made Harken grin. They shared features with the man in the photo with her father, taken before she was born. The set of the jaw, the shape of the mouth, the plane of the nose.
But whatever the similarities, she’d detected wide differences in their personalities and interests. Keegan wore a sword at his side, and Harken had work gloves sticking out of his trouser pocket. Harken wore an old brown cap on his wave of hair, and Keegan the skinny warrior’s braid down one side of his.
The taoiseach and the farmer, she thought. If cameras had worked in Talamh, she’d have snapped a photo of the moment.
Harken lifted a hand in greeting as she walked along the stone fence to the gate. Keegan just tracked her with his eyes.
On the field, Morena feinted a left jab—slow enough for Marco to block, followed with a right hook she stopped a whisper before his jaw. He tried an uppercut, which Morena deflected with an elbow, and continued up until the back of her fist paused at his nose.
“It’s in the eyes as much as the hands, Marco darling, remember that. In the eyes and the stance. And you want your shoulder leading it now. We’ll go again.”
About the time she spoke, Marco spotted Breen. He grinned.
“Look at me. I’m—”
And ended with an oof as Morena swept his legs out from under him.
“On me, Marco.” Morena used two fingers to point to her eyes. “Distracted will put you on your arse every time.”
She offered a hand to help him up. “You’re doing well for a start, so we’ll take a few minutes.” She grabbed a skin of water, tossed it to him.
“I’m having a hell of a day,” he told Breen, and from his tone she interpreted a good hell of a day.
“How’d the riding lesson go?”
“Ask the teacher.”
“The man took to horseback like a duck takes to water.”
“Really?”
“I’ve got untapped skills.” After guzzling some water, Marco swiped his sweaty face. “Fighting doesn’t seem to be one of them.”
“That only means you’ve room to improve. But not today. We have to turn the field over.”
“Oh. I can wait,” Breen assured her.
“No need. Marco’s more than earned the cup of ale I promised him. At dusk then, Keegan?”
“For today, aye.”
He swung off his duster, tossed it over the fence.
“I wouldn’t mind a late supper,” Harken called out. “Dusk would give you time enough to cook it.”