“I appreciate this.”
“The friend of my friend is mine. You’ll want the grass under you or you’ll end up standing in mud. So.” She put her hands on her hips. “How warm for you?”
“Hot. I mean, not burning, but good and hot.”
“Hot it is,” she said, and handed him the soap.
In her trousers and boots—her shirt right side out now—Morena lifted her hands, palms up. And she curled her fingers in the air as if drawing something to her.
A thin rain, light as feathers, began to fall. As she continued to draw, it came stronger, harder in an area no more than six feet square.
Marco knew his mouth fell open, but he couldn’t seem to close it.
“You can test it with your hand if you like, see if it’s hot enough for you.”
Marco held out his hand, felt the heat, the wet, the wonder. “Yeah, it’s good. It’s … amazing. Jesus, I don’t know how to handle all this.”
“I think you’re doing more than fine.” Morena stepped back. “We’ll get you some clothes and a towel.”
“Thanks. Um. How do I turn it off?”
“I’ve called it for fifteen minutes. So you’d best get started.”
After she strolled away, Marco wasted nearly another minute staring at the magick shower before he stripped down and stepped into its bliss.
Once he’d dressed in what he thought of as farm chic, fortified himself with a fried egg on toast, he felt almost normal.
“I know we need to talk,” Breen began, “and go over to the cottage, but I need to see my grandmother first. I need to see her, and I want to get Bollocks.”
“I want to meet this dog, and yeah, your granny.”
“She doesn’t live far. It’s a nice walk.”
“Okay. I’m trying to roll with this.” He stepped outside with her. “It looks like Ireland. They sound Irish. Are you sure it’s not—”
“It’s not. You tried to use your phone, didn’t you?”
Marco rubbed a hand on a pocket of the borrowed trousers. “Yeah. Nothing. And yeah, I took a faerie shower about an hour ago. Best shower of my life. It doesn’t feel real.”
“I know.”
“I mean there’s the bay, but it’s not the bay in Ireland where we stayed. And I see mountains way over there, but they’re not the same ones. Flowers all over, lots of sheep and cows. Horses. Horses on the farm. Did you learn to ride on one of those?”
“Yeah.” She decided not to point out the area on the farm where she’d learned to use a sword—poorly—under Keegan’s unrelenting training. “You have to know how to ride here. No cars.”
“No cars.”
“No tech, no machines. They chose magick.”
“No toaster,” he recalled. “Toast the bread on a rack in the wood stove. Water from a well—or a faerie. You were okay with all that?”
“I had the cottage on the other side for working. But there are ways to write over here—magick ways. And it’s pure, Marco. And peaceful, and alive. I guess I fell in love.”
“Sense memory—remember? You were actually born here, you said. Are those the hot bros out there in that field?”
“The hot bros? Oh.” She laughed, linked her arm with his. “Yes. Harken’s a farmer right down to his toes. Keegan’s more a soldier, but he loves the farm, and he works it when he can. He has so much responsibility as taoiseach.”
“As what, now?”
“It means leader. He’s the leader of Talamh, of the Fey.”
“Like King Keegan?”
“No, it’s not like that.”
So strange, she realized, to explain to him things she’d only learned—or remembered—a few months before.
“No kings here, no rulers. He leads. Chosen and choosing. It’s a long tradition with its roots in lore. There’s a lake,” she began, but Marco grabbed her.
“Holy fuck, Breen. Run. Into those woods there.”
“What is— Oh, no, no, it’s okay. It’s Keegan’s dragon.”
“His what the fuck?”
“Just breathe. They have dragons—but not like the virgin princess eaters in some stories. I rode that one.”
His arm stayed around her in an iron grip. “You did the hell not.”
“I the hell did, and it was glorious. They’re loyal—they bond with someone, and they’re loyal. And they’re beautiful. My father had one.”