Three sleeps came and went. That fourth one, I only managed a few hours of actual rest and spent the other time pretending to snooze. All I had to do was wait for Rio to leave, then I could check in with Daire. Through the night, Rio studied each of her mirrors, stroking her chin at some, sneering at the others, but passing Daire’s altogether.

Rio came to her boyfriend’s mirror last. She tapped the glass with the the tip of her nail. “Bodb?”

“My heart!” The king’s big voice busted into the cavern, bouncing off the walls. “Have you reconsidered my offer to live here at Tara?”

“Are you ready to tell me the real reason you made it?”

“I long to have you closer. Why must you be so suspicious?”

“Ever since your chance encounter with Maya, you have summoned me every day, demanding my every hour.”

“You were begging me to spend more time with you, to the point of insisting I marry you. Isn’t this what you wanted?”

“You do this every time I find someone else to occupy my time.” Rio threw her hands up in the air. “First it was shunning the few members of court who could stand being near me. Then you asked me to cease lessons with Brigid.”

“Those pretenders were scheming to take advantage of your power, and associating too closely with my sister could have exposed our liaisons.”

“So what reason is it I shouldn’t have a few nights away from you to spend time with my changeling?”

“You’re acting every bit as unreasonable and ungrateful a shrew as Fuamnach.”

“Don’t you dare invoke my mother’s name!”

“I have more right to invoke it than you. You hardly knew her.”

“All because your brother killed her.”

Bodb growled and the next time he spoke his voice sounded like he’d moved further off. “Get over here. I refuse to continue this through a mirror.”

Rio slammed both of her fists into either side of the mirror’s frame. Dark particles buzzed around her hands and a crackling hum filled the rest of the cave. She leaned her forehead against the glass, her jaw tight and eyes squeezed shut.

“Are you coming?” Bodb asked.

Rio’s shoulders slumped and her hands drooped back to her sides, leaving dented copper and crumpled bulls behind them. The gray field around her hands faded away. She replied through gritted teeth, “Fine.”

I opened my mouth, the call for her to stay ready to burst out. Wait, what was I thinking? I had fun talking to her when she was here, and I could admit that. Her situation sucked, that was obvious. It didn’t change anything. The sooner she left, the sooner I could check on Daire and my ticket out of there. I kept quiet.

Rio disappeared through the mirror.

I threw off the cover and sprinted to Daire’s gold, ivy-wrapped frame. At the last minute as I raised my leg to step through, I glanced behind me at Bodb’s mirror and its new craters.

Should I have said something? Would it have helped? Guilt clawed at my stomach all the same. I’d say something after I got back, ask how she was doing when we sat down for dinner, and maybe switch the questions on her instead.

I thought of Daire, and walked into his mirror’s shiny muck.

* * *

“I read through pages and pages about Samhain feast traditions, how essential hounds are to Aos Si society, and arguments both for and against whether one should wear torcs around one’s neck or arms.” Daire bent over one of his pages full of characters that looked like neat lines more than letters. While he sat on the folding chair in front of his desk, I lurked next to him. Daire traced his finger down the page of underlined rows. “Then I finally found another message in the margins that hadn’t been there before.”

“The next step in the spell?”

“Precisely!”

“Why didn’t the writer put it on a recipe card?”

“If you’d ever met Uncle Aengus, you wouldn’t wonder.” Daire’s grin quirked wider. “A skilled magician needs a wily mind and an odd sense of humor. Aengus Mac Og has both in spades.”

“Great, a comedian who likes to complicate stuff.” I scowled at the foreign letters. “Go on, translate the gibberish.”

“‘Congratulations Daire,’” he read. “‘You have made it this far. I can only assume you roped your mother into this scheme with Bodb Derg’s edicts.’”

“Those are the laws and oaths that kicked out humans and keep you guys from killing each other, right?”

“So you were paying attention during my history lessons.”

“Yeah, and you go on more tangents than my ninth grade algebra teacher about her dog.” I jabbed my thumb at his notes. “Keep reading.”

“What is that saying about good things and waiting?” He smirked as I turned my sour face on him, and he read on. “‘The ingredients you need to enact the ritual can be found a few pages back in my lengthy account of the Tuatha de Danann’s first arrival to Eire. They are four items of great significance. You’re a smart lad, you can figure it out. However, be aware, this ritual is not meant to be easy, especially the last step, which will reveal itself after you have gathered the remaining ingredients.’”

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“Of course it’s hard.” I bit the end of my labret stud. Had he covered what that meant in one of his tangents? They all ran together. “What are they and where do I get them?”

“Not listening to everything, I see.” He stacked the underlined page in with the rest. “It’s a well known story, that the ancestors of my kind arrived to Ireland riding upon winged ships shielded by grey storm clouds. We brought many things with us to the new land, but above all were the four treasures taken from each of the four islands we had journeyed from. They have come to be called Nuada’s Sword, Lugh’s Spear, the Stone of Destiny, and the Dagda’s Cauldron.”

“Oh, that last one makes the food.”

“Correct! Tradition dictates that they are given to the four major regions of Tir Na Nog, with Tara always having the Stone of Destiny. I can get you access to Tara, but the stone is rooted to one spot. You’ll have to fetch the others first, then bring them to the stone.”

“And I have to do all that under your sister’s nose without anybody seeing me.” I groaned and let my forehead smack into my palm. “Shit.”

“If only I was allowed to leave Bri Leith unescorted.” Daire hung off the back of his chair, red veins around his pupils. He massaged his eyes. “Return tomorrow and I’ll think of something.”

I sighed and trudged across the room to his mirror. He might be exhausted but my mind spun with questions. Rio always took forever on her Bodb visits, though. My reflection in the glass blinked back at me, but I couldn’t make my feet move through it.

“Is there something else?” Daire asked.

“Yeah.” I turned around and rested against the wall. “What’s your take on Rio—I mean your sister?”

“She has earned a nickname after scarcely a month?”

I shrugged, my cheeks heating up. “It’s easier to say.”

“You’ve spent enough time with her to suss her true character out for yourself.” Daire yawned and stretched his long arms over his head, his muscles flexing under his sleeves. “Riona was around long before my birth, before Bodb closed Tir Na Nog. From what I’ve heard, my aunt escorted her to Tara, and she could already wield her power over iron. Fearing she would seek vengeance against his kin, Bodb let her join the Aos Si court on the condition she swear a series of oaths that would prevent her from killing or maiming any of the Dagda’s line or their families. Father granted her a bit of land, but never formally acknowledged her as a legitimate heir due to the circumstances of her conception.”

“Another reason why she’s so salty.”

“She doesn’t like much of anyone. While her foul abilities make her someone most people tend to avoid, she’s turned away the few that tried to befriend her. Even my Aunt Brigid—who tried to mentor her and still advocates for her to be involved in family meetings—only hears from Riona when she needs a favor. It seems the only social interaction she enjoys is tormenting me on a regular basis,” Daire said as he rubbed his forearm like it hurt even though it looked fine. Maybe he was remembering an old injury she’d given him. “Though that has paused thanks to your company.”

“Do people really only avoid her because of her magic? If she’s the only one who can do it, I’d think they’d be impressed.”

“That doesn’t change the common suspicion that she gained it from the Fomor, our oldest enemies. Many loyal to my family hate her for Fuamnach’s crimes on top of that. A few see her as too prickly.” Daire folded his hands on his stomach and hiked his feet on his desk. His eyelids started to droop and his chin bobbed against his chest. “Personally, we have never gotten along. Her jealous a nature sees to that. When I was too young to know better, I tried to connect. I showed her things I paraded to the rest of the family. All she did was throw barbs, much like Father, but with more venom. It was doomed from the start.”

I stayed quiet as he relaxed in that pose and his breathing slowed. His glossy hair stuck up where it got caught between his shoulders and the back of the chair. His shirt hiked up as he slipped lower in his seat, and it rumpled around his belt. Even the bottom of his fitted boots had stains where dirt had caked on. When I couldn’t sleep and had nothing to do but watch Rio pace around, I’d never seen her lay down and nap like that. As Daire drifted off to dreamland, I got a taste of something familiar. With everything around me straight out of a Lord of the Rings remake, little tastes of my normal from him helped remind me why I had to get back.

* * *

I tiptoed through Daire’s mirror after he woke up and moved to his frilly bed. The bright light of his ceiling dimmed to the flickering candles lining Rio’s hallway. The incense tainted breeze trailing in from his skylight cut off as I moved into the stagnant air of Rio’s burrow. Back to an empty hole until my roommate got done with her skeezy uncle/boyfriend.

“Maya?”

I jerked around. There was Rio, paused in the middle of a step, one leg still inside Bodb’s mirror.

“I see.” Rio’s pupils thinned to slits and the gray around them darkened enough to blot them out. She flowed the rest of the way into the tunnel and folded her fingers together in front of her, knuckles whiter than the rest of her. “I thought we were past this.”

“We’re past me trying to escape through random mirrors.” I couldn’t brush this off. She’d caught me shoulder deep in the cookie jar with crumbs and chocolate smeared on my mouth. If I begged forgiveness, her bullshit detector would go off for sure.

“Yet you’re still going through strange mirrors.” She glowered at her own reflection in the yellow-tinted glass behind me. “Or did you figure out that was my half-brother’s mirror?”

“It’s not that hard to guess.” I knocked on one of the ivy leaves molded into the frame.

“I take it he told you something else in that other tongue of yours.” She rubbed one of her bracelets. A fidget or a threat?

“It’s called Spanish.” How much did I want to balance that tightrope between fessing up and lying? “He invited me over to talk about human stuff.”

“I thought you’d take my warnings more seriously after last time. Why accept his invitation? He could have taken you to Bodb. He’s loyal to him.”

“Because you’re not here three fourths of the day, and I’m left alone with nothing to do.” I forced myself back to before I started visiting Daire, when the empty walls had pushed in small enough that I swore I was crawling through a grave. I swept a hand over the burrow in all its humble, cramped glory. “Prison inmates in solitary confinement get about the same treatment, only less space. If I’m stuck here forever and you want to be friends someday, I need a life outside.”

“So you resorted to visiting Daire while I was away to stave off loneliness?”

“I don’t care how annoying he is. I’ll take what I can get.” Like a self-inflicted kick to the gut, breathing became an exercise of sucking in air through a pillow. I had a plan. It was half baked and hitting all kinds of roadblocks, but it was something. I still had to wait there while day by day my friends and family kept going like I wasn’t missing. My throat tightened and my eyelashes stuck together from being too wet. “I can’t talk to Nate or Nico or any other friends. Can’t see mom. No Abuela around.”

Rio’s fingers loosened around each other and her eyes lightened to a stormy shade. Of all the people who should have crossed over and wrapped an arm around me, she was the last one who had any right. It was a warm weight, jolting me out of my pile of thoughts.

“I have spent so long by myself down here, I had forgotten how important sunshine is for humans.” She pointed above her. “Would it help if we took our meals outside from now on?”

I sniffled and wiped my eyes. “I thought we couldn’t do that ‘cause somebody would see me.”

“It may push the boundaries of my deal, but so long as we don’t wander off my lands, I should be able to make this concession. I know you wish I had done it sooner.”

“What about the rest of the day?”

“I will remedy that with Bodb as well.” She started walking, pulling me away from Daire’s mirror and guiding me in the opposite direction as the cot. It was the same track I ran most days up to the giant rock sealing the place. “You shouldn’t have to bear that pest’s presence another day. He must have plagued you with twice as many questions as I.”

“Not really. He talked more than asked.” Giddiness and panic butted heads in my stomach. She bought my story. We were going outside for real without any sneaking around from giant snakes. But I’d just talked her into closing off my only way of seeing Daire.