My curse progressed day by day, marching me toward Samhain like it escorted me to a headsman’s axe. I raked my fingers through the wiry ribbons of unnatural white in my otherwise yellow hair—they weren’t as visible if I blended the strands together. My eternal youth had halted my physical aging once I reached my prime: about ten-and-nine years. Yet, as I twined the top layers of my hair into delicate braids, I tried not to stare at the fine worry lines in my reflection that should not be there. When my braids were ready to tie off, I pinched what progress I’d made in place as I stretched my power toward the dirt wall of my subterranean sleeping quarters. The simple spell of growing my ivy vines from the soil left me panting. My bed of lily vines along the rear of my desk seemed the shudder, the edges of their grassy leaves tinged with brown. Were their white pedals also duller, or did my mind only perceive them that way?
“What’re you getting ready for?” Maya sat behind me on the edge of my bed, hugging one of my pillows to her stomach. It had become her routine to sit there and fiddle with the tassels—their texture amused her while we talked.
“Another meeting with my family.” I wound ivy through the first of my braids and winced. My arms started to ache from keeping them aloft for so long. “I have to give them word on Riona’s campaign progress.”
“Here, let me get that.” Maya’s reflection in my mirror stood up and approached. She took the vine from me, her fingers brushing mine and sending a shock through my hand. Her casual touches only had that effect recently. Something about staying in my world must have altered her appearance. There was a new softness to her abundant curves, and her hair had grown to be more whimsical than boyish. She blew away the fringe hanging in her eyes. “Yeesh, I’m overdue for a trim. You guys wouldn’t have any scissors laying around would you?”
“To cut it? That’s unfortunate. This length suits your cheeks.”
“It gets in the way.”
“Very well. You might braid it or ask Riona to make you some small shears. Speaking of my estranged half-sister…” Unspoken questions hovered on the tip of my tongue. Was there any news? Any progress I could report to keep my family from pestering me? Any update that might help Maya fetch the Aos Si’s sacred treasures so I wouldn’t have to die?
Maya shook her head. “She’s still calling people in mirrors. I don’t even know who she’s targeting first. My best guess is she’s trying everyone and seeing who sticks.”
“Nothing?” I slouched. Maya tugged back on my hair. I straightened my posture. “Samhain is only weeks away.”
“I know. I can’t remember when I’ve dreaded a birthday this much.”
“Pardon?”
“You said Samhain is Halloween, right? That’s my birthday.” Maya paused and wrinkled her nose. “I’m supposed to be nineteen, but I’m not sure how the weird time flow between this world and home affects that.”
“We’ll have to honor it between treasure hunting,” I said offhand. Maya would want to celebrate the anniversary of her birth with her family, no doubt. Yet her mother… Maya knew that her mother, Jennifer, injured herself while panicking over losing her daughter. However, Maya believed that wound had caused amnesia. The reality I witnessed—and helped hide from her—was much less optimistic, and meant Maya wouldn’t have a family to return to when I sent her home.
“Do you guys even celebrate birthdays here?” Maya asked.
“Not exactly,” I said. “It doesn’t mean the two of us can’t.”
Maya tied off the vine and stepped away. “That good?”
When I turned my head toward the mirror, I found the vine’s bow a mite crooked. My scalp still tingled where she’d touched it. I could let it be. “It’s enough. Is there anything else we can do in the meantime until Riona wins an audience with a king or queen on the voting council?”
“There has to be.” Maya bit down on the piercing under her bottom lip as she thought. “It’d help if we could communicate without having to meet in your room. If I had magic, then I could just use a mirror. That’s scrying, right?”
“Yes. Now that you mention it, I could enchant a pair of mirrors to function like human telephones.” I took out the small bronze mirror my aunt had made for me from my belt pouch. I pushed my power into the frame to alter the mirror’s purpose. It gave off a flickering light. Cold sweat broke out along my neck and cheeks. My knees gave, and I fell into my desk chair, panting hard. “I’ll… I’ll have to take care of that another time.”
“It looks like it’s getting harder to use your mojo, huh?” Maya squeezed my shoulder in another one of those easy gestures. “I’ll see what I can do to encourage your sister. Maybe that’ll give her other ideas to get her campaign moving.”
“We can only hope.” I held my chest. It had started burning before I cut off the flow of my trickling power. Would my breathing have stalled if I had continued? It served as a constant reminder of our mission.
I had long enjoyed wielding my unique power, the Key. My father, along with my two uncles, had created it to keep my world, Tir Na Nog, and my race, the Aos Si, closed off from the dangers of humanity. As the Key’s vessel, I alone could harness its abilities to see, interact, and make portals to and from the human world. The catch? Its magic required the High King’s permission.
My eldest uncle and the Aos Si’s current High King, Bodb Derg, had announced the end of his rule recently. He bid the men of my family to secretly instill the Key with a curse so they could eliminate it. However, that curse would kill me as well. I had only learned a matter of months ago that Uncle Bodb had activated it. My innate magic had drained bit by bit ever since. Maya and I had to sever the Key’s power from the High King’s authority with a mysterious ritual by Samhain, and the election of Bodb’s replacement. If we didn’t, the Key would be destroyed, and take me with it.
What little I knew of the cure required that a human bring together the Aos Si’s four sacred treasures: Lugh’s Spear, Nuada’s Sword, the Dagda’s Cauldron, and the Stone of Destiny. Our plan revolved around my half-sister, Riona, bringing Maya to each province where three of the treasures lay as she ran for High King. Maya would steal them and bring them to the Stone of Destiny. Sometime between those steps, I would have to take back the book I’d found the ritual in and search for its last steps. If only Father hadn’t discovered the tome and returned it to Uncle Aengus.
“You should get to your big meeting before they miss you.” Maya went to my ivy-embossed mirror and pushed through the gold-tinted glass. When I first met her, she had been so tentative with using mirror-portals to go from place to place in Tir Na Nog. Her confidence had come a long way since she first tumbled into my room. I caught myself proudly smiling as she disappeared.
* * *
I stepped into Father’s domed study, full of antiquated scrolls and glowing stones, so he could escort me to the meeting. Father and my uncles had traded hosting the occasion since Riona announced her candidacy—Aunt Brigid could not because she served as my ailing human mother’s caretaker. Last time, we had met here where my parents and I lived, below Bri Leith’s hills. I’d forgotten whose turn it was next. Uncle Aengus at his stone keep in Bru Na Boinne? Uncle Bodb in Tir Na Nog’s capital, Tara? They bled together. Either way, they would strategize about how Father would earn the voting council’s favor so he could win the High King’s seat. Perhaps this time their questions about my “spying” on Riona through spending time with Maya might be minimal.
“You’re late, but why should I be surprised?” Father stood in front of his mirror dressed in golden finery with his ever-present sword at his belt. Both his hands were clasped behind his cloak. “You’ve always taken more after Aengus than me.”
“You’re too early for everything.” I stopped next to him.
“What kept you?” Father asked.
“Maya visited while I was putting my hair together.”
“What did she say?”
“I’d rather keep you in suspense until the meeting.” I crossed my arms. “Speaking of which, I’m here. What are we waiting for?”
“Our host.” The shadow of a smile played on Father’s grim mouth for a moment.
“They should already be there, shouldn’t they?” I bounced on the balls of my feet. Bodb would scold me for not having anything new to tell. The quicker his tongue lashing ended, the better. “We should get on with it.”
“Patience, boy,” Father said. “You can afford to wait a few moments for manners’ sake.”
“Isn’t making guests wait the sign of a poor host?”
“Forgive me if my hospitality suffers because I must ready your mother and myself.” Aunt Brigid’s steady footfalls came from behind us. Her reflection joined ours in the mirror. I glanced over my shoulder, and found my much shorter mother at her side.
Mother wore her most extravagant violet gown with gold trim, and someone had brushed her hair to a rose-gold sheen. Her cheeks had grown more sunken, though. Had she been refusing her meals again? Aunt Brigid’s bare arms displayed new scratches, and Mother’s nails sported fresh blood under them. Persuading her to come must not have gone well. Mother still held her chin as high as any queen. Her eyes were clear of the usual fog Aunt Brigid kept over her. She was herself.
“We won’t be long, Etain,” Brigid said as she held the small of Mother’s back and looked to Father. She drew her eyebrows together and her pupils thinned to uncertain slits. “Are you sure about this? I can do what I’ve done for the other meetings and participate from Etain’s chamber through a mirror. Her condition has only worsened since Riona’s confrontation. She’s bound to be difficult at best and unpredictable at worst.”
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“I’ve tolerated this imprisonment long enough,” Mother said, haughty and proud. “My cooperation has limits.”
“Wait, we’re going to Cill Dara?” How could we hold the meeting at Aunt Brigid’s home if she had to care for Mother? I searched between Father and Brigid for an explanation. “And Mother is coming?”
“Yes to all.” Father swiped his hand across his mirror and the edges of its frame lit up gold. He stepped through.
This meeting might not be as uneventful as I expected. What was Father planning?
Aunt Brigid held the gathering in the uppermost chamber of her fortress of winding oaks suspended in an eternal autumn. Cill Dara’s open canopy of red, orange, and yellow leaves swayed as soft breezes wafted through my aunt’s airy chamber. Bark lifted and reshaped itself into chairs as each member of the family sat. Mother took the seat to the left of Aunt Brigid, while Bodb took his place at her right as the guest of honor. Father, Aengus, and I filled in the other positions within the circle.
The talk began with a discussion of the general climate of Tir Na Nog in light of Riona’s recent announcement that she would campaign for Bodb’s seat. Uncle Aengus, representing Midhe, and Aunt Brigid, representing Laigan, already promised their votes to Father, putting him at an early advantage. The contest would be decided by the other three provinces of the reigning council from there. So far, the Queens of the South in Mumhan, Aine and Cliona, backed Bodb. Manannan and his puppet-monarch son, Ilbrec, in Uliad to the north, remained loyal. If their stances didn’t change, that would earn Father two more votes. King Finvarra to the west in Connacht was the most obvious council member who might throw his vote in Riona’s favor. While our family, the Dagda’s Brood, were direct descendants of the Dagda’s legendary line, Finvarra was a distant cousin who claimed the relation after he rose to power. His resentment of us made him a common dissident. All things still seemed to work in Father’s favor, as if Riona didn’t pose a threat.
“There is not much left of the election, and there are no signs of unrest,” Brigid argued. “Leave Riona to play. If she meant to undermine us for the sake of it, she’d have done a much better job.”
“We can’t leave this to fester. Had you lot left me to deal with her myself, none of this would have happened,” Bodb spoke up, throwing a pointed glare at my aunt.
“Dallying with our niece for centuries in a forbidden union, then torturing her when she tried to free herself of it, is not how you deal with someone.” Tongues of fire rose from Aunt Brigid’s hair as she glowered back.
“Nonetheless, she could still sabotage us,” Bodb said.
“She wouldn’t pose as much a danger if you had left her alone,” Brigid snapped back. “Don’t think you had no fault in this.”
“Mind your tongue.” Bodb slammed his fist into the arm of his chair, and the wood shattered under the force. “I am still your liege. This harassment makes you as bad a host as your Fomor-loving, traitorous late husband.”
Aunt Brigid’s entire aura glowed red-hot.
“Why must you two be so feisty?” Aengus reclined into his chair, propping his legs on one arm and his back on the other. “Save your bickering for if the Lady of Irons incites civil war.”
Father had fallen quiet throughout the meeting. He rubbed the grip of his sword and watched Mother.
Mother continued to meet his gaze with an impervious one of her own. Her hands choked each other in her lap as she held herself in such tight restraint. Some of the tics that came with her forgetful spells or personality shifts slipped through: sudden jerks of her shoulders or parts of her face spasming. I’d only ever seen her more headstrong side after her mind started to become off balance. She slipped into a younger persona, without the knowledge and burden of her advanced age.
“Don’t you have anything to contribute, my heir?” Bodb asked Father as he rubbed a lock of his beard. “I see an idea brewing in you.”
Father’s irises had been like swirling pools of molten gold. He blinked, and his eyes stilled. “I can see only one solution to our cause,” he began. “If Riona has made the election a true competition, then I must treat it as such. It’s like a game. I must win by proving I am the better player. Let Aengus and Daire serve as my saboteurs while I show Tir Na Nog their new High King, outside the confines of Bri Leith.”
Mother’s nails drew blood against her knuckles. Her facade cracked as she mused over Father. Had he caught her attention?
Brigid, Aengus, and Bodb addressed Father with blank expressions.
Father’s cheeks gained a pink tint, and his old injury made his right eye twitch out of place. That only happened when someone caught him off guard. His glamour intensified, concealing the tic as he leaned forward in his seat. “You object?”
“You don’t remember before the final war with the Fomor?” Aunt Brigid winced. “The last time you tried to navigate politics, it devolved into a skirmish.”
“Then there was the time you tried to negotiate with me for the crimes of your errant sons. Our peace talks turned to a battle,” Bodb added.
“So that’s the other reason why you sent me to ask for Etain’s hand,” Aengus said with a snicker. “You wouldn’t get through talking without attacking her father for it.”
“That’s enough. I realize I’m a man of action more than words.” Father got the same ghost of a grin as before when I asked about where the meeting was to take place. He glanced across the circle at Mother. “That’s why I’ll bring someone who knows better how to navigate a leader’s heart without violence. Etain?”
“Wha—” Mother blinked and gripped her chest. She took a moment to swallow as she set her hand back in her lap. “Excuse me, m’lord?”
“This gesture is sweet, but I am more than capable of managing my lands while caring for her,” Brigid said as she looked between them both with matronly concern.
“I wasn’t being insincere or generous, sweet sister.” Midir shook his head at Brigid. “I meant every word. Etain knows courtly subtlety and manners, and she has always excelled at the art of manipulation.”
My throat went dry. How should I respond to such a shocking proposal? I was so accustomed to him being dead set that my mother stay isolated for her own safety, for everyone else’s safety. Why the sudden change of tact?
“Her condition—” Brigid started.
“—is something I can handle.” Father glanced to my mother. “Dear heart, would you be willing to aid me in winning the favor of our ruling council?”
“If I am as adept as you say, m’lord, I would be a fool not to ask for something in return.” Mother tilted her head to one side at an angle that showed off the best view of her slender neck.
“Your freedom.” Midir held her gaze, steady and sure. “So long as you don’t hurt yourself or others, you may roam wherever you like at your leisure. I do reserve the right to set certain protections so harm doesn’t come to you. But, should you find a way out of Tir Na Nog, I will not stop you from taking it.”
Mother stopped breathing for a moment and went rigid. He dangled the base desire she always remembered. She examined Father like a suspicious hound would a thick cut of pork, unsure if it he would snatch the chance away.
“Let me be blunt,” Uncle Bodb said, slicing through the uneasy tension that had formed between Father and the rest of our family. “If you take Etain to the other provinces, she will be vulnerable. Even if you were to bring your entire household with you and the few trusted guards you have left, she could fly into a fit at any time and get past someone. A skilled assassin could slip by your entourage. Any number of dangers could snare her and bring you to your knees. We saw this happen when Riona managed to snatch her. And the edicts that keep us from slaying each other do not cover Etain because of her human blood. Not only that, but it will leave Daire vulnerable without anyone to watch over him in Bri Leith. This is a ridiculous idea. I will not have it!”
“Very well, I will also be blunt.” Father narrowed his eyes at Bodb. “You decided to step down from your seat and appoint me your successor. Can you undo what you have started? Are you willing?”
“It’s for the good of all that someone else take the High King’s seat.” Bodb’s nostrils flared, the same warning sign as a bull about to charge. “You will not stir my conviction.”
“It is not a matter of your conviction, but a matter of preparation,” Father said, waving toward Mother and me. “By doing this, I am subjecting my family to a new level of danger that they have never faced before. My status has always protected Etain, and Daire has always had our family’s power to hide him. Now I enter a different arena. It will be a matter of time before I must confront the realities I’m exposing them to. Assassinations, coups, plots, schemes, pretenders; this is more attention than they have ever had. We need practice, and I intend to use this opportunity to give it to us.”
“I’m coming too?” I blurted.
“Yes, you are,” Father said, his tone brooking no complaint. “I need someone to help me with Etain if she should forget about our arrangement. Who better than her own son?”
“Taking your wife is one allowance, but taking the Key and its vessel from the safety of Bri Leith is another.” Bodb stood, his voice booming. “So long as I still rule, it will be kept out of the hands of those who would abuse it, especially with Etain so close. If she can bring you to your knees, think of what someone taking her will do to Daire.”
“Isn’t that why you placed the protection that only your power could permit him to use the Key?” Father continued against his larger brother, unfazed. “This is my campaign, he is my son, and I am his keeper. If I cannot protect him myself, then I don’t deserve to be your successor. Would you rather replace me with Brigid or Aengus? Would you like to take your chances being ruled over by the Lady of Irons?”
“He’s becoming unreasonable,” Bodb said, looking between Aunt Brigid and Uncle Aengus for aid. “You two talk sense to him. He doesn’t listen anymore, the stubborn ass of a man. Better yet, volunteer to take his place.”
“I vowed I wouldn’t enter that arena again unless my people were in dire need. Midir’s refusal to listen to you hardly constitutes that,” Aunt Brigid said.
“I want it even less than she does. I’m at your service, Bodb, but I’m far less qualified. Manannan still has his grudge against me for creating the Key, among other things. If I run, he might turn Uliad toward Riona out of spite. If we lose him, it’s only a matter of time before he convinces his daughter in Mumhan to sway Cliona against us.” Aengus shrank further into his seat. “Then we lose the north and south in one fell swoop.”
Father cracked a genuine smile, a rarity.
“I still have reservations about this plan,” Aunt Brigid amended, turning her stern attention on Father. “Your idea doesn’t take Etain into account. What if she attacks you? Worse yet, what if she attacks Daire while you aren’t looking?”
“He has made me the deal, m’lady,” Mother spoke up, controlled and diplomatic. It was almost as if she was wholly herself. “I will not jeopardize my freedom by assaulting my captor. Especially now when what I want is in reach, and he is finally being reasonable.”
“I’ll make sure neither her nor Daire comes to harm. If I can’t care for my own family, how will I be able to care for my entire race?” Father addressed aunt Brigid in a far more respectful manner as he leaned forward and pointed to me. “In any case, the boy should learn how to help with her. Bri Leith is able to run itself well enough, and he will need more to do than tend the gardens until it passes to him.”
“Does this have to do with what we talked about?” Even Aengus looked concerned as he glanced between me, Mother, and Father. “I won’t go against you, but are you absolutely sure there isn’t a better way to do this?”
“I am.” Father gave Aengus a solemn nod. “Have faith that I know what I’m doing.”
“Not that I have a choice in the matter,” I said once I found my own objection. I still wasn’t sure whether I wanted to go or not. It was time spent with Mother, and she was eager enough for it, but must Father be with us? Perhaps it was a scheme to try and keep me from accomplishing my task. Or was this something that could work in my favor? “Aren’t I supposed to be spying for you? Maya and I have our little clandestine meetings in my bedroom. How do you propose I continue this if I’m supposed to keep Mother company while you politic?”
“Report to me when you’re supposed to have these meetings. I will make arrangements, silly boy.” Father tapped his finger on my head, as if to rattle my mind into syncing with his. He hadn’t done that since he tried teaching me combat maneuvers. “We have to learn to work together if you are to serve as Key Bearer under me.”
A palpable tension filled the room as Uncle Aengus fiddled with his cloak, and Bodb bared his teeth at Father. The cruel joke stung, but I managed to restrict my reaction to crossing my arms and biting my cheek ‘til I tasted blood.
“The plan is set, then.” Father clapped his knees and rose as if that adjourned the meeting.
Uncle Bodb glowered at Father and continued to rail against him, trying to bully him into changing his mind. But Father—also known as Midir the Proud, Midir the Hard-Headed, and other variations—did not budge.