I went to Rio’s burrow with hefty worries and murky expectations. Daire had unloaded and cried long enough to recover all his magic and put a Nuada’s Sword detection spell on my mirror. Doing that made him pass out. He deserved the nap.
Rio bumped me and jolted me out of my haze. “Oh, you have returned.”
“Were you waiting up?” I peeked behind her. A line of smudged footprints were tracked in the dirt floor going up and down the hall. Anxiety made her pace like that.
“He called you as soon as you woke and you often take longer than necessary when visiting him.” Rio crossed her arms and her tight mouth soured in a frown.
“You know how he likes to talk.” I winced at the excuse. Dismissing my jealous crush’s issue while badmouthing my friend who’d just had a full blown panic attack? That took some crappy talent.
“Did he give you something we can use?”
“Um, some.” I sifted through the metric ton of info Daire had confided to me. We usually agreed ahead of time on what we’d tell Rio and his family after our meetings. I hadn’t remembered to check with him this time. She’d love to know how Manannan had interrogated his family. That seemed too private, though.
“Did you forget or did you let him take up so much of your time for something inconsequential?” Rio’s eyes settled into a dark gray.
“There’s something big that got stolen.” I shrugged, reminding myself that pressure made her catty. It didn’t help that every lie and half-truth I told justified her attitude. “Daire’s dad stopped campaigning to help look for it.”
“Such an item must be quite valuable to earn his attention.” Rio tapped her chin and pursed her lips. “What was it? Perhaps if I can find it first, I may earn enough favor to make Queen Cliona and Aine take notice.”
“Some kind of weapon. A spear I think.”
“Did he mention anything else? Give any hints?” Rio’s pupils got big as dinner plates.
“No, he didn’t.” I turned away and headed for my cot. Nerves cramped my insides like a crumpled paper wad.
“You cannot need to sleep again.” Rio swerved around me and cut off my way to bed. “When can you go back and ask for more details? This could be what I need to tip the scale in my favor.”
“Weren’t you just complaining how I spent too much time over there?”
“That was before you learned something that could guarantee our survival come Samhain. I can bear through his advances toward you for the sake of living past the election.”
“Two things.” I shoved two fingers at her. “One: if I go back again this soon, then either Daire or his family is going to figure out I’m spying for you. Two: there’s nothing you’ve got to be jealous about. He’s a friend. That’s it. Lay off.”
“I doubt he feels the same way.”
“Look, you trust me, right?”
“Trusting you does not mean I can trust him.”
“Say you’re right, and he wants to get me into bed or something. I can handle it.” I rubbed my eyes, too emotionally exhausted to deal with this crap. “It’s not like we’re together…”
Rio went quiet and magnetized static built in the air around her. Why? Wait…I’d said that aloud.
“Shit.” A cold weightlessness settled over my chest like I’d woken up still stuck in a mild nightmare. I reached out for her hand. “I didn’t mean it like that—”
Rio flinched away. Any hint in her face about her feelings vanished behind a hard mask.
“Come on, don’t give me the silent treatment.” I pulled away. “We can talk through this. That’s what we do.”
Rio opened her mouth, probably to say something cutting. I’d never find out. She looked away behind me toward the mirrors.
I looked over my shoulder. The curtain hiding the one with apples and celestial bodies beamed yellow.
Rio rushed to the curtain, lifted it up, and touched the flashing glass. The light dulled into a couple of ladies standing in the frame. One had pearl-white skin and hair with a subtle sheen while the other had a bronze tan with yellow hair that shined bright enough to make me squint. It’s like they were a couple cosplaying as the sun and moon.
“Good day, Lady of Irons!” The sunshine blonde on the left waved with a wide smile at Rio that bordered on childish. I nicknamed her Sunny, only because it was the only thing that fit her aesthetic theme and bubbly greeting. “How are you and your changeling?”
“Far better now.” Rio offered a convincing plastic grin and a short bow of her head. “To what do I owe the pleasure of your call, your majesties?”
“Our attendants have chattered about wanting to have an audience with Tir Na Nog’s only modern human since Aoife first bragged about meeting her.” Sunny hung on the paler woman’s arm and looked up at her with exaggerated adoration. “Then Clia, the most stunning wife in all of Tir Na Nog, had the brilliant idea to invite the two of you.”
“She exaggerates,” Clia, the moon-themed one of the pair, indulged her wife with a humble snicker. Then she sobered and raised her chin at Rio. “My realm’s loyalty to High King Bodb Derg still stands, for now. However, Lord Manannan has reported some disturbing news from Tara that has me concerned. Both Lugh’s Spear and the Dagda’s Cauldron have gone missing. I wanted your thoughts on the matter. And if the conversation should wander to the election, so be it.”
“Why are you being so serious about Papa?” Sunny pouted. “He hates it when you do that.”
“This is official business, Aine,” Clia said under her breath. “It calls for a dose of formality.”
“Name the time and we will come,” Rio slipped in.
“Tonight,” Both Clia and Aine (a.k.a. Sunny) said together.
Rio exchanged goodbyes with the queens and let the black curtain fall back over the mirror. The cold mask covered her face again as it swung. “Take your rest. I’ll fetch you dinner from the woods. Without the Cauldron to supply it, the cabinet won’t work.”
“I’m not really tired.” I started down the hall toward her and the boulder. “I’ll come too. We can—”
“I don’t need you,” Rio said, quoting another time I’d lost my temper and run off.
Fine. If she needed her alone time, I’d give it to her. If she wanted to be petty, I’d be the bigger person and hope she got over it. As she rolled the boulder away from the entrance and shrank into Queenie, my doubts crawled from where I’d repressed them. Was this a one time thing or the start of a pattern? Could I stand that for a chance at a long term relationship? Did I want to risk it?
I sighed as I sagged down the wall and pulled Daire’s mirror out of my bra. That stuff didn’t matter yet. My priority was getting Rio out of Tir Na Nog alive. Once we were past that, then I could think about the consequences. I tapped the glass and got a sleepy Daire on the line.
“Get ready,” I told him as he looked back at me with bleary eyes. “I’m going for the Sword.”
* * *
I rested with the mirror safely tucked away with its pointy leaf corners poking me the whole time. This was it. The Sword was the last object we needed before I had to bring the three scattered sacred objects to the stationary fourth, the Stone of Destiny, and Daire could do the spell to send me home. Once I had it, I could talk to him about how we were going to bring Rio into this to save her life and get her to abandon the election. Rio came back with some wild nuts and berries. I ate in silence while she stewed and avoided looking directly at her in the awkward quiet. If she wanted to come to me, fine. I’d wait until then.
We both went to the mirror once I finished eating. Rio took my shoulders a bit rougher than usual, and the familiar tingles of her magic trailed down my arms.
“Woah, a little permission.” I shrank away from her and rubbed my shoulders where she’d touched.
“You never protested before.”
“You always asked first.”
“Do you suddenly dislike me making you formal attire?” Rio eyes shifted to a cloudy gray. Her energy crackled like before a spring thunderstorm. “Or is this about keeping Daire’s mirror stored with you?”
“I do like it, that’s not…” I sighed, raking my bangs out of my eyes. “Look, you can do whatever you want to my clothes, but leave my bra. I keep the mirror on me in case he calls. Normally it’s not important, but if I miss it, he gets suspicious. I need him to trust me.”
“Can his trust in you be so fragile after all this time?” Rio set her fingertips back on my shoulders and warm tingling poured down from them. My shirt lengthened to a black under-dress, my tennis shoes changed to soft boots, then a flowing purple cloak with silver Celtic-knots covered it all. “Surely you see that he must have ulterior motives, if not to woo you then to ply you for knowledge of my plans.”
“Let’s do this later,” I said as I braided my hair to the side. “Please.”
“Why else would you lash out if he hadn’t turned you against me?”
“Because I’m frustrated!” I yanked out the progress I made on my hair and spun around to look at her. “One minute you’re pushing me off on Daire because you have to keep your distance. The next you’re asking me to stop seeing him so much like a jealous girlfriend. You say we have to wait to see what’s between us while acting like we’re already together.”
“Our situation is—”
“Yeah, the election drama is complicated. But this,” I said as I gestured between us, “needs to be consistent. I’ll go along with whichever you want, but you need to pick one way and stick to it.”
Rio deflected behind me and touched the edge of the mirror over my shoulder.
Wind hit my back in a great big woosh as I turned around and went through, whipping my half-dyed bangs in my eyes. We walked out onto a low peak surrounded by taller green mountains. I’d caught a glimpse of a range or two when Mom and I went to California for Abuela’s funeral, but never that close. A large lake sat in the central valley with water so clear it cast a perfect reflection of the twilight sky. An oval courtyard sat in the middle of it with trees growing out of it. In the middle was a gleaming gold one whose branches lit the entire lake like a tiny sun. The silver ones around it rimmed the perimeter and their roots, trunks, and swaying leaves seemed like they were made of jewelry.
Rio led us down a faint path between long grass and overgrown shrubs. The foliage scratched at my boots and the edge of my cloak caught on thorns. We followed that gentle slope, and I spotted smaller white platforms and lakes nestled in the distance. They were arranged at random throughout the landscape, the only man-made structures dotting the mountain sides. Rio and I hiked on. The ratio between night and day on the horizon stayed fifty percent warm, fifty percent cool with stars dotting the darker parts. Daire told me once that the time of day only shifted in his part of Tir Na Nog, not the others. Did the queens always keep their part stuck between sunrise or sunset?
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We approached the lake and Rio walked a straight line on top of the water. At first I jerked away, but she tugged me along and I stumbled onto a solid, invisible path. I rushed behind her until we passed under the silver trees. Glistening apples dangled off them just out of reach.
Daire’s mirror got warm against my side. The Sword must be nearby. But where? In a tree?
Gray-dressed women dropped from the branches without shaking them. More climbed from the depths of the lake, not making a ripple on the water. They all had monochromatic hair with combs holding it up and their cat pupils went round as they studied me.
The center tree that made its own light rolled open like curtains for a window. Queen Clia walked out with Queen Aine coming up behind her. Clia wore a dark purple dress that faded into an even darker blue until it became pitch black at the bottom of her skirt. The black cloak hanging over her shoulder sparkled where clusters of small stars dotted it. Aine had put on a tiara of flowers that held her gold curls back from her face. Her intense shine drowned out the finer details of her outfit and made me see flashing spots on everything else.
“Your luminous majesties.” Rio dipped her head. I copied her, relieved at the chance to look away from all that light. “Riona, Lady of Irons, and my companion Maya of the Mortal Realm.”
“Yes, we have been told much of your ward,” Clia said and three small birds flew around her head and parked on her shoulders. She gestured to the other side of her wife. “You already know my other guest.”
Aengus of all people stood there, bowing to Rio and me with his hands behind his back. “You had just come up in the conversation.”
“Speak of the devil,” I muttered as I scowled at him.
“I always thought it better to know someone in the flesh than by listening to rumors,” Rio said, giving Aengus a stiff, but cordial nod. Her skin didn’t hum, but her nostrils flared. “Were you invited as well?”
“One of the Bean Sidhe happened to be entertaining me, we ran across these two, and things went from there,” Aengus said with a crooked smirk.
“Her hair is so strange, don’t you think Clia?” Aine remarked, her voice as bubbly and sweet as when she’d talked in the mirror. “Do you like her colors?”
“Yes, both are exceptionally pleasing to her shape,” Clia, the white-haired queen replied. “Did she let you assemble her attire, Lady Riona, or did she come up with it on her own?”
I hid my fists behind my back at the patronizing talk. At least they were nicer about it than Manannan’s son.
“She graciously allowed me to dress her according to our ways.” Rio wrapped her arm around my shoulders, using her other to wave toward the white-haired queen. “This is her majesty Cliona of Southern Mumhan.” She then gestured to Aine who twinkled at me like a kid to a birthday present. “This is her majesty Aine of North Mumhan who rules alongside Cliona, though she does not sit on the election council.”
“Lord Manannan talked about them, right?” I said, racking my brain to try and sort through all the information crammed in my head. “He bragged about Aine—Queen Aine a lot.”
“Oh, Papa does that to antagonize my brother.” Despite the mock modesty, Aine puffed her chest and her light pulsed brighter a second. I squinted and she dulled it back to normal levels. “My enthusiasm can be overwhelming to most. I will attempt to keep it reigned in your presence, Maya, for Lady Riona’s sake.”
“Was it difficult to tame such radiance, Lady Cliona?” Rio commented with the same hint of mischief she used when flirting with me.
“Her radiance is always nigh untamable.” Cliona laced her fingers with her wife’s. “I would have it no different. It pleases my song birds to have her light up Mumhan. It makes the apples grow much better as well.”
“The two of you do compliment each other.” Aengus waved to the sky like an afterthought. “I do enjoy the twilight your union has put in the region, as well. The colors remind me of this weather trick Fuamnach—I’m sure you remember my foster mother— did to bend sunlight with clouds when I was much younger. Always a beautiful thing.”
“She told the loveliest stories as well.” Rio’s nails dug into my shoulder and her irises turned black. “A great pity to lose such a mind to a coward’s sword.”
“Indeed she did. Growing up with her, for the most part, was a treat. She did have quite a bad jealousy streak, though,” Aengus said, nodding along like mentioning Rio’s mom was normal small talk. “Her punishments were very strict, I remember. A very tyrannical Lady of Bri Leith for anyone who fooled around as I often did.”
I could feel Rio’s whole body shake through her hand before my whimper slipped out. She dropped it to her side so both her hard clenched fists hung in sight of everybody. Her chain bracelet wrapped up her arm like a cobra uncoiling to strike at a bigger predator. Aine and Cliona studied Rio during her and Aengus’ back and forth, probably measuring her reaction.
The tension in the air rose like an electric charge, ready to zap the next person who moved. Somebody had to break this up. I glanced over at the closest tree and the shiny apples camouflaging inside the branches. Even the lines of the bark were silver, like a kid had gone crazy with metallic spray paint. The exact patterns and knots were hard to make out with how they reflected the light of the sun tree.
“Can you eat those?” I blurted as I pointed at an apple hanging from a lower branch.
Everyone’s attention flicked to me, gawking like I’d questioned the most obvious common sense ever. Rio’s intensity snapped and her chain slinked back to its home on her wrist.
“Yes. Their skin only matches the trees so they stay hidden from would-be-thieves,” Cliona explained. She placed a hand on the small of her wife’s back and nudged her toward the beaming tree. “Lady Riona, we would prefer to discuss this business of ours in private. I know how my Bean Sidhe like to gossip. Are you comfortable leaving your ward to entertain them?”
“Will your other guest be joining us?” Rio raised her eyebrows at Aengus.
“I’ve taken up enough of their time, I think. Besides, I have something brewing back home that I must check before it boils over.” Aengus strolled down the path, passing Rio and I with a satisfied grin. “Until next time, little niece.”
I scratched my nose with my middle finger conveniently facing Daire’s uncle as he walked by. Whether he understood it or not, I helped me feel better.
“As for leaving my companion with your attendants…” Rio didn’t acknowledge him, like he was empty air. “Maya, do you wish to come in with me?”
“Not really.” My mirror started making a sweaty patch where its heat touched. “I’ll be bored out of my mind. Me and the Bean Sidhe can keep each other busy.”
“Very well.” Rio turned back to the queens. “Do I have your word your attendants won’t take Maya or bring her harm if I leave her with them?”
“Of course.” Cliona turned toward the small herd gathered behind us. “Your word?”
“Yes, your majesty,” sang the chorus of gray women.
Rio trailed after the queens into the glowing insides of the central tree. The trunk twisted back to its original shape, leaving me alone with a gaggle of much taller women.
At first they kept their distance and held an unsaid contest of who could watch me the longest without talking or blinking. A busty one with familiar hips came up to me first. Where did I know her from?
“Your name’s Maya, then?” Her smile gave her cheek a slight dimple on one side. “Do you remember me?”
“Feels like I should.” I couldn’t match a name with her face.
“You found Daire and I tangled up in his bed.” She snickered as my cheeks heated up. “Gave you quite the fright, if I remember right. I am Aoife.”
“Well his and a stranger’s bare ass isn’t really my thing.” I held out my hand on reflex. “Nice to meet you again.”
“I cannot fault you in preferring Lady Riona’s backside.” Aoife examined my hand instead of shaking it. “Were it not for the chains and her prickly disposition, I would have a go at her myself.”
“Is Lady Riona sharing her title with you?” The shortest one approached and bent to my left wrist where Rio’s bracelet dangled.
“Um, no, not really.” I leaned away and the mirror in my bra heated up a few more degrees. Daire had said the Sword was silver…same as the trees. Was it hiding in plain sight like the apples?
“Why do you shear your hair so short?” Came another Bean Sidhe with her black hair tied up in loops. “Are you masquerading as a man in your world for inheritance, or to escape a crime?”
“Actually a lot of women do this to their hair. Easier to wash and stuff.” I scooted a smidge to the right. The mirror cooled back to luke warm. I shifted my weight in the other direction and it flared up.
“How did you make it that color?” I bumped into yet another Bean Sidhe that came up behind me and plucked one of my faded purple strands right off. “Is it like dying cloth where you crush berries, or by some spell?”
I jerked away and stumbled yards away from the closest two trees edging the courtyard. The mirror scalded like a too-hot bath. The Sword was close.
“Careful sneaking up on me like that. I buy a tube and bleach and there’s this whole process.” I rubbed my head where she’d pulled. “Enough about my hair. Have you guys heard of ‘The Quiet Game’?”
“Seems dull to me,” the short one said. “Games sound entertaining, though. Do you know any new human ones you can teach us?”
“Too many people for cards,” I muttered, half to them and half to myself. Including me, there were about twenty. The list of games I knew that could fit that number of players was short. There were playground games that could work, but which would distract them long enough to let me look for the Sword? They would all watch me and kick my ass in Tag, even if I played the kind with a “base” that everyone could touch. What if I was one of those kids that spent forever counting while they peeked where everyone went? “Do you guys know ‘Hide and Seek’?”
They went quiet for a second, probably waiting for the interpreting spell to find a similar meaning in their language.
“A children’s game?” Aoife asked first, her nose wrinkling.
“I’ll be ‘it’ and count to…one hundred,” I said, pointing at myself. “Then while I’m counting, all of you have to find a really good place to hide. After I’m done counting, you all have to stay where you are and wait for me to find you. When I find someone, they have to help me find the others. The last person found wins the game and gets to be ‘it’ during the next round. Simple enough, right?”
“It sounds more dull than the Quiet Game,” another one said, her aristocratic nose up and her arms crossed. “At least that is a game that we do not already know about.”
“I guess Hide and Seek is pretty old.” There had to be a variation or a taunt that would keep them interested. I scratched the side of my bra as the heat from the mirror made me chaff. “It’s not just for kids anymore, you know. A lot of adults play these massive games of it in huge stores. They have tournaments. Not to brag, but I’m pretty good.”
“You’ve won a tournament?” the short one asked. I blinked. The next second she bent inches from my nose.
“I won a tournament at my school when I was younger, yeah.” The last time I won Hide and Seek was second grade, and the teacher gave me a Hershey bar. “I got a prize too.”
“What kind of prize?” Aoife leaned in almost as close at the little one. Even the snobby one perked up at a possible reward.
“We don’t really have chocolate here.” I had to keep it something simple, but Aos Si weren’t eight-year-old girls. “I can teach you to make animals from paper, no magic needed. Or I can tell a really epic story that really happened. Your choice.”
“The story!” The short one bobbed her head hard enough to rattle her brain. The rest parroted her in agreement.
“What if you lose?” Miss Nose-in-the-Air asked. “You might not even find one of us. We have the advantage of knowing the land and staying silent, even without our power. Promise us something if you should you fail.”
“If I don’t find anyone, then I’ll teach everyone how to make the animals and tell the story.” I did my best imitation Daire’s most irritating smirk. “That’s only if I don’t find any of you. If I find even one, then she’s got to help me find the rest.”
“Does everyone agree to these terms?” Aoife asked.
A chorus of “Aye!” came from the rest of the Bean Sidhe in unison.
“Let the game begin!” The snobby one smiled and showed off her sharp canines.
I went over the ground rules: no magic, keep it around the lake, nothing underwater, and absolutely no peeking at anyone else. Finding my place to count would be the hard part. I focused on the mirror’s heat as I turned back to the two trees that had set it off. One had bigger apples dangling in sight. The mirror’s temperature went down half a degree. I turned on the ball of my foot to the other tree with smaller apples and a narrower trunk. The mirror burned. I breathed through the pain and settled there. “One. Two. Three…”
They scattered with a pattering of lighter than air footsteps that I could only hear because there were so many. Next came splashes and rustling grass before my own voice was the only sound on the platform. “Nine. Ten. Eleven.”
I guided my eyes by feel as I shoved my fingers into every crevice of the trunk, trying to make out a shape against the light reflected in my face. The smooth bark might as well have been a metal sculpture pretending to be a tree trunk. Would my fingers run right over the small knobs in the handle or brush right past the blade edges?
No, I had to keep trying. I concentrated on the hilt, how it had that circular part at the end of an hourglass grip with little human face notches. My nail caught on something round with three indentations clustered together. A knot in the tree? It ran into a horizontal line! Everything else flowed vertical. I closed my eyes and my fingers explored the area better. There were little bumps along a long part, a half-cylinder, finger grips! More hair-fracture lines around that.
I dug my nails into the cracks between the hilt and the bark like I wanted to pry off a plastic jewel glued to a shirt. The Sword didn’t give easy and two of my nails bent back. I’d need something tougher to pry it off.
“Fifty-five. Fifty-six. Fifty-seven.” I dug through my bra and pulled out my mirror. A few of the edges had those leaves with sharp corners that poked me. I felt out where the hilt was again and stuck the frame in the small line between it and the tree. Nothing chipped, nothing budged. I wedged it under and pushed. My eyes watered from the constant invasion of bright light and flashing spots covered everything I saw.
The mirror lifted the hilt enough that I could try getting my fingers around it. King Arthur’s legend had him pulling a much bigger sword from a rock. I tried channeling some of that energy into my arm. Slide out like you’re stuck in butter, I thought to the Sword. I don’t want to use you that long, just a little bit.
“Eighty-eight,” I counted on. “Eighty-nine. Ninety.”
I managed to curl the tips of my fingers around it and pulled. The little eye-like indents in the head piece glowed white. The Sword slipped free and I stumbled back, my whole hand closing around it. A flash of intense, white hot pain punching through my nerves. I squeaked and gnawed on the inside of my cheek to stamp it down. I tried dropping it, but the short blade burst into more white light, brighter than the gold tree. Rays from the Sword played off the silver plantlife while that raw burning lanced up my arm like somebody forcing me to touch a hot stove. I wanted to scream and it gurgled in my throat.
Daire appeared in the middle of my mirror, waving me toward him.
Something channeled my pain into aggression. My scream threatened to come out as a rampaging shout. I had to stab something, anything. The only choice I had against the compulsion was the mirror.
“One hundred!” The last number came out like a battle cry. Don’t hit Daire, I thought to the Sword as I stabbed it into the mirror. “Ready or not, here I come!”