For the next few hours, Rio played around like a mad scientist with a chemistry set. She ground up the plants she grew out of the dirt wall, set them aside in smaller bowls, then mixed them together in a big one. Sometimes puffs of colored smoke came up. If it was anything but red she tossed the mix out to start again with a different combination. When the herbal gunk’s smoke color satisfied her, she traced a bunch of lines into the dirt around it. The candles flickered and made our shadows jump as she meditated over the bowl.
I cycled between worry and boredom, making lists of everything that could possibly go wrong with her plan and counting grains of dirt. She’d been light on the specifics and only implied she was making a poison. I’d gone into my own trance to try and calm down.
The candles flared into flamethrowers and startled me out of it. Fire curled around the ceiling. Rio fell over in a heap, smearing her carefully laid lines.
The candles extinguished themselves and left me fumbling through the dark. I called her name while my eyes got used to the lack of light. No answer. I crawled ‘til I bumped into her leg and felt up the side of her body until I found her head. I checked around her face and my fingers came up slick with sweat and dust. No blood.
“Rio…c’mon.” I patted her cheek and set two fingers on her neck where her pulse should be. It beat slow, but something was better than nothing. “You’re scaring me with the fainting and pyrotechnics. This isn’t funny.”
The candles popped back on. Rio’s eyes flicked open, black but bright with small lightning flashes in her irises. Her mouth curled into a triumphant smile as she looked over the bowl. The glob of crushed plants and powders had become a liquid clear enough to be water. Her buzzing energy swirled around her hand and the particles gathered into a knife. She slashed her arm and the blood splashed into the bowl, tainting the mix a rich wine red.
“You’re pretty cheery after being unconscious.” I hiked myself up as my panicked heart slowed a couple notches.
“A side effect of the powers I’ve harnessed.” Her irises crackled and her pupils expanded to full circles like she’d huffed catnip.
“Whatever you did worked, right? When do I go in?”
“Once the boar mirror glows.” Rio scraped a substantial chunk of dirt from the wall and molded it in her glowing hands. It had a gourd shape until she made the thinner top into a spout. She poured the contents of the bowl into her new pitcher. “Offer this as tribute for his hospitality.”
“What if he asks why I’m there instead of you?” I took the bottom of the pitcher. It had the consistency of dried clay instead of dirt.
“Offer him the truth. I no longer feel safe in his presence and will not endanger myself because of a formality.”
“Alright.” I hugged the mystery drink to my chest, its weight reminding me of whose life depended on me not spilling it. “Everything’s ready now? That’s it?”
“Almost.” Rio touched the chain bracelet of hers I still wore. The air around it became electrified and hummed. “If anything happens, I will know and come to you with help.”
Down the hall, a glowing ring appeared behind Bodb’s black curtain. I took a deep breath and braced myself for what I had to do. It should be like serving drinks to a regular at Nico’s bar who tipped crappy. I’d put on my customer service smile that made my cheeks ache and play nice.
“Do you trust me?” Rio cupped my hands with hers.
“Yeah, for better or worse.” I gripped the pitcher harder to keep my hands from shaking and showing how scared I was.
Rio bent down to my level, uncertainty written across her too-tight expression. “Will you stand by me no matter what happens?”
“It’s…going to take awhile for me to get over my mom.” I swallowed the lump in my throat. I couldn’t afford to break down yet. I had to focus on saving Daire first. Then we could all get out of Tir Na Nog forever and rebuild from there. “I’ll need time to forgive that, but you’re still important to me. No more tricky stuff and we’ll be okay.”
“That is fair. However, please remember that everything I have done, everything I will do, is in our best interest.” And with that ominous disclaimer, Rio turned me toward Bodb’s mirror and sent me off.
* * *
I walked through the mirror into Bodb’s familiar hunter’s lodge bedroom with stuffed heads mounted everywhere. On the floor, Bodb shoved Midir’s face into a fur rug and straddled his legs to hold him down. Midir tried to push up with his free arms, but couldn’t seem to get up under the High King’s massive bulk. The testosterone filled display fit right in with the rest of the rustic bedroom.
I waited for one of them to notice I’d come in. Part of me hoped they’d kill each other and leave me out of it.
“Take it back or the moment I’m elected you’ll regret it!” Midir spiked his elbow at the current High King’s jaw.
“Careful what promises you make before you’ve won.” Bodb stayed calm and even as he caught Midir’s arm and twisted it behind his back at an angle that made the blonde wince.
“I’ll vow whatever I’d like.” Midir wriggled under the other man’s thick thighs, but didn’t gain an inch.
“Do you really think if begging and appealing to my sense of family didn’t work, that threats would do you any better?” Bodb frowned, his eyes pitying as he stood and let Midir go. “My order is final. I cannot rescind it and would not if I could. Destroying the Key is the only way to preserve the Aos Si. You have to let him go.”
“This will crush Etain…her only child.” Midir stayed sprawled on the ground like he’d lost the will to move. “My son.”
They were talking about Daire. Was Midir fighting for his son’s life? The hopelessness in Midir’s voice reminded me of my motivation: Daire smiling at me as I blew out all nineteen of those birthday candles in the too-sweet confetti cake he’d made. Abuela couldn’t secretly blush when Nathan complimented her outfit. Mom couldn’t beam and hug me the minute I walked through the door after a long shift. Daire was coming to my next birthday.
My shaking hands went stone still and I cleared my throat.
Both men’s attention darted around to me. Bodb crossed his arms over his chest. Midir stood and any wrinkle or smudge in his clothes vanished when his head reached higher than mine.
“Where is your mistress?” Bodb asked, glaring down his nose at me with his cat-eye pupils narrowed to slits.
“She sent me instead and will meet you two at the election.” I bowed my head as much as I could without spilling my gift. I held out the pitcher, praying he’d take it. “She said she didn’t feel safe coming, but that I should offer this.”
“What is it?” Bodb’s thick eyebrows went up.
“A gift, some kind of drink.” I bit the inside of my labret piercing. Steady, Maya.
“Your idea of making amends is lacking.” Bodb relaxed his stiff shoulders and his arms dropped to his sides. He took the pitcher’s handle and put the spout up to his nose. Whatever he smelled made his eyebrows perk up and he slung his arm around Midir’s shoulders. “Your timing is another matter. My brother here needs cheering and this smells of fine Roman wine. Perfect for warming a troubled heart. Wherever did your mistress get it without the Dagda’s Cauldron?”
“She had it in storage, I guess?” I played up my cluelessness with a shrug.
“Come, Brother.” Bodb led Midir to a small table set for three across from the fireplace. “Let us drink to your victory.”
Midir nodded with his eyes shut, his movements mechanical like he only moved because his brain couldn’t handle anything else. The High King waved his hand and made two small goblets at each place setting as Midir sat at the chair across from his. I walked over and stood between them with a forced smile.
Bodb set the pitcher on the table and pointed to their cups. “Pour for us, girl.”
I picked up the pitcher and lifted it over Midir’s first. “Just tell me when.”
Midir gestured for me to stop when the mystery drink reached his goblet’s halfway point. I moved to Bodb’s and did the same. The “wine” splashed over the edge of his cup before he shook his head.
“You try mine first.” Bodb held up his drink, more sloshing over the side. “It may not smell spelled but there are more mundane ways to disguise poison.”
My heart skipped a beat as I took the goblet from him. Had Rio made the magic poison deadly to humans too or just her own species? She had to predict he wouldn’t trust me, and she wouldn’t risk hurting me.
“Is there something wrong with your mistress’ gift?” Bodb asked.
“I’m not a fan of reds.” I fired off the excuse off the top of my head and took a sip. It tasted like anything but a red, like Fireball and honey. It went down smooth but when I set the cup back down, my chest got hot and the room wobbled. I braced myself against the table until it stopped.
Bodb laughed, satisfied by my show and he downed the rest of the enchanted drink like a shot. The cup hit the table with a loud thunk as he brought it down. “Drink, little brother. We don’t have much need for reciting the traditional preamble since Riona sent her pet in her stead.”
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I watched both of them as Midir drank his goblet in two gulps instead of one. Rio hadn’t said anything about both of them being there. What would happen if Bodb and Midir keeled over? Was that why Rio had acted so insecure back at the burrow? No, it was too late to hesitate after they’d both chugged the poison already.
A minute or two went by. Bodb sat straight and strong in his chair while Midir shifted like a shuffling zombie. Did Rio’s spell not work? Had I misunderstood what she said? She implied a poison ten different ways without actually saying it. Was that to put me off what she actually meant to do?
My heart thudded harder in my chest. Would I have to fight him until one of us died? Panic bubbled up in my stomach until I wanted to vomit. I clamped my hands together at my waist and waited for something to happen.
“This is a good vintage.” Midir glanced up from his goblet to his brother. Life returned to his posture as he straightened his back. “Does wonders for clearing the mind.”
“I told you a drink would perk you up.” Bodb stood and clapped an arm around me. He leaned close enough for me to smell the wine on his breath while he talked. “You realize it’s going to take more than some paltry beverage service to pay me back after you stole her. Riona should have known you would be even less safe coming here with those pesky vows expiring today. My fondness for my niece protects her, unlike you.”
I slammed my wrist and Rio’s chain against his arm, and shoved him off. The iron gray field that came out of Rio’s skin exploded from my wrist. It sent Bodb reeling back and howling as he clutched his arm against his chest.
I ran to the mirror and put my back to it while holding Rio’s bracelet out like a shield. I thought about going back to the burrow, but the glass stayed solid behind me. Damned magic!
“Midir, grab her and hold that chain away.” Bodb emitted radioactive waves that blurred the air around him. The whole room shook and I had to support myself on his mirror. His skin up to his elbow sizzled, black and blistered. “She stole something precious from me and she will pay for it.”
“Stay away!” I shoved my wrist at Midir, the chain dangling without another blast. How did I activate that thing again?
Midir stalked up to me and his black pupils got round, blotting out most of his gold irises. He came at me too fast for me to react and pinned my arm with the chain over my head. As he tilted my chin back, his eyes bored into mine. A crawling itch rushed up my neck, spreading out to the rest of me through my spine. It clamped around the inside of my skull and settled behind my eyes. I couldn’t flinch or open my mouth to scream, my body locked in place. My blood rushed shot after shot of adrenaline into my veins on its own.
“I’m borrowing you from my spawn.” Midir pulled out the sword from its sheath and slipped the hilt into my hand, the one without the chain.
Midir moved away and Rio’s bracelet spread its buzzing particles over my whole body like armor. My attention centered on Bodb on its own. My arms and legs crouched into an attack I had no idea how to make. I was a guest in my own body, helpless to tell it anything.
“You dare betray me?” Bodb edged toward a giant club resting over the fireplace. “You cannot break the oath you swore not to kill another of our blood.”
“I am keeping my oath. I will not touch you.” Midir pointed at his brother like the Grim Reaper showing Scrooge his ultimate fate. “The girl will.”
My legs charged forward across the room.
Bodb lunged aside and I rammed into his bed post. The wood cracked under the pressure and splinters pierced under my arm, but I couldn’t flinch away.
Bodb grabbed his club and swung for my head.
My legs squatted so deep my thighs tore. I wasn’t flexible enough for these moves. Midir watched Bodb and I, focused and uncaring.
My hands pointed Midir’s hungry sword up to Bodb’s waiting belly. They plunged and the blade’s shining point sank in, cutting through soft tissue like melted butter. Sticky red oozed over my hands and sprayed my chin. My buzzing particles ate into Bodb’s flesh. Fried pork and blow-torched pennies plugged my sinuses and sank under my tongue as I breathed in.
Bodb’s cry of pain lasted a second as he crumpled to the floor. His momentum on the sword dragged me with him. Midir hadn’t released his control yet and he forced me to watch as the amber drained from Bodb’s eyes and he clamped his teeth on the fur rug under them.
The gray field evaporated into the chain. Midir tapped the top of my head and the numbness drained out of my nervous system. His sword fell out of my spasming hands and my knees gave, dropping into the pooling blood. I vomited acidic bile and clenched my fingers obsessively to check that I had control of them. Bodb’s dead eyes followed me. My pent up screams burst out.
* * *
Rio burst in from the mirror followed by armored guards. She cradled me against her warm chest like I weighed nothing while the guards crowded Midir. He seemed in as much shock as me as they walked him to the mirror and yanked him through it. Midir kept looking back to Bodb’s bleeding body and matted beard. Rio brought me out too, but not to the burrow.
We came to a stone courtyard circled by monoliths with mirrors set in them. It was the same courtyard where Bodb first announced the election. Just as big of a crowd clustered around it, but no one danced under the sunshine and blue sky. Only five people stood on the jagged paving stones by certain pillars. We came closer and I recognized Ilbrec, Cliona, and Finvarra on one side. Daire’s uncle, Aengus, and aunt, Brigid, stood on the other.
Rio brought me to the center with her. The two guards held Midir beside us. I couldn’t hear myself think over the murmuring of the crowd as everybody speculated. I caught comments about me being a bloody mess, theories on why the guards treated Midir like a prisoner, and questions about where Bodb was.
“Explain this display.” Brigid’s voice boomed over the din and the onlookers hushed.
“Our High King is dead.” The left guard pointed an accusatory finger at me and Rio. “When Lady Riona chased after her changeling, we found the girl on her knees in front of Bodb Derg’s corpse with Lord Midir’s blood-drenched sword.”
The crowd collectively gasped and the chatter rose to concert levels. Cliona covered her mouth in horror. Ilbrec’s disinterested eyebrows went all the way up his forehead. Finvarra had the grin of a kid on Christmas morning. Aengus gaped for a solid minute before he shut his mouth and his focus darted all over the place. Out of council, Brigid was the only one who challenged Rio.
“What did you do, niece?” Brigid asked.
“I sent Maya as my representative with naught but a spell of protection and a gift to apologize for my absence.” Rio stood tall and confident with all the true defiance she had for that family. Why was she bothering with this show when we were supposed to get Daire and run? “Since the protection spell was bound to my own power, when I felt someone attack Maya, I ran to her aid. Yet a force blocked me from entering at first.”
“Why did you not represent yourself?” Cliona spoke up next in the interrogation. “We might have avoided all of this if you had.”
“For my own safety,” Rio said. “Not only did I defy his wishes by running, I was also ordered to keep the true reason confined to my family. My esteemed aunt can attest to that.”
All eyes went to Brigid and she nodded her agreement. “Not an unwise decision. My brother is…was not fond of Riona. I will not sully his memory by speaking why, but her concern for her own well being was well founded.”
Those same gawkers turned to Midir next.
“There’s no way the changeling, a human lass unskilled in battle, could have disarmed one Aos Si elder, then struck a blow strong enough to slay another. She was a pawn, which leaves only one other culprit.” Finvarra leaned against his pillar with his thumbs tucked in his belt. His tone turned sing-song. “Something tells me there’s a family scandal among the Dagda’s Brood they’ve hidden from us.”
“The Lady of Irons had more reason than I to want Bodb dead. If anything, I was as much a pawn in her scheme as the changeling,” Midir said, wrenching away from his guards.
“I have stated my testimony of events,” Rio said. “Where is yours?”
“When can we go home?” I mumbled into Rio’s neck.
She stroked my hair but didn’t answer aloud.
“It is obvious we cannot trust any of the Dagda’s Brood to be objectively truthful in this crime,” Ilbrec said next. “I propose an unbiased elder from another family line conduct a scry on the changeling’s memories of events, and broadcast it for judgement. Though she was the weapon, that leaves her as the only witness ungifted with magic of her own.”
“I nominate Lord Manannan Mac Lir to conduct the scry,” Aine said in her excitable squeal from beside Cliona’s pillar. She cupped her hands around her mouth and called out toward the crowd. “Papa! Could you show yourself for the assembly?”
“I came to watch an election, not a trial, dear daughter.” The deep, resounding words came from all directions at first so I couldn’t tell who said it. I blinked and Manannan emerged from inside the crowd, his color-shifting cloak hiding his legs. “Also, how are we to cast judgement if there is no High King to give it?”
“Bring it to a vote! Combine the decision with the election.” Aine wrapped her arms around the taller man’s waist, nuzzling her face into the hollow of his neck like a cat telling its owner hello at the door. “Whoever is judged guilty will await sentencing while the remaining candidate takes the High King’s seat.”
“An excellent solution.” Manannan rubbed his daughter’s back. “Would the rest of you agree?”
“No.” Aengus stepped forward beside his sister. “We cannot base the future well being of our realm on the memories of this girl, one who Riona has clutched this entire time. She has close ties to my niece and cannot be entirely objective either. Riona holds more than a little ill will against both my brothers and could have tainted any evidence the changeling has against them in the time we have been debating.” He walked toward me and Rio. “Respectfully, allow me to examine—”
“You dare imply your talents to detect such machinations are above mine, boy?” The cloudless sky overhead darkened with a fat storm that rumbled thunder. “You may be a prodigy among your family, sealing the walls of Tir Na Nog with so little time to prepare. But never forget you molded something I built from nothing.”
“I had no intention to insult or imply such.” Aengus crept back beside Brigid, bowing low at his waist and staying that way until light shined through the clouds.
The rest of the voting council, even Brigid, waved Manannan on.
“This is why I never show myself at these gatherings anymore.” Manannan curled his lip as he flicked his hand through the air in Aengus’ direction, like swatting a mosquito. He left his daughter’s side and came up to Rio and I. “This will not hurt, Maya. I will only do some light probing through recent events, unless you would like to shed more light now?”
I shook my head, not trusting myself to talk as Rio set me on my feet. My first try at standing on my own and my torn thighs and aching knees buckled. Rio held me up from there. I tried to focus on Manannan, not the crusty bits of blood drying under my nails or the drenched hem of my skirt.
“Very well. Feel free to illuminate whatever visions your mind shows us.” Manannan set the tip of his pointer finger on my forehead when Rio let go of me and backed away. I closed my eyes and felt the strange, itching presence of his probing. I flexed my hands to make sure I could still control them as memories flashed by without my wanting to think about them. He went further back than I thought, to Rio handing me the jug and reassuring me everything would be okay. Then he followed me through the mirror and overhearing Bodb and Midir arguing about Daire. I shuddered as Manannan made me relive the murder and that awful violation when Midir “borrowed” me.
Manannan lifted his finger away once Bodb’s body fell to the fur rug.
I opened my eyes and looked down to my hands. Sweat on my palms smeared the leftover blood and old bandages. Rio caught me when I lost my balance and my breath caught in my throat like a fish gasping for water. She stroked my back, her magic smooth and warm as it seeped through my cloak, my dress, and my skin to my lungs. It didn’t invade or take what it wanted. It soothed, calmed. Exhale, inhale, in and out. Air came easier.
“What an interesting vision,” Manannan said. “Council, what do you think it means?”
“Midir killed him,” Finvarra said, an edge perverse glee in his voice. “Toss him in the prison and leave him.”
“Bodb tested the drink himself and it had no effect on the changeling. That confirms it as merely a gift in my mind, as the Lady of Irons said,” Ilbrec said with a troubled frown. “I rule that Midir is guilty as well.”
“I want to know more about our former High King’s plot to destroy the Key and trap us here.” Cliona’s glare softened as she looked to Midir. “His reasoning should be considered when deciding his punishment, since the Key Bearer is his son and he did a greater service to the Aos Si by eliminating the threat.”
“I know my niece and there is more to this than we can see. I rule that she is the guilty party, despite me not knowing how.” Brigid narrowed her eyes at Rio, resting her hand over a loop in her belt where a weapon should go. “Does my vote even matter, though, if all of you have already decided against my brother?”
“And what do you have to say Lord Aengus Mac Og?” Manannan searched around Brigid, at the pillar Aengus stood at before, in the crowd. Nothing.
Aengus had vanished.