Maeve pointed her chin at the approaching pair on horseback.

“Here they come,” Maeve said to the porter. “As I told you.”

The heavy-set man, no older than herself, ceased his buttress of the seven-foot wooden wall behind him and nodded as he stepped toward the twins.

“Ah yes,” he said. “You were gone so early this morning that we didn’t expect to see you again.”

“You can blame herself for that,” Brendan said, gesturing in Maeve’s direction. “Draggin’ us out to Knockacally at dawn.”

The porter’s eyes darted to the right and his tightened his mouth. The grimace lifted the bottom of his raven beard. His tone was apologetic.

“Knockalla, you mean,” he said. “As to why you needed to be up there at first light, I’d rather not know.”

He approached Brigid’s horse and took its reins.

“It’s much too early to retire for the night,” he said. “Should I assume your stay will be as brief as the yer wan here?”

Brendan clapped a couple of coins in the man’s free hand.

“You assume correctly,” he said.

Maeve took the liberty of swinging open the fence’s wooden gate and the group entered the inn’s courtyard. The trio’s mounts now occupied three of the five stalls in the stable that along the wall on their right, all the way to the space in the corner than held the tack.

The courtyard itself was at most twenty feet wide by twenty-five feet deep. A small fire pit smoldered in the far left corner opposite of the stables next to a misshapen and marred anvil. Above the pit hung a simple array of tongs and hammers.

A shed stood in the near left corner of the courtyard. A pathway between the shed and the makeshift forge led past two more structures—the brewhouse and the kitchen. The scale of it all was meager compared to the inns and taverns Maeve had visited in Derry, Donegal, Antrim and Armagh but for a town the size of Rathmullan it was more than respectable.

Once clear of brewhouse and kitchen, the pathway opened up to a small courtyard. The porter pointed to the large door on the side opposite of their entry.

“Right though there,” he said. “If you’ll excuse me, I’ll catch up with you shortly.”

The porter ducked into a smaller room to their left. To their right was a room with no door and a partially-obscured trap door. Maeve’s experience in such places informed her that it was a cellar entrance. Ambient light leaked into another small, covered corridor between the cellar and the brewhouse. It was the back way out of the inn and, judging from the smell, the path to the bog.

Maeve followed the twins through the door into the common room, where they were greeted by the man behind the bar on their left. The innkeeper’s resemblance to the porter was familial; his stomach distended further and his muscles were more defined but this was clearly an uncle or a father to the man who led them inside.

She heard no footsteps from the floor above her and only one of the seven available boards was occupied—a couple with roughly the same amount of salt-and-pepper hair as the innkeeper. The patrons ceased their suspicious scans of the outsiders and resumed their own conversation at a lower volume.

The man behind the bar surveyed the group with his deep-set eyes—first Maeve, then Brigid, then Brendan and finally Maeve once more.

“Three bowls?” he asked.

Maeve nodded.

“I don’t see any forks or spoons on you,” he said.

“We’ll manage,” she said.

The silence did not sit well with Brendan. He stepped forward and split the distance between Maeve and the innkeeper.

“Maeve, this is Mr. MacDavett,” he said. “And this is Maeve O’Connor.”

“Dya’have a first name, Mr. MacDavett?” Maeve asked.

The man held the room’s silence long enough to cause Brendan to squirm.

“It’s MacDavett.”

“Pleased to meet you, MacDavett MacDavett,” she said.

MacDavett dropped the heel of his left hand onto the bar with a dull thud and shifted his weight from one leg to the other.

“Dya’want your food or not?” he asked.

Brendan pointed a palm towards Maeve and turned to the MacDavett.

“We do, sir,” Brendan said. “It’s just been a long, early day for us. We won’t make trouble.”

“Fine,” MacDavett said. “Take a board and I’ll bring you some bowls.”

Brendan led the women to the furthest table from the couple.

“What was that about, Maeve?” he asked.

“Good question,” Brigid said. “You forced my brother to be the voice of reason.”

“I didn’t like the the way he eyed us,” Maeve said.

“He runs the place,” Brendan said. “It’s likely he looks at all new folk that way. It’s part of the job, I reckon.”

“It’s not part of the job,” Maeve said. “I’ve been to inns and taverns in far busier towns and that kind of stare-down isn’t common.”

“I’ll grant you that,” Brendan said. “But giving an innkeeper cheek isn’t the smartest play. Especially if you’ll be wanting a room from him.”

Maeve scoffed.

“I can assure you that I don’t,” she said. “The smell of these places—the sweat and the filth—is bad enough. But to cram yourself into a single bed with other people or huddled on the floor in the corner of a common room? I’ll be fine outside, thanks.”

“Will you, though?” Brigid asked. “I don’t know how you got by last night, but think about what we saw this morning. If we are indeed dealing with cursed animals doing the bidding of someone nefarious—how lightly can you sleep? Because the two of us will trade stench for safety every time.”

A bowl of pottage slammed down in front of Brigid with enough force to slosh a few drops onto the table.

“I’ve heard weaker compliments,” MacDavett said, “but not many.”

Brigid frowned at Maeve before turning to the innkeeper.

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“Sorry, Mr. MacDavett. I meant no disrespect. Our friend here sleeps outside quite a bit and was considering it tonight.”

MacDavett shook his head and cackled all the way back to the bar.

“I wouldn’t spend much time doing that,” he said. “People ‘round here have been sealing themselves in at night for a few months now.”

“For what reason?” Brendan asked.

MacDavett scoffed. Once he caught the confused look on the twins faces he narrowed his eyes and knitted his brow.

“You’re going to sit there and tell me that you don’t know?”

“I am,” Brendan said. “And what makes you think we would know?”

MacDavett shrugged.

“Your weapons, for one,” he said. “Doesn’t strike me as the hunting variety. Your overall manner and the way you carry yourselves. We’ve seen a few outsiders roaming around the area over the past few months—and you can bet we’ve noticed that the attacks started soon after they arrived.”

“You’re talking about the wolves?” Maeve asked.

MacDavett’s face darkened.

“So you do know. Were you playing dumb to find out what the bogger running the local inn knows?”

He pulled a wooden club from under the bar.

“I don’t care what weapons you’re carrying,” he said. “Whatever your intentions, I’m taking at least two of you with me.”

Brendan pushed back from the table, drawing the couple’s attention from their meal. The lady rolled her eyes and patted her partner on the shoulder. Maeve heard her mutter something to the effect of “Murchadh’s at it again,” and with that they stood up and exited through the front door.

“Hang on,” Brigid said from her seat. “We came here because of the wolves, but we’ve got nothing to do with them.”

“My hole, you don’t.”

“Oi!” Maeve yelled. “Let’s keep the hostilities civil.”

The porter flung the rear door open at the sound of Maeve’s voice.

“Da?” he asked. “What’s happened?”

“I told you there was something going on, Fergal,” MacDavett said. “They just admitted to being part of the whole thing.”

“We did no such thing!” Brigid said. “We think these are the same animals that spent months ravaging the areas around our home near the Creeve.”

“You’re telling me they just up and migrated all this way?” the innkeeper asked. “Why here? Why now?”

“I don’t think they moved on their own accord,” Maeve said. “I think they were led here. As for the reason, I’m still piecing that together.”

Fergal stepped forward toward the group.

“So someone’s domesticated a pack of wolves and brought them to Fanaid from O’Neill lands?”

“‘Domesticated’ isn’t the word I’d use,” Maeve said.

“Well, what word would you use?” MacDavett said.

Maeve’s eyes shifted between the father and son. She doubted the two were sílrad, and the odds that they operated within sílrad circles were slim.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I can’t say more than that.”

The elder scoffed.

“All I can say is we want to get to the bottom of these attacks. I believe this is the same pack that killed six of my people several weeks ago.”

MacDavett’s mouth tightened. The heat from his glare cooled.

“Where?”

“West of Magheroarty.”

“And now they’re here?” MacDavett asked. “That’s an odd journey. How many more people have they killed?”

“No one else that we know of,” Maeve said. “Now, if those people that you mistook us for are the people running around with these beasts, you’d be the first person I’ve met who could tell us anything about them.”

Maeve waved a hand at the table next to them.

“Please.”

Fergal stepped toward the group. His father rounded the end of the bar to intercept him with a hand on his son’s upper arm.

“What if we can’t trust them?” MacDavett asked.

“They’ve told us more in five minutes than any of those lurkers have in five weeks.”

Fergal tried to advance, but his father held tight and swallowed hard.

“What if these people aren’t enough?” he asked.

Fergal put his free hand on the one that held him in place.

“How long will we have to wait until we see someone stumble through here who is enough? Let’s hear ‘em out.”

MacDavett released his son and nodded. The pair sat down at the table next to the group. The father sighed and looked to Maeve.

“What do you want to know?”

“How many people have been wandering through the area?” Maeve asked. “Did any of them sleep here?”

“We’ve had a couple of them eat here,” Fergal said. “Not often. They sit in a corner with their hoods over their faces and leave without so much as a word.”

“As for how many there are,” MacDavett said, “A handful at most. Those that came in didn’t seem very bright, probably the scuts of the operation. There’s been talk of of a couple of skinny fellas giving everyone the eye as they go through town, but as far as I can tell that’s all they do. Those two never stop and enter any shops, churches or other places.”

“If we’re being fair, though, simply being an outsider that keeps to himself isn’t cause for suspicion,” Maeve said. “It’s taken most of the twenty years I’ve lived in Tyrconnell to get you people to greet me when I’m by myself.”

MacDavett lowered his eyes to the table and bobbed his head in agreement.

“So it is,” he said. “The difference here is—and this is what I’m told, mind you—is that people are getting headaches and sick to their stomach if they make eye contact with those two who pass through town.”

The twins shared a confused look.

“Does that happen often?” Maeve asked.

“A dozen or so people mentioned it when they first arrived,” MacDavett said. “But now everyone gives them a wide berth. They don’t look at ‘em, and they don’t try talking to ‘em.”

“What about the wolves?” Brigid asked. “Has anyone seen them leading even a single wolf through town?”

“Nobody I’ve talked to has seen them,” MacDavett said. “Their tracks are everywhere outside of town—not just near the dead livestock that turns up.”

Brendan cleared his throat.

“Not to undermine this newfound cooperation,” he said, “but what did you mean earlier when you wondered if we were ‘enough?’”

“It’s been weeks, and nobody’s been able to get a meaningful word out of them,” MacDavett said. “Given all I’ve told you, you can understand how some people would get nervous about crossing them.”

He drew in a deep breath and blew it out of his mouth.

“I’m ashamed to admit that I had reservations just now about telling you all of this.”

Brigid smiled at the innkeeper with enough warmth to draw one in return.

“But you did tell us,” she said. “And now we’re going to do something about it.”

“We just need a place to start,” Maeve said. “Is there a particular time of day that you see them?”

“First few hours of the morning, last few hours of the evening,” Fergal said. “But their scuts can come through at any time.”

“So are they traveling in one direction in the morning and the other in the evening?” Maeve asked.

MacDavett shook his head.

“Not as far as I can tell,” he said. “Sometimes we’ll see them come from the same side of town in both the morning and the evening.”

“Likely that they travel at night, then,” Brendan muttered to his sister. “At least some of the time.”

Maeve nodded to him.

“We saw one of the pack’s kills up by Knockalla,” she said. “Are there any other locations they’ve been skulking about?”

“People talk about the woods south of town,” Fergal said. And some of the fields around Ballykenny Point.”

“He’s right,” his father said. “Some of the townsfolk who have to head west choose to travel all the way up to Carrowkeel and come down that way instead of taking the shorter way south. But if these people are running up in Knockalla, too…”

He leaned back in his chair and sighed.

“If this is as you say,” MacDavett said, “then how are the three of you meant to stop it? I mean no disrespect but the numbers aren’t in your favor.”

“Underestimate us all you like,” Brendan said. “We have our methods.”

Maeve’s jaw dropped as she watched Brendan pull his hand back to his shoulder. She pointed at him and showed him the whites of her eyes until he relented.

He squirmed in his seat and Maeve understood why. Failure to complete the push/pull exchange of sílrad magic often causes discomfort to the caster.

He deserves to squirm, she thought. Boldly using magic like that around people who don’t know better.

All she could do now is hope that their hosts didn’t catch the flicker of blue that crossed her comrade’s eyes. The old man’s eyes shifted between Maeve and Brendan. Judging by his face, the man knew he missed something, though he seemed unsure of what it was.

After a final disapproving look towards Brendan, Maeve returned her attention to the innkeeper.

“He’s right,” she said. “We can take care of ourselves. I’ll be honest with you, however. I’d be more in my element on the other side of the lough in Inishowen. I don’t make it to Fanaid often.”

“Bring me along,” Fergal said.

A blanket of silence dropped across the two tables. Brigid and Maeve shared an uneasy look.

“I’m not sure that’s the best idea,” Brigid said.

“I agree with the lass,” his father said.

“I’m not lookin’ to run straight into the middle of things,” Fergal said. “They seem as capable as anyone to handle this and they could use a guide and an extra set of eyes.”

Brendan jerked his chin up at Maeve and then whipped his head in the porters direction. He raised his eyebrows and searched his sister’s face for agreement. She dropped her shoulders and exhaled and met Maeve’s eyes.

“What I can tell you, Mr. MacDavett,” Maeve said, “is that we have no desire to put him in harm’s way. But he’s a grown man, and he’s right about about what he can offer.”

She decided against asking the actual question; it wasn’t her place to do so. The MacDavetts shared a look of their own and the father relented at last.

“I wouldn’t set out now,” the elder said. “You have a long, meandering ride ahead of you and not much daylight to work with. I have one condition, non-negotiable.”

“Fine,” Maeve said. “Name it.”

“I need all three of you alive to keep my son safe,” he said. “So no sleeping outside for you tonight, O’Connor. You’ll have to subject your tender nose to the awful stench.”

He grinned upon seeing her reaction.

“There is a bright side,” he said. “We haven’t had many people sleeping here since this mess began. You may all get your own bed tonight.”

Maeve tilted back her head as she sank into her chair with a sigh.