It was then that Brydie realized the black-clad figure wasn't here to do Anwen harm. He was here for her, or rather Anwen's valuable necklace.
Who had the gall to commit such a crime?
Brydie wished she could make out something more than this black-clad shadow who moved as if he was a part of the night. He barely glanced at Anwen, other than to assure himself she was still asleep. A hand reached out for the necklace and even the thin moonlight vanished, albeit briefly, as the thief scooped the necklace off the table, then held it up to the light.
The movement knocked Brydie off her feet. She scrambled up in time to see the tip of a blade heading for her. She ducked and then realized the thief wasn't trying to harm her. He was trying to lever the amethyst out of the setting.
This robber, whoever he was, had no interest in the heavy gold setting or the other gems surrounding her amethyst. He was after her jewel only.
"Are you my handsome prince?" she asked, knowing he couldn't hear her. "Are you come to save me? Or are you just an opportunist with an eye for pretty baubles?"
The thief carried on as if she hadn't spoken.
He can't hear me. He doesn't even know I'm stuck in here.
Or does he?
Brydie felt a surge of unreasonable hope. Perhaps this thief wasn't a thief at all, but an envoy sent by Jamaspa to rescue her. Perhaps he was taking the jewel and planning to deliver her to the
djinni
, the only creature in this realm or any other who could save her.
She might be only moments away from rescue.
"Please be stealing my jewel because Jamaspa sent you," she begged, as he levered the stone out of the setting. He discarded the rest of the necklace, throwing her off her feet again as he plunged her into the thick, warm darkness of the pocket nearest his heart.
Brydie landed on her backside and decided to stay on the floor, figuring there wasn't much point in doing anything else until they reached wherever it was the thief was taking her.
In the background, like the faintest hint of a drum tattoo in the far distance, she could hear the steady beating of his heart. It was hypnotic and made her want to sleep.
I might as well take a nap
, she reasoned, yawning inelegantly. While ever she was in his pocket, she would be enveloped by a darkness so intense she couldn't make out her own fingers in front of her face, and the thief - whoever he was - needed to escape Temair and return to Jamaspa before she could be rescued.
That might take days. It was certainly going to take a few hours, she figured. Brydie smiled in the darkness and lay down, cradling her head on her arms. She closed her eyes, intrigued that there was no difference in the darkness between her eyes being open and closed, so complete was the absence of light.
Wake me up when it's time to be rescued
, she told the thief silently.
I'll be here. Waiting.
Brydie had become very good at waiting. And with luck, it wouldn't be much longer now before she was free.
Trása woke to discover Rónán missing. She rubbed her eyes and sat up. They'd fallen asleep on the soft grassy lip of the pool, Rónán cradled in her arms. And now he was gone.
"He be gone through the
rifuto
stones."
She looked across the pool to discover Toyoda perched on the mossy rocks by the waterfall watching over her while she slept - a sweet but entirely unnecessary precaution. Nobody could harm her here in
Tír Na nÓg
. "How long ago?"
"A while," the
Leipreachán
said, which was about as specific as a
Leipreachán
could get.
"Did he say where he was going?"
Toyoda shook his head. "If I be taking a guess, I be saying he was headed to another realm."
She shook her head. "That's not possible. Even if he knew where to go, he'd need
gampi
paper to fold the
ori mahou
, and then he'd have to know where to ..." Her words trailed off as it occurred to her that if Rónán knew where to find
gampi
paper - which the
Konketsu
used here to open rifts - then with Delphine's memories now available to him, he probably knew exactly where to go.
Had he gone to rescue Teagan on his own?
"Did Rónán say anything before he left?"
"No."
Trása bit her lip, trying to wonder what it meant that he'd just up and disappeared like that. He'd seemed fine before they fell asleep. He had a headache, he claimed, and he was struggling with the memories he'd unleashed from Delphine, but the Pool of Tranquillity had done its job. When they'd finally pulled themselves out of the water and collapsed on the grass, he'd seemed fine. Better than fine. He'd been wonderful. They'd made love by the water for a good part of the night, in the way only a
beansídhe
could make love, full of passion and wild abandon. Afterwards, he'd held her close, assured her he was fine, that he could handle the memories and then fallen into a deep, restful sleep.
Rónán said he'd start sorting through Delphine's memories as soon as he woke.
It won't be long
, he'd promised her, as he held her in his arms,
and we can bring Teagan home
.
"Trása!"
The harsh call rang out across
Tír Na nÓg
. Toyoda blinked out of existence along with the other lesser
Youkai
who'd been watching over her while she slept.
Trása closed her eyes for a moment as she realized things were about to get even more complicated.
Pete and Logan had arrived. From the tone of Pete's call, she knew they were not going to be happy with the news that not only had Rónán finally delved into their foster mother's memories, but she'd mislaid him and all the information he now had.
Trása climbed to her feet and began to get dressed. The Doherty twins had found her very quickly, so she was certain one of her
Youkai
"friends' had told them where she was.
"Trása, where the hell ..." Pete demanded, slipping a little on the steep path as he and Logan approached the pool. His brother was right behind him. "Whoa! Put some clothes on!"
"I am putting some clothes on," she pointed out, as she pulled her shirt down over her head. Once she was decent, she turned to face the brothers, frowning. "And would you mind not yelling. You'll frighten the
Youkai
."
"Where is Ren?"
"I don't know."
"You two vanished out of Edo nearly a month ago," Logan said. "Have you been here all this time?"
Trása didn't think they'd been here that long and, normally, the time dilation effects of
Tír Na nÓg
did not affect her and Rónán - or Pete and Logan either, given they were almost wholly Faerie. But they had been in the Pool of Tranquillity, after all, where the magic was so concentrated they might easily have lost years had they not managed to drag themselves out of the water.
"It didn't seem like ..." she decided it wasn't worth explaining. "What are you doing here?"
"Looking for you two," Pete said, clearly annoyed. "Dammit, don't you realize what's been going on? Wakiko is beside herself. The whole Empire is in an uproar. To make matters worse, the
Konketsu
are trying to worm their way back into favor by blaming us for Teagan's kidnapping."
"So you can imagine how it looked," Logan added, "when the two of you vanished into thin air."
Trása hadn't really thought about what might happen in the palace after they left. And she hadn't really left by choice. Rónán had whisked her out of there without warning.
"I'm sorry," she said, crossing her arms. "I didn't mean to cause more trouble. But Rónán had to come back here to unlock Delphine's memories."
"You couldn't take five seconds to leave a note?" Pete asked, sounding quite disgusted with them. "How the hell did you get back here to
Tír Na nÓg
, anyway? With the stone circle shattered you ... oh, of course. He did that waning thing, didn't he?"
"He didn't
give
me five seconds, Pete."
"Did he do it?" Logan asked. "Did he manage to unlock Delphine's memories?"
She nodded. "Yes."
"Shit," Logan said, looking at his brother.
Pete frowned. "How did he seem? Afterwards."
"He seemed fine."
"So where is he then?" Pete demanded. "The
Youkai
are claiming he's not here."
"I told you before, I don't know where he is. Has it really been a month since we left
Chucho
?"
"And a few days," Pete said.
"Is Isleen okay?" If she was still alive and unharmed, it meant the
Matrarchaí
had not hurt Teagan.
"She's fretting for her sister, but other than that, she seems fine. Where did Ren go?"
"I told you already, I don't
know
."
"It doesn't matter anyway," Rónán said, suddenly appearing behind Logan, "because I'm back."
The Doherty twins turned on Rónán angrily, giving Trása time to wonder why he was dressed in black from head to toe like a ninja.
Where has he been - and more importantly - what has he been up to that requires him to dress like that?
And how long had he been gone? Down here by the pool, Trása had lost any sense of time. Perhaps they hadn't made love and fallen asleep entwined in each other's arms last night, but days, maybe weeks ago.
Rónán held up his hand to halt Pete and Logan's barrage of angry questions. "I don't know where Teagan is," he said, "or how to get back to our realm."
Funny how the three men insisted on calling the reality where they had been raised "ours," when none of them really belonged there.
"Why don't we
try
first," Pete suggested, "before we write off the idea completely."
"I did try," Rónán said, as he pushed back his hood and began to unlace the fastenings at the top of his
shinobi shozoko.
"That's where I've been. The rift Delphine brought you through in the Sears Tower is no longer there."
"There must have been other rifts in our realm," Logan said. "We know the
Matrarchaí
had at least two stone circles, just in the US alone."
Ren nodded in agreement. "They have quite a few. There's one in Dubai, another in Taiwan ... trouble is, Delphine never used them. She knew about them, but she wasn't responsible for setting them up and she doesn't have any memory of coming through them that I can find."
"It's early days yet," Pete said. "If you just keep looking ..."
"The information simply isn't there, Pete," Rónán said, shaking his head. "The only other circle in our reality that Delphine knew how to access is one she was arranging to be built, but it's not there yet."
"When will it be there?"
"In another seven years or so."
"Are you kidding me?" Pete exclaimed. "Seven fucking years!"
"Teagan will be a grown-up by then," Trása said, watching Rónán closely. She was trying to work out what was different about him. Having access to Delphine's memories was bound to have an impact on him. What that impact might be, remained to be seen.
Logan seemed to take the news better than his brother. "Were you able to get to any other realities?"
Rónán nodded. "Quite a few. A lot of them the
Matrarchaí
have already cleansed of the Faerie, but there are plenty more realities they scheduled for intervention that we can get to. I didn't want to waste the
gampi
paper by visiting too many."
There's something he's not telling us
, Trása decided, as she watched Rónán explaining things to Pete and Logan.
He's too calm, too controlled. Where has he really been?
"Can you get back to our realm?" she asked.
Trása wouldn't have noticed the hesitation had she not been looking for it. "No luck with that, either, I'm afraid. Delphine never visited your realm."
He's lying.
Trása was certain of it. Her realm was his realm, too. He didn't need Delphine's memories to find it.
"Then we're stuck here," Logan said, throwing his hands up.
Pete shook his head. "No, we're not. Ren said he could open rifts to other realms the
Matrarchaí
have marked. He can show us how to get there, and maybe we can capture someone from the
Matrarchaí
who knows another way back our to reality. I say we start doing a bit of rift running of our own. Let's take this fight to the
Matrarchaí
."
"What about Teagan?" Ren asked.
"She's probably lost to us," Pete said, "unless they send her back."
"Is that likely?"
Pete looked at him closely. Perhaps he sensed Rónán was lying, too. "You tell me, Ren. You're the one with the head full of intelligence taken from a
Matrarchaí
general. Speaking of which, why don't you share the
Comhroinn
with us now, so Logan and I can start searching these new realities?"
Rónán nodded and smiled, and Trása just knew he was stalling. "Sure," he said. "Give me some time to get my head sorted and I'll share whatever you want to know."
He had to say that.
Even if Teagan's life had not been in danger, Pete and Logan would still not accept excuses from Ren for not sharing knowledge of their origins and the reason they had been raised by the
Matrarchaí
in complete ignorance of who or what they were.
Rónán turned to head back up the path.
"What's with the outfit, by the way?" Pete called after him. "You planning a new career as a ninja."
Ren glanced over his shoulder with a smile that didn't reach his eyes. "I know it's ridiculous, but I wasn't sure what I'd find when I opened rifts to those other realities, so I thought it best to wear something dark. You know what this place is like ... it was the only thing I could find to wear that wasn't embroidered to death and colored like a circus tent."
It sounded plausible. It might have even been the truth. But Trása knew he'd been up to something and the reason for it eluded her. She would find out, she promised herself.
Because if she didn't - if Rónán was telling the truth about not being able to get back to the other realm until the new stone circle was built - Darragh and Sorcha would be stranded in that other reality for another seven years.