Authors: Jennifer Fallon
Toyoda shrugged. ‘There be various stories about. The
Djinn
claim Sven tried to kill them out of jealousy. The wood sprites say they heard it was because Sven be having a recurring nightmare about the twins. His visions showed the girls be the death of all the fey folk in this realm, and he had to kill them, because all the Undivided are part-
Youkai
, so he was bound to defend the
Youkai
whatever way he could.’
She shook her head. ‘That logic doesn’t hold. If the Undivided are
Youkai
enough to want to kill their own babies to protect the
Youkai
, then Hendrick should have felt the same way.’
The
Leipreachán
shrugged. ‘Maybe he didn’t have the visions, so he didn’t see the threat.’
‘It’s possible, I suppose,’ she conceded. ‘But it’s still insane.’ Trása watched the girls in question enjoying the fireworks below them, clapping delightedly with every new explosion. She figured Hendrick must have prevailed. ‘So Hendrick discovered Sven trying to murder his babies and stopped him. Then what?’
‘They not be Hendrick’s babies, mistress. They both be in
love with her, but it be Sven who eventually married Wakiko and fathered the girls. The brothers never reconciled after Sven tried to kill them and it was left to Hendrick to raise them. The wee girls never forgave their father, neither, specially when the
Matrarchaí
told them their father tried to murder them in the cradle.’
‘But you said the Undivided went through the rift looking for help.’
‘That wasn’t until Lady Delphine arrived and told them they must be rid of SvenHendrick and invest the girls as the Undivided in their place. And they found ye, mistress,’ Toyoda said, smiling up at her with adoring eyes. ‘I be surprised they didn’t tell ye this before ye came through the rift.’
‘There wasn’t a lot of time to discuss things,’ Trása told him, thinking it was the bald truth. She’d not even heard of SvenHendrick before today, let alone met them, so there never had been a chance to discuss any of this. ‘How did she convince them to rid themselves of two perfectly good Undivided and replace them with a couple of obnoxious little girls?’ Trása well knew the consequences of such a plan in her realm. But the Undivided were not divided here. They were no separated youths, still testing the limits of their authority. They’d been grown men, healthy, hearty and more than capable of holding things together.
‘Lady Delphine approached the
Konketsu
and warned them the argument between the Undivided was going to destroy the magic if it didn’t end. When everybody agreed the brothers were never going to be reconciled, she suggested transferring the power to Teagan and Isleen, even though they only be little girls, back then.’
‘Not sure if you’ve noticed, Toyoda,’ Trása said, ducking instinctively as one of the starmines exploded almost directly overhead. ‘But they’re still little girls.’
‘Only in body, mistress,’ Toyoda lamented. ‘Lady Delphine shared the
Comhroinn
with the new Futagono Kizuno after the power transfer. They look like little girls, but they have the memories of a wicked, manipulative
Matrarchaí
bitch to call upon.’
Trása looked at the little ninja askance. ‘Excuse me?’
‘That be what Lord Hendrick called her, mistress. I just be echoing his words.’
She smiled. ‘I see.’
‘After the transfer, things just went from bad to worse,’ Toyoda continued. ‘Turns out IsleenTeagan don’t need the
Youkai
to channel the power to the
Konketsu
.’
‘But isn’t that just because all the
Konketsu
are part-
sídhe
?’
‘Aye, they be that … but these girls can take the magic the
Youkai
loaned them, and channel the folding magic through their mongrel
Konketsu
without the help of our kind at all.’ For a moment Trása feared Toyoda was going to start crying again, but he seemed to get a grip of himself long enough to continue the story. ‘They not have any loyalty to our kind. SvenHendrick were compelled to protect the
Youkai
, but Wakiko is all human. Those girls don’t have enough
Youkai
in them to be compelled to do anything for our kind. Once the
Konketsu
realised that, they started rounding up the
Youkai
and sending them to worlds without magic so we’d die. They told us they were better worlds they be sending us to. Worlds with
more
magic. Worlds where we’d be happy and not have to bother with humans at all.’ He sniffed back a tear, unable to continue.
Trása put her arm around Toyoda’s shoulders awkwardly, thinking she’d never in her life imagined herself having to comfort a sobbing
Leipreachán
.
‘Why didn’t someone go for help?’ she asked. There were plenty of realms out there, Trása thought, which must be similar enough to this one. Realms that would aid their brethren if they were under attack. And they must have had rift runners aplenty.
‘They did,’ Toyoda told her. ‘But before they left, SvenHendrick destroyed the rift-making knowledge and killed all the
Konketsu
who could open rifts to keep the
Matrarchaí
out and to ensure nobody followed them.’ He sniffed and wiped his nose on his sleeve, leaving a silvery trail on the black fabric.
‘When you say
destroyed
, Toyoda, do you mean gone forever?’ Trása asked, more than a little worried to learn that small but significant fact. ‘Not just lost? Not just bundled up and put away somewhere for safekeeping?’
‘They burned all the
ori mahou
texts that detail the folding for a rift and most of the
gampi
trees from which the folding paper be made. Those who can fold the
ori mahou
can still travel across this realm, mistress, but there be no gateways for us to escape to other realms any longer. That’s why the
Konketsu
haven’t been able to finish the job of eradicating the lesser
Youkai
. They no longer be able to send us through the rifts. We have to wait for
Youkai
like ye to come here, to save us.’
Trása shivered, and she wasn’t entirely sure it was because it was night, and she was sitting naked, high in a tree, watching a fireworks display while this strangely dressed
Leipreachán
shattered any hope she had of ever returning home.
He wiped his nose again. Down in the compound, the little girls responsible for driving all the Faerie in this realm to their deaths, jumped up and down, clapping with delight, their squeals of glee faintly reaching even Trása and Toyoda, high in the treetops.
‘Is there no other way to open a rift?’
‘Not that I be aware, mistress.’ He looked up at her curiously. ‘Doesn’t ye have the knowledge from the realm ye come from?’
‘Knowledge, yes,’ she told him. ‘Tools, no. We use jewels to open the rifts in my realm. And I don’t have one with me. Why aren’t they killing him?’
‘Pardon?’
Trása pointed to the compound. Rónán was watching the fireworks display with the twin girls, cheering with them like he was their new best friend. ‘Why aren’t they killing him? If these two little monsters down there are set on destroying all the
Youkai
, and Rónán is Faerie enough to be able to wane himself out of there, why is he staying and why are they treating him like an honoured guest?’
‘We be waiting for help and so be they,’ Toyoda explained. ‘Your friend be
Youkai
but he looks human. They might think Lady Delphine and the
Matrarchaí
sent him.’
And Rónán is clearly playing along with that misconception
, Trása thought, not entirely sure she blamed him for it. They needed to find a way out of this realm and they needed to do it soon, or Rónán and Darragh would …
‘Hang on,’ she said, turning to Toyoda. ‘You said Sven and Hendrick went for help. How could they? I mean … the power was transferred while they still lived, wasn’t it? In my realm, that means they should have died.’
‘The same holds true in this realm, mistress,’ Toyoda said. ‘Truth be, they were dying when they left. Sven looked as if he’d barely make it through the rift.’ He looked up at her with adoring eyes. ‘The gods must have been smiling on this realm if they were able to find help to send us before the magic withdrawal sickness took them.’
His worshipful gaze made Trása very uncomfortable. She looked away, trying to pretend she didn’t notice. ‘Apparently they were.’
‘Did it take long, mistress? For all that Sven fathered those abominations down there, I liked him and his brother. I’d not want to see either of them suffer before they died.’
Trása’s momentary glimmer of hope died. ‘You’re sure they’re dead then?’
‘Long dead I be supposing, mistress,’ the
Leipreachán
said heavily. ‘Nobody survives transferring the power from one Undivided to the next, in this world or any other. Why?’
‘No reason, Toyoda … just wondering. Let’s get out of here, hey? I’m freezing and there’s nothing happening down there tonight.’ She glanced up at the sky. ‘It will be
Lughnasadh
soon. If I can’t stop what’s about to happen to Rónán, I’m not sure I want to be here to watch it.’
‘As ye wish, mistress,’ Toyoda said, climbing to his feet, which made the branch tremble alarmingly. ‘Where did ye want to go?’
‘To
Tír Na nÓg
, Toyoda,’ she said, grabbing an overhanging branch for balance. ‘I want to go home.’
Old age was a terrible thing. It was bad enough, Sorcha mused, to suffer the steady decline of one’s body over a period of decades — to feel the muscles withering, the ravages of time wrinkling one’s flesh until one looked like nothing more than a caricature of the person they knew themselves to be — but to have it happen in a couple of weeks was beyond painful. It was soul-destroying.
And there was nothing she could do to stop it.
For much of her life Sorcha had been lithe and nimble, blessed with youth. That blessing was now revealing its dark side. Even returning to her own realm now would not undo the damage. Her ageing had been delayed by her time in
Tír Na nÓg
. Returning through the veil to
Tír Na nÓg
would not restore her youth or reverse the damage wrought by this magic-less realm. Whatever happened, she was doomed. Her age had caught up with her.
It was not the first time she’d been touched by the cold hand of her apparently miraculous youth. She’d entered
Tír Na nÓg
with Marcroy Tarth when she was sixteen, naïve and full of hope, blinded by the promises of her Faerie prince. She thought she’d only been there five months or so. She emerged from the magical realm fifty years later. The pain of that agonising discovery she
thought long forgotten. Sorcha had emerged to find her parents dead, her brothers old men, her great-grandnieces and nephews already starting families of their own. Her family had treated her like a pariah, fearful of the youthful stranger who claimed to be one of them.
She had tried to make a life with the remains of her family, but it proved too awkward for all of them. So after trying to fit in for a few uncomfortable and best-forgotten months, Sorcha had walked away. She sought a life using the warrior skills she had learned among the
Daoine sídhe
. If anybody asked — and few risked it — she would tell them she had emerged from
Tír Na nÓg
to find her entire family gone, everyone she knew and loved, long dead and buried.
It was easier for everyone that way. And it felt like the truth.
Jack’s housekeeper, Carmel, didn’t question Sorcha’s rapid deterioration. A gossipy, generous woman who was rather fond of the sound of her own voice, and who had an opinion on pretty much
everything
, she took it upon herself to care for Jack’s ‘cousin’, even though Sorcha didn’t want her help and tried — without success — to refuse it. As the days progressed, however, and her condition deteriorated, Sorcha reluctantly began to rely on the housekeeper’s appearance each morning, not sure she was still capable of getting out of bed without assistance.
Sorcha had met plenty of old women in her time, some of whom reached their mid-eighties and were still collecting eggs and milking goats and generally looking after themselves as they had done for most of their lives, albeit a little slower than they once had. It didn’t seem right that she was so fragile. Perhaps the speed with which her age had caught up with her was contributing to her weakness. Whatever the reason, there was no dash for a rift to her own realm in her future. No diving out of moving cars. No vigils in trees. Sorcha knew with a certainty bordering on prescience that she would die in this realm.
All she could do was make sure she didn’t endanger Darragh by betraying the truth about him.
That proved quite easy when it was just Sorcha in the house, with daily visits from Carmel, who made her a delicious, creamy pumpkin soup with soft white bread rolls and settled her in front of the TV, tut-tutting all the while about Jack’s inconsiderate ways. ‘Fancy inviting his elderly cousin to stay and leaving her to fend for herself in this mausoleum,’ she would mutter as she fussed over her.
Sorcha entertained herself with the many ways she’d like to murder this well-intentioned but interfering old biddy, while being quietly grateful for her help. She could barely make it to the bathroom on her own these days and would have preferred to relieve herself in the garden among the bushes in the way she was accustomed. Sorcha found the notion of flushing away one’s bodily waste with perfectly good drinking water to be an indescribable folly.
Jack returned a few days before
Lughnasadh
, his book tour cut short by the attack on the World Trade Center. Nobody wanted to read about terrorists anymore. At least, not in a good way. Jack’s story, the tale that had made him a wealthy man, now seemed self-serving and opportunistic. The Irish-American ladies Jack was so scornful of — those society ladies who had so desperately wanted to pose with him for a photograph to show their friends how dangerously they lived — had cancelled their dinner places in droves. Feting a former member of the IRA — who’d been jailed for killing innocent bystanders by blowing up public buildings — seemed tacky and tasteless, in a place where the final death toll of another horrendous attack on a public building hadn’t even been calculated but was likely in the thousands. He predicted the money would dry up for all organisations even remotely terror related in the aftermath of this attack. There would be no more Irish-American black-tie
fundraisers held in New York to raise money for their poor put-upon cousins back in the Old Country. It wouldn’t surprise him if the IRA decided to publicly disarm, Jack said, just to distance themselves from the scale and horror of the New York disaster.