Donal stepped down from the threshold into the MacSweeneys’ darkened front yard.

  “Did you get lost?” he asked his brother.

  Finn sat in the back of the wagon, his legs draped over the edge. Only a slight shift of his head gave any clue that he heard Donal. The younger brother stepped toward him in small increments.

  “Are you hurt bad?” Donal asked.

  “I am not,” Finn said.

  “Are you mad?”

  “Naw.”

  “What is it, then? Give me something! I don’t like this side of the conversation.”

  A smirk formed on Finn’s face. Donal suspected it had to fight its way to the surface. “Hold on to that memory, would you?” he said.

  Donal laughed.

  “I don’t get it, though,” he said. “You used to live and breathe this stuff. Now your uncle is telling you it’s real and you want nothing to do with it?”

  “Maybe if Murrough came at me with this business when Mam and Da were alive I’d be eating it up, same as you,” Finn said. He furrowed his brow at Donal. “Oi, I remember when you were younger you literally ran away from Murrough and I when we started talking about history and culture. Why are you so raring to go along with this?”

  “The more those three talk about what happened today,” Donal said, “the easier all the odd-shaped pieces in my mind fit together. I can’t explain it any better than that. Besides, I have to believe some small part of this is causing my nightmares. Do you think I should go back in and ask Murrough about them?”

  “Not in front of Siobhan and her mam,” Finn said. “Admitting that you’re seeing things in the daytime isn’t something to share freely, even with friends. To be honest, part of me wishes you hadn’t told me. Now that someone else knows, you can’t deny it to yourself anymore. We’ll tell him when it’s just us, hai?”

  “On one condition,” Donal said.

  “You’re joking. What is it?”

  “Come with us to Dunfanaghy. If you’re able to prove me wrong, then we come right back here to keep watching all the stuff that won’t grow. But if they’re right—if I’m right—then we have to see this thing through.”

  “Fine. I suppose it’s no harm.”

  “Come on, grab our stuff like Murrough told you.”

  “Oi, since you’re out here with me, here you go,” Finn said, tossing a bag at his brother.

  The bag sailed toward Donal in an arc high enough to bounce off his face before it dropped into his arms.

  “Thanks,” Finn said. “I feel better already.”

  “Time to go!” Siobhan said, yanking the pillow from under Finn’s head.

  His head dropped to the floor, the dull thud sounding worse than the impact felt. He raised his head to confirm the front door that stood at his feet remained closed.

  “Too good to share a bed with your little brother?” Siobhan asked.

  She had retired to her room by the time Finn settled in for the night. Curls of red copper reached for the floor as she stooped over him and framed a grin wide enough to wrinkle her eyes and nose. Her eyes appeared amused by her finding.

  “Or was his thrashing keeping you awake?” she said.

  “Neither,” said Finn. “I merely wanted to make sure that I heard the dullahan coming if for some reason he found us.”

  Siobhan’s grin opened up into a smile that separated her square jaw from the rest of her head. “Nice to know I possess more stealth than a demon of the night!” She flipped Finn’s pillow onto his face. “Murrough, too, it would seem.”

  “Dya’mean by that?” Finn said, batting the pillow out of the way.

  “He stepped right over your watchful self on the way out earlier this morning.”

  Finn sat upright and threw off his blanket to better view the room stirring behind him. The flourish revealed his fresh change of clothes to Siobhan.

  “Look at you,” she said, her smile widening even further. “The symbol of vigilance.”

  From anyone else, Finn would have taken the exchange as mocking. He resumed his scan of the room. Donal was finishing his meal. To most he would appear fine but Finn marked the darkened rings under his brother’s thousand-foot stare. Mrs. MacSweeney and Siobhan’s older brother were loading bags with food and supplies. Murrough was nowhere to be seen.

  “There’s still some breakfast left in the pot,” Mrs. MacSweeney said. “You’re going to need it today. Shivvy, stop playing and help us out.”

  Finally, a chance to knock his tormentor off-balance.

  “Did she just call you ‘Shivvy?’” he asked. “You heard the lady, Shivvy. Get to it!”

  Siobhan frowned at the back of her mother’s head. The grin returned as she stood up, though covered by inverted brows. “How about you mind your business and eat, Finny?”

  “That doesn’t even make sense!” Finn said. “My name’s already just one syllable.”

  He dished up his breakfast and grumbled all the way to the table. He glared at his brother’s broad grin.

  “Not a word,” Finn said.

  Faint hoofbeats emerged toward the front of the house. Finn’s shoulders tightened and his head whipped toward the front door.

  “That’s himself returning,” Siobhan said, confirming with a glance out the window. “Eat up; no sense staring at the door until it opens.”

  The hoofbeats drew closer and stopped. Murrough entered through the door as casually as any other day.

  “I asked around the Crossroads, Gortahork, and Ards Beg. No reports of the dullahan in the last few hours. The trip east looks clear for now. We should finish loading and leave soon.”

  Finn shoveled the rest of his porridge into his mouth, grabbed his things and headed out onto the lawn. Donal joined the others in shuttling bags and small crates from the house to Murrough’s wagon.

  Siobhan gave her mother and brother a hug as Donal put the final bag in the wagon.

  Mrs. MacSweeney took Finn’s hand in both of hers. “You boys stay safe. Listen to Murrough and Shiv—Siobhan.” She caught herself at the first hint of Finn’s smirk. “Even if you don’t believe us, they’ll still keep you safe,” she said.

  The widow surprised Donal with a hug, but he leaned into it.

  “Thank you for the food,” he said.

  The quartet walked to the wagon. Siobhan caught Donal stepping up to the front seat next to Murrough.

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  “Not bloody likely,” she said, pointing a thumb toward the rear of the wagon.

  He glared at her before climbing over the bags to sit in the back next to his brother. Finn waved to the pair standing in front of the house.

  “Why isn’t your brother coming?” Finn asked Siobhan. “No harm in having an extra body if we really are in trouble—especially if he’s supposed to be a druid.”

  “He’s not a druid,” Siobhan said. “Not everyone in a family has the same ability. Some don’t have any. He’s staying behind to take over the tasks Mam makes me do. Besides, how miserable of a trip would it be if you had to take your brother in tow?”

  “Very miserable,” Donal said from the side.

  “This trip is taking too long,” Donal said.

  “How would you know?” Finn asked. “You’re always asleep by this point.”

  “We’ve been riding for two hours and only now are we leaving the Crossroads.”

  “It’s been almost one hour, and this is Carrowcannon. Crossroads have come and gone.”

  Donal searched north and south for familiar landmarks. The roadsides leaving town were overgrown, though less dense than the roads closer to home. Breaks in the treeline offered glimpses of meadows and grazing fields. The novelty left him after the third bend in the road revealed the same landscape as the previous two.

  “I don’t understand how the rest of you stay awake,” he said. “Murrough included.”

  “I figure every trip longer than a half-mile has at least one section that’s monotonous.” Finn said. “One you have to endure. Sometimes it’s near the start, sometimes it’s the end—if it’s a round trip it will be both.”

  Donal nodded and turned his attention within the wagon. Driving was the only time Murrough hunched like a man his age. He had not turned his head once to check on the cargo area since they departed and rarely glanced to his side at Siobhan.

  Siobhan’s gaze wandered in every direction. Donal first suspected her behavior was out of paranoia but he found no sequence or rhythm to her movements. Each turn of her head was as casual as the expression on her face, save for her eyes. They seemed to alternate between the near and far distances, never stopping in the middle. Whatever she was doing, she was focused and present.

  It likely was the reason she locked eyes with Donal after she caught him looking at her twice in quick succession.

  “Something on your mind?”

  “I still don’t understand,” Donal said. “How did you create lightning out of nothing?”

  Siobhan put a bracing hand on Murrough’s shoulder and slid over the cargo, forming a triangle between the three passengers in the rear.

  “It was thunder, actually.”

  She tipped her head to the side and wrinkled her brow.

  “Maybe it was lightning—but not in the form we normally see it take. Either way, it was the thunder I was after, and I did not ‘create’ it like everything else in this world is created. It is more of an exchange. To get that thunder, I had to pull energy from another plane, and in turn send some of our energy back. It’s the reason the thunder was stronger than it should have been.”

  Donal nodded as if he understood, even though it didn’t appear to fool Siobhan. Finn stared into the middle distance over Donal’s shoulder, his face blank.

  “I lost you,” she said. “Sorry, we hold these lessons in a place less mobile.” She turned to Murrough. “Time for a break?”

  Murrough looked back at the brothers and then bobbed his head. “Ease them in, lass,” he said. “I don’t want to lose them before we see Niall. He’ll be merciless with me.” He reined in Gála and kept the wagon on the road as it stopped. “I’ll watch for passers-by.”

  Siobhan hopped over a side wall and rounded the back of the wagon. She wrinkled her brow and tilted her head at Finn’s demeanor. “Aren’t you coming?” she asked Finn. “You’ll need to know this, too.”

  “I’m fine, thanks,” Finn said. “I know the tales, and I’m not currently in need of a lesson in slight-of-hand.”

  “So we’re going with denial, then?” Siobhan asked. “Despite what you saw at the tomb?”

  “I wouldn’t call it that,” Finn said. “Not exactly.”

  Siobhan sighed. “Then kindly move your arse and let Donal by.”

  Finn pulled his feet toward his hips and Donal slid out of the wagon. Finn spun himself so that he now faced the right side of the wagon and, coincidentally, the roadside field into which Siobhan now led Donal.

  You must mind that there are other ‘lands’ and other ‘planes,’” Siobhan said, backing away from Donal. “Tír na nóg and Tír na mBeo—those are separate worlds in their own locations.

  “Planes are much like the world around us now. They sit in the precise spot our world does, shifted ever so slightly and humming in their own ways. They will not be exact copies of our world, but some are very similar. Each plane has a special kind of energy to it. Druids like myself pull energy from a plane called Mag Argetnel, or the Plane of the Silver Clouds.”

  “What do you mean by putting some back?” Donal asked.

  “Everything requires a balance. Life and death, summer and winter, high and low tides—it does not matter. What you pull from another plane, you must give that much back. In time, the energy you exchanged blends with their new planes. It is like water in a way. Water rains from the sky, flows into a lake, turns into vapor and blends into the sky. Or how air fuels a fire and its little bits of smoke blend back into the air.”

  She jerked her hand back, its palm facing inward, and eased it forward. “Lasair.” A tongue of flame half the size of her hand appeared in front of her hand. She gently rotated her hand until the flame hovered two inches above her palm.

  “How is it not burnin’ ya?” Donal asked.

  “Years of practice,” she said. “I learn to control the size of the flame, its position, even its direction. Much of that relies on how much, or how little, energy I pull from the other plane.”

  “So when I threw the knife, did I do any of that?” Donal asked. “The pulling?”

  Finn’s raised eyebrow betrayed an otherwise disinterested face.

  “You might remember I was busy,” Siobhan said, “so I didn’t see how you threw it. It’s likely you did some sort of magic—even if it was by accident or dumb luck.”

  “But I didn’t push anything back,” Donal said.

  “You did, but that’s mostly where luck comes into play,” she said. “I ran past the spot where you stood. If you had not completed the exchange, I would have felt it. You likely would have felt it. There are consequences to not completing the push. Most of the time it happens by accident while someone is learning how to do it, so a teacher is there to help fix any problems. There are rare cases in which someone chooses not to complete the transfer. That’s how you get the darkest magic.”

  “So it’s something I can learn?” Donal said. His eyes widened as he leaned toward Siobhan. “You’re going to teach me, hai?”

  “Some of those descended from the Tuatha Dé and the Fomori—Sílrad Déithe and Sílrad Díberg, as they are sometimes called—have these abilities,” Siobhan said. “But not all do, and no amount of teaching will change that. You two were supposed to have this talk and be tested several years ago. It never happened because—”

  Donal nodded. He leaned back and stared at his feet, waiting for Siobhan to gather her thoughts.

  “Well, isn’t that convenient?” Finn said.

  Siobhan and Donal turned their heads in unison toward his brother.

  “Ex-Excuse me?” Siobhan asked.

  Murrough’s back stiffened, though he did not look away from the road ahead.

  Finn hopped out of the wagon and approached Siobhan. “Our parents didn’t mention a single word about this for 17 years, and that’s when my brother and I were supposed to find out? Pretty convenient if you ask me.”

  “We—” Siobhan started.

  “—And then yourself, daughter of a man that never had a care for our parents or a kind word for us, pops in for visits full of small talk and pleasantries, laughing, joking like we were lifelong neighbors. So either you matched things up to your own timeline to take advantage of us,” Finn said, “or, supposin’ this is all true, you were keeping tabs on us just in case we might prove useful someday. Tell me, MacSweeney, which one is it?”

  Siobhan pivoted her body to Finn, nostrils flaring under reddening cheeks. It was a task to tell where her hair stopped and her face started.

  “We knew at least one of you was likely sílrad, perhaps both,” she said. “Murrough knew that your parents never spoke of it with you. Since you two stayed on your own, we knew there might come a day when you found out accidentally.”

  Her jaw did not move as she spoke. She bounced her index finger at him, two inches from his chest.

  “Your poxy brain worked all that out yet somehow forgot the obvious. Did you forget that I lost my dad two years before you? He was a flawed man, sure, but he loved me and I him. I could fill three of these wagons with things you didn’t know about him.

  “So I knew a bit about what you were going through and thought I could help. And did you ever stop to think that maybe I enjoyed visiting you because…”

  Siobhan shook her head and shifted her focus to the wagon behind Finn’s head. Finn looked in no rush to help her finish her thought. She glanced at Finn, then Donal, and sighed.

  “In spite of everything that happened to you,” Siobhan said, “you lads were fun.”

  She looked at Finn for a reaction. He clenched his jaw and slammed his eyebrows so far down that they pushed his eyes to the wild grass under her feet.

  “At least you used to be,” she said.

  She walked past Finn, her face fixed upon his downward gaze until she had cleared his shoulders. She placed a hand on the front seat and paused, keeping the back of her head pointed toward the brothers.

  “I’m thinking you had the right idea, Donal, sleeping through all those trips with that one.”

  Murrough shared a sympathetic glance with her as she climbed into the seat. She set her eyes on the horizon, and from it they would not stray for the remainder of the trip.

  Donal leaned over and punched Finn in the arm.

  “She was going to teach me, you eejit!”

  “Not likely,” Finn said, rubbing his potential bruise. “You heard Murrough. She wouldn’t do much more than warm her hand out here.” He scoffed. “What does she know, anyway? I’m loads of fun.”

  “You’re a load, all right,” Donal said as he passed his brother.