Total pages in book: 194
Estimated words: 187021 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 935(@200wpm)___ 748(@250wpm)___ 623(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 187021 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 935(@200wpm)___ 748(@250wpm)___ 623(@300wpm)
He had been doing the same thing when a young Graves had stepped off a fishing vessel from England. The bookstore hadn’t quite been in operation at that time, but he’d been collecting volumes for all the years since his return. Anything to help him find a way back to his Niamh.
Graves should have been unimportant enough to pass notice, but it was impossible not to notice him. He didn’t act like the rest of the fishermen, who never looked up from the goods they exchanged. The British crown had come over with their army and nominally claimed his Ireland by that time, but they were still largely autonomous. Something that would crumble in the next hundred years.
But Graves didn’t look at the country like a conqueror come for battle. Oisín had been heir to a small kingdom in his earlier life, and he knew the look. Instead, Graves was a man on a mission. Young, determined, ambitious. Looking for something…or someone.
When he went in for a pint that night, Oisín made sure he was already at the table. The locals cringed around his British vowels, and he did his best to understand the lilting Irish. He showed complete incomprehension over the Gaelic Irish being spoken, mostly about him.
“What’s your name, son?”
“Brannon,” he offered freely. “Brannon Graves.”
“And are you of Clan Brannon?” Oisín could see very well that he was British with Graves as a surname, but it was worth asking anyway.
“On my mother’s side.”
“Is that what you are looking for? Your mother’s people?”
He considered, clearly a man of few words, who had been taught young to hold his tongue and to speak carefully. “In a way,” he said finally. “Do you know of them?”
Oisín confirmed that he did, but he also knew more than he let on. That Clan Brannon had a High Priestess among them. That she had fallen pregnant by a man here on business and he’d taken her with him back across the Irish Sea. That it was possible this Brannon may be more than he was letting on as well.
It took many more rounds over a few stubborn days before Brannon confessed to the truth of it. That he was looking for Druids in Ireland even though everyone claimed they had been run off by Rome fifteen hundred years ago.
On their fifth day, Oisín invited a Druid to meet the man and mete his justice, if necessary.
“Who have you brought?” Brannon asked, standing quickly and abandoning the ale before him.
“Brannon, this is Lorcan of Clan Flynn,” Oisín told him.
Graves’s eyes slid over the man. The judgment was quick and fierce. “Well met.”
Lorcan nodded once, as if he could tell in that moment exactly who Graves was. So little did he know, and still he accepted him on sight. “Well met.”
Oisín shook himself out of the memory. Uniting those two was one of his greatest victories and deepest regrets. That he hadn’t been there when it all fell apart was worse. But there was nothing to be done about the past. As he well knew.
Still, you couldn’t blame an old man for meddling.
He reached for the old rotary telephone. A large black thing that he’d never been able to get rid of despite everyone’s insistence on cell phones. He pressed his finger to each number, sliding the dial in a circle, including the extra numbers at the front to make an international call.
“Oisín.” The rich timbre of Lorcan’s voice brought a smile to his face.
“Hello, old friend.” There was breathless panting from multiple voices in the distance on the other end of the line. “Am I interrupting?”
“Never. I’ve taken over lessons for tonight with our youngest Druids. Surely you remember the methods?”
“Of course,” Oisín agreed.
“Is this call business or of a more personal nature?”
“A little of both, I’m afraid.”
“He’s there,” Lorcan guessed.
“Yes,” Oisín said, unsurprised that Lorcan already knew of Graves’s presence.
“Do I need to return to the motherland?”
“I believe they will be joining you shortly.”
He could practically see Lorcan’s smile. He had been a particularly wild and free youth. Always running around, so confident in his abilities, sure that he would land on his feet. So little could shake him. So little ever had.
Other than Graves.
“Finally,” Lorcan said. “Thank you for letting me know, Oisín. And for all you’ve done in the meantime.”
“Anything for the wisps.”
And he meant it even as he hung up the old phone and headed back into the depths of his library. He’d do anything to restore the Fae, anything to get back to them. Even betraying the trust of the last one living in the mortal world.
Part III
the oak throne
Chapter Twenty-One
“Are you hurt?” Graves asked. His voice dripped with concern as he reached across the bed, still holding his magic tight. “Wren?”
“You helped them,” was what came out.
Graves pulled back, expression torn between bemusement and amusement. “That doesn’t sound like me.”