The music and dancing continued after Keegan fulfilled his obligations. Weary, he sat in his rooms, ale in hand, and related the confrontation to Mahon.

“And you don’t seem a bit surprised by any of this.”

“Myself, aye. But Aisling, after but one meeting, claimed this is where Shana was headed, and I should never doubt her instincts. Last spring they met,” he added, “when Shana rode to the west with her parents.”

“She might’ve told me her bloody instincts.”

“Would you have listened?”

He brooded into the fire, then shrugged. “Likely not, as I swear to you Shana was convincing. Not altogether true,” he corrected. “As I’d begun to see, or feel in any case, she was looking for more from me, and I’d intended to step away. But I’d have done a better job of it, I’m thinking.”

“Does it help if Aisling also said that while Shana might have strong feelings for you, she had stronger for the taoiseach?”

“And so I saw, or felt. How could she be reared in the Capital, where her father serves on the council, as dedicated as any could be, and not truly understand what it is to lead? Ah well, she’ll have no lack of choices to fill the vacancy, you could say.”

“And none have what she’d see as your status.”

Keegan gave Mahon a long look. “You didn’t like her at all, did you now?”

“Not true. Well,” he qualified, “not altogether true. She’s a charmer, and from all I’ve seen or heard, does her part, and is a good daughter to her parents as well. But as some do, she thinks more of how she looks or what trinkets she can barter for than things such as duty and the work it demands. So, in that, she’d never have suited such as yourself.”

Mahon rose, stretched. “I’m for bed. Don’t sit brooding too long.”

“I can’t. I need to break my fast down in the village, visit some of the shops and workshops and so on before I come back to sit in the Chair of Justice.”

“Would you want company for the first part of it all?”

“Gods yes.”

“Then I’ll ride down with you. The Smiling Cat does a fine breakfast.”

“Then there’s where we’ll have ours.”

He spent the morning in the village, then the rest of the day hearing complaints, petty bickering, requests for help. Small things—and he could be grateful there—though not small, he knew, for those involved.

He listened to a man who claimed his neighbor’s dog had howled through the night, and the neighbor who said he’d buried the dog, aged and well loved, two nights before the howling.

And the couple who reported they’d found one of their sheep burned black and gutted.

No small things these. He could and did replace the dog with a pup from a new litter, and the sheep out of the castle fields. But he knew the signs.

Dark crept closer.

The time he spent with soothsayers only confirmed what he knew. So he knew he could wait no longer.

At the edge of the deep woods, with the dark broken by starlight, he kissed his mother goodbye.

“I’ll persuade her to come back, as she vowed she would.”

“Tell your dragon to fly west.”

“Why?”

“You’ll want to bring her back there, where she’ll have some of the familiar. The place, the people, Marg. Not here as yet, Keegan. It’s jolt enough, isn’t it?”

“All right then. You’ve a point.”

“Mahon will bring your horse. I’ll come myself, for Samhain if not before. It’s past time I see the rest of my family. You’ve done well here, my dear love.”

He handed her the staff. “Until I return.”

“Until you return. Blessed be, Keegan.”

“Blessed be, Ma.”

Breen shut down her computer when she heard Marco come in. After a glance around the bedroom, she eased the door shut as she went out.

“How’d it go?” she asked him.

“My last day in retail. I can hope that’s forever.”

“No regrets?”

“I’m officially working for two people I care about more than anybody, you and Sally. Feels weird. Good weird. I’m going to take my fine self over to the coffee shop for my day job—that’s you—so you can have the apartment for writing time.”

“You don’t have to do that. We can—”

“Better for both of us.” He wandered to the front window. “And a hell of an easy commute.”

“I hear regret. Marco, everyone loved your web page design. I know they had a few suggestions, but—”

“Good ones. I’m cool there, Breen. It’s a way big step for me. And I’m going to miss the easy access to the instruments. I mean, I’ve got my keyboard and guitar here, but I’m not gonna be able to grab a sax or a banjo and see what I can do, you know?”

“Wait.”

She dashed into the bedroom, took the harp in its case out of her closet. “I was going to give this to you for Christmas, but . . .” She didn’t know where she’d be for Christmas. Even if she would be. “But I can’t wait,” she continued. “And this seems like the perfect time.”

“Whatcha got there?”

“Sit down, open the case, and find out.”

When he did, he simply stared at the harp.

“As soon as I saw it, it said: I’m Marco’s. There’s a shop in the village. It’s family owned and run. The father builds the instruments—some of them. This harp. He made an accordion for my dad.”

Marco looked up then, his eyes glossy with tears. “I’ve got no words.”

“You don’t need them. I know you didn’t love your job at the music store, but this is still a change, a big one. You’re doing it for me.”

He plucked strings, and the notes rang pure. “Listen to her—she’s got such a voice. I’ve got a lot to learn. You gave me a push, Breen, and I figure I needed one. I’m never going to be a rock star or a hip-hop star, or any kind of star.”

“You’ve got such a gift.”

“Lots of people do.” Even as he shrugged, his fingers found music in the strings. “I gotta earn a living. Doesn’t mean I have to give up playing music, writing songs, but the way things were, I’d have kept spinning on in the music store to get the rent paid. Now I can do something I’m good at, have time to play for myself, and yeah, maybe try teaching some. Right here, like you said.

“I can do that,” he said, his eyes still wet and on hers. “Because you’re going back to Ireland.”

“Marco, I—”

“Girl, who knows you better’n me?”

“Nobody,” she murmured. “Just nobody.”

“You’ve been thinking about going back since you got here. You don’t talk about getting a house anymore. That was a big clue right there. And you’re different since you came back. Not bad different. There’s just . . . more to you. And some of the more, it’s got its mind back there.”

When she said nothing, he used the back of his hand to wipe his eyes. “Am I wrong?”

“No, you’re not wrong. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t you be sorry. You got a granny there. Hell, you got a dog. Something clicked for you, man, I could hear it click when we got over there. Don’t you be sorry, not to me.”

“I need to finish what I started.” What else could she tell him? “What I started there.”

“Yeah.” He trailed his finger, back and forth, over strings. “When you figure you’re going?”

“I . . . I was looking at flights before you came. I thought next week.”

“Next week?” His fingers stilled. “But you’ve only been back a couple weeks.”

“It’ll be a month, Marco. I should’ve told you sooner. I didn’t know how, and there was so much I wanted to get done, settled, before I went back. I don’t know how long I’ll stay, not yet. It could be a few weeks or a few months or . . .”

“Forever?”

“I’m not thinking forever about anything. Finishing what I started, that’s all I’m thinking about. When I have, I’ll figure out the rest.”

“I’m not going to tell you not to go, but I’m asking how much the guy you hooked up with over there has to do with this.”

“Not that way,” she said quickly. “Absolutely not that way. I’m not going back, not even a little bit of a fraction, because of a relationship—that kind.”

“Okay, because sex—let me tell ya—can blur shit up. And if you think it’s more than sex? Blurs shit up even more. People are dumbasses for love.”

“Not blurred, I promise. I knew I was going back when I left, but I didn’t tell you. I should have, but I didn’t.”

“Tell anybody else?”

“I promised my grandmother I’d come back and . . . but here? No, I haven’t said anything yet.”

“You need to face that up. I gotta change to head to Sally’s. You oughta come, tell him and the rest of them.”

“Okay.”

He rose, pulled her to her feet for a hug. “The harp’s the best present I ever got. And if going back makes you happy, I’ll be happy, too. Might take me awhile to get there, but I will.”

Keegan waited until midnight to cast the circle inside the deep dark of the woods. He wanted the power of the ending day, the new beginning of the next for what would be a long and complex ritual.

Reopening the portal on the other side would take less because of what he put into this. But, as his mother had asked, he would need to open it again not here, but in the west.

He’d need to be precise as well and so had to study his mark. Not just the country, not just the city, but her apartment. Like hitting the bull’s-eye in a target he saw only in his mind.