Robbie massaged his forehead. “You just lost me.”
“Okay, maybe last night things were every bit as great as you thought they were,” I said. “And maybe that’s the problem. When things are good is when Bree has trouble trusting them. So that’s when she has to mess them up again.”
“That makes absolutely no sense,” Robbie said.
I gave him a look. “Did I ever claim Bree was logical?”
We got off at Forty-ninth Street and began walking west. “We’re looking for number seven-eight-eight,” I told Robbie.
He glanced up at the building we were passing. “We’re nowhere near.”
We waited for the light on Ninth Avenue to turn. Ninth Avenue looked pretty decent, with lots of restaurants and small shops selling ethnic foods. But as we kept walking west, Forty-ninth Street became seedier and seedier. The theaters and little studio workshops were gone now. Garbage was piled by the curb. The buildings were mostly residential tenement types, with crumbling brickwork and boarded-up windows. Many were spray-painted with gang tags. We were in Hell’s Kitchen.
I knew that this neighborhood had a long history of violent crime. Robbie was wide-eyed and wary. I cast my senses, hoping to pick up any trace Maeve might have left. At first all I got were flashes of the people in the neighborhood: families in crowded apartments; a few elderly people, ailing and miserably alone; a crack junkie, adrenaline rocketing through her body. Then I felt the hairs along the back of my neck rise. In the worn brickwork of an abandoned building I saw vestiges of runes and magickal symbols, nearly covered over by layers of graffiti. It didn’t feel like Maeve’s or Angus’s work. That made sense; they had renounced their powers completely when they fled Ireland. But it was proof that witches had been here.
“This is it,” Robbie said as we came to a soot-streaked redbrick tenement with iron fire escapes running down its front. The building was narrow and only five stories high. It seemed sad and neglected, and I wondered how much worse it had gotten since Maeve and Angus had lived in it nearly twenty years ago.
I couldn’t pick up any trace of my birth mother, but that didn’t mean there wasn’t something inside the building. If only I could get into the actual apartment where she’d lived. Three low stairs led to a front door behind a steel-mesh gate. A sign on a first-floor window read Apartments for Rent, Powell Mgmt. Co. I rang the bell marked Superintendent and waited.
No one answered the bell or my pounding on the steel gate. Robbie said, “Now what?”
I could try a spell, I thought. But I wasn’t supposed to use magick unless I absolutely had to. And this didn’t qualify as an emergency.
“Can I use your phone?” I asked Robbie. I called the management company on Robbie’s cell phone. To my astonishment, the woman on the phone told me that apartment three was available. I was so excited, my voice shook as I made an appointment to see the place the next day. It was meant to be, I thought. Obviously.
“I hate to bring this up,” Robbie said when I hung up. “But you look like the high school kid you are. I mean, why would anyone show you an apartment?”
“I’m not sure,” I told Robbie. “But I’ll find a way.”
7. The Watch
August 20, 1981
This morning at dawn I took Maeve for a walk along the cliffs. We were both still floating on the joy of last night. Yet I knew I had to tell her. I expected it to shock, possibly hurt her, but I was certain she’d forgive me in the end. After all, we are mùirn beatha dàns.
Maeve was going on about where we’d live. Much as she loves Ballynigel, she does not want to stay here her entire life; she wants to see the world, and I would love nothing more than to show it to her. But her happy ramblings were like blows to my heart. At last, when I could stand to wait no more, I told her, as gently as I could, that I was not yet free to travel with her, that I had a wife and two children in Scotland.
At first she only looked at me in confusion. I repeated what I’d said, this time taking her hands in mine.
Then her confusion was replaced by disbelief. She begged me, weeping, to tell her it wasn’t true. But I couldn’t. I could not lie to her.
I pulled her close to kiss away her tears. But she would have none of me. She yanked her hands from mine and stepped away. I pleaded with her to give me time. I told her I couldn’t afford to enrage Greer—not if I wanted to take her place. But I swore I’d leave the lot of them as soon as I could.
She cut me off. “You will not leave your wife and children,” she said, the anguish in her eyes turning to fire. “First you betray me with lies. Now you want to destroy a family as well?” Then she told me to leave her, to get away.
I couldn’t believe she was serious. I argued, cajoled, begged. I told her to take time to consider. I said we’d find a gentle way to go forward together, that, of course, I would provide for my family. But no matter what I said, I could not dissuade her. She who had been so soft, so yielding, was suddenly like iron.
My soul is shattered. Tomorrow I return to Scotland.
— Neimhidh
When we got back to Ninth Avenue, Robbie took off on his own. I went back to Bree’s father’s place. We hadn’t made any group plans for the evening, and the apartment was empty. For a while I couldn’t settle down. I was too revved up—from the news about Ciaran being here in the city, from having found Maeve’s old building. Was the watch still there? I wondered. If it was, would I be able to find it? I tried to scry for it, but I was too wired to concentrate. Finally I curled up with the book on scrying that I’d bought in SoHo and read for a while.
The sun had almost set when I sensed Hunter walking down the hall. I couldn’t quite believe my luck. Were we really going to have a chance to be alone together in the apartment? I rushed into the bathroom and quickly brushed my teeth and my hair.
But the moment Hunter opened the door, I realized this was not going to be a romantic interlude. He walked in, took off his scarf and jacket, gave me a curt nod, then went to stare morosely out the window.
I went to stand beside him. Despite his mood, I immediately tuned in to our connection. I couldn’t have defined either of them, but this was completely different from my connection with the man in the bookstore. Hunter touched everything in me. It was a delicious tease to stand near him, not physically touching, and let myself feel how his presence stroked my every nerve ending into a state of total anticipation.
He reached out and caught my hand in his. “Don’t,” he said gently. “I can’t be with you that way right now.”
“What happened?” I asked, feeling a twinge of alarm. “What went wrong?”
“My finding Killian. I didn’t. Either he got wind of the fact that a council Seeker is looking for him or Amyranth has already snatched him because I can’t find him anywhere.”
“Did you try—”
Hunter began to pace the length of the living room. “I found his flat, rang his doorbell and his phone. I went to the club, found out the names of some of his friends, and asked them. I’ve sent him witch messages. He doesn’t answer any of them. I even took out my lueg and scryed right on the street. That’s how desperate I was for a lead—any lead. And none of it has done a bit of good,” he finished bitterly.
He dropped onto the couch and ran a hand through his hair. “I simply don’t know where to go next with this. I’m going to have to contact the council again.”
“Want me to try scrying?”
“I’ve scryed my way to Samhain and back again and I haven’t seen a trace of Killian.”
“I know. But I scry with fire,” I reminded him. “I might get a different result.”
He shrugged and reached for a thick, ivory candle on the coffee table—one that Bree must have bought the day before—and pushed it toward me. “Be my guest,” he said, but his voice was skeptical.