Briallen broke away from her group. She wore a wireless headset, an incongruity for her that I could not stop staring at. Briallen rejected most technotoys. She could. Lots of technology replicates what she can do with her own innate abilities. “It’s happening, Connor. The veil between worlds is thinning. Tara is secure, but there’s rioting at Stonehenge and Carnac.”
“There’s always rioting at Stonehenge,” Dylan muttered. He trailed along the ring, sparking little cantrips into the mist, fascination gleaming in his eyes.
“Did you see what happened with Meryl?” I asked.
Briallen stared up at the mist. “She had a binding spell on her. I was too far away to do anything. What I want to know is how the hell they went through.”
“A silver branch,” I said. “At least one of the items from the Met robbery was the real deal.”
Briallen had a bemused expression. “Before Convergence, we used to take things like that for granted. If the conditions were right, you could even pass through a portal into Faerie or TirNaNog or the Glass Isle without a silver branch. Part of me is thrilled the veil has thinned, and part of me is terrified.”
Dozens of flits popped into view, chattering excitedly as they swarmed around the fog. Briallen pause to listen in on her headset. “Word has spread. We’ll probably see more flits.”
Dylan returned from his circuit of the ring. “The Taint’s amplifying the veil.”
Briallen nodded. “That’s what I thought. What I don’t know is if people go through the veil, what effect the Taint will have on them. In the old days, people with unfinished business came back from TirNaNog, and they weren’t very nice about it.”
Something high up within the veil pressed outward and formed a dull gray lump on the swirling surface. The swelling receded, bulged again, and took on shape. The veil stretched as someone pushed against from the other side, the surface lightening from expansion until it was transparent enough to see a Danann fairy in an old-style court tunic. He struggled against the gray essence, pushing farther out, tendrils of mist elongating until they snapped with a silent flicker of light. He tumbled and caught air on long, translucent wings, hovering in confusion above our upturned faces. Shock registered on his face at the sight of the surrounding buildings. If the dated-ness of his clothes meant anything, he had never seen structures so tall. He muttered something in Old Irish that translated roughly as “Where the hell am I?”
He flew toward downtown.
“That was a dead guy?” Murdock asked.
“It depends on your definition of dead,” Dylan said.
I reached for the spot where the fairy had exited, but the surface closed before I could touch it. Another bulge formed and dissipated near my head, and I imagined someone on the other side trying the same thing I was. A hand rested on my shoulder. Briallen looking at me with shared concern. “She knows how to handle herself.”
“This is my fault,” I said.
“Don’t start that again.” Briallen brushed her hand along the side of my head.
I jerked away. “Stop that.”
Annoyance flickered across her face, but she didn’t remove her hand. “I was only going to check if you were all right.”
“Don’t change the subject to the thing in my head,” I said.
“I will if you stop ignoring that something’s not right. I can feel it.”
I met her gaze. “Something happened, Briallen, and it changed. I don’t need you to tell me it’s growing.”
She dropped the hand. “You’re right. And you shouldn’t be here. Between the Taint and this veil opening, I’m worried.”
I stepped away from her. “I’m sorry, Briallen. I got Meryl into this. I can’t leave.”
“I don’t know whether to be proud to hear you say that or throw you over my knee,” she said. Her expression changed abruptly, and she held a hand against her earpiece. She glanced up at me as she listened intently. “A mist has formed at the grove.”
She didn’t have to tell me what grove. Boston druids and druidesses met in an oak grove on Telegraph Hill down in Southie. “I’m not surprised, I guess. There’s a lot of residual Taint down there.”
She peered into the distance as if she were looking through the surrounding city to the ring of oak trees. “We stationed people there, in case, but…” Her voice trailed away.
“No one very powerful, right?”
She surveyed the remaining fey. “Promise me you won’t do anything stupid?”
I grinned. “Do you really have to ask?”
Her hand found my cheek again, only this time in a warm caress. “She’ll be fine. If there’s one thing Meryl does, it’s the unexpected.”
Without another word, she hurried down the hill to a nearby black car.
Dylan’s gaze went up over my shoulder. “We’ve got company.”
“Looks more like incoming,” Murdock said.
Above the crowd on the Common, airborne fey scattered from a growing cloud of light. The light resolved into rank upon rank of Danann security agents, several hundred, all in black, their chrome helmets reflecting their innate essence. Front and center, a figure burned with hot golden essence.
“That’s Ceridwen,” I said. She was the last person I wanted to see. If she hadn’t been so paranoid, Meryl would have been at her desk and made sure Powell was in a secure room. As if to draw even more attention to herself, she had the spear with her. I had a lightbulb moment. “Dylan, give me Powell’s soul stone.”
He hesitated. “Why?”
I didn’t want to tell him. If he didn’t like the idea, it wouldn’t work without the stone. “I need it for leverage.”
He looked suspicious. “Leverage with whom?”
Ceridwen would arrive in a moment. I didn’t have time to argue. “Dylan, you wanted me to trust you. I’m asking you to do the same. If you don’t want Ceridwen to know you gave it to me, you need to give me Powell’s soul stone right now.”
Dylan pulled the stone from his coat pocket, rolled it between his fingers, then tossed it to me. “Whatever you’re going to do, make it good.”
Ceridwen landed at the communications area near the monument. Several security agents swept in after her, but the rest remained in the air. She ordered the park cleared, her voice amplified by a spell. Angry murmurs ran through the crowd, but stopped as soon as the security agents spread out. They didn’t fire on anyone, but their reputation for hair-trigger tempers prompted people to head for the streets.
Ceridwen carried the spear like a scepter as a contingent of agents escorted her to the fairy ring. She played the role of command leader for all it was worth.
“What’s with the getup?” Murdock said.
Ceridwen wore classic fey warrior armor, a torso-fitting corselet of stamped red leather and a matching helm with a short nose guard. The fey used as little metal as possible in their fighting gear because it had a tendency to warp essence. The Dananns didn’t mind adding some for effect to send the message that they were powerful enough to overcome the warping.
“Let’s just say she’s not subtle when it comes to asserting her authority.”
She stopped a dozen feet away. “Move away from the ring.”
Dylan bowed and did as he was told like a good Guildsman. From a cautious point of view, I didn’t have a problem with it. Even if he had never sworn fealty to the High Queen, he was her employee. It wouldn’t look good at his performance review if he had “defied an order from an underQueen” in his file. Murdock, true to form, did not move, which I liked even more.
Ceridwen stepped closer. “We said move away from the ring. You are interfering with Guild business.”
Murdock didn’t flinch. “We’re investigating an abduction, ma’am.”