a curled crown, she looked like a picture in a history book. A woman out of time.
But she wasn’t out of time, Breen thought. I am.
“And so,” Marg continued, “will you speak with me now? The last days you’ve buried this trouble with work and training, but I feel it.
“You’re mine,” Marg said as she brought the tea to the worktable. “And I feel your troubled heart and mind.”
“Nan.” Breen shook her head, stared into her tea.
“The summer is ending. Soon the light changes, the spice of autumn wakes, and harvest begins. The wheel turns as it must.”
“Whatever I do will hurt people I care about.”
“Those who care for you will honor your choices.”
Anxiety spiked in her voice and drenched her eyes. “I have to go back. I can’t leave so much undone. If I’m from two worlds, I have to find the way to do what’s right for both.”
“But what is right for Breen?”
She would ask that, Breen realized. She would think that—and want that.
And that was love.
“I don’t know yet. I have to figure it out, and there’s so much . . . I sold my book. Bollocks’s book.”
“Oh!” Marg’s face lit, and the tears that rushed to her eyes glittered with pride. “Mo chroí!” She reached over to grip Breen’s hands. “This is the happiest of news. I’m so proud.”
“You’re part of it. You pushed that dog on me.”
She let out a laugh, full of delight. “I did, aye, that I did, but this is yours. This comes from your heart and mind and skill, and your courage. When the time comes, we will have your book in the great library in the Capital, and I will have one here. Young Bollocks will be famed, far and wide. In two worlds.”
“I want that. To write, to be read, to have my book—my books,” she corrected, “in libraries and homes and schools. I want it more now than I did when I started. For that, I need the other world. I have people I love on the other side, Nan, and I can’t cut them out of my life. I have to go, do what I left hanging. And I have to go to be sure.”
She tightened her grip on her grandmother’s hands. “But I promise you, I swear to you, I’ll come back. To you, to my friends here, to Talamh. I’ll come back for love and for duty.”
“Your father swore the same to me, and kept his oath. I have no doubt you’ll do the same.”
“I will. I have two favors to ask you.”
“What would I not give to the child of my child?”
“Will you keep Bollocks until I come back? I don’t want to take him away from here. He’s happy here, and free here. And, well, there are a lot of practical reasons why taking him with me wouldn’t work.”
“I will, of course. He’ll miss you keenly. As I will. As all will.”
A weight dropped off her shoulders. “Thank you. I just couldn’t keep him in the apartment, in the city. Marco’s been looking at houses . . . One of those things I left undone. Can you keep the cottage for me, for when I come back? I don’t know exactly when, but—”
“My darling child, the cottage is yours. I made it for you. It will always be yours. Your dog, your cottage, and all of Talamh will wait until you make your choice. And I promise you I will never stand in the way of that choice.”
She rose again. “I have a gift for you.”
“You’ve already given me so much. You’ve made such a difference in my life.”
“This is a gift for me as well.”
She brought Breen a mirror, silver-backed with a dragon’s heart stone in the center.
“A scrying mirror, your great-grandmother’s. When you need me, wish to speak to me, to see me, you have only to look into the glass and call me.”
Magickal FaceTime, she thought. “It’s beautiful. I do need you, Nan.” She stood, wrapped her arms around Marg. “And I won’t let you down. I’ll find a way.”
“Now you must find a way to tell others who care for you as you’ve told me.”
Breen only sighed. She didn’t count on anyone else being as understanding as her grandmother.
She expected Aisling to come close—and was wrong.
“You will do what you will do,” Aisling said briefly as she carried a pail of water from the well to the kitchen. “My father died so you would be free to do what