resting against a tree pregnant with lemons. And the compass in his hand.
“I hope you haven’t taken any recent trips.”
“What? Oh, hey. And no, no. I’ve been right here. I just talked to my grandfather.”
Bran joined him on the ground, stretched out his legs. “Is he well then, your grandfather?”
“Yeah. Since that scare a while back, he’s stronger than ever.”
“It’s good to speak with family. I spoke with my mother only yesterday.”
“Is she worried about you?”
For a moment, in the bright, hot Italian afternoon, Bran felt the cool, damp kiss of Ireland.
“She’s my mother. Of course she has worries. She also has faith. And though I don’t like the worrying of her, her faith gives me more of my own.”
“Yeah. I love my dad, you know? And my mom, my sibs, my grandmother. But Dedushka . . .”
“It’s a special bond, isn’t it? The compass was his, and he passed it to you. I love my father, and all the rest of my family. But it’s my mother who taught me, who helped me learn to open myself to what I am.”
“So you get it.”
“I do, yes. Now you’ve told him what troubles you still.”
“Everything y’all said made sense, and it helped. A hell of a lot. But . . . You know your power’s there all the time, right? You don’t have to use it to feel it.”
“I know what’s in me, yes.”
“Since we came back from the cave, I haven’t felt the connection.”
A dragonfly winged by, gossamer in the dappled sunlight. Sawyer watched its flight, and how it zipped away. He knew what it was to fly.
“When I knew I had to tell my grandfather, I thought about going to him. And I told myself I needed to keep recharging the batteries, you know, and how I didn’t want to worry them anyway. But under that was the fear I couldn’t do it anyway. I couldn’t travel again because I’d lost the right.”
“And what did your grandfather say to that?”
“Well, he listened when I told him what happened, about Malmon, the cave, Annika, all of it. And how I’d used this, this gift, to kill a man. And I thought that might have cost me the right to have it.”
“And?”
“Basically, he told me to stop being a pussy.”
On a half laugh, Sawyer shrugged, and easily, as the weight of guilt no longer sat on his shoulders.
“It was longer than that, had pretty much everything y’all said to me, but with that ‘don’t be a pussy’ tagged on tight. Then he said he loved me, and he believed in me, believed I’d do what I’d been born to do. To get it the hell done and come home safe.”
“I look forward to meeting him one day.”
“Yeah, we’ll have a post-quest party that rocks the house.”
Emotion shuddered through him, and leading it was gratitude.
“I feel it again. That connection. I know it’s mine until it’s time to pass it on. Had to stop being a pussy, stop moping over dropping some asshole into the void who’d have put a bullet in my brain.”
“Brilliant. I’d say that’s earned you a beer.”
“A whole one?”
Testing, Bran laid a hand on Sawyer’s wounded shoulder, then on his side. And pleased with what he felt, he nodded. “It’s a full pint for you.” Bran rose, held out a hand. “Welcome back.”
“So we can dive tomorrow?” With barely a twinge, Sawyer let Bran pull him to his feet.
“Another day or two for that. We may as well let our digger dig.”
“A couple more days, our digger’s going to go wolf on us.”
“Only from moonrise to moonset. It’s this Bay of Sighs clearly enough. Let’s give her, and Doyle, time to find it, and you and Annika a bit more time. And let’s go have that pint.”
“I’d be a fool to argue.”
Annika no longer lounged in the pool. Sawyer didn’t see Sasha, but cut across toward the canvas still on her easel.
And just stared. Joy and beauty, magick and marvel. He didn’t know how Sasha captured the gleam, the sparkle with only paint. Didn’t know how anyone could so clearly show the light in those sea-green eyes.
How could a painting so perfectly show sweetness and sex and strength?
“You like it.” With one of Riley’s famed Bellinis in hand, Sasha wandered out, hooked her arm through Sawyer’s.
“It’s everything she is.”
“I’m going to do others. It’s why I did so many sketches. I want her in the classic mermaid on the rock in the sea, and I want her