They set the ashes on fire, more white flame, turned the earth, scattered them, salted all.
Then stood in the clearing, in peace.
“It’s done. We’re done with it.” Sorcha’s Brannaugh walked to her mother’s grave. “And she’s free. I’m sure of it.”
“We honored her sacrifice, fulfilled our destiny. And I feel home calling.” Eamon reached for Teagan’s hand. “But I think we’ll see you again, cousins.”
Connor took the white stone out of his pocket, watched it glow. “I believe it.”
“We’re the three,” Branna said, “as you are, and as they are.” She gestured to Fin, Boyle, Meara. “We’ll meet again. Bright blessings to you, cousins.”
“And to you.” Teagan looked over at their mother’s grave as she started to fade. “She favored bluebells. Thank you.”
“It’s finished.” Meara looked around the clearing. “I want to dance, and yet I’m shaky inside. What do we do now that it’s finished?”
“Have a full fry. Dawn’s breaking.” Connor pointed east, and to a ribbon of soft pink light.
“We go home,” Iona agreed, laughed when Boyle swung her around. “And we stay together for a while. Just together.”
“We’ll be along. I want a moment more. A moment more,” Fin said to Branna.
“If you’re much longer, I’ll be making the eggs, and she’ll be complaining.” But Connor kissed Meara’s hand, then mounted.
Iona cast one glance back, laid a hand to her heart, then swung it out toward Fin and Branna, forming a pretty little rainbow.
“She has the sweetest heart,” Fin said quietly. “And now.” He turned Branna toward him. “Here, where you first gave yourself to me. Here, where it all began, and where we’ve finally ended it, I have a question to ask.”
“Haven’t I answered them all?”
“Not this one. Will you, Branna, have the life with me we once dreamed? The life, the family, the all of it, we once imagined?”
“Oh, I will, Fin. I’ll have all of it, and more. I’ll have all the new dreams we make. And the new promises.”
She stepped into his arms. “I love you. I have always, I will always. I’ll live with you in your fine house, and we’ll have all the children we want, and none of them to bear a mark. I’ll travel with you, have you show me some of the world.”
“We’ll make magick.”
“Today and always.”
She kissed him by Sorcha’s cabin where the wall of vines had fallen away, where bluebells bloomed and a little rainbow lingered on the air.
Then they flew, with horse, hound, hawk, into tomorrow.
Keep reading for an excerpt from
THE COLLECTOR
by Nora Roberts
Now available from G. P. Putnam’s Sons
SHE THOUGHT THEY’D NEVER LEAVE. CLIENTS, ESPECIALLY new ones, tended to fuss and delay, revolving on the same loop of instructions, contacts, comments before finally heading out the door. She sympathized because when they walked out the door they left their home, their belongings, and in this case their cat, in someone else’s hands.
As their house sitter, Lila Emerson did everything she could to send them off relaxed, and confident those hands were competent ones.
For the next three weeks, while Jason and Macey Kilderbrand enjoyed the south of France with friends and family, Lila would live in their most excellent apartment in Chelsea, water their plants, feed, water and play with their cat, collect their mail—and forward anything of import.
She’d tend Macey’s pretty terrace garden, pamper the cat, take messages and act as a burglary deterrent simply by her presence.
While she did, she’d enjoy living in New York’s tony London Terrace just as she’d enjoyed living in the charming flat in Rome—where for an additional fee she’d painted the kitchen—and the sprawling house in Brooklyn—with its frisky golden retriever, sweet and aging Boston terrier and aquarium of colorful tropical fish.
She’d seen a lot of New York in her six years as a professional house sitter, and in the last four had expanded to see quite a bit of the world as well.
Nice work if you can get it, she thought—and she could get it.
“Come on, Thomas.” She gave the cat’s long, sleek body one head-to-tail stroke. “Let’s go unpack.”
She liked the settling in, and since the spacious apartment boasted a second bedroom, unpacked the first of her two suitcases, tucking her clothes in the mirrored bureau or hanging them in the tidy walk-in closet. She’d been warned Thomas would likely insist on sharing the bed with her, and she’d deal with that. And she appreciated that the clients—likely Macey—had arranged a pretty bouquet of freesia on the nightstand.
Lila was big on little personal touches, the giving