He followed the wolf, masked by his own fog until he felt something change in the air, something tremble. He called to Merlin, slowed his own forward motion, seconds before the wolf vanished.
• • •
FIN MIGHT HAVE WANTED TO HANDLE THINGS ON HIS OWN, but Iona called the others anyway. Placidly, silently, Branna brewed a pot of tea.
“You’re so calm.” Iona paced, waiting for something to happen. “How can you be so calm?”
“I’m so angry it feels my blood’s on fire. If I didn’t bank it with calm, I might burn the place to the ground.”
Stepping over, Iona wrapped her arms around Branna from behind. “You know he’s all right. You know he can take care of himself.”
“I know it very well, and it changes nothing.” She patted Iona’s hand, moved to get a dish for biscuits while her angry heart beat fists against her ribs. “I never asked why you’re home so early.”
“We decided we could start the whole shift rotation today. I have a lesson at the big stables at four, but Boyle could spare me until.” Iona rushed to the door. “Here they are now. And, oh! Here’s Fin. He’s fine.”
When Branna said nothing, Iona opened the door. “Get inside,” she snapped to Fin. “You don’t even have a jacket.”
“I was warm enough.”
“You’ll be warmer yet if I kick your arse,” Boyle warned him. “What’s all this about taking off after Cabhan on your own, in some fecking funnel of fog.”
“Just a little something I’ve been working on, and an opportunity to test it out.” Fin shook back his hair, rolled his shoulders. “Brawling with me won’t change anything, but I’m open to it if it helps you.”
“I’ll be the one holding you down while he does the arse kicking.” Connor yanked off his coat. “You’ve no right going off after him on your own.”
“Every right in this world and any.”
“We’re a circle,” Iona began.
“We are.” Because it was Iona, Fin tempered his tone. “And each of us individual points of it.”
“Those points are connected. What happens to you, affects us all.” Meara glanced over at Branna, who continued to fuss with tea and biscuits. “All of us.”
“He never knew I was there, couldn’t see I was following, watching where he went. I was cloaked. It’s what I’ve been working on, and the point of trying it.”
“Without letting any of us know what you were about?” Connor tossed out.
“Well, I didn’t know for certain it would work till I tried, did I?”
He walked to Branna. “I used some of what I have of him in me to conjure the fog. It’s taken weeks—well, months, come to that—for me to perfect it as I only had bits of time here and there to give to it. Today, I saw a chance to try it. Which isn’t so different, if you’re honest, from taking a ride out into the woods just to see what may be.”
“I wasn’t alone.”
“Nor was I,” he countered just as coolly. “I had Merlin, and used his eyes to follow. He’s taunted us, and you gave him back a bit, for you know, as we all should, if we look to be doing nothing at all, he’ll know we’re doing a great deal more. Why else did I make such a show of dispatching the rats?”
Irritation vibrating around him, he turned, lifted his hands. “Is there so little trust here?”
“It’s not lack of trust,” Iona told him. “You scared us. I thought at first Cabhan had ambushed you, but Branna said you’d made the fog yourself. But we couldn’t see you, we didn’t know where you were. It scared us.”
“For that, deirfiúr bheag, I’m sorry. I’m sorry for causing you a minute of fear on my account, any of you, but you most especially who stood for me almost before you knew me.”
Iona released a sigh. “Is that your way of getting out of trouble?”
“It’s only the truth.” He moved to her, kissed her forehead. “I admit I followed the moment, saw a chance, took it. And taking it, we know more than we did, if that’s any balance to the scales.”
“He’s right,” Branna said before anyone else could speak. “It may take time for me to cool my anger, as it may for the rest of you, but if we’re practical—and we can’t be otherwise—Fin’s right. He used what he has and is. I wondered why you showed off so blatantly for Cabhan. It was a bit embarrassing.”