“You can’t be serious in leaving our two friends outside,” Siobhan said.

  “You’re mistaken,” Brendan O’Cahan said as he led her through the gate with Maeve, Brigid and Fergal. “I told the young lad he must stay outside while we sort out the matter of his attack on our guards. The other chose to remain.”

  “‘The other’ being his brother,” she said. “Did you not see the blood pouring down the younger lad’s nose? Your guard did that to him.”

  Brendan turned on his heel and locked his eyes on Siobhan. “So he says. I can’t ask my man because he was knocked out.” He eyed the other people milling about the bailey and leaned toward the group. “Then there’s the matter of how the lad knocked the man out. You’re riding with my sister and Maeve, so I have a good idea how it happened. I don’t know how you all carry yourselves in Tyrconnell anymore, but over here we practice a bit of discretion in how we use our abilities.”

  Maeve and Brigid shared a look. “Of all the things I expected to come out of your mouth,” Maeve said to Brendan, “I never thought it would be funny.”

  “That was four years ago,” Brendan said. He pointed to Fergal. “And I was right, wasn’t I?”

  “Shut your bake,” Brigid said.“You can’t take credit for being right about Ferg’s character when you didn’t stand up for him when it mattered most.”

  Brendan’s face reddened. The muscles on the side of his neck tightened. “You know I—”

  “Wisht!” Maeve said. “Surely one of these buildings is better suited for a row such as this.”

  “This way," Brendan said without taking his eyes off his sister. He held his glare for an extra two seconds and led them forward. “MacSweeney, welcome to Mountsandel.”

  The bailey angled away from the entrance wall, 150 feet wide. Two hundred feet in front of them, the back wall was twice the width of the front. A path to their immediate left led to the stables, sixty feet wide and nearly as deep. In the far left corner stood a simple building large enough to fit two of the stables inside. There were two doors on its front. Judging from the color and state of the daub, the door near the left corner of the building was new. The building’s only windows were near the new door and down the left side. Heavy timber framed the windows, eye level to the average person and each blocked by three iron bars. The windows were as tall as a person’s face, as shown by the one behind watched the visitors from the closest window.

  Brendan led them to the right of the main walkway, past the food stores and the kitchen. In the far right corner, parallel to the back wall, a two-story building rose above the curtain wall. It featured all the detail and trim spared from its partner across the bailey. The shutters were so clean they appeared freshly painted. An intricate design, painted in red, decorated the walls where the pieces of timber frame intersected. A single chimney rose out of the slate roof.

  “In here,” Brendan said as he waited for the entire party to enter the building. He checked both of the side rooms, including their lofts and with a final survey of the bailey, shut the front door.

  The great room doubled as the hall’s parlor. With a dedicated kitchen just a few hundred feet away, the building needed no space for a pantry or food preparation area. The fire was lit and freshly fed. The heads of two bucks, each with twelve-point racks, flanked the fireplace.

  The room on their right held four comfortable beds for visiting nobility and a loft with four smaller beds for their servants. The room on their left was a smaller sleeping area with a section dedicated to fresh linens.

  Maeve moved two chairs to the center of the room. “Sit down, you two,” she said.

  Brendan’s spine twitched. “You’re telling me where I can sit in my own home? That’s the Maeve I remember.”

  “If only I could say the same about you,” she said. “I knew things were in a bad way between your sister and your parents, but I come back to find this?”

  “Why have you come, exactly?” Brendan asked. He pointed to Brigid and Fergal. “And why have you brought them?”

  Maeve rubbed the bridge of her nose. “Because we need your help,” she said. “All of your help. More if you can spare it.”

  “More of this business with the Cauldron?” he asked. “I thought you sorted it out. Rather well, given the circumstances.”

  “We did sort it out,” Maeve said, “but we have new information, and it’s not good. Can we get a fair lash at speaking with both you and your parents?”

  Brendan scratched his chin and narrowed his eyes. “What kind of help do you need from me?” he asked.

  “We’re going after the two other Treasures,” Maeve said. “It’s a trip filled with uncertainty and danger. We don’t stand a chance of returning without your help.”

  Brendan smirked. “You don’t need to flatter me.”

  Maeve scoffed. “In your life, have you ever known me to give idle flattery?”

  Brendan inhaled and canted his head. “It’s that bad?” Brendan asked, eyebrows raised.

  Maeve nodded.

  “I see,” he said.

  Maeve let the conversation wane. Siobhan only knew the twins through Maeve’s stories, and not one of them described a silence as frigid as the one that gripped the room. The three of them avoided eye contact with each other and Fergal stared at the floor as he wrung his left thumb in his right hand.

  The sooner they settled this impasse, the sooner Donal’s status would be addressed.

  “This may not be my place,” Siobhan said, “but Maeve talked about how close you two are—or, were. What’s changed?”

  “I’ll answer your question with a question for my brother,” Brigid said. “Brendan, I noticed the changes to the guardhouse. Mam and Da walled off a new area inside.” She waited until he squirmed before asking her next question, “Who’s it for?”

  Brendan flopped his right hand. “Sure look, Brigid—”

  “Unbelievable!” Brigid yelled as she sprung to her feet. “You felt bad for your pet sleeping in the cells below the keep and had our parents build her a nice new pen!”

  Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  Maeve held up both hands to get Brigid’s attention. “You’re not saying—”

  “I am!” Brigid said. “She’s still here, with her uncle, and they’re accommodating her.” She turned to her brother. “What’s next? Quiet strolls around the bailey?”

  Brendan dropped his head.

  “Unbelievable,” Brigid said.

  “Can someone here please explain?” Siobhan asked.

  Maeve and Brendan glanced at each other; judging from Maeve’s reaction, she lost. “You remember that business with the wolves four years ago?”

  As if Siobhan could forget. “Of course,” she said. “The wolves that killed the six sílrad west of Magheroarty. You tracked them down and sussed out that it was a pair of sorcerers who altered and commanded the beasts. You felled the wolves and captured—”

  Her back and hands turned cold. “That lady who you’re talking about earlier,” she said. “She’s the one behind it all—and she is still here.” Siobhan pointed toward the other building. “Two hundred feet from us.”

  Brendan nodded. “She—”

  “—killed good people?” Siobhan asked. “She ruined a dozen other lives? Is that what you were going to say?”

  Brendan stiffened. “You don’t know—”

  “No!” Siobhan shouted, causing Maeve to take a step backward in surprise. “It’s you who doesn’t know. You weren’t there to see the face of the lone survivor as he lay on my bed, broken and blaming himself for the deaths of his childhood friends. Even now, deep down, he’s still a wee bit hollow from it.

  You weren’t there to see what happens to a pair of brothers suddenly orphaned. That woman turned the older boy into a father overnight. His younger brother already suffered from a sickness. Too many times the only place he found solace was next to his mother. Too many times after she died the older brother bore the brunt of the younger’s pain, the brunt of his search for blame and vengeance.”

  A wave of memories from dozens of visits to the MacLaughlin home after their parents’ death flooded her mind. Fights. Sleepless nights. Her frustration and as they struggled through their grief. Her eyes welled. Not now, she thought. He has to understand.

  “Those brothers? They’re waiting outside your gate because the younger brother tried to defend them,” she said, pointing to Fergal and Brigid. Both averted their eyes.

  Brendan fell silent and stood in place. He clenched his jaw as he kept Siobhan’s gaze, showing no signs of tension or anger. He simply waited.

  Siobhan took another step toward him and jabbed a finger at the ground. “Well?” she asked.

  “In truth, I suspected it might be them,” Brendan said. “Maeve’s told us enough about you, Siobhan, for me to recognize you on sight. Given her report on what happened at Gartan and Kilmacrennan, I assumed they were the lads thrust into our world last summer.”

  He waved a hand at Brigid. “I know how she feels about our family—about me, perhaps—and her feelings are valid. But I’d like you to mind how quickly our own sibling fight slid into the revelation about our… prisoner. If the two lads who came with you were indeed the brothers Maeve spoke of, then I didn’t want them to hear their parents’ demise revealed in such a way. I used the attack as a misdirection, as I used the fire to distract onlookers from seeing me stop your friend’s spear with a block of earth. Can you at least trust my intentions?” He extended a hand toward the empty chair behind her.

  Siobhan stepped backwards and sat down.

  “What do the lads know about it?” Brendan asked.

  Siobhan shook her head. “Nothing.”

  Brigid leaned forward, her brow knitted. “You told them nothing?”

  “We didn’t agree with it,” Siobhan said, pointing to Maeve, “but Finn’s parents didn’t want their children involved in sílrad business. It was our elders’ decision to respect their wishes. If we couldn’t tell them who they really were, how were we supposed to tell them the true manner in which their parents were killed?”

  Fergal, his elbows on his knees, pointed his right palm upward. “And in the days since they found out?” he asked. “You need to tell them, lass.”

  Siobhan’s shoulders sank. “You’re right, sir.”

  “Forgive me, but you misunderstand,” Fergal said. “You need to tell them. With respect, you should have told them after your business with the kettle had settled.”

  Brigid patted Fergal’s leg. “Cauldron, but you were close.”

  Siobhan exhaled slowly and nodded. “This isn’t the reason for the ill treatment you’re giving each other, hai?”

  Brendan cast his eyes downward. “It is not.”

  Brigid pointed to Fergal. “Look at this man sitting next to me,” she said. “My parents should be thrilled that I found someone such as himself.”

  Fergal’s cheeks flushed as he joined Brendan in his study of the floor.

  “Yet they have the nerve to disapprove. They’re so wrapped up in appearing like proper nobility, like proper sílrad, that they’ve lost sight of what that means. Meanwhile—” She flicked a finger at Brendan. “He vouches for an unapologetic murderer and she gets new quarters with her uncle. I’m surprised she doesn’t get to stroll the grounds once a day.”

  Brendan’s eyes flitted toward his sister for a moment as he scratched the back of his head. “Once a week at most,” he said. He headed off Brigid’s outburst. “But that’s not the point! I begged Mam and Da for years to see reason about you and Ferg, right up until you left.” He knitted his brow. “You left me, too, you know.

  “There’s more going on with Ciara than you realize. She is a Morrigan. Their views on morality rarely align with either the Sílrad or the Fomori. Breaslin and his ilk leveraged her family against her.”

  “So three years in a dungeon, several more in confinement,” Siobhan said. “Is that fair for the deaths of six people?”

  Brendan pinched the bridge of his nose. “Of course we don’t trust her enough to let her roam free, but what would you have us do? Keep the two of them down in our dungeon for the rest of their lives? Or worse, end them altogether? Is that what we do now? You tell us, Siobhan,” he said. “What’s a fair punishment that doesn’t turn us into them?”

  Her mind ricocheted between the answers to Brendan’s questions and the thought of breaking the news to Finn and Donal. She ran her hands to the top of her head and gave her hair a slight tug. Brendan rubbed his fingers and thumb as he waited. He didn’t have the face of someone ready to gloat. His eyes were soft under a wrinkled brow of worry.

  “Forget what I said just now for a moment,” Brendan said to Siobhan. “Let’s say your entire family fought Breaslin and lost. He kills your mother and father. Now he stands over your last remaining family member and tells you that they will die if you don’t do his bidding. Do you comply? If so, what should be your punishment when the past catches up with you?”

  Siobhan’s eyes slid back to the floor. She nodded for lack of a better response.

  Brigid scoffed. “Is that what she told you?”

  “Not long after you left,” Brendan. “We asked her uncle separately, and he confirmed every bit of it.” He raised a hand. “Yes, I know two or three years is long enough to rehearse stories. I think they’re being truthful.”

  “She’s had you wrapped around her finger from the day we nabbed her. Of course you believe her.”

  “I can’t deny a soft spot for her,” Brendan said. “It’s because I still see the good in her. As much as she tries to hide it or pretends otherwise. It sneaks out from time to time.”

  Brigid smirked. “I’ll bet it does.”

  “Oi!” Maeve said. “Can we please discuss the reason we’re here? If you guys want to keep pecking at each other like hens I’ll go sit with the brothers until you’re done.”

  “Sit down,” Brendan said. “We’re done.”

  “Will you help us convince your parents to provide us aid?” Maeve asked.

  “I will, but I don’t like your chances,” Brendan said.

  “Should I come along?” Brigid asked.

  Brendan’s eyes shifted to his sister. He closed his eyes and exhaled through his nose. “I think it will help,” he said. “But not in the way any of us would want. You’ll have to shove your pride deep down, because they’ll want their pound of flesh from you—figuratively speaking, of course. It might be your best chance, sadly. Are you sure you want to go through with this?”

  Brigid looked at Maeve and then Siobhan. “Ladies?” she asked. “Do we need this as badly as you say?”

  “We need a brave amount of help, it’s true,” Maeve said. “Yet I never would ask for you to go to these lengths for us. I don’t think I could put up with it if I were in your position.”

  Siobhan chuckled. “I know you couldn’t go through with it.” Hollow smiles and soft nods spread across the room.

  Fergal took Brigid’s hand. “This one can,” he said, “I might disagree with you, Brendan. I think she’ll take it so well it will make ‘em mad.”

  “You taught me well,” Brigid said with a smile.