“We’ll have words,” Siobhan said, “but for now go finish the job while Fergal and I bind these people.” She knelt down and removed the wizard’s belt.

  “It’s just—”

  “—Now, please,” Siobhan said, eyes fixed upon her task.

  Donal dislodged his bident from the shield, grabbed his own buckler and ran to the other side of the shore. Most of the warriors focused on keeping Ciara from laying their remaining archers low. Brendan tucked in between Finn and Ciara.

  “Hey bard,” Brendan said, “you got wind, don’t ya?”

  “I do,” Finn said. “What of it?”

  “I’m going to lift these people high,” Brendan said. “I want you to knock them out of the way when I do.”

  Finn pinched his face and turned it toward his shoulder. “How will you manage that?” he asked.

  “We all have our uses,” Brendan said with a pat on Finn’s back. “Crack on.”

  Brendan drew back his hands and ran into the open.

  “Wait!” Finn called out as he stepped from behind Brigid’s shield.

  “Múr…” Brendan yelled. He ran until he was even with the enemy shield wall and planted his feet. “Tala?!” He raised his hands to the sky. A line of earth erupted from the ground in front of him. The enemy warriors wobbled on the rising wall.

  Finn jarred the shock from his mind with a head shake. As he pulled his hands back, Brendan closed his hands into fists and brought them low.

  “Gáe? nert—” Finn yelled.

  “—Fillid!” Brendan said.

  A gale ascended toward the elevated adversaries. The wall of earth collapsed the moment the wind hit. The men landed several yards to the side and the impact rendered them unconscious.

  Maeve’s arrows struck one archer in the shoulder and another in the hip. Ciara knocked the last one to the ground with a blast of heat. She walked up to her archer and sneered as she pulled back her hands.

  Donal stopped his advance. “Finn, is she—”

  Finn noticed it as well. “Brendan, she can’t.”

  Brendan looked from Finn to Ciara. He dropped his hands and then raised them toward her. “Ardú tala?!”

  A section of earth no wider than an oak’s trunk extended diagonally out of the ground under the archer and knocked him to the side.

  Ciara’s shoulders sank. “You’re joking. These people mean to kill us.”

  “We’ve learned that it isn’t always the case,” Finn said.

  “Then the arrows and spears are what, exactly?” she asked.

  “Tools of another’s bidding,” Finn said. His face darkened. “You, more than anyone here should recognize the possibility.”

  Ciara raised her head and her eyes drifted to the right. “Dother,” she said. “He worked it out on his own.”

  “Stop yourself right there, hai,” Finn said. “I have no stomach for discussing this further. When you’re with us, you don’t kill unless all other options are spent.” He turned and walked toward Siobhan.

  Ciara looked at Niall. “Surely, you see the impracticality of this.”

  Brigid laughed. “You’re alive right now for no other reason but that impracticality,” she said.

  “Indeed,” Niall said. “Don’t give us a reason to send you back to Mountsandel. Some of us won’t need much convincing.” His hand rattled as he patted Brigid’s shoulder. “Excuse me.” He eased himself backward and turned to speak with Maeve.

  “Good work, everyone,” Siobhan shouted. “Bind the ones who aren’t sleeping and then let’s get these currachs lifted and ready for the next stage of the journey.”

  “And where would that be?” Brendan said. “We still haven’t found the cave.”

  “My new friend here told us,” she said, smiling. She hunched over and patted the wizard on the side of his impaled shoulder, causing the man to hiss in pain. “It’s on the ocean side of that bluff next to us. Everyone, save for Donal, get to the boats and check the state of your gear.”

  Maeve flicked a hand to gain Siobhan’s attention. “Siobhan?”

  Siobhan nodded. She dismissed Fergal with a smile as Donal approached. Her smile faded as Fergal walked away.

  Donal’s stomach twisted further with each step. He couldn’t bear waiting until they were face-to-face. “I know what you’re going to say,” he said.

  “You see, there’s your problem,” she said in a scolding tone. “You don’t know. Sure look, we’re not flailing about the countryside anymore, stumbling from one abbey to the next. This is different. Our enemies don’t underestimate us anymore. We’re heading to places—worlds—none of us has ever seen with only the vaguest of orders to go on.

  “Through all of your challenges and inexperience last year, we all knew we could count on you in the middle of a fight because we could trust you to follow the plan. What were you thinking just now?”

  “I—”

  “That wasn’t a question meant to have an answer,” Siobhan said with a sigh. “You didn’t do what you were told, and the consequence we warned would happen almost did!”

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  “One of these days,” Maeve said from behind them, “I might not have the arrow that saves you in time.”

  “We’re running with nine people now,” Siobhan said. “Niall and I have our hands full with Ciara. We can’t have people running away from orders. We will fail. So, can I count on you?”

  “You—”

  “That was another question not meant to have an answer,” Siobhan said, this time with a smile building in the corners of her mouth. “Get you to your boat.”

  “Two under the bow, one under the stern,” Niall said.

  Donal waited for further instructions, hoping they would provide better context. None came. “Sorry?” he asked.

  “Two carry it from the front, one carries it from the rear,” Niall said. “Better?”

  “Fine,” Donal muttered. “Next time just say that.”

  “We need to move,” Niall said. “I can’t believe our northerly hosts haven’t shown more interest in our appearance.”

  The sun now grazed the tops of the hills in the west. The wind buffeted them as they rounded the ocean side of the bluffs. Siobhan, Brendan and Ciara nearly dropped their boat.

  “Keep that boat off the ground,” Niall said. “Can’t risk damage to the hull.”

  Donal put his finger through the arrow hole in the side of their boat.

  “And what about this?” he asked Niall.

  Niall pressed his lips together and squinted at the hole. “Hope for the best,” he said. “Unless your friends have magic that mends overstretched hide.”

  The group stumbled on the uneven stones. They dodged crashing waves and maneuvered around outcrops. Fergal snagged his foot on a small boulder and fell to a knee, the sound of which caused several to groan in sympathy.

  “We’re here,” Brigid said. “It’s actually here.”

  Nestled in the elbow of the hundred-foot cliff was a cave entrance twelve feet high, obscured by several large boulders in front. The entrance was askew from the cliff face; its left side was three feet behind the right side. The hole widened near the top, providing plenty of room for the currachs riding atop the group’s shoulders.

  Light from the outside world could not penetrate farther than ten paces into the cave, rendering the passage ahead darker than last night’s sky. Maeve’s boat followed close behind. Its crew rammed the bow into Niall’s back.

  “Sorry, Niall,” Finn said. “Hang on, let’s set this down while I try something.”

  “Fine,” Maeve said, dipping her chin. “Ferg.”

  Finn pulled his sword, Fragarach, from its scabbard and held it with its tip pointed to the ceiling. He flicked his hand. “Do beir solus,” he said.

  A pale light spread from his palm out to his fingers. It spread to the handle, then the crossguard. The glow increased in intensity as the light climbed to the sword tip.

  That’s a new one, Donal thought.

  “Amazing,” Maeve said. “You’ve managed to weasel out of carrying your share.”

  Finn lowered the sword. The light from the weapon below reflected off his chin and cheeks while darkening his eyes. “Someday,” he said, glaring at Maeve. “Someday, you’ll admit I’m more useful than you give me credit for.”

  He stopped in front of Donal’s boat and rested the sword inside. The walls and ceiling of their pathway, dampened by sea spray, reflected soft ambient light over their heads. Finn returned to his side of the boat and squatted by the bow. “Can we go now?”

  Maeve narrowed her eyes at Finn, a wasteful action in such a dark setting. “Don’t you trouble that mind of yours, Finn,” she said. “It won’t take much credit to get you above nothing.”

  Donal usually enjoyed Maeve’s barbs—especially when hurled at his older brother. This time, it sounded mean purely for the sake of it.

  She caught him glancing back at her. "What?" she asked.

  “Nothing,” Donal said with a shake of his head.

  The group pushed farther into the cave. The echo of their footsteps deepened and lingered.

  “That’s not from our light, is it?” Donal asked after he turned left and faint light in the distance.

  “It is not,” said Niall. “This place was well hid, I can tell you that.”

  Niall’s crew shuffled over thirty yards of stone before realizing the light was itself a reflection from a chamber on their right. The three crews entered the chamber, able to set down their boats with room to spare.

  Six wall-mounted torches bathed the rough rectangular walls in orange light. Small gouges covered every square foot around and above them.

  “These marks are well-worn,” Niall said as he ran his left hand along the near wall. “Someone carved this room out of the hill long ago.”

  “These torches haven’t been burning long,” Brigid said.

  “They have not,” he said.

  Finn circled one of the two pillars that held the interior of the ceiling in place. “Dya’feel that?” he asked. “Did they already figure how to cross into our world?”

  “The veil is thin here, that much is true,” Brendan said. “That doesn’t mean they crossed over. Likely that they merely opened a door from another part of our own world and saved themselves a long ride on a boat.”

  “Does that mean we’re in the wrong place?” Donal asked.

  “We’re right where we need to be,” Brendan said. “Stepping between planes and traveling between worlds are entirely different things.”

  Brendan hunched over his boat and pulled a book the size of his hand from his bag. He rubbed out the existing patterns surrounding the circle and traced several new patterns of slashes and lines, each time referencing his book before dragging his finger in the dirt.

  Brendan rose to his feet and brushed the dirt from his finger against his leine. He rolled his arms over each other in a manner that allowed his hands to form a tight circle. “Asoilgi an dorus do Mag da Cheonn.”

  The whites in Brendan’s eyes turned grey, and the color spread across his irises and pupils. A speck of grey light appeared above the circle scrawled in the dirt. The light expanded, drifting like smoke over a campfire, until a semicircle reached the ground.

  Brendan raised his arms to bring the encircling motion in front of his face. After a few final swirls he raised his hands high and swung them downward so that his palms pointed to the circle. The symbols on the ground flashed grey and the borders around the smoky light straightened. Light around the borders wobbled. Flecks of light collected in random places around the border and floated away as if the structure dripped light.

  “Now what?” Maeve said.

  “Now,” Brendan said, “we go in. I assume.”

  “You what?” Maeve asked.

  “I’ve never crossed into another plane before,” he said. “I’ve only opened one portal before and it was to gain direct access to its magic.”

  “And you didn’t sneak even a wet foot inside?” Siobhan asked.

  Brendan flung his hand at the portal. “Look at it!” he said. “Why would I risk it?”

  “Why, indeed,” Brigid muttered.

  “We don’t have a choice,” Siobhan said. “If we can’t get what we need on the other side of this thing then our fight against the Fomori here becomes much, much harder.”

  “Tell us what to do, lad,” Niall said to Brendan.

  “We step through. We’ll still be in our world but it will be in a state unlike anything we’ve ever seen.”

  “Let’s crack on, then,” Niall said. “Pick up your boats and follow us.” He turned to Brendan. “I assume we have to step over your drawings on the ground.”

  Brendan shrugged. “It should be ‘locked,’” he said. “Best not to test that theory.”

  Niall blew out a heavy sigh. “It’s the certainty of your directions that I respect, O’Cahan,” he said. “Watch your step, everyone.”

  Donal and Brigid stepped over the circle. They paused in front of the portal.

  “Go on, then,” Niall said.

  Brigid looked at Donal and tilted her head backward. “He’s awfully demanding for a person who’s not going through first.” She winked at Donal and smiled. Once she received one in reply she gave a deep nod and faced forward.

  There’s a reason they had you go first, Shadow told Donal from the back of his mind.

  No one’s asking you to come along, Donal thought. He knew it wasn’t that simple, but it felt good to say.

  “I’m ready,” he said, putting his left foot forward.