Page 66 of Beer & Broomsticks
“Don’t go getting all soft on me now, Dethridge. It’s unbecoming of an Aether.”
“Fuck off.”
Alastair chuckled and departed in a blink.
“And then there were four.” Loman’s lips curled in a satisfied smile.
“There are many more than four of us. You just can’t see them, Brother.”
Castor’s comment confused Ruairí until he remembered the cloaking spell Quentin had used in the bar. Somewhere around them, there were other allies. His relief was profound.
“Who do you think took out Moira and the drone?” Ronan asked Ruairí in an aside.
“You?”
His cousin’s lips twitched, but he didn’t respond.
“Why are they toying with him?” he asked Ronan in a low voice. “He’s likely to escape, he is.”
“I don’t know, but the three of them have their reasons. You and I will remain on guard.”
“Is it possible that he has a full army hidden around here?”
“Yeah, anything’s possible, and with him, probable. Go find Bridget and make sure she’s all right.”
Needing no further urging, Ruairí ducked through the opening and went in search of the O’Malleys.
* * *
Bridget woketo find herself in their ceremony room beneath the inn. Roisin, Carrick, and Cian were all present and in deep discussion over a grimoire.
“Yeah, and what are the three of you plottin’?”
The relief on Roisin’s face was plentiful. “When we couldn’t wake you, we got worried. You slept through the entire—”
Carrick quieted her with a look.
One that Bridget found disturbing. “As you can see, I’m fully resurrected. So how about one of you tell me what I slept through?”
From the uneasy glances her brothers shared, she assumed the telling would fall to Roisin, but the trap door above her opened and Ruairí descended the stairs, interrupting any explanation her sister-in-law might’ve given.
Relief flashed across his face as he saw her up and moving about. “I’m sorry about your inn and pub,mo ghrá,but we’ll get them restored.”
“What the feck happened to them?” She charged for the stairs, determined to see the destruction for herself.
He caught her with an arm around her waist. “It’s not safe up there. Structurally, it could all come down around us. This room is the only safe place for you right now.”
“Let me go, Ruairí, I need to see the damage.”
“Bridg—”
She pulled away and frantically searched the area where she’d been resting. “This is Loman O’Connor’s doing, isn’t it? Where’s my sword? I’ll cut that fucking gobshite from gut to gullet!”
“We hid it.”
She pinned Cian with a glare. “Unhide it right now!”
“Yeah, and that’s not going to be happening, Bridg. You’re in no state to face anyone. Ya were out cold for the last hour.”
