I winced, thinking of the ancient and mighty sea and my inability to even grasp more than a drop.
I licked my lips. “The Twilight Lake. And blood. Or the water inside a body.”
The Dagda looked pleased. “Perhaps you favor me after all.”
“I favor my mother.” I bared my teeth.
The Dagda laughed. “If you say so.”
I looked at the male in front of me and felt nothing. I could not see myself in the planes of his face or the color of his hair. His magic was locked down and pressed against his pale grey skin, the opposite of mine.
Belisama, my mother, looked the same as she had done in the Aos Sí—though I couldn’t tell if she had changed her appearance so I would recognize her. It was difficult enough to wrap my head around the idea that my mother was a member of the Tuatha Dé Danann, inhabiting the body of a Sídhe female named Caoimhe.
I had lived an entire life since her passing. Grown up, and traveled the length of the lake and the Night Court. I had faced the Dark King and lived to tell the tale.
Many times growing up, I had curled up on my paltry bed and cried, wishing out loud to go ‘home’.To die and be reunited with my mother.
Now that I looked at her, I felt a sense of emptiness.
All my dreams and expectations were just fabrications.
A profound sense of mourning filled me, made my bones heavier, and my breathing labored.
Cormac reached out and knitted his fingers with mine.
The Dagda nodded approvingly. “Would you follow Maeve to the end of time, Illfinn?” The god squinted. “Would you join her to ask for a gift from the Making?”
“A gift?” I frowned.
“I’ll never leave her.” Cormac met his eyes in challenge.
“Dagda, what are you doing?” My mother stepped away from the Quorum, approaching with her hand outstretched.
The Dagda didn’t answer her. Instead, his eyes fixed on mine. He held up his staff. “The tools are just tools, but you should take this. I have a feeling you’ll be able to use it in the Court of Teeth.” He told me. “You don’t need my eye.”
My teeth ground together. “Your eye almost killed me.”
“My kind of magic doesn’t accept just anyone,” Dadga warned. “But you must accept it first. If you fight it, it will fight you.”
I took his staff, though the wood felt inert and cold in my hands.
“Balor loves her beasts.” The Dagda shook his head, laughing. “Find Lugh. The bastard owes me after he killed all those hounds.”
He lifted his hand and gave it a flick.
My mother’s scream of protest echoed in my ear as the world melted underneath our feet.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Rainn Shallows
They didn’t dare go into the water, as the steam formed a thick wall over the lake.
The Siren finally acquiesced when it became clear that whatever plagued Tarsainn had no intention of stopping.
The Nymph village was half a day’s walk along the shore, and their party took no convincing to follow Shay Mac Eoin to his home for shelter.
Rainn Shallows would have been the first to admit that he smelled like rotting fish and sweat after their encounter with Scylla. The heavy, sulfuric scent emanating from the lake over Tarsainn had seeped into his clothing and hair, leaving him feeling vaguely unwell. The others were just as affected.
