5. Leadership
Siobhan’s soup was frustratingly delicious, but my stomach pain and mounting anxiety only let me eat so much of it.
I stirred at the potato-filled dregs left in my bowl, alone in the kitchen on my wooden chair.
The others had dispersed shortly after Mom left so that they could all prepare for what would happen next.
They were going to leave me.
Ciarán, Orla, Fana, and Sabrina.
In just a few hours, they’d head out on their quest to free Iseult, find the secret doorway home, and reseal Gams while I packed up to run and hide with the rest of Darragh’s Watch—a bunch of strangers that I recognized, but none of which remembered me despite their eagerness to bow in my wake.
Their silhouettes shifted and moved on the other side of the hearth’s dying flames. The fire would be reduced to coals soon. They’d be able to see me lurking in the kitchen through the hearth, but I hadn’t gathered the courage yet to make a break for the stairs.
I would need to soon. I had things to do if I wanted to help Gams.
A woman from Darragh’s Watch started up a song in a language I didn’t understand, but her haunting croon made the uneven hairs on the nape of my neck stand up.
The other villagers turned their attention her way, some of them adding their voices to the song, so I took the chance to make a break for the stairs.
Ciarán stood in the corner of the main hall farthest from the kitchen, but he was too busy entertaining a small crowd of kids to see me hobbling towards the dark stairwell.
His mouth moved in time with the song as children pulled on his arms and begged for his attention, but he was too far and the other voices too loud for me to hear what his singing voice might sound like.
I bowed my head before he could sense me watching. The music, melancholy yet driven, spurred me towards the shadow of the stairs and solidified my resolve.
Mom wanted me to stay with Sorcha and the people of Darragh’s Watch while Ciarán saved Gams, and I had never disobeyed Mom.
Never.
It was a point of pride. A badge of honor. She’d parented me all by herself for eighteen years. I’d written my college entrance essay about her. Until a few weeks ago, I’d believed she could do no wrong. She was wise and passionate and perfect, and if I did everything she said, I would be okay.
And then she told me to hide the flyers that were supposed to help find a missing young man, and the first cracks in the illusion that was my Perfect Mom appeared.
Those cracks looked more like chasms now, and she was an entire world away.
If I wanted to save Gams myself, if I refused to run and hide, Mom couldn’t stop me.
The singing voices of Darragh’s Watch followed me to the top step of the stairs. Blue light jumped in my hand when I bid it, and I slipped down the hall and closed my door.
Jonquil glared at me from my pillows when I hurried in, her tail swishing in apprehension.
“Don’t look at me like that.” I transferred the blue fire in my hand to the lantern next to my bed and lowered myself to my knees. The lantern light reached flickering tendrils under the heavy, wooden bed frame to illuminate the old backpack I kept there. “It’s not my fault we’re both stuck here.”
Packing my things would be easy. I didn’t have much in Skalterra. In fact, none of it was really mine. I sat back against the bed frame and pulled the backpack open. It still had Liam’s things from the day Ferrin had ruined everything. Our train tickets. His wallet. A broken phone.
And a single blue ceramic chicken that glowed at the bottom of the backpack.
I picked it up to watch the Skal-light from the magick-imbued glaze dance around my fingertips.
The small totem held the last day of Ciarán’s memories as Liam.
If we could find the other chickens Gams had given him over the years in Keel Watch Harbor, there was a chance the rest of Liam would return.
It wouldn’t be the same though, and the thought of good, wonderful Liam crammed inside Ciarán’s psyche made me shudder.
I dropped the ceramic chicken back into Liam’s backpack and fished out the wallet.
He had exactly seventeen dollars shoved inside its folds, which wouldn’t be much help when I made it to Keldori, but Liam’s credit card was there between a crumpled coupon to the campus sandwich shop and his Von Leer University student I.D. card.
My breath caught at the I.D. photo. His tousled blond hair looked nothing like Ciarán’s dark locks, and his skin was sun-kissed where Ciarán’s reflected his nocturnal lifestyle. But his eyes?
They looked just the way Ciarán’s had when he’d muted the glow of his irises.
I shoved the I.D. back into the wallet, unable to bring myself to keep staring at Liam, and swung the backpack up on the mattress.
If I was quick, I could leave before others noticed.
Or maybe I should play the more patient game and wait until Ciarán and Orla were gone?
They were both sure to come after me if I left before them.
Either way, I needed to pack fast.
I tried to stand, and electric agony shot through my side. I fell back to my knees, growling in pain and anger through gritted teeth as I tried to force my busted ribs to expand and relax enough to let me breathe.
Frustrated tears welled in my eyes.
I would have to ignore the pain. However bad it hurt, I would never make it across Skalterra if I let it control me. Maybe I could heal myself as I went. Sorcha had explained it enough to give me an idea of where to start. I just had to suck it up during the day while I traveled.
But it hurt so damn bad.
“You should be in bed.” Ciarán stood in the doorway with a new cloak and his hair freshly pulled back into a neat bun. Bottles of Skal clinked against each other where they hung off his belt, their light casting a soft halo on the floorboards around him.
“You’re leaving.” I closed my eyes, hoping he hadn’t seen me starting to cry.
“Soon. I came up to let you know.” He crossed the room to offer me a hand, and I begrudgingly took it. “As a parting gift to me, would you listen just this once and get in bed? You’ll be leaving for the Eastern Pass tomorrow to seek refuge with the rest of Darragh’s Watch. You need rest.”
I staggered to my feet, his hand in mine, exhaling through the pain.
“Where’s my hoodie?” I asked.
“The blue thing?” He strode around the bed to a heavy chest, pushed cloaks out of the way, and procured Liam’s tattered Von Leer University hoodie. I held my hand out for it, but Ciarán ran his fingers along one of the blue sleeves. “Technically, it’s mine. I remember wearing it.”
I kept my arm extended, waiting. Ciarán sighed and threw it over the quilts at me. I slipped it over my head.
“It’s got a hole,” Ciarán drawled.
I placed my hand over the gaping hole in the chest where Ferrin had run Liam through. “It’s fine.”
“I know what you’re planning.” He tapped his temple, reminding me of the magick tether connecting our minds. “We already discussed this.”
“Wasn’t much of a discussion when I wasn’t given a say in any of it.” I returned my attention to Liam’s backpack. I could probably fit a few jugs of Skal inside and maybe a spare cloak.
“You’re injured.”
“Then carry me.” I was only half-joking.
“We don’t even know where we’re headed after the Second Sentinel. You’ve seen how dangerous Skalterra is.”
“We don’t know anything about this secret door into Keldori.
We don’t know where it is or where it lets out, but I doubt it’s going to spit you directly into Keel Watch Harbor.
” I fought through the pain in my ribs to buckle my leather chest plate over the hoodie.
“What’s your plan when you end up in the middle of nowhere in a realm you don’t know, don’t understand, and dressed like you’re on your way to the Renaissance Faire? ”
“I remember Keldori,” Ciarán scoffed, but a thrill of uncertainty fluttered at our mental tether. “We’ll find one of those steamcarts you have.”
“They’re called trains, and you’ll need money.” I crossed my arms at him.
“We’ll manage.”
“You need me.”
Ciarán’s glowing eyes glinted dangerously. “Navigating Keldori will be difficult, but your mother will help.”
“But—”
“It’ll be fine, Blue. Trust me.”
I let my arms fall, and I stared at Jonquil, unwilling to look at Ciarán. It wouldn’t be fine. Maybe it was a selfish line of thought considering the fates of both Skalterra and Keldori were on the line, but no one had given me a thought beyond my immediate safety.
No one had realized that, best case scenario, I was still going to lose everyone I loved.
“Either you fail and my grandma gets wiped out by a volcano, and maybe Ferrin’s armies still manage to slip into Keldori before that happens, destroying life as we know it in both worlds, or you succeed and everyone I care about either gets frozen in ice or trapped across the Rift from me,” I whispered.
“The worlds will be saved, but I’ll be stuck here with Sorcha and my grandma’s cat for the rest of my life. ”
“Blue—”
“You, my mother, Orla, Gams.” I listed them off on my fingers, letting my anger spill over as I got in Ciarán’s face. How had none of them realized? “I have to go, because if I don’t, I’ll never see any of you again.”
Ciarán regarded me with an unreadable expression, and then dropped to his knee, taking my hand in his. I tried to pull it away, but his fingers tightened around mine, holding me in place.
“Lady Wren Warrender Saergrim of Keldori,” he said through a wry scowl, “I swear on my life and on my title of Grimguard, that whatever happens, I’ll come back to you. I will not let you be alone.”
Blood roared in my ears.
This was unacceptable. This was worse than me being abandoned in Skalterra by everyone I cared about.
Because I knew what Ciarán had lost when Liam died, even if he didn’t remember it. I could not let him sacrifice that for me.
“But you liked Keldori,” I asserted. “You’d be able to have a life there. You’re in school. You’re going to be an architect—”