Chapter 42 #2
Out of the corner of my eye, I spotted Granny Margaret speaking quietly with Robbie.
She seemed to be offering an apology of sorts for her behavior last night when he tried to glamour her.
He waved it off easily, no harm, no foul, but the look in her eye showed gratitude, and maybe even relief.
She must have carried this secret for so long, held it close and carefully guarded, and she could finally share it.
Not just with her girls, but with an ever-widening circle of people who now knew the truth about the return of Garvie magic.
When the cars finally pulled away to the east, it was just me, Baird, Robbie, Sorcha…
and Magda. I wanted to retreat to the cottage with Baird and pick up exactly where we'd left off—literally—the ache between us had grown almost painful.
I felt it in my gut and under my skin, and when I looked at him, I saw the same hunger reflected back at me.
The Sanguis Amantium thrummed between us, a two-way current of want and awareness neither of us could ignore.
Baird's mouth brushed my ear. “Soon,” he murmured—promise, warning, and plea all wrapped into one word.
I swallowed and nodded, because if either of us said anything more, we weren't making it out of the inn fully clothed.
But it was clear Magda had no intention of waiting any longer—as if patience itself were something she'd spent lifetimes mastering, and was unwilling to spare any more.
Something about her presence set my nerves on edge in a way I couldn't quite name—not threat, exactly.
I found myself oddly eager to show her the ring, as though some part of me already knew it mattered.
Maybe she was supposed to be the buyer. Maybe not.
The ruby hadn't exactly been forthcoming with answers, and for all of Sorcha's insight, even she didn't seem to know everything.
Which, somehow, made the moment feel heavier.
I had the distinct sense that whatever came next had been set in motion long before any of us arrived here.
The three of them—a strange trio, if there ever was one—followed us back to the cottage.
Middle-aged Sorcha and Robbie, eternally dressed in plaid, looked like they belonged together.
Magda, on the other hand, was the odd one out.
Her uniform today was off-duty model: black denim, biker boots, a fitted T-shirt, and a leather jacket thrown on with confidence.
Impossibly chic. Effortless in a way I'd never been, and suddenly was acutely aware of.
In the centuries since her turning—since the violence the ruby had shown me—she'd clearly refined more than just her survival skills.
She knew exactly what worked on her body, wore it with intention.
And suddenly, I felt faintly ridiculous for the image I'd built of her from that single glimpse of the past: a flat, one-dimensional woman fueled by vengeance alone.
She was…more than that. And whatever she'd been forged into hadn't dulled her edges.
While I'd been sleeping late this morning—trying to recharge after an exhilarating, if utterly draining, day and night—Baird had quietly put the cottage back to rights.
The rose petals and empty champagne flutes were gone, the bed stripped and aired while I showered, leaving the place looking deceptively calm.
He moved to build a fire as I settled Magda and Sorcha into the small living room, the sound of him behind me a steady reassurance, while Robbie poured another round of whisky.
Watching the amber liquid slosh into the glasses, I had the distinct feeling this afternoon was going to require more than a single bottle.
When I handed Magda the glass, her hand lingered on mine and she caught my eye.
“Tell me how it came to you,” Magda said softly. “The ruby.”
And so I did.
I told her how Honey had found it and sent it on to me.
How the stone had shown me visions—of her.
Of how its arrival had coincided, far too neatly to be chance, with the first stirrings of my magic.
I told her about meeting Sorcha, about Granny Margaret and the Mother's Book, a relic I still didn't fully understand, along with the mystery of what the Garvies' connection to Brigid actually meant.
I told her how Brigid had begun to speak through me—never plainly, never fully—only enough to guide my hands.
Enough to tell me the ring was a test, not so much of skill but of willingness.
A measure of readiness for something she still refused to name.
And as I spoke, I realized just how much of my story remained unanswered.
“You had it once, didn't you?” I asked quietly. “The ruby. With another one?”
Magda nodded without a word. Slowly, she slipped a hand into the neck of her T-shirt and drew out a long chain.
At its end hung the ruby's mate—set simply in a prong setting, firelight catching the facets with a gentle glow that belied the power that lay within.
She brushed her hair aside, lifted the chain over her head, and held the pendant out to me.
A flicker of fear sparked in my chest, the memory of what the stone's twin had already shown me, threatening to steal my nerve. But Sorcha's voice echoed in my mind. It cannae hurt ye, Mira.
I swallowed and let the pendant fall into my outstretched palm. My heartbeat thundered in my ears—too loud, too fast—the familiar warning that a vision was coming, that something was already reaching for me from the other side.
A hand steadied my shoulder. Baird's. He wouldn't let me slip into the ruby's pull without him close, anchoring me. Then the darkness closed in.
I was swallowed by the vortex of the stone's magic, my curiosity burning even as the world fell away. I braced myself, wondering if this ruby would show me something different than the first—if its message might change depending on the hand that held it.
But beyond the spiraling dark that stole my sight and sharpened every other sense, the same vision rose to meet me.
Scenes from Magda's life rose again—at the old man's bedside, his hand clasped in hers, his face already half lost to death, life lingering only in the piercing blue of his eyes.
The night of her bloody vengeance, righteous somehow.
A child crying in the doorway. Magda reaching for her.
Laughter—cruel and sharp—as someone tore the girl away.
A young man, kind eyes filled with terror, lunging across the cottage toward the child just before a club cracked his skull.
Smoke curling through the room, thick and choking and final.
Time continued to reel back, unspooling with cruel precision—to a new scene: three young teens, Magda and two boys, the tall boy with the kind eyes filled with love so deep it hurt to watch him be ignored, while Magda flirted with the other boy, one with golden hair, an easy smile and piercing blue eyes.
Then the foreign ancient language, more sounds than words that somehow I understood, the ruby's chant filling the head, the room, the heavens. Different than last time, a new message:
Now two found, we will begin.
Your hand forged our purpose, your eyes saw our truth,
Through you the goddess rights one wrong, to return what was taken
And in doing so forges her own vessel to right another…
“Mira,” I heard only distantly.
Baird.
My vision swam back into focus, and I found four pairs of eyes fixed on me as I sat on the edge of the couch, Baird still steadying me at my side.
“What did ye see this time?” he asked softly, his voice careful, his thumb brushing small circles into my arm as if to remind me where I was.
And he wasn't wrong to be cautious—but I realized, distantly, that I felt different this time.
Less disoriented. Less shaken. Maybe it was because I'd stopped fighting the pull of the visions.
Stopped mistaking surrender for weakness.
Instead, I let them take me—like drifting with a current, sometimes slow, sometimes rushing toward its destination, just trusting it to carry me where it would.
I rubbed my eyes, buying myself a moment.
The vision's meaning pressed at the edges of my thoughts, but I refused to chase it down—not with its subject sitting right beside me.
I'd tell her what I saw. The rest…she could supply herself.
I looked at Magda when I spoke, meeting her gaze without flinching.
“I saw you,” I said quietly. “Same as last time. And an older man—dying. Blue eyes. You were holding his hand.”
Warmth flickered briefly in Magda's eyes. “Caius—my first love,” she said softly. “We shared a birthday. Born under the same blood moon.” Her breath caught as she exhaled. “We lost our mothers that night.” Her jaw tightened, the memory still sharp despite the centuries.”We were alike,” she went on.
“Reckless. Quick to anger. Impetuous. But I had my grandmother's love.” Her gaze dropped.
“Caius…I don't think he ever truly had anyone. Not until me. And Dani.”
Dani.
The name settled into place. The other young man from the vision—the one whose eyes had never left her, whose body had moved without hesitation when danger came.
I didn't need to ask to know. I skipped past the revenge.
Everyone in the room had already heard that story, and Magda had lived it. Her reasons were not a mystery to me.
I chose my next words carefully. “I saw the night they came,” I said quietly. “I saw what happened—to your daughter. And the man who tried to protect you both.” I hesitated, then added, “Dani?”
Her composure finally cracked. If she'd spoken of Caius with restraint, the grief that crossed her face now was something else entirely—raw, brutal. There was no mistaking it. Her daughter and Dani—they had been the love behind her vengeance.