Chapter 21 #2
Cadenza reached for Taran’s drums as soon as Reyna turned into Norroway Auto.
She found them by the time they parked the car next to the cottage—a stream of rhythm that trickled from the house, burgeoned into a river as she exited the car, and surged into an ocean when Taran flung open the door and ran down the porch steps to wrap her in his arms.
She anchored and breathed peace.
“Are you alright?” he asked. She didn’t answer, just held him.
Cyrus waved a hand in front of Taran’s face. “Hello? Lovely to see you again too, little brother.” He mock-whispered to Reyna, “Does he always ignore people he hasn’t seen for years when she’s around?”
She stifled a laugh.
“Ha, ha, very funny.” Taran gave his brother a one-armed hug and took in the rest of the group. “Where’s Richards?”
Reyna’s face grew stormy. “He better be hiding in a hole somewhere, because his sorry ass is gonna be forge fodder the next time I see him.”
Taran tensed. “What did he do?”
“It’s what he didn’t do.” Ruairi thumped Taran on the shoulder on his way up the porch steps to embrace Drostan. “Athair.”
Cadenza shook her head when Taran looked to her for an explanation. “He wouldn’t help. Reyna said he ran off.” Her voice shrank as she spoke.
“Canon refused to help Cadenza?” Drostan’s face sagged. “There must be part of the picture that we’re missing.”
Taran shook his head and led them into the cottage. “We’re not missing anything, athair. He’s just a selfish, lying bastard.”
Cadenza paused in the doorway and laid a hand on Drostan’s arm. “I wanted to trust him too.”
Inside, Ruairi and Drostan brewed tea while everyone congregated in the living room.
Cadenza snuggled into Taran’s side and sipped her tea to calm the trembling in her stomach.
He smoothed her hair with one hand, the other arm wrapped around her shoulders.
Rhythm rippled down to her hips. She sighed. If only they could stay just like this.
Drostan eased himself into an armchair. “I think we should consider postponing the plan.”
“What?” Cadenza sat up and thunked her mug on the coffee table. So much for staying like that.
He held up a hand. “Hear me out. Canon’s backer is Silence.
And as you discovered tonight, not just lackey Silence, he’s the ruddy high priest. He’s also a member of Thomas’s wee club.
” His lip curled at the name. “He’s perfectly capable of looking at the club’s event schedule and showing up that night.
Thomas knows all our faces.” He pointed between himself and his sons. “So none of us can go to protect you.”
“Um, excuse you?” Reyna said. “Who did most of the rescuing tonight? You’re forgetting I’ll be there with her.”
“Aye, Thomas will recognize us, so maybe we should go. It’d be a brilliant excuse to tear his scunnersome head from his scunnersome neck,” Cyrus said with a wicked grin. Ruairi chuckled and gave him fist bump.
Drostan threw his hands up. “You’re all forgetting that we still need a hand-off person, and Canon…” He stared at the chessboard on the coffee table. No one finished his sentence. “We’re short that third person.”
Cyrus raised his hand. “I’ll go, athair. I can wait out back, in case Cadenza or Reyna needs back up, and I can send a couple of squirrels to retrieve the oracles once Reyna’s got them clear of the safe.”
“Squirrels?” Reyna scrunched her nose.
Ruairi spoke, low and rumbling. “Cyrus works with small animals the way I work with water, or Taran works with earth and storms.”
Cadenza blinked. It was the most words she’d heard him say all evening. As a child, she hadn’t spent much time around Taran’s older brothers, and under other circumstances Ruairi’s rough-edged presence would have been intimidating. After this evening, it was a comfort knowing he was on their side.
“Even so,” Taran said. “Father’s right. We should wait for a less public opportunity. Maybe a time when we can somehow arrange for Thomas to be out of the building.”
“What? No!” Cadenza stared at him, aghast. How could he say that?
They needed to be on the same page with this.
“What other opportunity will we get? Thomas only built the club in Modesto to be close enough to spy on you. What if he takes off now that you know where he is? He’ll take the oracles with him. ”
Taran took her hand and spoke softly. “Cadenza, we don’t even know if the oracles will tell us how to break the curse. We didn’t exactly get stellar information about my mother from the other one, remember? It’s not worth the risk.”
“But—”
“Ah, brilliant!” Cyrus settled into the couch like he was watching a movie. “Is this their first row?”
Taran glared at his brother and pulled Cadenza to her feet. “Come on.”
Outside, she followed him to the oak tree at the side of the cottage’s garage. Mallet strikes thudded from the back field where volunteers were setting up tents for Sunday’s Highland Games.
“I know you’re worried, bello mio,” she said. “But we have to break your curse, and this is our best lead.”
“No, we need to keep you safe,” he countered, stroking a thumb along her jaw.
You’ve been thrown into this other world—my world—that’s folded within the world everyone else thinks is normal, and it’s not a safe place.
I’ve been out of both worlds for so long, neither will mind if I stay out a wee bit longer. ”
“I mind.” The wind, chillier than a week ago, scraped xylophone notes across her arm, and she shivered. Taran held her tighter and rubbed away the goosebumps in a shower of bodhran. She had to make him see. They wouldn’t get another chance at this; she felt it in her bones.
“Vasilios said something tonight. About how the Fates’ weavings work.”
Taran made a face. “You’re listening to that man?”
“Yeah, ok, not the most trustworthy source, but give it a chance. He said that there’s space between the Threads.
Room for people to make choices, to act.
I mean, he said it as a bad thing, but Taran,” she said, taking his face between her hands.
“What if we don’t have to simply accept the flow of events in our life as inevitable?
What if we can change them? We have to try this. I need you to try.”
Clouds scuttled across the stars, cello spearing through Cadenza’s ribs. The wind picked up, the xylophone grabbing for more of her attention.
Taran tucked her hair behind her ear. “Cadenza, those are the ravings of a Silence lunatic. I can’t change things. You want to put yourself in danger to attempt something that may or may not work, and that even if it does work, may or may not give us any kind of useful answer.”
The bass of the earth wrapped around Cadenza’s ankles, crawled up her calves. The oak at Taran’s back plucked a guitar riff, weaving with the cello. The now-familiar urge to use the music swelled under her breastbone. She glared at the sky. I don’t have time for this right now.
She held his eyes, working to ignore the pressure from the earthsong. “Taran, you can change things. Please tell me you still have hope.”
“I have hope, mo chridhe. The hope of seeing you live a full life, safe from Vasilios Pearce or any other Silence.” He broke eye contact, sighing. “I know I’ve said this before, but I’ll never—”
The bass reached her hips. Cello seized her throat. She growled. Here Taran was confessing he didn’t believe they’d ever break the curse, and the earthsong was yanking on her elbow like a child begging for candy. I. Don’t. Have. Time. Right. Now.
Taran raised both eyebrows. “Are you alright?”
“Maledetto earthsong, pushing me,” she grunted, trying to speak around the notes clogging her voice. Guitar vibrated through her fingers, the song swirling in her chest like a tornado.
“Ungh, fine!” She snarled a note, aiming at a large rock twenty feet away. If she let the earthsong have its way maybe it’d be quiet for five minutes, and she could concentrate on convincing Taran they needed to go ahead with the theft.
The rock exploded, raining dust and particles.
The music dropped out of her chest, released her legs, and she gasped.
Brushing debris from his hair, Taran whipped his gaze between her and the former chunk of granite. “Did you choose that rock on purpose?”
She nodded, mouth open. “I didn’t really think it’d work. But the music was so insistent, and I was trying to concentrate on you, and it was just in the way.”
“Mo chridhe.” He caught her hands, waving in the air as she tried to explain.
“I was trying to say, I’ll never stand in the way of your choices.
I know too well what it is to have none.
If you want to try for the oracles, that’s what we’ll do.
But please promise me you will do that”—he smiled wryly, pointing to where the stone had been—“to anyone who tries to hurt you.”
She laughed, half hysterically. It wasn’t Spinning, but it was some control. “I promise.” She sucked in a deep breath, shook her shoulders back. “Let’s go back inside and tell the others the heist is on.”