Siobhan nudged Maeve as the pair entered the formal hall. “Do you think this is how Finn and Donal felt visiting my grandparents at Doe?”

  Maeve scoffed. “Big room. Getting judged by strange aul’ people the moment you step from the door.” She pushed her bottom lip upward and tilted her head toward a raised shoulder. “A bang on description if you ask me.”

  The formal hall was the only room in Mountsandel smaller than its counterpart in her grandparents’ new castle. As a result, servants had to push the hall’s dining tables to the sides, allowing room for the visitors to stand.

  “Couldn’t simply let us sit at the tables, could they?” Maeve muttered. “Wouldn’t be proper of ‘em.”

  Above the high seats hung an oversized wooden heater shield painted blue with perhaps the busiest symbol of heraldry Siobhan had laid eyes on. A bucking horse, a hand and a rampant lion ran across the top, each capped by a six-pointed star. White lizards crawled over a red field on the left side while a mature tree sat on a white field on the right. A white fish swam along the bottom over the shield’s point. In the center stood a Catholic cross.

  No doubt they felled an entire forest to fit it all in, Siobhan thought.

  As uncomfortable as she felt, Siobhan knew there was someone else in the room in a state of dread.

  A smooth chuckle slipped through the smile of the lady sitting in one of the high seats. The laugh lowered and slowed as it faded. “What were we told, Colum?” she asked the man to her right. “‘You will not see a hair on my head until you two are ready to apologize?’”

  “Mother, please,” Brendan said. “That isn’t necessary.”

  The lady shook her head. “I understand your urge to defend Brigid while she’s been gone, but she’s here now, and she’s a grown woman. She can speak for herself.”

  “As can I,” Brendan said. “And I will whenever someone disrespects my kin so needlessly.”

  His mother huffed a breath out of her nose. “Not every time,” she muttered. She twisted her neck as her eyes skimmed the rest of the group. “I don’t see the innkeeper with you,” she said. “Finally come to your senses, then?”

  Brigid set her jaw and stepped forward. “He’s in the next room,” she said. “I’m here because my friends need help and if I had heard you greet him in the manner you did myself, things would have grown most unpleasant before we discussed important matters.”

  Her mother sneered, “‘Important—’”

  Her father raised his hand, silencing the room. “My love, you have made clear your feelings regarding their uninvited appearance. Can we pause and consider the situation that has compelled Brigid to return, subjecting herself to this discomfort in the process?”

  The lady closed her mouth and dipped her head in a deliberate bow. “Of course,” she said.

  The lord pursed the left half of his mouth as he looked at Maeve. He shook his head with an exasperated expression. His eyes, however, twinkled with amusement.

  “Son, you’ve brought your harbinger of chaos.”

  Maeve smiled and dropped her chest in a deep curtsy. “I’ve heard tell of things here becoming stale,” she said. “Clearly, I have been gone too long.”

  The lord blinked slowly and shook his head once more and shifted his eyes to Siobhan. He leaned forward and narrowed his eyes. “Are you the MacSweeney lass?” he asked. “You were just a wee thing when your father brought you to Mountsandel.”

  Siobhan nearly forgot to curtsy out of surprise. “You knew my father well, sir?” she asked as she resumed an upright stance.

  Lord O’Cahan gave his most honest smile of the meeting yet. “More so when we were younger. He was a good man. Peace to his memory.”

  It had been years since Siobhan was introduced to someone who knew either of her parents. The MacSweeney name had become famous in most parts of Ulster—infamous in others—and Siobhan assumed she already knew everyone her parents did. To hear a stranger speak so kindly of her father with little prompting warmed Siobhan to her core.

  “That is gracious of you, Lord. I’ve heard so little fray that time in his life. Perhaps someday you could share a story or two.” She grinned as her grasp of decorum weakened. “Ones suitable for his family, of course.”

  A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  The lord’s smile raised his cheeks and narrowed his eyes as he nodded. He pointed to Siobhan and looked to Brendan. “I like her. If you weren’t so fixated on our guest, son, I’d be sending a letter to Tyrconnell on your behalf.”

  The lady rolled her eyes. “Oh, good Lord, Colum,” she said as she lowered her face into her hand.

  Siobhan’s cheeks flushed. The twins’ faces turned red—for differing reasons, she suspected.

  “Fixated?” Brendan said, sidestepping away from Maeve. “You’ve got me all wrong, Father.”

  Brigid sighed. “He’s not talking about Maeve, you eejit.”

  Brendan’s forehead was scarlet. “Even if he were, he’d be wrong,” he said. “As for Ciara, it’s not what you think, either.”

  Judging from the facial expressions that surrounded Siobhan there wasn’t a person in the room who believed him.

  “You don’t get it,” Brendan said. “Four years of captivity leads to nothing more than resentment and fatigue. She’s been of use to us while she’s here and I believe there is more good to be found within her. All I’m looking for is the best possible resolution to the situation.”

  His mother leaned forward. “Brendan, I understand you have good intentions,” she said. “The appeal of gaining the good graces of a Morrigan isn’t lost on me. But you must admit your perspective is clouded.”

  Brendan rolled his head back and groaned. “If I say that I agree, can we move on to the reason these people are here?”

  “Fine, fine,” the lady said, sliding a hand to the side. “Who else rode with you?”

  “Fergal, of course,” Brendan said. He pointed to Maeve. “And a pair of brothers—”

  “—Finn and Donal MacLaughlin, m’lady,” Maeve said.

  The lord flipped a palm upward. “Is there any reason we should know them?”

  “Just one,” Maeve said. “Brendan’s friend orphaned them in that business with the wolves four years ago.”

  The lord nodded and processed the information Maeve provided. “Why have you all come?”

  Brendan looked at Maeve. Maeve looked at Siobhan and tilted her head toward the lord and lady. Siobhan knitted her brow. Maeve canted her head a second time. Lifting her chest with a long inhale, she stepped forward until she was even with Brendan.

  “We received information that the Fomori are close to perfecting travel directly from the otherworlds,” Siobhan said. Murrough, Niall and my mam all believe it’s the time to find the other two treasures.”

  “How are the Sword and the Spear meant to prevent such an invasion?” the lord asked.

  “They’re not,” Siobhan said. “That time may have passed. We need to prepare to fight the ones who created the portal or the things that would come through it.”

  “How do you know this?” the lady asked.

  “We’ve been in contact with a sílrad in one of the Otherworlds.”

  “How?” the lady asked.

  “It’s a much longer story,” Siobhan said. “She was likely tricked into crossing over. But it is someone we trust, and we’re certain it’s her. She says that the alliance between the modern-day Fomori and Crom Dubh is over. It’s likely their focus from now on are their own ancestors.”

  “Does this source know where the Treasures are?” the lord asked.

  “She does.” Siobhan inhaled and locked in on the father. “It’s somewhere on the other side.”

  Colum crumpled his face. “The other side of where, exactly?” The answer dawned on him as soon as he asked. “Your source means for us to cross into the otherworlds, find the Sword of Light and Lugh’s spear and then, what? Stand there like a fence post for the rest of time? I don’t care what they are, those weapons do us no good if we can’t bring them back.”

  Siobhan nodded. “All sound points, m’lord. Ones we asked ourselves. She assured us we could find a way back.”

  He narrowed his eyes. “And that way is?”

  Her shoulders sagged. “She didn’t say.”

  The lord raised both hands and set his elbows and the armrests of his chair. “Of course.” He folded his hands together and bounced his thumbs against his mouth as he studied Siobhan and Maeve. “No more stories, lass,” he said. “Ask what you’ve been meaning to ask since you left your homeland.”

  “This is a problem that has to be solved. To save all of us,” Siobhan said. “My friend here tells me there’s few better suited for the job than your children.”

  “No,” the lady said at once. “I won’t allow it.” Her head swung from side to side furiously. “Find someone else. Anyone else but them.”

  It was as Siobhan suspected, even the lady’s change in demeanor toward Brigid. The father continued to tap his mouth with interlocked hands. He perused both children from head to toe.

  “You came here from Rathmullan,” he said to Brigid, the playful tone in his voice gone. “And you,” he said to Brendan, “you brought them before us, knowing the argument it would bring and knowing we’d deny their request.”

  The room was so quiet Siobhan could hear Finn and Fergal murmuring in the antechamber.

  The lord dropped his hands from his face. “Grian, our children aren’t just open to idea,” he said. “They want to go.”

  “Respectfully, Father, you’re wrong,” Brendan said. “We have to go.”

  The couple in the great chairs looked at each other and began an unspoken conversation. Grian’s brows locked her face into an unyielding expression. Not a single muscle on Colum’s face twitched. Only his eyes dipped and lifted. The sides of Grian’s mouth dropped and her eyes glistened, causing her husband’s expression to soften.

  “Why them?” she asked her husband, nearly in a whisper.

  “Why not?” he said. “They’re twenty-five years old. We can’t forbid them from living their lives.”

  The lady scanned the room for an answer. In that moment, Finn’s voice sounded against the wall. The woman smiled and looked out the window that overlooked the bailey.

  “Perhaps not,” she said, her face firming. “But we can make a condition or two.” She leaned close to her husband and whispered something.

  The lord nodded as she spoke. His eyes widened just before she leaned away. He cleared his throat and sat upright. “Yes, we have one condition.”