“Excellent,” Fand said. “Please let him know where we are.”

Another bow and scrape and he was gone. Manannan must have been close behind him, for he entered almost as soon as the faery disappeared, a scowl on his face.

“What’s this?” he said without greeting us, eyeing Granuaile’s bare arm. His hair was wet and he carried a harpoon in his right hand. It was etched with knotwork, so it was probably a named weapon. He had been hunting in the sea. “Siodhachan, I thought you were binding her to the earth.”

“I was, but we were interrupted,” I said.

“Interrupted?”

Before he could ask by whom, I said, “I wonder if we might have a private word, Manannan?” The sea god’s eyes flicked to his wife and back to us, and then he nodded.

“Of course.”

It wasn’t Fand I was worried about but rather her faeries. I bowed to the lady of the castle. “Fand, your hospitality remains legendary. Please excuse us.”

“You are welcome anytime,” she replied.

We followed Manannan to a room of slate and glass. Granuaile’s limp was already disappearing, thanks to the springs of Mag Mell, the bacon of youth, and the plate of good health. A faery ducked out just as we entered, saying the fire had been laid. The hearth glowed warmly in contrast to the cold appointments of the room. Shelves of bluish gray stone lined the walls, and on these rested books bound in leather and various objets d’art. There was an enormous pearl couched on the tongue of an open oyster shell, softly glowing with reflected firelight. Four golden high-backed armchairs with dark blue cushions waited in front of the hearth for us to be seated, and Oberon leapt onto one, considering himself an equal participant in the coming conversation.

"The faeries jumped me too, Atticus, so I should get to sit in a comfy chair."

Manannan raised an eyebrow at Oberon’s behavior but made no comment. His eyes turned to the door and lost focus—or, rather, refocused in the magical spectrum. He mumbled a binding and sealed us in; no one outside the room would be able to hear us. Unless …

I turned on my faerie specs to see what the faeries might have been up to in here. I trusted Manannan implicitly, but he lived in a castle full of the Fae and he wasn’t around often to watch them. Scanning the bookshelves, I saw something interesting on the oyster shell—subtle but barely discernible against the natural shimmer of the shell. Bindings. Unfamiliar ones.

“Manannan?”

“Hmm?”

“What are these bindings over here?” I pointed at the shell. He stepped closer and peered at them, frowning.

“I’m not sure. It’s not my work, I can tell you. It might be harmless, but I don’t like strange bindings in me own library. Especially when I want privacy.”

He unbound the knots and they fizzled away, leaving only the shell behind.

“We should look for more,” I suggested. “I want to be sure no one else hears what we have to say.”

“That bad, eh?”

“Aye.”

“It might be better for us to leave the castle entirely, then,” Granuaile said. “Shift to somewhere isolated on earth, where we won’t be overheard.”

“I know just the place,” Manannan said. “Not another word until we’re there.”

We followed him out of the castle in silence to a tethered tree, and then we shifted, following his lead, to Emhain Ablach, the Isle of Apples. I’d never been to this particular Irish plane, but it was impossible to mistake it for anything else, with the ocean behind us and an orchard in front of us.

“All right, what is it?” Manannan asked.

“Pie!” Granuaile said, delighted with the scent filling her nostrils.

"Yeah, but it’s a fruit pie. If you want me to get excited, take me to the doggie promised land, the Land of Canine. Instead of milk and honey, there’s steak and kidney."

“Pie is the problem?” The Irish god of the sea looked lost.

“No, that’s not the problem,” I clarified. “Manannan, we were set upon by a band of assassins on Mount Olympus.”

“A band?”

“Yewmen and some others. They meant to kill us. They poisoned a steak and left it for my hound. They interrupted the binding of my apprentice. And they’re working with the Svartálfar.”

We recounted the whole harrowing tale and watched storms form on Manannan’s face.

“Ye can be sure I will investigate,” he said.

“That is kind of you,” I replied. “But mightn’t you have any ideas now about who’s responsible?”

Manannan sighed. “Ye haven’t been keeping up with the Court, that’s sure,” he said. “These days it could be almost any faery ye point to.”

I frowned. “Am I that out of favor?”

“I’m afraid ye are. And ye did yourself no favors a while back with your audience. Now that Aenghus Óg is dead and most of his lot have been cleared out, Brighid is living in brickshittin’ fear of a coup attempt by the Morrigan”—he suddenly balled his fist under my nose and shook it, his blue eyes promising pain—“and I’ll crush your scrotum if ye ever suggest I said that, am I clear?”

I gulped. “Very well. I shan’t speak a word of it.”

His fist returned to his side. “Good. Now, what ye have to understand is, there are plenty of Fae in Brighid’s camp that count ye on the side of the Morrigan because they can’t count ye on the side of Brighid. They have half the brains of a pickled herring, we all know it, and so ye can imagine how their fancies are runnin’ away with what little sense they have. To their way of thinkin’, eliminating you means eliminating the growing threat of the Morrigan. They figure she’ll never finish that amulet on her own. Will she?”

I shrugged. “I haven’t shown her the last part of the process. That doesn’t mean she needs to be shown. She knows the theory. She could finish it without me.”

“Huh. Well, regardless, the Pickled Herring—can we call ’em that?—think they’re going to score major points with Brighid if they can do anything to thwart the Morrigan. They’re probably right, if we’re honest. But o’ course none o’ them would have the spine to act directly against the battle crow. Wave and tide, I don’t think I would have the spine t’do that! So they’ve decided you’re a tad easier to kill. Nothin’ personal, y’see. It’s not your fault that your life is in the way of their personal ambition.”

“Silly of me to be offended, then.”

“Right. Now, there is one way I can think of to get the Pickled Herring off yer back for good.”

“What’s that?”

“Ye could become Brighid’s consort.”

“No way!” Granuaile, who’d been silently enjoying the smells of pie and cider up to this point and petting Oberon, clapped her hand over her mouth as Manannan and I turned to her.

“Sorry,” she said in a tiny voice. “Did I say that out loud?”

“She’s right, Manannan,” I said. “That’s not a viable option.”

"What I said earlier about human mating habits."

“It isn’t?” He looked as if he was going to ask why not but then changed his mind. He shrugged. “Ah, well. We’ll have to do everything the Old Irish way, I suppose.”

“Aye. And speaking of fighting, I have another matter to discuss. Now that my existence is somewhat known again, would it be possible to exchange Moralltach for Fragarach?”

Manannan’s mouth formed a tiny black hole of surprise before he cleared his throat to mask it. “Well. That kind of thing takes some thinkin’ over.…”

I didn’t want that. Someone would talk him out of it. “Moralltach is the sword that killed Thor. Its fame has grown more than Fragarach’s. You’ll score bushels of points with the bloodthirsty lot.”

“Hmm. It’s good to have them on your side, no doubt,” Manannan said.

“I can guarantee I’ll make life more interesting with Fragarach.”

Manannan Mac Lir smirked. “Now, that’s a compelling argument, that is. All right. I’m not lookin’ forward to what Brighid will say when she finds out, but damn if it isn’t me own sword to do with as I please. A plague on these Pickled Herring, anyway. Follow me back. We’ll exchange ’em and be done. Don’t say a word while you’re in Tír na nÓg, lad. Whoever’s listening in on me won’t realize we made the switch for days. Then go get your apprentice bound properly.”

I beamed at him. “You’re my favorite sea god, you know.”

“Aw, get your nose out of me arse. Just make life interestin’ as ye promised.”

Chapter 13

Once I shifted away from Tír na nÓg with Fragarach in my scabbard, I found it difficult not to grin like a geek at a Trekkie convention.

I had it back. After twelve long years, I had it back. Gifted to me this time by one of the Tuatha Dé Danann, not stolen from them!

Giddy euphoria seized me and I shivered with it. A squee welled up in my throat because I felt cool again—impossibly, inhumanly cool, like Laurence Fucking Fishburne—but I suppressed it savagely; if I squeed out loud, all the cool would be gone.

“Why are you shaking?” Granuaile asked. “Are you cold?”

“Oh. No. Um, excess energy. Excitement to get started again.” To calm myself, I told Granuaile about the odd origins of the dark elves and how we’d have to fight them if it ever came to that. Keep moving, flank attacks, and, damn it, keep your mouth shut.

“What about your nose or your ears?”

“I don’t think that would work for them. They become flesh and blood once they solidify; the bones of the skull would slice right through their arm. If they’re willing to do that to kill you, then, yeah, I guess you could worry about it. Down your throat, however, that’s all soft tissue. They’d unhinge the jaw, tear muscles, and rupture the esophagus just by solidifying, then when they pulled their arm free, your throat would come with it.”

Granuaile swallowed and put a hand up to her neck. “Thanks for the visual.”

We were once more on the billowing skirts of Olympus, but this time we were on the western side. There was no reason to search for an appropriate spot; now that Olympia knew of our need, she was only too happy to guide us to an appropriate place to continue Granuaile’s binding. Similar to the cave on the eastern slope in that the required thornbushes also provided cover for the entrance, it was situated a good thirty yards or so from a small creek that would provide us with water. The ceiling of the cave was lower, it wasn’t so deep or comfortable as the first one, and something small and furry had left pellets of shit scattered about, but it would serve. We scouted patrol routes for Oberon and plotted escapes before we cleaned out the cave as best we could. Connecting with Gaia didn’t take quite as long—less than a week, since she’d been expecting us—and soon I was stabbing Granuaile with a thorn as if we’d never been interrupted.

Modern tattoo guns can pierce the skin about eighty to one hundred twenty times per second. I can do it with a thorn about once a second. The tip was sharpened and hardened with a binding, but still it was painful and slow and bloody. And sometimes I’d get a bit distracted.

Because. You know.

Granuaile’s bare leg.

Underneath my hands.

There are hosts of mental tricks you can play to keep your libido in check—thinking of baseball is just one—but it’s a near-constant battle when there are thighs involved. Smooth, toned thighs that curved and … oh, damn. And eventually we progressed far enough up her leg to where she had to take her shorts off.

I know tattoo artists barely notice such things; when they’re on the job, flesh is just a canvas to be bloodied and inked. But I wasn’t a jaded tattoo artist, and Granuaile’s body wasn’t simply a canvas to me. It was more like the Holy Grrrail, pronounced with a rolling Scottish rumble.

She wanted to shed her underwear at the same time, but I stopped her.

“Keep those on,” I said, silently asking the Dalai Lama to help me give up all earthly desires. She was still my apprentice.

“Why? I’ll just have to take them off later.”

“No, we’ll work around it.”

“But it’s silly. They’ll get all bloody and nasty.” She had raised her butt off the floor of the cave and had her thumbs hooked in the sides. The top was already partially down, and there was that beautiful flat expanse between the valley of her hips, leading down to—gods!

“I promise to buy you a new pair. Just. Please. Keep them on.”

“Oh. I see.” Her voice was toneless as she lay back down and turned away, hiding behind a shoulder. “You’re still pretending.”

A bit wounded at the accusation, I replied, “I’m not pretending at all. I’ve always made it clear that our relationship needs to remain strictly professional.”

“Right. You go on and keep telling yourself that. You can’t hide it anymore, Atticus, so just stop, okay? You know we both have feelings that go beyond that.”

“We can’t go beyond that, Granuaile. I won’t.”

“And what happens when I’m fully bound? May I do as I please then?”

“Technically, yes. The earth will recognize you as a Druid and answer your call, and you’ll be free to go wherever you wish. But new Druids typically remain with their archdruids for a short while to learn how to shape-shift well and to travel the planes properly.”