Her Magic Touch (Celtic Rogues Book 3) Read online

  "I shall take you, then," Jarlath threatened, but Ciaran only laughed.

  "You can steal me away to the land of the fairies, but you cannot force me to play. I will die before I step onto your hurling field."

  In a fit of rage, Jarlath vanished. He offered rewards to any fairy that could bring Ciaran to Tir na nOg, and through the winter Ciaran was plagued with fairy tricks, but he was too wise to be bewitched. He showed no weakness until one day, walking in a grove of trees near the cliffs, he glanced up. Dangling above his head were cherries, green and sour. He sighed, his fingers reaching up to touch the fruit with longing.

  Little did the hero know a kelpie watched him from the shadows. When next he returned to the grove, the cherries had ripened into the most glorious fruit he had ever seen. He filled his tunic with them, ate of their sweetness until his mouth was stained red and his eyes drooped into sleep.

  He awoke in the land of the fairies. Furious, Ciaran claimed he would never touch a hurling stick, but the fairy king set forth a challenge. If Ciaran could beat Ronan, his champion, in one game, he could return to the people he loved.

  The battle waged three days and three nights, brutal enough to break twenty men. But the fairy king had tricked Ciaran again. Ronan was a shape-shifter. He changed into showers of gold and soaring hawks, monsters with claws sharp enough to cleave a man in two.

  Despite the wicked enchantments, Ciaran scored three times. Still, Ronan won. Ciaran despaired. He did not care that the fairies chanted his name to honor his courage. He had lost everything he loved. Moved by his bravery, Jarlath offered him one boon. If Ciaran played as his champion, he could return once every three hundred years—for each of the three goals he'd scored—to the people he loved. He could not change the course of their history, but he could help them in their direst need.

  Ciaran accepted. Jarlath unfastened the jeweled brooch that held his cloak. He summoned up the winds, and they carried the brooch to the sea cliffs Ciaran had wandered. There a girl found it, and Ciaran whispered the legend to her fairy-kissed heart, putting into her hands the power to summon Ciaran of the Mist.

  Quiet fell for a heartbeat, and Fallon opened her eyes, astonished to find that it was Mama's voice story-spinning and that medicine bottles and sickness still crowded round her. But Fallon didn't mind The Room so much. Shimmery shadows seemed to dance on the walls.

  The cunning fairy king draped in robes of purple mist. Ronan, the shape-shifter, deliciously fierce and frightening. And Ciaran of the Mist, bold and strong and alone, missing the world he'd left behind just as Fallon missed days in the garden with Mama, a bowl of cherries on her lap.

  Mama's thin hand curved over hers, squeezing ever so gently, as if she understood the sad places in Ciaran's heart and in Fallon's own.

  "The girl Ciaran entrusted with his magic gave life to all our family, Fallon. Generation after generation, Ciaran of the Mist's brooch has been passed from mother to daughter. Generation after generation, the legend of Ciaran has burned brighter.

  "And now..." Mama paused a moment, trailing her fingertips down Fallon's cheek. Fallon suddenly became aware of just how fragile those fingertips were. The land of Tir na nOg shivered and wavered like candle flame, rainbows and shape-shifters, fairy kings and heroes flickering, then sputtering out, leaving only the four walls of the room, and Mama's face, her eyes pleading.

  "Do you believe in magic, Fallon-my-heart?"

  Fallon nibbled at her lip. She wanted to believe. Oh, how she wanted to. If you believed in magic, anything could happen. If you believed in magic, Mama could even get well. "Sometimes. I-I think I believe," Fallon breathed.

  Slowly, mama drew something from beneath her pillow—a handkerchief, wrapped around something else. She placed the bundle in Fallon's hand.

  It was heavy, hard. Fallon folded back the corners of cloth. A gasp caught in her throat, and she forgot all about medicine smells and shadow creatures and any other jewels she'd ever seen.

  Pillowed on the square of cloth was a gold circle with just a little piece missing at the bottom. It was bigger than Mama's palm. A long pin, with a blue stone at the top, pierced through the open space in the circle's center. Red stones glittered on the gold. It felt warm, and Fallon could feel the specialness of it seeping through the cloth into her hand.

  She wanted to trace her finger around the sparkling jewels, but did magic go away when little girls' hands touched it? She didn't let even her littlest finger smudge the shine, just in case.

  "Fallon, can you guess what this is?"

  She hardly dared think, hardly dared hope. It's his, her heart whispered, magic and mist seeming to swirl in her blood. It's his...

  "This is the pin the fairy king gave to Ciaran of the Mist. Every generation, it's given to the girl with the most fairy-kissed heart. My grandmother entrusted it to me. Now, my little one, I'm giving it to you."

  Fallon could hardly breathe. "But Mama, Nurse wouldn't let me keep it. She doesn't b'lieve in jewels for little girls."

  "I don't care what Nurse believes, Fallon. It's what you believe that matters." Mama said, tightly. "As long as you have this you'll never have to be afraid, sweetheart. Ciaran will always be there to protect you, even when I can't." Mama's voice cracked a little, the sadness slipping through.

  The shadow creatures in the corners woke up again, pressing against Fallon's chest. Something stuck in the back of her throat, bitter as green cherries. "You don't have to take care of me, Mama. Not until you get better."

  Better. The word welled up in Fallon, full of hope. Ciaran could come back when someone needed him. He could fix anything. She could call him back, and he could fix Mama, too. The thought was almost too wonderful to hold.

  "Mama, how do I make it work?" she pleaded, her heart pounding. "How do I make the magic? Tell me."

  "At the feast of Beltane, go to the castle of mist, to the hearth Ciaran is said to have carved with one blow of his sword. It's there that the fires of legend, the fires of hope are still kept alive. Place the pin in the center of the hearth, and wait until the light of the full moon strikes the jewels. The glow will dance, writhe skyward, set ablaze by magic fire. Then, call him, Fallon. With your heart, with your soul, with all the courage inside you. Can you remember that, my little one?"

  "Yes, Mama." It was only three days until Beltane, Fallon thought. Three days until she could make magic.

  Mama was trembling all over. "You're so... so very young, Fallon-my-heart. So small to understand..." She caught Fallon's hand, held it tight. "You must remember, this is a sacred trust. Just because you have the power to call Ciaran doesn't mean you should. Only once in three hundred years can Ciaran step out of the mist. If you call him, it must be for something important, something so large, so vital, that no mortal can manage."

  No mortal could make Mama well, Fallon thought fiercely. The doctors had tried and tried.

  "You can't call Ciaran back to mend a broken fence, or tie the tongue of some cruel little girl into knots. You can't summon him for the thousands of things we all have to endure."

  Fallon imagined summoning Ciaran, sending him charging down on the mean-spirited Alberdale twins. She would have liked to see those girls bristling with big, long javelins. But Mama was looking at her so pleadingly, and so very sick.

  Fallon let the image go. "I won't call him, Mama. Not unless things are terrible bad. I promise." But what could be more terrible than Mama being so sick?

  Relief settled over her mother's face. The breath rattled in her chest. "I know that I can... can trust you. That you'll make me so proud—even in heaven. Fallon, I'm... so very tired, all of a sudden," Mama said in barely a whisper. "You will come back to me tomorrow, won't you, little one?"

  Fallon tightened her hold on the brooch. "Yes, Mama. I'll come." And suddenly she wanted to. The Room couldn't scare her anymore, not now that she had Ciaran's pin. She'd come see Mama like Hugh did, every day, and bring her flowers and Mama's stories would chase the shadows away unt
il Ciaran came and made her well again.

  She couldn't remember ever being so happy as she gave her Mama a kiss on the cheek then climbed down from the bed.

  She sneaked past Nurse, and out into the sunshine, running through banks of flowers over the hills, clutching the precious secret inside her.

  She would take the brooch where it would be safe, to the castle where the sea crashed and the mist whispered inside her. She would tuck it in the secret place she'd found, behind a loosened stone. She shivered with delight and waited. Three days. Only three days before the magic could come.

  Sunlight pried open Fallon's eyelids with sharp fingers the next morning. She burrowed her face into her pillow, waiting for Nurse to start scolding. It was late, and Nurse was bound to be cross.

  But then Fallon remembered. Her lips curled in a sleepy grin. She didn't care if Nurse was cross. She was going to see Mama this morning.

  She struggled up out of the tangle of coverlets, then stilled, her forehead crumpling in confusion. Someone else was sitting in Nurse's chair by the fireplace.

  Hugh. He was hunched over, his thin face all blotchy beneath a mop of sandy-blond hair, his eyes so red it scared Fallon. But she stiffened her backbone like Ciaran had when he faced the fairy king. Soon she wouldn't have to be afraid ever again.

  "I have to go see Mama," Fallon told Hugh as she climbed out of bed. "She promised to tell me more stories today."

  Hugh's eyes got so bright it almost looked as if he were crying. Hugh never cried. Fallon's chest hurt. His mouth twisted, all tight, as if he were trying to hold something in.

  "Fallon—" Hugh's voice broke over the words. "Mama's dead."

  Fallon heard a scream deep inside her, where no one else could ever hear it. No, no, no... Mama was going to get better. Beltane was coming with it’s magic fire, and Fallon was going to bring her the first spring flowers and Ciaran was going to make Mama well.

  But heaven with its angels and saints had stolen Mama away to where fairy-magic could never touch her. All Fallon had left were the stories Mama had told.

  Chapter 1

  It was time.

  Once every year, Fallon drew the mystic golden circle from it's hiding place in the stone wall and cradled it in her hands while the spring winds of Beltane sang to her alone. But never once did she dare the magic of the ancient brooch.

  Sixteen full moons had sailed on sixteen more Beltanes, each spinning its own special enchantment. But this night was different. Fallon sensed it.

  Druid-trees breathed warning. Standing stones reached out long fingers, awakening unquiet spirits that clung to every shadow, hollow and glen. Billows of mist swirled up past Fallon's knees, and branches caught at her skirts as she made her way up the path that ran perilously close to the cliffs.

  Come closer... She could hear the ghosts of drowned sailors calling from the Soul Cages beneath the crashing sea, luring her nearer the crumbling ledge that plunged to the jagged rocks below. Just one misstep and you will be ours.

  But she only clutched her blue velvet cloak more tightly about her, retracing steps she'd taken a thousand times in the years since her mother had died—the twisted, dangerous path that led to her castle in the sky.

  How many times as a lonely child had she tried to outrun her grief, bathe it in an elixir of magic and legends and possibilities? She'd fought so hard to believe the tales she had hoarded in her imagination, the myths devoured in countless books. Even when the march of time and her own reason waged war against it. Even when she'd begun to doubt just a little.

  It was well past time she leave off childish dreaming, her brother Hugh would say. She was in danger from other hazards on the road to the castle—thieves and wanderers. Men who had once been farmers, thrown off their lands by landlords attempting to squeeze the last drop of wealth from their holdings. English patrols, determined to drive the centuries-old talk of Irish rebellion into the dust.

  Or, failing that, Hugh would predict, she'd face the pain of her own disillusionment.

  No, Hugh would never understand why she had come.

  Her eyes turned to where the ghostly battlements of the castle pierced through the unearthly haze, straining toward the full moon that sailed forever beyond its grasp.

  At Caislean ag Dahmsa Ceo she'd never felt alone.

  The earth trembled with the pagan rhythm of Beltane, the veil between the other world and the world of mortals thinning for this night of Bright Fire. She could almost see the shadowy apparitions of unquiet spirits, almost understand the language whispered between the druid-trees. And she was certain that if her mother's ghost was wandering anywhere on earth, it would be here, among the battered stone walls of the Castle of the Dancing Mist.

  Fallon swallowed hard. The outermost wall of the abandoned castle rose up in front of her. Every year, she'd made this pilgrimage, every year she'd listened, waited, tried to hold the wispy edges of ages-old enchantment. But tonight was different somehow, the air too thick for her lungs, the floor unstable beneath her feet.

  She couldn't rid herself of the feeling that she was being watched. By whom? The ancient spirits? The stones themselves? Was the castle waiting for her? Waiting for the summons that had been passed from generation to generation? Were the window spaces' all-knowing eyes fixed upon her? Or was there something else? Something far more sinister that had dared come out into the night?

  No. She was being absurd. She shook away the odd sensations. She'd come here every Beltane, hadn't she? She'd taken out the magic brooch and sat on the flat stone at the edge of the cliff until dawn streaked the sky.

  Every girl in Glenceo came to that stone at some time in her life, anticipation singing in her veins as she waited for the stone to conjure up dreams of the man who would be her true love.

  The Lady Stone... one more piece of Ciaran's enchantment. A place to stir up dreams of love, and hope, bright ribbons leading to a man's embrace.

  Not that Fallon had ever hoped for such a future. She was wed to her legends. Every dream she'd ever had while seated on that enchanted stone was of Ciaran, walking out of the mist.

  She stretched out her hand and pressed her palm against the rough surface of the wall, making her way by touch until she reached the hiding place she'd found so many years ago. With the tips of her fingers, she loosened the stone and drew it out. Heart hammering, she eased her fingers into the dark space revealed.

  Her fingers collided with something hard, and she gathered the handkerchief-wrapped bundle into her palm.

  She froze at a sound out of synch with the night, the crunch of a boot sole nearby. Did the sidhe make such solid sounds when they moved? Her fingers clenched over the pin, and she turned, scarcely able to breathe. She wouldn't have been surprised to see the pagan son of the sun, Lugh himself, or Mannan Mac Lir, god of the sea, rising up from the waves. But nothing, no one could have chilled her more certainly than the figure silhouetted against the stone.

  Redmayne.

  Light from the full moon struck him like the shaft of an arrow, eerily illuminating the blood-red of his regimentals, shadow accenting the sharp planes of his face. And his eyes—even despite the mist and the darkness, they glowed as if they held some dark sorcery of their own.

  She'd seen the man for barely a heartbeat when he'd come around to introduce himself to the neighboring gentry. But she'd never forget how terrifyingly civil the captain had been as he left no doubt what would happen to any of the landlords weak-hearted enough to give aid to those he'd come to destroy.

  It was rumored Lionel Redmayne could peel the skin from his enemies' faces, pry out their darkest secrets with no torture-weapon but his eyes. Eyes that seemed to draw in every flaw, every sin, every weakness in the human soul, and take a jaded pleasure in them.

  What in heaven's name was the man doing here? Now?

  Was it possible he'd known she was coming to the castle tonight? Was it possible he knew why and planned to... to what? Arrest her? Fallon pulled herself back from the edg
e of panic. Calling centuries-old heroes back from the land of the fairies wasn't a hanging offense in Ireland. At least not yet.

  "What have we here?" Redmayne asked in a voice so low Fallon had to strain to hear it.

  Fallon groped for the mask other people donned so easily to hide their emotions.

  Those inscrutable eyes raked Fallon from the top of her head to the mud-spattered hem of her cloak. "Miss Delaney of Misthaven. So we meet again."

  Ruthlessness rippled from him in waves, an odd sort of omniscience all the more alarming because of the icy calm draped about Redmayne like some dark mantle. He was Satan surveying bumbling mortals with diabolical patience, certain they would sin.

  Was it possible he had come searching for her? The prospect was too frightening to even consider. Fallon gripped the pin so hard it pierced her skin, but she didn't feel anything except the primal need to escape that probing gaze. She couldn't let him know how afraid she was, and yet, she longed to slice into that insufferable arrogance. What better way than to pretend she didn't remember him.

  "Do I know you, sir?" she asked in her loftiest tone.

  He chuckled in disbelief, a kind of admiration curling his smile. "We met at your brother's house a week ago. Captain Lionel Redmayne, your obedient servant." He sketched her a bow. "I'm surprised your brother has allowed you such freedom in a time of unrest. Hasn't he warned you that the night is full of dangers?"

  "I'm not afraid."

  Sensual lips widened in a smile that chilled Fallon.

  "Would you be afraid if I told you I was searching for a band of smugglers? Desperate men who might enjoy having the sister of one of the landowners in their power?"

  Was that what Redmayne was doing here at the castle? Had the captain traced the smugglers so close to their lair?