Shattered: The Iron Druid Chronicles, Book Seven (34 page)

Owen surprised me by making French toast for breakfast. There was a plate waiting for me on the table when I entered the kitchen, and Oberon was sitting there, giving the food what I call the Dog Eyes of Yearning but making no move to snarf any of it. When I thanked Owen for his consideration and asked him where he learned how to cook, he told me to shut up and eat. Oberon sensed that this annoyed me and tried to provide some comfort.

he said.

I gave him a smile and scratched him behind the ears, then pulled a package of maple sausages out of the freezer and dumped them into a frying pan next to Owen’s French toast operation, letting my plate grow cold. He looked as if he wanted to challenge me for the burner, but it was my house and my stove, and he could have a scrap if he asked for it.

Perhaps he was having trouble letting go of our old relationship, where he told me what to do and I jumped to obey. We watched our food fry, side by side, and said nothing. The sizzling was occasionally accented by the sound of Oberon licking his chops, and somewhere along the way I found the lack of conversation more amusing than awkward. When I was younger, my archdruid’s silences scared me more than his reprimands, but now they afforded me a measure of peace and a small victory. This was a silence he’d demanded, anyway. I put on a pot of coffee to brew while waiting for a side of the sausages to brown. When it was finished, I poured a cup for us both and gave him his without a word. He grumbled a thanks, he rather liked this coffee potion, and I nodded back with a smirk. We sat and noticed all the knife and fork noises one normally ignores when eating, but which become abnormally loud when no one speaks.

Oberon asked. He had already gobbled up his sausage and watched us eat in silence for five minutes, tongue lolling out and head swiveling back and forth as we took turns shoving forkfuls into our mouths.

Yes
.

I squashed a laugh but couldn’t help cracking a smile, and
Owen caught it. “What’s so funny, then?” he growled, assuming that I was laughing at him.

Damn it, Oberon, now I have to answer him
.

“Just something the hound said,” I told Owen.

My archdruid scowled at Oberon and took a sip of his coffee. “The hound, eh?” he said as he put down his mug.

“Have you ever had an animal companion, Owen? At all?”

“Nah, I never have.”

“Have you tried speaking to Oberon yet? You should bind with him and see what it’s like. I know I suggested a companion before and you said you had reasons to remain alone, but maybe it would be good for you to see what it’s like.”

He squinted at Oberon. “Would that be all right with you?” Oberon barked an affirmative. “All right, then.”

He concentrated and must have made contact, because I heard Oberon say,

“What?” Owen slapped at his forehead, searching for butter, and then stared at his fingertips, finding nothing.

Oberon chuffed. And that made me laugh.

Owen glared at me. “I suppose you put him up to that?”

Grinning at him, I said, “No, he has his own well-developed sense of humor.”

“Define
well
for me, lad.”

I leaned forward, resting my forearms on the table. “It’s not important that you think it’s funny. It’s important that I do. If there’s anything I can warn you about when it comes to extending your life span, it’s that boredom is your enemy. If you get too bored with the routine of it—the endless eating and sleeping and shitting and working so that you can eat, sleep, and shit some more—you’ll do something stupid in an attempt to entertain yourself, and you’ll die. Or you’ll slip into depression, make the Last Shift, and live out your days as an animal. Or you’ll get bitter, thinking about the past and everything you’ve lost, and it
will turn you against people. So my free advice is to always find something to love and to make you laugh—something that will keep you in the here and now. Hounds are good at it, and they work for me. They may or may not work for you.”

I was expecting a gruff denial that he needed any advice from me, its language landing somewhere between dismissive and vitriolic, but he surprised me and uttered a thoughtful grunt before asking, “Where did you learn this trick of teaching animals language?”

“It’s not a trick. It’s a process. But I learned it from Goibhniu. He used to have a horse named Apple Jack that he let me borrow once in the sixth century.”

“Was Apple Jack the joking sort?”

“No, he was scared out of his head most of the time. Had a profound fear of goblins; he was convinced they’d get him someday.”

“Did they?” Owen asked, and Oberon asked the same thing in my head.

“I don’t know what happened to him after we parted. All I know is I enjoyed the companionship. Are you finished?” I held my hand out for his plate. “I’ll wash up. Thanks for the breakfast.”

“Aye.” Owen changed the subject once I had the dishes in the sink and the water running. He spoke loudly over the noise of the faucet. “Before I fell asleep last night, ye mentioned ye wanted Manannan Mac Lir to join us for Samhain. Have ye invited him yet?”

“No, but I’ll be doing so momentarily.”

“How are ye going to get him here without Fand—or without her knowing?”

“I know a selkie who has his ear.”

“Oh, aye,” he said, and snorted. “
Everybody
knows a selkie, lad.”

“It’s true. I’ve used her to contact him on the sly before, when I was trying to keep my whereabouts secret from Aenghus Óg.”

“How long will that take?”

“I don’t know for sure. While I’m gone, would you mind getting the bonfires prepared for the ceremony?”

“Fine.”

“Oberon will keep his eyes out for faeries and let you know if he sees or hears anything.”

We might get some extra observers. Up in the trees, down low in the undergrowth, who knows. If you sense them, don’t bark, but let Owen or me know
.

Bidding the two of them farewell, I stripped and shape-shifted to a sea otter before using an aspen to shift to Tír na nÓg. Once there, I took a deep breath and shifted back to earth, to an underwater location: a small kelp forest growing off the southwestern Irish coast that Manannan had bound long ago. Anybody capable of shifting planes could shift there, of course, but very few would want to. It appeared to have no purpose other than birdwatching and tourism, for you surfaced at the base of Goat Island with a spectacular view of the famous Cliffs of Moher—also known as the Cliffs of Insanity in
The Princess Bride
. Razorbills and puffins and all sorts of birds nested there, whirling in the sky and diving into the waves, and the ocean was protected from fishermen to make sure the birds had sufficient feeding area. I had no intention of swimming to the surface, however; I swam straight for the base of Goat Island, where another forest of kelp and a slab of Namurian shale concealed an entrance to a subterranean passage, which opened onto a grotto the size of a ballroom.

When I broke the surface, a small titter of surprise greeted my ears. A dark-haired woman with deep-black eyes sat at an easel set upon a beach of sea-smoothed glass and gravel. Her brush was poised above a canvas of stormy blues and grays and forbidding rocks frosted with crashing surf. She was unconsciously nude and regarded me with curiosity more than alarm. Behind her, carved steps led to a raised platform of rock, where stone furnishings were softened by furs and pillows and accented by
golden candlesticks, all of them blazing and lighting her living area; large torches illuminated the beach. The combined effect was impressive—her candle and fuel budget must have been enormous.

“A sea otter?” she said, her light Irish lilt floating to my ears. “Who is that? It can’t be Siodhachan?”

I shifted back to human and waved at her from the frigid water. “Hello, Meara. It’s been a long time.”

She put her brush down and rose from the fur-covered stool upon which she had been sitting, throwing her arms wide. “It is you! Indeed it has been a long time, far too long! You’re probably freezing. Come out of there and I’ll get you a fur.”

I swam over and crawled onto the beach, teeth chattering, while she fetched me something with which to dry off. Her smile was bright as she brought it to me and insisted on throwing it over my shoulders, and once I was enveloped, she hugged me and gave me a peck on the cheek. One of the many nice things about selkies is that they can do that and not dissolve to ash: Unlike most other Fae, they’re perfectly fine around iron, since they’re born in the seas of earth, or on its shores, at least.

“What brings ye to me grotto?” she said, cupping a hand behind my head and swirling her fingers through my hair. “You’re not wantin’ me to be lovin’ ye again, are ye?”

“Much as that would delight me, I’m here on other business. And I’m hitched these days.” Meara and I had been lovers for a brief time in the nineteenth century. She had a thing for art, and when I told her that I had once met Rembrandt and a brilliant up-and-comer named Vincent van Gogh, our relationship turned into a monthlong celebration of color and beauty and the kiss of brush on canvas.

“Married?”

“There hasn’t been a ceremony, but it’s settled in my mind.”

Meara’s smile was brilliant. “Ah, congratulations, then! She’s human, not Fae?”

“Yes, but she’s a Druid.”

“Now, that’s good news, to be sure!” She let go of me, stepped
back, and put her hands on her hips, cocking her head to one side. “So what’s this other business?”

“I need you to contact Manannan Mac Lir with utmost privacy and ask him to pay me a visit. He can’t be followed or accompanied by anyone except you. It’s urgent.”

Her pleasant expression darkened, but she didn’t ask for the specifics of the matter. She knew I wouldn’t bother her or Manannan if it weren’t important. “Where should he meet you?”

“Can I show you?”

“Aye, just let me fetch me skin.” She dashed up to her living area and retrieved her sealskin from a heavy stone trunk at the foot of her bed, then blew out all the candles in her living area, leaving only a few bright torches blazing on the beach. I dropped the fur and thanked her for the temporary warmth, then waded into the chill lagoon with her. I shifted back to a sea otter, and she threw her skin around her shoulders and tumbled, twisting, into the water, shifting to a seal in a very different process from mine. Together we swam out of the grotto and back to the kelp forest, where we traveled the planes back to the cabin in Colorado.

Seals do not belong in high-elevation forests, but Meara didn’t need to spend any amount of time there. I triggered the charm that would let me shape-shift back to human, and then I told her, “We’ll celebrate Samhain here tonight. We’ll have the proper fires and everything. But please tell Manannan that we have news for his ears only, with the exception of yours. He cannot be followed by anyone.”

Meara gave an affirmative bark and then disappeared, shifting back to the sea and thence to find Manannan.

I sent out a mental call.
Oberon?

Yeah. Where are you?

I’m back at the cabin
.

I didn’t hear my archdruid’s response
to this, but he must have voiced some sense of betrayal, because I heard Oberon’s reply:

That’s enough, Oberon
.

You don’t need to finish that thought
. Clearly I had made a mistake by inviting Owen to bind with Oberon and then leaving them alone. I needed to get my archdruid settled somewhere else as soon as possible.

I heard Oberon coming before I saw him. He was barreling downhill above the dirt road that led to Yankee Boy Basin, tongue flapping in the wind of his own turbulence and completely happy—also completely unprepared, once he crossed the road, to crash into the back of Manannan Mac Lir, who shifted in from Tír na nÓg precisely in Oberon’s path. The two of them fell to the ground in a tangle, making various sounds of surprise.

And he had arrived much more quickly than I would have thought possible. Meara had shifted in as well, dressed now in a long blue tunic with her sealskin draped over her shoulders like a cloak. Her initially widened eyes crinkled into laugh lines once she saw Oberon scampering away from Manannan, tail between his legs.

Oberon asked.

It was an accident, buddy
. “Sorry, Manannan,” I called to the god of the sea, who had already sprung back to his feet, scowling. “Unfortunate timing there.”

Manannan slapped away some dirt on his knees and said, “A
surprise but not a terrible bother. Now, what is so urgent that you have to call me away on Samhain?”

“We need to take precautions before I talk about it,” I replied. “I’m sure you and Meara were very careful in coming here, but it would be wise to bind the air with a bubble of silence and maybe employ the Cloak of Mists as well.”

“Easy enough.”

Owen wasn’t back yet—I didn’t know why he’d gone uphill to gather firewood in the first place—but I didn’t need to wait for him. When Manannan had drawn his cloak around us, wrapping us in mist and concealing us from outside eyes, and had bound the air so that no sound would carry past our own bodies, I pressed a big metaphorical red button and waited to see what would happen.