Well, that settles what happened to Gwydion, Arawn, and Bran. “Mom, hold up a minute. I know I said I wouldn’t interrupt, but since you know the feel of Slototh’s traps, would you mind seeing if you can find the others?”
“I will.” The wolf took off at a lope before she was even done talking.
Tara shook a finger at her. “Ye shouldna say the wicked one’s name aloud. ’Tis bad luck.”
Aislinn laughed bitterly. “Yes, I’ve had more than my share of that. You said you know where Fionn is. Why can’t I reach him now that he’s lying right in front of me?”
“Fionn barricaded himself deep to keep the evil one out. He could be in the Dreaming. He might be elsewhere. All I know is that he isna here. I canna feel him, though I sense his warmth.” Tara hesitated. “Ye need Gwydion, master enchanter that he is. Or the dragon.”
Aislinn clenched her jaw. The last thing she wanted was to ask Dewi for help, not after the trick she’d pulled with the Minotaur, but she wasn’t about to let Fionn waste away wherever he was, either. “There’s got to be another way,” she muttered.
“Where did ye learn about magic, Daughter?” Tara’s question had an edge to it.
“It was either embrace it or follow you into the vortex.”
“Oh.” A pause, then, “I am sorry. I dinna prepare you verra well. But I couldna find a way back to a world without your Da in it.”
Aislinn reached out a hand. “It’s okay, Mom. You didn’t know what was going to happen.”
“Och aye, but I did.” Tara jabbed her bony index finger skyward. “The Seer gift, it runs strong in me. I told Jacob we should stop goin’ to anything linked to the Convergence, but he insisted.” One corner of what was left of her mouth turned downward. “I never could refuse that man anything.”
Crouched in a dark stone corridor, clutching Fionn’s hand, with her mage light suspended off to one side, Aislinn wanted to scream at her mother. To remind her she’d had a duty to her daughter as well. She bit back bitter words. This wasn’t the time. Besides, it wouldn’t change anything. Anger was an indulgence, and she barely had enough strength left to keep herself conscious and moving forward.
“Where did you get yourself off to?”
Gritting her teeth, Aislinn answered Dewi. “I am in the prison itself, many hundreds of feet above where I left you. Did that…thing leave?”
“He really is quite sensitive—”
“Can it. Is he gone?”
Dewi chuckled. “He is asleep. I must have worn him out. Men are so fragile that way. Open your mind so I can find you.”
“In a pig’s eye. You’ll have to find me the old fashioned way or not at all.”
The dragon didn’t answer.
“Well, either she’s on her way here, or we got lucky and she’s mad at me and not coming,” Aislinn mumbled.
“Who?”
“Your old nemesis, the dragon.”
Tara’s expression softened. Aislinn took a good look at her mother. Most of her face from her cheeks upward was still intact. It was only lower down, where gashes interrupted what had once been living tissue, that she didn’t look like herself. Wounding was permanent for shades. Since their blood no longer circulated, they couldn’t heal themselves. Flesh rotted where skin no longer covered it.
“I loved her when I was little.” Tara’s eyes filled with a faraway look. “She took me flyin’.”
“What happened?”
Tara threw up her hands in a Gaelic je ne sais gesture. “I dinna care for my future bein’ mapped out from afore the day of my birth. Dewi never gave me a minute to myself. I couldna keep secrets from that one. Once I was old enough, I left. Then I met your Da and rewrote my future.”
Aislinn’s Seeker gift pinged a sour note. Her mother had left some things out. She opened her mouth to ask what pieces Tara had omitted, when she heard Rune’s claws scrape against stone as he rounded a corner.
“I bit my way through,” he crowed. “Got Gwydion. He was trapped, but not asleep. Not deep, anyway. He came round as soon as I nipped him in a few key places.”
Footsteps sounded, bare skin slapping against stone, punctuated by the tap of a staff. “There ye are,” the mage growled at the wolf. “I told you to wait for me. I am still foggy from Slototh—” Gwydion’s mouth fell open. “Tara MacLochlainn, as I live and breathe. Lass, ye’ve been killed. Why are ye not on the far side of the veil?” He hastened to her side and gathered her close. Strong emotion rippled through the muscles in his face and jaw. Dead or no, Gwydion liked having her mother in his arms. He looked like a dying man who’d been given a second chance.