“I know that.” The flowers, so lovely, the scents, so poignant, helped her with her own balance. “I’m not angry with you, Boyle. Not anymore.”
“You should be. I earned it.”
“Maybe. But you weren’t completely wrong in what you said to Fin. I did push, and I did get in your way.”
“I’m not one to be pushed if I’m not wanting to be. Iona—”
“You were attracted to me. I used that. I never used magick.”
“I know it. I know it.” Trying to find the words, he raked his fingers though his hair. “I’m not used to all this going on inside me. I lost my seat, and you happened to come in before I’d righted it again. Give me a chance, will you, to make it up?”
“It’s not that, or not only that.”
Balance, she thought again. She wouldn’t find it without being honest with herself, and with him.
“Everything about you came on me so fast, and I just went with it. Grabbed for it, and I think, held on too tight. I didn’t want it all to slip away. I always wanted to feel all this going on inside me. I’ve craved it like breath. So I got in your way, I got in your bed, and I didn’t let myself think what could go wrong.”
“It doesn’t have to be wrong. It’s not wrong,” he said, and took her shoulders.
“It’s not right either.” Cautious, she stepped to the side so he no longer touched her. “Do you want a beer? I didn’t even ask if you—”
“I don’t want a bloody beer. It’s you I want.”
Her eyes, blue and beautiful even touched with sadness, lifted to his. “But you don’t want to want me. That’s still true. And I can’t keep accepting that, keep settling for that just because I always have. It goes all the way back, Boyle. My parents never really noticed when I wasn’t there, or cared much when I was or I wasn’t. And more awful yet, didn’t notice that I knew.”
“I’m sorry to say it, as they’re your ma and da, but it strikes me, Iona, your parents are right shits.”
She laughed a little. “I guess they sort of are. I think they love me, as much as they can, because they’re supposed to, but not because they want to. The boys and men I’ve tried to fall in love with? They’d want me back for a while, but they never wanted me enough, or wanted to want me enough, so it went away. And then I’m left wondering, what’s wrong with me? Why can’t someone love me without reservations, without all the buffers? Or worse, that I’m a kind of placeholder till someone better comes along.”
Had he done that? he wondered. Had he added to that? “There’s nothing wrong with you, and it’s nothing of the kind.”
“I’m working on believing that, and I can’t unless I stop accepting less. And that’s my problem, my issue. Maybe I didn’t really, all the way, realize that until you punched me in the face with it. Metaphorically,” she added with an easier smile than she’d expected to pull off.
Because he could see her face still, as she’d stood there in the stables, he felt as though he’d struck her. “Oh Christ, Iona. I’d give anything to take the words back, to stuff them down my own throat and choke on them.”
“No. No.” She took his hands a moment and squeezed. “Because it knocked me down, I had to get up. And this time deal all the way. Because before that, Boyle, I’d have taken anything you’d given. I’d have wrapped my own gauzy layers around it and convinced myself that it was right. But it would never have been right. I can’t be happy, not really down-to-the-bone happy, with less than I need. And if I’m not happy, I can’t make someone else happy.”
“Tell me what you need, and I’ll give it to you.”
“It doesn’t work like that.” And God, she loved him more that he would try, that he’d be willing to try. “Maybe it is magick after all. What makes us love and need and want one person, over everyone else. Love and need and want them absolutely. I want the magick. I’m not settling for less. You’re why. So in a strange way I’m grateful.”
“Oh yeah, thank me now and put a fine, foamy head on it.”
“You showed me that I’m worth more than I thought, or let myself think. And that’s a lot to be grateful for. I’m the one who rushed in, so I’m the one responsible for the fallout. It was all too fast, too intense. It’s no wonder you felt cornered.”
“I never felt . . . I don’t know what I was talking about.”
“You’ll figure it out. Meanwhile, the flowers are beautiful, and so was your apology.” She carried them over, put them on the table. “On second thought, I can tell you some things I need.”
“Anything.”
“I need to go on working for you and Fin, not only because I need to make a living, but because I’m good at it. And because I love it, and I want to do what I love.”
“There’s no question about that. I told you.”
“And I need to be friends with you, so we’re not awkward or uncomfortable around each other. It’s important. I couldn’t handle working for you or with you if we held on to resentment or difficult feelings. I’d end up walking away from the job to spare us both, and then I’d just be pissed off and sad.”
“There’s no resentment from me. I can’t promise no difficult feelings, for that’s what they are. They’re all tangled for me, and slippery with it. If you’d just—”
“Not this time.” Not with you, she thought, because with him, she’d never get up again whole. “I don’t just. I’m responsible for my feelings, and you for yours. You’ll figure it out,” she repeated. “But we both have good work that matters to us, good friends in common. And more important than anything, right here, right now, we have a common enemy and purpose. We can’t do all we have to do if we’re not on solid footing.”
“When did you get so bloody logical?” he muttered.
“Maybe I’m borrowing a little from Branna. She’s taught me a lot, shown me more than I ever imagined I’d see. I have a legacy, and I’m going to be true to it. I’m going to fight for it. And I’m going to be true to myself.”
“So it’s work together, fight together, and be friends? And that’s the lot of it?”
She offered another smile. “That’s a lot for most people. And I’m not holding back sex as a punishment.”
“I wasn’t meaning . . . Though now that you say it, it has that effect. It wasn’t just sex, Iona. Don’t think it.”
“No, it wasn’t. But I pushed there, too. Jumping in, as I tend to, well, boots first.”
“I like the way you jump in. But if it’s what you need, it’s friends.” For now, he thought.
“Good. Want that beer now?”
He nearly said yes, to buy more time, and maybe to soften the line she’d drawn between them. But she’d told him what she needed from him, and he’d give it.
“I’d best be on. I’ve all that untangling to do, after all.”
“Might as well get started.”
“I’ll let myself out, and see you in the morning.” He started to go, turned for a moment just to look at her. So bright, so pretty, with all the flowers beside her. “You deserve all, Iona, and not a bit less.”
She closed her eyes when she heard the front door close behind him. It was so hard to stand firm, to do and say what she knew was right when her heart ached. When her heart yearned to take less, and make do.
“Not with him,” she murmured. “Maybe with anyone else, but not with him. Because . . . there’s only him.”
She’d leave the flowers on the table, for everyone to enjoy. But before she went back to the workshop to cleanse her tools, she found a tall, slim vase, chose three flowers—a magick number—and, sliding them in, took them to her room where she’d see them before sleep. Where she’d see them when she waked in the morning.
19
AS SPRING SPREAD OVER MAYO, THROUGH THE GREEN FORESTS, over the lush hills, rains came soft and steady. Wildflowers rose and opened to drink, gardens burst to glorious life. In the fields lambs bleated, ducks plied the lough, while the forest filled with birdsong.
Iona planted flowers and vegetables and herbs with her cousins, scraped mud off her boots, put in long hours at the stables, long hours with the craft.
Bealtaine with its maypoles and songs came and went, and brought the solstice closer.
As the days lengthened, she often rose before dawn and worked well into the night, using the energy that fueled her to push harder.
And in the rain and the mud, she learned how to handle a sword.
Though she couldn’t imagine herself in an actual sword fight, she liked the way it felt in her hand. Liked the heft of it, and the fact that—small but mighty—she could strike and block.
She’d never be in Meara’s league. Her friend resembled an Amazon warrior even more with her hair braided back and a sword in her hand. But she learned—angles, footwork, maneuvers.
Within the thin veil Branna conjured she sliced and parried while Meara, relentless, drove her back. While the swords sang and Meara shouted insults or instructions, Branna sat on a garden bench like some exotic housewife, calmly peeling potatoes for dinner.
“Put your shoulder into it!”
“I am!” Winded, and seriously starting to ache, Iona shifted her weight, tried to advance.
“Come at me, for feck’s sake. I could slice off your limbs like you were Monty Python’s Black Knight.”
“It’s only a flesh wound.” Giggles caught her, distracted her, and Meara moved in like a demon.
“Mind the . . .” Branna sighed hugely as Iona lost her footing and fell backward into a massive spread of wild blue lobelia.
“Ah well.”
“Ouch. Sorry.”
“You’ve got the basics well enough.” Sheathing her sword, Meara held a hand down to help pull Iona to her feet. “And you take your lumps like a woman. You’ve good speed and agility, and endurance enough. But you’ve no killer in the blood, and so you’ll always be bested.”
Iona rubbed her butt. “I never planned on killing anyone.”
“Plans change,” Branna pointed out. “Fix those flowers now, as it’s your rump that crushed them.”
“Oh yeah.” Iona turned back to them, considered.
“No.” Branna snapped her fingers. “Don’t stop and think, just do.”
“I’m just catching my breath.”
“You may not have time for that. Sword, magick, a blend of both. And wit to tie them together. Just do.”
So she held out her hands in instinct rather than plan. The crushed blue flowers plumped.
“I gave them a little boost while I was at it.”
“So I see.” With a faint smile, Branna plied her paring knife.
“I could use a shower and a beer. No, beer first.”