I gave up. “How do you know so much about them?”
“Even before my wife became one, her affinity for animals was so powerful that wolves flocked to her. They adored her, worshipped her. They would follow her anywhere, do anything for her.”
And the weird continued.
“The triplets in the legend,” I began, then chickened out. “They were witches too?”
His gaze held mine. “They are.”
Again, one and one was adding up to two. Despite my occupation, I was starting to hate when that happened.
“What does mo leanabh mean?”
He gave me that look again—the one that made me feel as though he’d put his arm around me. The one that made me want him to.
“My child,” he answered.
I let out a breath, drew in another, did it again. There were so many things I wanted to ask, and then again I didn’t.
“You left me on the side of the road.” I was still upset about that.
“I left you nowhere, mo leanabh, I sent you through time. I wish I could have landed you in a feather bed, but some things are beyond our control.”
My throat ached from suppressing inappropriate laughter. This was ridiculous. And yet … I believed him.
“How did you send me?”
“Blood magic.”
“The pyre,” I said. “You wanted McHugh to kill you.”
“I never wanted that. But to save my family I gladly gave my mortality.”
“If you were powerful enough to send three children through time, why weren’t you powerful enough to save yourself?”
“I did.”
I waved my hand right through him. He shimmered, broke apart, faded. “You don’t seem saved to me.”
Henry returned, scowling. “Was that necessary?”
My fingers tingled with cold. I shook them and shrugged.
“I’m still here,” he said. “So is Pru; so are you and your sisters. McHugh is not. I win.”
“You’re dead, Henry.”
“Not really.”
His definition of dead and mine weren’t the same.
“I’m immortal now. As a witch, I wasn’t.”
I suppose that was true or he wouldn’t be a ghost.
“Witches have powers that protect—others as well as ourselves. Some of us, like your mother, can heal. There is a reason most images of witches depict ancient crones. With healing powers, witches live longer than most. It caused suspicion.”
“I bet.” I imagined a woman in seventeenth-century Scotland talking to animals. That would have gotten her burned, even without the supernatural ability to heal.
“Why didn’t Pru heal herself and you?”
“Blood magic requires sacrifice.”
Henry and Pru had given up everything for me. I wasn’t sure what to say, what to do. For so long I’d despised my unknown parents for what I thought they had done. But none of what I’d believed was true, and it would take me longer than an instant to get my mind around it.
“I would do anything to protect you,” Henry continued.
“You did.”
His lips curved, and I wished I could touch him.
“I should say thank you, but that sounds so … lame.”
“Lame?” He lowered his gaze to my leg. “You seem to walk quite well.”
Not only was it going to take a while to get used to the fact that I had parents, sisters, a family—as well as the bizarre nature of that family—but it was going to take some time to learn to communicate with the ones who’d come here from the seventeenth century, even without factoring in that one wasn’t human at all and the other wasn’t any more.
“I meant thank you is inadequate.”
“You’re my child. You always will be. I will protect you no matter the cost.”
Something in my chest shifted, warmth spread, my eyes burned, and I swiped at them. I could hear the love in his voice, see it in his eyes. Love like that was what I’d always dreamed of.
“Your mother and I cast a spell to send our girls to a place where witches would be safe,” he said.
“Whoops.”
“You were safe. The persecution of witches is no longer.”
“Tell it to Mrs. Noita and her niece.”
“The Venatores Mali have been reborn.”
“Like you.”
Henry tilted his head, considering. “The spell was cast to save our children. Blood and death fueled its power. But we never asked for this.” He swept his hand down his black-clad form. “It merely happened.”
“No place is safe forever,” I said. “No one can predict what people will do. How things might change. Maybe you became a safeguard, a watchdog. Without you in my life to warn me of danger, I’d be dead now. I’m still safe.”
“But for how long?”
That I didn’t know. And there were others to worry about besides myself.
“Have they found Becca?”
“Not yet.”
Relief flooded me for the safety of someone I didn’t know. If there was such a thing as twin telepathy, what did triplets have? Something stronger? If so, why hadn’t I ever felt either one of them? Unless that emptiness inside of me had been born of their lack. Would that change once I met them? I wanted, desperately, to find out.
“Where’s the third?”