FOURTEEN
Patrick
She was beautiful and sweet, and Patrick was still burning at the way she’d looked at him tonight. He’d wanted nothing more than to continue the conversation Lucy had interrupted the other day, to tell Grace that he’d managed to bring the legends alive. But there hadn’t been an opportunity, not with so many people about, and tonight had been about convincing others to invest in the Fenian Brotherhood. Soon, the Children of Domnu would be here, and with them an army ready to rally to Ireland’s cause. That was what he should be concentrating on.
Patrick closed the study door behind him. He took off his frock coat and laid it over a chair, and then he went to the display cases, pressing his hands against one. The lamp on the desk behind him cast his shadow over the case so the amulets inside went dim. He looked over the relics with satisfaction, as he often did. The bowl with the carved wrens there, the serpent bracelet over there, the ogham stick—
Patrick looked closer.
The ogham stick was gone.
He lifted the lid. Unlocked. In disbelief, he searched the case, pawing over the items even though he knew the stone was not hidden among them. Gone. He looked at the lock, which had been forced, and then he ran to the window, jerking it open, thinking that somehow he would come upon the thief. There was only the faint laughter of someone still out in the park so late.
Who could have taken it? Someone here tonight? No. They were investors. But for Rory Nolan, they knew nothing of the Brotherhood’s secrets. The others had been Grace and her mother, and the thought that one of them might have sneaked in here during the evening and stolen it was laughable.
Which meant it had to be someone else. But who? Who would have known its importance?
It’s not important anymore, he reminded himself. The stone needed the rowan wand. And the Fomori had already been called, so it wasn’t as if someone could call them again.
Still . . .
Best to take precautions. Patrick went to his desk, scrawling a note to Rory Nolan and another to Simon, to ask if the rowan wand was still safely hidden. He woke a servant to take the messages off immediately, with instructions to wait for answers.
Within two hours, he had both. Nolan hadn’t taken it. Simon still had the rowan wand.
Patrick sank into the chair at his desk. He looked toward the display case, the scratched metal of the lock, and he could not keep from asking Why? Why the ogham stick when there were other things in the case more valuable? That meant it hadn’t been an ordinary thief but someone who could read ogham.
Patrick was seized with a grim foreboding. Whoever had taken it had a reason.
But what?
The question kept him staring into the darkness.