NINETEEN
Grace
I spent the day reading the birthday book of poems from Patrick. I hadn’t seen him since he’d come to the house with the police five days ago. Mama was right. I would have to push. I had a vision of myself on my knees, proposing to him, and it was humiliating just to think it. I tried not to remember Derry’s words: “Do me a favor, lass. Don’t rush into anything with Devlin.”
His talk of the ogham stick and the horn, Oscar glowing . . . And on top of everything else, Derry was still in my dreams. Last night I’d seen him in battle, his hair flying behind him, a spear in one hand and a sword in the other. Then the scene changed, again the pillows, his laughter, that near kiss—Oh, this was bad. Very bad. I wished I’d never laid eyes upon him. I would give anything not to see him again.
And you don’t have to, I told myself. Leave him to Lucy. Think about Patrick.
The plans for my debut were progressing, though the cost was one more thing I didn’t want to think about. Mama had gone twice more to give the Needham sisters pianoforte lessons, and each time she came back more drawn than before, as if they were sucking the life from her.
“I think we’d best go with daisies,” she’d told me just this morning. “They’re less expensive, and just a few bouquets should be enough, don’t you think?”
She looked so fragile now. I hated to do anything to upset her. I knew she had headaches, too, like mine, though she never admitted it. She was as tense as I was, watching the window all the time, waiting for the doctor’s lawsuit or a messenger from Patrick.
The weather wasn’t helping. It stayed sultry and heavy. I needed a breath of air, no matter that it was fouler outside than in. Without a breeze, the smells of the city had gathered into one great, stinking fog. But it did not smell of desperation, which was a scent I’d grown heartily tired of, and so I stepped out into the tiny backyard bordered by the alley. I’d planted a garden this year, but I had no talent for growing things, and so the flowers and the vegetables had withered and died. I let the door close behind me and sagged against the wall. It would have been nice to have something green to eat. I closed my eyes. There’d been lettuce, I remembered. And carrots, and radishes—
“Lass, might I have a word with you?”
I started, opening my eyes to see Derry leaning against the gate, looking about warily.
I felt a little shiver of something I didn’t want to understand. “All I wanted was some air. Where did you come from? Wait—are you watching me?”
He smiled, that dimple again. His hair, as always, was flopping into his face. He gestured to the gate. “Can I come in?”
I came down the stair, away from the house and my mother’s ears. He stepped inside, catching the gate before it could clang shut, making only a soft click.
“I thought I told you to leave me alone,” I said.
“That was days ago. You said nothing of it yesterday.”
“I’d hoped I wouldn’t have to.”
“I don’t remember things well.” He tapped his head, still smiling. “Best to keep reminding me.”
“Then I’m reminding you now. Leave me alone. Why are you here?”
The smile faded. “I’m afraid I need another favor.”
“Another favor? Why is it you’re always coming to me? Why not ask Lucy? She’s the one in love with you. She’ll do anything you say.”
“She’s busy. Tea parties and such. And you seem at your leisure.”
“I’m not. In fact, I’m quite busy planning my debut.”
“Aye. What is that exactly?”
“A party that announces that I’m old enough to be married. So you see, I’ve a great many things to do. If you don’t mind—” I turned to leave. He caught my wrist, drawing me back. So warm. My pulse leaped.
“I’ve a friend in Bellevue Hospital,” he said bluntly. “He’s in bad shape, but they won’t let me in to see him. I need someone respectable to get me through the door. Lucy said she can’t. I’d hoped you would help.”
I stared at him. “They won’t let you in?”
“Not without someone like you.”
“But that’s ridiculous. Why would they ask such a thing?”
He shrugged. “I’m guessing I look as if I might cause trouble.”
“I can’t argue with that.”
“Will you help me or not?”
“Well, I—”
“Please,” he said. “You’re the only other respectable person I know.”
An innocent visit to the hospital. Why not? It was better than sitting around the house being driven half mad by the smell of desperation and my own anxiety. And Derry had asked Lucy first, so she couldn’t complain if I went instead. “Your friend . . . you don’t mean Oscar?”
“Someone else.”
“Well then, I suppose it couldn’t hurt. When did you want to go?”
“Now, if you can. ’Tis my afternoon off. But if you’d rather wait an hour or so . . .”
When it would be near dusk. My mother would never let me go with night so close. Not that she would let me go with him anyway, if she knew the truth—and here I marveled again that I had become so adept at lying that I no longer hesitated to do so.
“I can’t go so late. It won’t take long?”
“No. You’ll come to no harm. I’ll see to it. We’ll have to walk, but it’s not far.”
“I walk everywhere, Derry. We sold the carriage a year ago. Wait here.”
I went back inside. The house felt more oppressive than ever. “Mama, I’m going to see Rose. She wants to get ice cream.”
My mother waved me away. “Go on. Enjoy yourself. Is Lucy going?”
I shook my head. “Lucy’s at some tea or something.”
“Be home before dark,” she said.
I glanced at my shawl hanging on the hook. It was sweltering, so I left it. I wanted to leave the gloves, too, but I tucked them into my pocket in case I needed them to pass the hospital’s requirements for respectability. I grabbed my hat—no lady went anywhere without one—a small and plain brown bonnet that had once been decorated with silk cherries. Those were gone now, popping their seams when I’d worn it once in a drenching rain, and now there was only the pink silk ribbon, very faded, which I tied beneath my chin. If I tied the bow just right, you couldn’t see the way the edge of one ribbon had begun to fray.
When I went outside again, Derry was lingering by the gate, waiting restlessly, flipping the catch up and down, staring at his boots. It seemed unlike him; he’d always appeared so self-possessed, and I hesitated. Something was not right. . . .
But then he looked up and smiled, and whatever it was I’d seen disappeared. “You’re kind to do this.”
“If you don’t have me home before dark, Mama will never let me out of the house again.”
He didn’t attempt to take my hand, nor did he offer his arm as we set off down the potholed alley, and I was grateful for that. I didn’t want to touch him. I remembered how I’d felt when he’d grabbed my wrist. The temptation in my dream . . .
No.
He said nothing for a long while, something else that was unlike him. Nervously, I said, “You’re awfully quiet.”
He glanced at me. “Worried about my friend, that’s all.”
“Is he very badly off?”
“I don’t know,” he said pointedly. “I haven’t seen him.”
“But you said he was in bad shape.”
“Did I?” He kicked a pebble into a pothole. “I imagine he is. He was in a fight. The other lad had to be carried home, so . . .”
“It’s nice,” I said. “That you care for your friends that way.”
“My friends are my family. I’d do anything for them.”
The intensity in his voice made me look more closely at him. “Oscar seems nice.”
“Nice,” he repeated. “You’ve said that twice. It’s nice that I care for my friends. Oscar seems nice.”
“What’s wrong with nice?”
“Nothing.” He shook his head. “Nothing. I’m sorry.”
“It’s all right. I imagine I’d be upset, too, if one of my friends was in the hospital.”
A small smile again. “Aye. I imagine you would. You’re good to your friends as well. Rose. And Lucy too—even though you don’t seem to like her much.”
“Oh, Lucy’s all right. But we were never close. She’s older, you know, and I think she tolerates me only because I’m useful.”
“Useful?”
“She knows I’ll do what she asks because of Patrick. So I make a good chaperone when she wants to see you.”
“Ah yes. The rule follower.”
“If I were truly that, you wouldn’t have been kissing her at the parish fair.”
“Something to thank you for, then.”
I remembered how he’d licked icing from her bottom lip, and again I felt that little drop in my stomach, which startled me into babbling, “Well, how surprising.”
He gave me a questioning glance.
“This. You and me. Having a conversation where you’re not flirting. It’s nice—oh, forget that—I mean I don’t mind talking to you when you’re not.”
He smiled again.
“Don’t start,” I admonished. “I’m happy to be your friend, Derry, but I wish you’d leave the rest of it for Lucy, or for girls you’re truly interested in.”
“What makes you think I’m not interested in you?”
“It wouldn’t matter if you were,” I told him frankly. “It’s not you I want.”
“Because you’ve got Devlin dangling.”
“And you have Lucy. I can’t have you complicating things. I can’t have anything to do with the ogham stick. I can’t afford for Lucy to be angry with me for things she’s . . . imagined.”
“You think she might be upset to find I’d been in your bed, you mean?”
Heat rushed to my cheeks. “She’s no one to trifle with, Derry. She’s no Astor, but her family’s rich enough, and Patrick knows important men. She’ll never be able to have you, but if she thinks you’ve wronged her—you’d best take care.”
“You’ve no need to worry. I know what I am.”
“Then you know she’s not for you. If you pursue this—”
“I told you I know what I am,” he said brusquely.
“I’m sorry. I don’t mean to pry, not really; it’s just that—”
“I see how it concerns you, lass. And I’ll try not to make your life more difficult than I have to.”
“Than you have to?”
We had reached the corner to the hospital, but when I started to turn, he took my elbow, steering me lightly in the other direction.
“Bellevue Hospital is that way,” I said.
“We’re going another way around.”
“But it’s directly—”
“He’s in a separate wing. The poor wing. You know it?”
The truth was that I’d never actually been to Bellevue, and he probably knew it better. “No.”
“Then it’s this way,” he said.
I followed him, though it seemed to me we were moving in a distinctly bad direction. The shops we passed gave way to empty stores, their windows papered with signs that read “For Let” or “No Irish Need Apply.” There were more and more men lingering idly in doorways. The vendors selling plump oranges and bright peppers became those selling small, wrinkled apples and day-old bread. No longer were people clad in silks and summer muslins but in ragged clothes, too many of them milling listlessly about as if they had nowhere else to go.
I glanced at Derry, who was staring straight ahead. “This is the right way?”
“Aye.” Short and to the point. His hand crept to my elbow again, this time a tight hold. “Stay close, will you?”
The big Belgian paving stones of the streets gave way to broken cobblestones and potholes. Horse piss ran in rivulets down the gutters, trash piles grew higher, the smell of onions and ale stronger. There were dogs everywhere, sniffing in the garbage, fighting in the middle of the street. And so many people. Children shouting and racing about. Women splashing in the muddy puddles that gathered beneath the spouts of the green public pumps as they filled their buckets. Men wandering out of saloons. A group of girls lingering on the corner narrowed their eyes at me and called out, “Good day to you, Derry!” He ignored them.
This could not be the way to Bellevue, could it? “This is certainly the long way ’round.”
“’Tis a bad part of town,” he admitted.
A little too true. The walks in some places were crumbling away. The buildings and streets grew closer together, and when I looked down the crossing alleys, they appeared full of dead ends, warrens of endless buildings. There were saloons everywhere—there must have been seven on one block alone. Derry steered me around a rooting pig with a muttered “I don’t like pigs.” His fingers tightened on my arm so I thought he might leave a bruise.
And I knew for certain that he’d lied to me.
“We’re not going to see your friend at Bellevue Hospital.”
He was quiet.
“We’re not going to any poor wing.”
“I’m sorry, Grace.”
I tried to pull away. He was so strong I couldn’t budge.
“Let go of me. Take me back this minute or I swear I’ll scream.”
“There are four lads on that corner,” he said to me in a low voice. “D’you see them?”
I followed his gaze. Four young men, ill-clad, two barefoot. I saw when they caught sight of me, of Derry, their speculative glances, their too-careful attention.
“You don’t want to pull away from me here, Grace. Or scream. Trust me on this.”
He was right. I felt a prickling fear and cursed myself for coming with him—how well did I know him anyway? All my talk of being friends, all my well-meant advice . . . What a fool I was. I’d lied to my mother. It would be hours before she was worried enough to send a message to Rose, and even then Rose would pretend we were together to save me from trouble. I would have done the same for her. No one knew where I was. Or who I was with.
“Where are you taking me?” My voice sounded too high.
“I told you. To visit a friend.”
“Another friend like Oscar?”
“Aye.”
“And you couldn’t have just told me this? Instead of tricking me this way?”
“There’s no reason to be afraid. ’Tis a few questions he wants answered is all.”
“Questions?” Men lay in corners, some looking up blearily as we passed, others not moving, not even seeming to breathe. Children with torn pants and no shoes. A woman going through the garbage, tossing out a dead rat by its tail. “About what?”
He hesitated. Then he said, “The ogham stick.”
I stopped so suddenly that he stumbled. “Derry, no. I told you. I want nothing to do with it. If Patrick were ever to find out—”
“He won’t find out.” He pulled me after him. “Best to keep moving.”
“He has the police looking for it.”
“They won’t find it here.” He turned a corner, ducked through a corridor between two tall brick buildings, over planks that sank and wobbled, set as they were over a swampy, green, festering something; and then we were in a warren of four buildings surrounding a central yard with more planks spread over a cesspool and a row of tottering privies that looked as old as the world, ready to collapse upon themselves. The stench was remarkable. I fumbled with my handkerchief, pressing it to my nose. I saw his bitter smile as he took me to a back door. Black metal fire escapes tangled up the sides of the buildings like knotted laces. There were two small boys playing, rolling a ball back and forth, and one of them looked up as we approached, jumping to his feet. “Play ball with us, Derry?”
“Not today, Wills,” Derry said. “Soon, though, I promise.” Then he took up the ball and threw it, and they chased after it like puppies, shouting in joy.
“What is this place?” I asked in a horrified whisper.
“Home. At least for now.” He turned to me, taking my face between his hands before I had time to move or protest. “Just answer his questions. You’ve nothing to be afraid of. I’ll be there. I promised to keep you safe, and I will.”
His words only frightened me more. I jerked away from him. The bow of my hat caught on his hands, the knot sliding, loosening. “You’ve already lied to me. Why should I believe a word you say?”
“Grace, I—”
“Let’s just get this over with. But don’t ever ask me for another favor. I swear I’ll never do another thing for you. Not ever.”
His mouth tightened. “Take my hand. It’s very dark.”
“No.”
“Then don’t touch the walls,” he said matter-of-factly. “I don’t know what’s dripping down them today. Slime or blood or something else.”
“Blood?” I shuddered. He took advantage, grabbing my hand, holding it in a grip I could not break, and pulled me after him.
Once we’d turned the first landing, away from the light of the open door, it was so dark I couldn’t see anything. I had no idea whether it was a wall or emptiness I stepped into. It could have been the middle of the night on these stairs—the middle of the night in hell, because it was that hot too. And the smell was indescribable. Sewage and drink and smoke and sweat. Something gamy and rotten. Derry made his way carefully, now and then saying, “Watch this one” or “Step to your right.”
We passed open doors that lent a little light; I glimpsed men smoking and shirtless, women yelling at whining children. It seemed a long time until we reached the top.
Derry paused before a door. “Close your eyes.”
“Why?”
“’Twould be best, I think.”
“I’ll keep them open, thank you.”
“Suit yourself.” He rapped hard on the door—three short, one long, a code—and the door opened.
I saw Oscar, and a tall man with thinning red hair, and then I was blinded, as if there were stars in the room, each pulsing, each bright as a burning sun. My knees went wobbly. Derry grabbed me as I crumpled. And the pain . . . dear God, the pain was worse than ever. Derry’s arms were all that held me up. I heard him shout, “By the gods, touch her!”
A familiar voice—Oscar’s—saying, “Do what he says. Quickly now, lads. No sense making her suffer.”
My head felt as if it would explode. Moaning, I closed my eyes—no help; the light blared through my eyelids, as red as blood.
“Hurry,” Derry growled, and then there was a hand on my shoulder; another, one by one, and with each the pain lessened a little, the light faded. A final press, and the last bit of it melted away, leaving me weak. Something was wrong with me. Something was terribly wrong. Why did this keep happening? And always around Derry. Always.
“It’s you,” I heard myself whisper. “It’s because of you, isn’t it?”
He said nothing except a rough “Get her a seat,” and I heard the scrape of something across the floor, and then he was helping me onto something—not a chair, a barrel. I opened my eyes and the room spun, and I closed them tightly again, putting my face in my hands. “I’m going to be sick.”
Another scrape across the floor. “There’s a bucket to your right,” Derry said in my ear, and then, “Is there any water?”
“Just ale,” said someone.
But the nausea was fading. “It’s all right. I . . . I’m fine. . . .”
“This happens every time?” Another voice, commanding but also melodic.
“Until she’s touched.” Derry’s hand was on my arm. “’Twas a hard one this time, lass. Too many. Are you sure you’re all right?”
I opened my eyes.
The room was small and dingy, with a doorway in one wall and a window at the far end, letting in some light. A large scarred table sat in the middle of the room. Scattered throughout were barrels and piles of straw, and on all of these sat young men—though three of them looked a bit older, perhaps in their early twenties. They were all watching me, gray eyes and brown, blue and green. Blond hair and brown, one who was bald. And they were all astonishingly good-looking—except perhaps for the bald one, though he wasn’t ugly.
I looked at Derry. “Where am I?”
He swallowed and gestured to the others. “These are my friends. Finn’s Warriors—that’s what they call us. There’s Oscar, who you know, and Cannel”—the red-headed man, the only one who hadn’t glowed. Derry named off the rest, each of whom nodded in turn. Keenan, wiry, with thick brown hair and eyes warm as chocolate; Goll, one of the older ones, perhaps Patrick’s age, with a hawk-like nose and a newsboy’s cap. Ossian, also older, with white-blond hair and a face so like Oscar’s that I assumed they must be brothers. Conan, the bald one, wearing a heavy, graying fleece. The names sounded familiar, though I couldn’t bring my thoughts together enough to know why.
“And this is Finn,” Derry said finally.
Suddenly I realized why I knew the names. Derry’s friends were calling themselves after the mythical Fianna. The conceit might have made me laugh if I hadn’t been so uneasy.
Finn rose. Like Ossian, he was a few years older than the others, and he was . . . beautiful. Golden hair chased with red. Eyes of a startlingly pale color. Sharp cheekbones and a full mouth. He wasn’t as classically handsome as Derry, but his presence filled the room as he came toward me.
He looked me over. “You’re right; there is a resemblance.” That haughty yet melodious voice.
“Aye.” Derry sounded miserable and resigned.
“Resemblance to who?” I asked.
“I told you,” Derry said, not looking at me. “A friend who lived near us in Ireland.”
I remembered then. County Kildare. Probably a relative.
Finn stepped closer. I felt as if there were things about him I should know, and not knowing them was dangerous. “Grace Knox,” he murmured. “Patrick Devlin’s lass.”
“What do you want with me?” I demanded, and then wished I hadn’t when Finn turned to Derry and smiled.
“She’s spirited too.”
“I’d also like to go home, so can you please do what you will and be done with it so I can leave?” Which may have been the most stupid thing I could have said, I realized in the next moment.
Derry sighed. “You see.”
Oscar laughed. “Well done, Miss Knox. Well done indeed.”
Finn waved a hand at the others. “I’ll take a moment with Miss Knox.”
The others moved as if they’d been held suspended and Finn’s command had released them. There was a keg in the corner, sausages on the table, and they went back to drinking and talking.
I looked at Derry, panicked.
Finn said to him, “You too. Leave us.”
Derry glanced at me. “Finn, you—”
“I’ll return her to you in ten minutes,” Finn said. “If she still wants me to.”
Derry had said he’d protect me, but Finn felt formidable, and I thought that any war between them would not end in Derry’s favor. I felt his wariness as he left me with Finn and went to the keg with the others. He stood in the corner with Oscar, watching over the rim of his cup.
Finn came even closer to me. “What do you know about the Fenian Brotherhood?”
Answer his questions, Derry had said. “Nothing. My friend Patrick Devlin is a member. That’s all.”
“You know nothing about their activities?”
“I’m not privy to their secrets.”
Finn grasped the edge of the barrel, a hand on either side of me. The pure maleness of him made me swallow nervously. “You’re lying,” he said.
“They mean to free Ireland from British rule. Patrick . . . Mr. Devlin . . . told me that they’d helped raise a rebellion in Ireland, and it was a failure. That’s all I know.”
“Devlin collects relics. You’ve seen them?”
I nodded. “Torcs and statuettes. The ogham stick. Which I believe you have.”
“Have you seen a rowan wand? Or a horn?”
“Why? Why do they matter?”
He backed away. I glanced past him to Derry, whose eyes looked black.
Finn made a quick gesture. “Bring the ogham stick,” and almost before he got the words out, Goll hurried up with something in a rag. He handed it to Finn, who unwrapped it and held the stone before me. “Touch it.”
I recoiled. “I’d rather not.”
“Why?”
“I’d just . . . rather not.”
He smiled, more gently. “Please, Miss Knox.”
Again I glanced at Derry, who nodded, and I laid my hand upon the stone. It was as warm as it had been before, growing hotter with every second—burning. I jerked away, expecting to see blisters on my hand that weren’t there. Something else I didn’t understand.
Finn chanted, “Darkness and thunder, blood and fire. The eye of one who slays. As one is bid, so come the rest. The rowan wand and virtue gone. A blood price paid. Now come the Children of Domnu.”
The words unfurled in my head as if another voice said them to me. The verse Finn spoke felt wrong; it wasn’t how it should be said, though I had no idea why I thought that. “No,” I couldn’t help saying. “No, you’re saying it all wrong.”
He lurched back as if I’d hit him. He held out the ogham stone to Ossian, who took it from him without a word, and I felt foolish and afraid. I wanted to go. Finn reached out, taking a strand of my hair between his fingers, staring at it with longing. It was all I could do not to yank away. Finally, he looked up with a sad smile that pulled at my heart, though I’d been afraid only moments before.
He let go of my hair. “Thank you, Miss Knox. You’ve been very enlightening. Now please, you must be hungry and thirsty. Join us for a bit, if you will, and then I’ll have you escorted safely home.”
I hadn’t realized I’d been holding my breath, and now I let it out. “That’s all? That’s all you wanted to know?”
“Why, is there more you can tell me?”
“No. That is, I don’t understand. I have nothing to do with this.”
He gave me a slow bow. “You’re welcome here, Miss Knox.”
It was a signal. Derry was at my side in seconds.
“Get Miss Knox something to eat and drink,” Finn said. Before he left us, a look passed between them. I knew it was an order. Join us for a bit, he’d said. I knew already Derry would do whatever Finn asked of him. He’d brought me here at Finn’s request, no matter how reluctantly.
I felt Derry’s tension ease. Whatever he’d been afraid of hadn’t happened.
“D’you want something?” he asked me. “There’s not much—sausage and bread—but I can—”
“I think I would be sick if I ate anything,” I told him, which was true.
“I’m sorry. There was no other way. What did he say to you?” He glanced over to the table where Finn had gone to speak to Cannel. “Never mind. You can tell me later.”
“I don’t know what’s happening to me,” I said. “I don’t understand any of this. Not the glowing, or . . . I must be going mad.”
“I don’t think so, lass.”
He held out his hand, and I took it without a thought. The others watched as he led me across the room. Finn and Cannel huddled over a deck of cards on the table; Ossian eyed us as he drank from a cup of ale.
Oscar came bounding up. “You can’t take her away yet, Derry. Why, she just got here. What do you think of our humble abode, Miss Knox?”
He was so charming it was hard not to smile. “I think it could use a woman’s touch.”
“What, you don’t think that stain in the corner a good enough decoration?”
“I suppose, if you embellished it a bit.”
“Ah now, why did we not think of that? Embellish how? A bit of blood perhaps? Or mud?”
I couldn’t help laughing. “That wasn’t exactly what I’d imagined.”
Oscar’s green eyes sparkled. “No? I’ve been told I have a talent for art. Many a lass has commented on it.”
“Have they?”
“D’you think that might impress your pretty friend Rose?”
Just then Goll came up, bearing a cup of ale, which he offered to me with a shy smile. “’Tis good to have a lass about the place for a change.”
I took the ale, though it smelled strong and bitter, and I hadn’t the stomach for it. I thanked him, and then Oscar nudged me, trying to get my attention again and spilling his ale down his shirt in the process. I offered him my handkerchief.
“Pansies,” he said, looking at the handkerchief. “You do some fine needlework, Miss Knox.”
“I don’t, but my mother does. You have a good eye.”
Keenan stepped up and said, “A good eye? Oscar?”
I listened while the three of them went back and forth about who had the sharpest vision. Only Derry said nothing. I felt his impatience growing until he interrupted Keenan in the middle of his boasting with “She’ll judge a contest between you later. Just now she’s wanting some air.”
I didn’t miss Oscar’s frown as Derry pulled me to the window. He let go of my hand, pushed the sash all the way up with his shoulder, and stepped over the sill to the fire escape below. “’Tis cooler out here,” he said, turning to offer his help. Careful of my skirts, I sat on the sill, trying not to show any ankle—not very successfully—as I twisted to follow him out. From behind us in the room, I heard catcalls.
“They’re savages,” Derry muttered. “Ignore them.”
He helped me onto the platform, steadying me as I sat, and then he sat beside me and handed me back the cup of ale that Goll had given me. Tentatively, I tasted it—as bitter as I’d thought, even more so. Warm and rather nasty. My stomach slipped, and I put the cup aside.
The fire escape looked out onto a crowded street. I’d never been up so high—five stories, perhaps six. It seemed a long way down, but everywhere people lounged on their fire escapes, one or two men shirtless, women shouting at children playing in the street below.
“It won’t fall, will it?” I asked, testing the rail.
“It hasn’t yet.”
“That’s hardly reassuring.”
“It’s held four of us at one time. Only a little creaking.”
“Very funny. You’ve probably loosened it.”
“Probably,” he agreed, drinking. “Now tell me what Finn said to you.”
“He asked questions about the Fenian Brotherhood. And the ogham stick.”
“That’s all?” He looked dourly into his cup.
“What else should there be? You said there’d be questions and nothing more.”
His mood puzzled me. Distracted and tense and . . . and angry. I looked at him, trying to see his expression, but those dark-blue eyes were half hidden beneath the heavy fringe of his hair. In frustration, I reached to push it out of his face.
He recoiled so sharply he banged his head against the wall. His hand was quick as lightning, grabbing my wrist, stopping me before I could get close. “Don’t.”
I wrenched loose. “Your hair’s in your eyes. I can’t see what you’re thinking. It’s annoying.”
“Why not just ask me what I’m thinking?”
“Because you won’t tell me the truth.”
“Why would you say that?”
“Because I don’t think you ever do. You lied to get me here, for one—”
“I said I was sorry for that.”
“And you’re not telling me everything. You’re not telling me why you brought me here when you could have answered those questions of Finn’s. I told you everything I told him. And you’re not telling me why . . . why . . .”
“Why what?”
I looked away. “Why anything. Why people glow only when they’re around you. Or why the ogham stick burned me. Or why the things Finn said . . .” I didn’t know how to explain, not about the verse, or the way it had sounded wrong in my ears, or how Finn had looked at my hair with such longing, as if he wanted me, or not even that, exactly, but something within me, but couldn’t think how to ask for it.
Derry didn’t give me any answers. “Do you like him? Finn?”
“I hardly know. He’s very . . . overwhelming.”
“What about the others? Oscar? Goll? Keenan?”
“They’re charming.”
“Charming.”
“Yes. And not at all annoying. You could take a lesson from them, I think.”
“Could I?”
“Yes. I doubt any one of them would have dragged me here under false pretenses, or sneaked into my room, or stolen anything at all—”
He laughed. “You don’t think so? Any one of them would have done so if Finn had asked it. And when they were in your bedroom, they would have stolen a kiss—or more. Which I haven’t done, I’d like to point out.”
“Well, you have Lucy for that, don’t you? And you said you didn’t want to kiss me.”
“I did?”
“After you stole my book. Patrick’s book. When you brought it to the house.”
“Ah. So I did.” He was staring at me strangely. The falling sunlight hit his eyes; they were the color of the deepest part of the Sound. He brought up his knees, resting his forearms on them, letting the cup of ale dangle in his hand. “And you have Devlin.”
I thought of Patrick’s kiss and how I’d wanted more.
“So the two of you can sally forth together and save the world.” The irony was thick in Derry’s tone.
“You don’t like Patrick. Why?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know him.”
“Then why do you say such things?”
“Perhaps because he’s playing with things that should be left alone. Or perhaps because he’s got you wound about like the string on a top. The things you say you want—do you really believe he can get them for you?”
“Yes.” I remembered the weight of Derry on my bed, the shine of his eyes in the darkness. “He can save me.”
“Can he? Or better yet, will he? Or will you just find yourself in a different prison? Can he change the world?” Derry laughed lightly and took a sip of his ale. “Maybe not.”
“Can you? Can anyone?”
“Some things are hard to change, I know. When I see all this . . . despair . . . I don’t know how anyone can bear it. How do you live without seeing green? How can you go up and down these stairs every day and hear your children cry with hunger and . . . Well, I don’t know how to fix it. But it seems wrong not to try.”
“What a tender heart you have,” I said, astonished to hear such sentiment in him.
“When people say that, it means they plan to do nothing themselves.”
“It’s harder for me. It is,” I insisted when I saw his raised brow. “You’re a boy; you can at least try to change the world if you want.”
“One minute you’re on top of the world,” he said, lifting his cup in a mock toast, “as rich as a king or prince, and the next you’re living in a room with seven others and eating moldy bread. But life’s a gamble, isn’t it? And we all have to wager. Still, you get to choose what that wager will be—whether you’ll take a risk, and whether ’tis faith or fear that guides you.” His gaze challenged me. The blue of his eyes seemed to shimmer.
For a moment, I thought of him on a riverbank. Watching me. Waiting.
And then, from below, I heard a shout. A child screamed out, “The Black Hands! The Black Hands is coming!”
Derry jerked to attention, spilling the ale from his cup. His face tightened in a way I didn’t recognize. I followed his gaze to a group of young men coming around the corner below us. Each of them had smeared one of his hands with soot. Some had striped their faces with it as well. They stopped beneath us. Thunder cracked as one of them called up, “Hey, Warriors! The Black Hands is waitin’ for you!”