“But I don’t understand,” I say. “Why did she stay hidden for so long with the humans?”
“The goddess cloaked her—cloaked her power, her name, her birthright.” He grinds his pestle into the bowl, mixing the ingredients. “She needed to keep her Lily safe.”
“Wait, how is that related to Sage?” I ask, not sure the dots are connecting. Because what I’m thinking can’t really be right.
He pauses his potion making, setting the bowl down again. He scoops some of the contents into her palm. “Sage’s power is her own, but it’s Lily’s too, you see.” He shows me what’s in his hand, pieces of mint leaves and lavender, mixed with what looks like cinder. “The ashes I spread into the earth kept the spirit, the energy, the memories safe. Brighid pressed them into her new daughter, hoping to join them together and allow her first to have a voice again.”
Two sources, Sage and Lily, joined together. Holy Danu, that’s a lot of power in one vessel. I’ve never heard of such a thing.
He spits in the bowl of mint and then turns to me. “I hate to ask, but this requires more blood from you, Mr. Winter.”
“Why do you keep calling me that?” I ask.
He squints at me. “You are Mr. Winter, are you not? The protector? The gray wolf?”
I don’t see how any of it connects. “I’m Sage’s protector, but—”
“Well, then.” He raises his brow at me and holds out a blade and a bowl. “I need blood.”
I sigh. “What for?” I eye the contents of the bowl warily. There’s been too much spellwork in this mess already.
“I wish to ease her struggle,” he says. “The two spirits need to come to an understanding. Your blood will be key in that, since you are her balance, the ice to her flame. You see?” His eyes brighten like he’s just revealed the key to the whole story. But I’m still lost.
I pull out my dagger anyway. “How much do you need?”
FIFTY-ONE
SAGE
A wash of affection rolls over me as we say goodbye. I smile and kiss Lailoken’s wrinkled forehead. I feel more connected to him than I have to anyone in my life, and even though he knows me, I’ve really only just met him. But he raised me for a time, he cared for me. I can’t hold it against him that he left me with Lauren. He couldn’t have known what she was. “Thank you, friend,” I whisper.
Color rises in his cheeks. He grabs the nest from the table and plops it back on his head.
“Don’t fret,” he says. “The boy will bring you back to me for more adventures. Won’t you, boy?”
“Yes, sir,” Faelan says. He hesitates and then asks, “I wonder . . . do you happen to have an antidote for Sagitta Anathema?”
“Oh my. A sharp dart, that one.” He frowns, then looks through the bottles on his table. “I think some of this.” He hands Faelan a blue bottle. “Mixed with this, equal parts.” He hands him a milky bottle too. “Along with three pixie tears, a pickled robin’s egg, and fennel. Maybe an onion, if you like.”
Faelan gives him a doubtful look. “Fennel and onion?”
“Helps with the smell.” The old man shrugs. “But be sure to give it when the moon is highest or it won’t work.”
“Thank you,” Faelan says, hope filling his voice. He tucks the bottles into his pocket. “I’ll be waiting for you outside, Sage.” He slips out the door, into the green, leaving me with the old monk.
He must be able to see that I’m not quite ready to say goodbye. There’s so much still inside me.
“Thank you for everything,” I say once the door closes. When I was a kid, I always wondered how it felt to have that person, the one soul who cared where you were late at night, or wanted you to get good grades in school. The person who gave a damn. I never thought I’d have that. But he’s been here the whole time, waiting and wondering where I’d gone. And a tiny piece of my heart has locked back into place. “I’m really glad you finally found me.”
He nods, tears glistening in his eyes.
“I’ll come visit after the Emergence,” I say. A twinge fills my chest as I realize how close I am to the moment, so I add, “I’m going to be okay.” It’s almost a question, but I need to speak it and make it true. Like a spell.
“You’ll shock them all,” he says, a mischievous smile growing on his face.
“Thank you,” I say again as I step toward the door. “Really.”
“No more of that now,” he says, shooing me. “You’ll have my head as big as a pumpkin.”
“Just take care of yourself. And that squirrel.”
“Yes, yes.” He pats my arm. “And don’t forget to eat your vegetables. And be careful playing in the hedges.”
Outside, I find Faelan waiting a few feet away in a patch of bluebells, watching bees gather pollen.
I stand beside him and look out at the meadow. “It sure is pretty here.” I see why Lily longed to come back.
“It is,” he says absently, but when I glance at him, he’s looking at me and not at the woods.
“Are you all right?” I ask, sensing he’s conflicted about something. I don’t like seeing that shadow in his eyes.
He watches the forest ahead, staying silent until we’ve left the field of flowers behind and entered the trees. But when he speaks, his words aren’t what I expect.
“I was ten years old when my mother died,” he says so quietly I almost don’t hear him over the crunching of our steps in the underbrush. I’m unsure why he said it. But there’s a determined quality to his voice, as if he needs to speak the words, so I don’t ask questions. He continues. “They told me she’d fallen into the river and drowned. But later, after—a long time after—I asked the river for the truth and learned that it wasn’t an accident. She’d killed herself, placed rocks in her skirts and tied a stone to her ankle.”
My throat tightens in pain. “I’m so sorry,” I say, his childhood sorrow very real to me. He was a boy alone in a difficult world. I understand that life better than anyone.
“It was Astrid who taught me how to hear the river,” he says, pushing aside a branch and letting me duck under. “Later, after I understood what the water’s current was telling me, it was Astrid who helped me heal. At least for a little while.” He looks at me like he needs me to understand. “It’s why I forgave her so much all those years.”
I nod, unsure what to say.
There’s a weight on him as we walk, his body tense like he still feels the pain of the past in his skin. “My mother drowned herself because she was ashamed,” he says. His voice falters and his pace slows. He stares out at some distant point, a lost look in his eyes. “She was ashamed of how I was conceived.” He turns to me again. “I wasn’t born of an encounter made of love or lust, but of violence, Sage. My father, a god of virility who could have enticed most any woman, saw what he wanted in my mother and chose to take it from her by force.”
Chills rake over me. “Oh, God.”
“I was born of that sickness. It’s a part of me.”