“I think it’s right.” Branna rubbed the small of her back. “I added the amethyst as you suggested, Connor, and I think it’s right. It needs to cure out of the light for at least three days.”
She lifted it, carried it over to a cupboard.
“Let me make you some tea,” Iona began, but Branna shook her head.
“Thanks, but no. I’ve had enough tea these last days to do me for six months. I’m after some wine.”
“Then we’ll have some wine while you hear Meara’s idea. Better, don’t you feel like cooking something?” Connor tried out a winning smile. “Aren’t you feeling a longing for your own kitchen, darling? This is the sort of idea that goes well with a good bowl of soup, and the full circle of us.”
Meara gave him a shove. “I think it’s a good idea, and it should be heard by everyone. But I can make the soup while you sit and have your wine.”
“I’ll make it, because despite the fact that my brother’s thinking with his belly, I do miss my kitchen. We’ve vegetables in the garden still.” She pointed at Connor. “Go fetch some.”
“What’s your pleasure?”
“Any and all. I’ll make it up as I go. And since you’ve had some fine idea, Meara, you can tell me of it while I have the wine. I don’t see why I should wait for the others. Leave that, Iona. We’ll get back to it. Let’s have a little kitchen time.”
Meara thought she was doing some making it up as she went as well. And by the time everyone arrived, she’d refined things a bit.
“So,” she finished, “by doing something now without any real stake in winning, we’d have him thinking we?
?d made our attack, bungled it, or at least failed at it. We’re forced to retreat to the cottage—where we’re protected. Confused-like, you know? And bitter. If we’ve had our arse handed to us, he wouldn’t think we’d launch another attack in a matter of days.”
“If we go halfway, he could do real damage,” Boyle pointed out. “Why not go full-out?”
“We still need the time left for the plan we settled on. I’ve been working the spell around the night we chose,” Branna explained. “I wouldn’t want to try it on another. It must be Samhain.”
“Her point is by losing we have a better chance of winning.” Connor gave Boyle a bump on the shoulder. “And I know losing, even by design, goes down hard.”
“We’d have to make it flashy. He won’t be fooled by something that looks weak and tossed together.” But Fin smiled. “And we could give plenty of flash. Fire and storm, quake and flood. We throw the elements at him. It wouldn’t be right—not on its own in any case, but it would be loud and strong and it would feel bloody fierce.”
“A call to the elements.” Now Branna began to smile. “Oh, we could make it fierce indeed. Even rock him on his heels a bit. We’d need to shield, for we’ve neighbors here. The field—the rise behind the gardens.”
“That’s farther than I’d thought,” Meara began. “If we’re going to be routed, that’s a long road to retreat and safety.”
“We don’t retreat,” Connor said. “At least not at a run. We fly.”
“Fly?” Meara let out a long breath. “I think I’ll have some more wine on that notion.”
“That makes a statement, too.” Iona did the honors with the wine. “We’re defeated, and have to fly to safety. When would we try it?”
“We’re on a waning moon.” Connor glanced toward the window. “That could be useful. I’d like a go at it tonight, but I think closer to the real attack. Two nights more? If we get any singes from it, we’d have time to mend them.”
“Two nights more.” Branna walked over to stir her soup.
* * *
EVEN A FEINT REQUIRED PLANNING.
The three added more protection around the house. If Cabhan believed them weakened, he might try to come in for the coup de grace. They couldn’t afford a single chink.
Meara thought of it as a kind of play. Though some would be scripted, and she’d gone over her part of it a dozen times and more, some would have to be written and delivered on the spot.
“I’m nervous,” she confessed to Connor. “More nervous than I was on the solstice.”
“You’ll be fine. We all will. Remember defense is the first goal here. Offense is just a happy bonus.”
“It’s nearly time.” As if to warm them, she rubbed her hands together. “He may not even come.”