She started to speak, then looked around the table, narrowed her eyes. “What’s all this then, doing the marketing, taking in my stock?”
“You look tired.” At Connor’s eye-roll and sigh, Boyle scowled. “Why dance around it?”
“Thank you so much for pointing it out to me,” Branna snapped back.
“You want the truth or want it fancied up?” Boyle’s scowl only deepened. “You look tired, and that’s that.”
Eyes narrowed still, she ran her hands down her face, did a glamour. Now she all but glowed. “There, all better.”
“It’s under it where you’re tired.”
She started to round on Fin, and Connor threw up his hands. “Oh leave off, Branna. You’re pale and heavy-eyed, and we’re the ones looking at you.” He jabbed a finger when she started to rise, sent a little shove across the table to put her back in her chair.
She didn’t need the glamour now to bring the flush to her cheeks. “Want to take me on, do you?”
“Just stop it, both of you,” Iona ordered. “Just stop. You have every reason to look tired, with all you’re doing, and we have every right to take some of the load off. It’s just marketing, for God’s sake, and cleaning up and chores. We’re doing it so you can have some time to breathe, damn it. So stop being so snarly about it.”
Branna sat back. “Doesn’t seem so long ago it was an apology coming out of your mouth every two minutes or less. Now it’s orders.”
“I’ve evolved. And I love you. We all love you.”
“I don’t mind the marketing,” Branna said, but calmly now. “Or the chores—very much. But I’m grateful to pass some of it on for the time being as we’ll all be busy with more important matters, and Yule’s all but on us. We should have light and joy for Yule. We will have.”
“Then it’s settled,” Iona stated. “If anybody wants to say anything else about it, I’m cooking tomorrow.” She forked up some chicken, smiled. “I thought that would close the subject.”
“Firmly.” Branna reached over to squeeze her hand. “And there’s another subject entirely needs discussion. Cabhan was here.”
“Here?” Connor shoved to his feet. “In the house?”
“Of course not in the house. Be sane. Do you think he could get through the protection I’ve laid—and you as well? I saw him outside. I went out in the back garden to check on the winter plantings, and to get some air as I’d been working inside all day. He was bold enough to come to the edge of the garden, which is as far as he can step. We spoke.”
“After Connor and I went down to the pub.” Fin spoke coolly. “And you’re just telling us of it now?”
“I wanted to get supper on as there’s enough confusion in that with the kitchen full of people. And once we sat, the conversation began on my haggard self.”
“I never said haggard,” Boyle muttered.
“In any case, I’m telling you now, or would if Connor would stop checking out all the windows and come back to the table.”
“And you wonder I don’t like leaving you on your own.”
She shot arrows at her brother with the look. “Mind yourself or you’ll be trying to make such insulting remarks with a tongue tied in knots. I was wandering the garden, with a glass of wine. The light changed, the fog came.”
“You didn’t call for us.”
This time she pointed a warning finger at her brother. “Leave off interrupting. I didn’t call, no, because I wanted to know what he had to say, and I wasn’t in trouble. He couldn’t touch me, and we both knew it. I wouldn’t risk my skin, Connor, but more, you—all of you—should know I’d never risk the circle, what we have to do. Not for curiosity, not for pride. For nothing would I risk it.”
“Let her finish.” Though Meara was tempted to give Connor’s leg a kick under the table, she gave it a comforting squeeze instead. “Because we do know it. Just as we knew he’d try for Branna before it was done.”
“A poor try, at least this time,” Branna continued. “The usual overtures. He’d make me his, give me more power than I could dream of and more bollocks of the same sort. He was still hurting a bit, hiding it, but the red stone was weaker. But he still has power up his sleeve. He changed to Fin.”
In the silence, Fin lifted his gaze from his wineglass, and the heat of it clashed with Branna’s. “To me?”
“As if his illusion of you would shatter all my defenses. But he had a bit more. He’s canny, and he’s been watching us for a lifetime. He changed again, back to when you were eighteen. Back to the day . . .”
“We were together. The first time. The only time.”
“Not that day, no, but the week after. When I learned of the mark. All you felt and said, what I felt and said, all there as it had been. He had enough to make me feel it, to draw me to the edge of my protection. He fed on that so the stone glowed deeper, as did his arrogance, as he didn’t understand I had more than enough to take out my garden knife and give him a good jab with it. As I did I grabbed the chain of the stone, and I saw fear. I saw his fear. Back he went to fog, so I couldn’t hold it, couldn’t work fast enough to break the chain.