Reunion (7 page)

It had taken her hours to fall asleep. She didn't appreciate being woken again so soon.

Trása slid the door open, wishing the flimsy rice paper screen could withstand her slamming it open in order to offer an impressive demonstration of her anger.

Her visitor was Rónán. He looked haggard.

"I'm not speaking to you."

"I need your help."

"What part of
I'm not speaking to you
didn't you hear me tell you?"

Rónán cocked his head to one side, genuinely puzzled. "That is truly the most absurd question I have ever been asked."

"Really? And here I was, thinking that 'Why have you left your brother stranded in another reality all this time?' was going to win the prize."

Rónán stared at her for a moment and then turned and walked away.

Trása let out a long-suffering sigh and called, "Wait!"

He stopped and turned to look at her. Trása threw her hands up in defeat. "All right. I'll bite. What's so difficult for the great and all-powerful Renkavana that he needs my help with it?"

"Accessing Delphine's memories."

That surprised Trása. She'd thought, given the way he was talking earlier, the subject was closed and would not be allowed to be opened again for discussion. She glanced up and down the wide, rattan-matted hall, lit only by the evenly-spaced gilded lamps, to see if anybody might have overheard him, but they were alone.

Trása debated the issue for a moment. She wasn't speaking to him, after all.

"Come in, then," she said, finally. "We probably shouldn't discuss this out here."

Rónán didn't say anything, but he walked back and stepped across the threshold before stopping to look around the room. Trása wondered what he thought of the intricate woodcarvings on the furniture or the gold leaf, silk-screened walls, or the beautifully painted sliding doors. Perhaps he wasn't impressed. He'd been here for three years now and, even in the other realm where he'd been abandoned, he'd grown up amidst substantial wealth, after all. Perhaps he barely noticed the beauty of this place.

He waved his hand, lighting the lamps with magic as casually as Darragh might have done in
Sí
an Bhrú
. Then he turned to her as she slid the door shut and said in English, "Is there anybody about who can overhear us?"

That was always a problem in a society where lacquered rice paper was considered a building material. And it explained why he was speaking a language only a few people in this reality understood.

"I don't think so. Why?"

"Because I have to ask you something difficult."

She snorted at that. "Wow, is it so hard for you to ask for help that you don't want anybody else to know about it?"

He glared at her and said nothing.

She sighed again - something she seemed to do a lot around Rónán - and moved away from the door. "I'm sorry. You truly do bring out the worst in me, Rónán. What do you want?"

"Help to go into Delphine's memories."

"You don't need my help. You put the walls up in your mind to keep the memories out. You can take them down anytime you want. Why do you need me?"

"Because I'm afraid."

Trása's anger withered in the face of his simple admission. She'd been imagining all sorts of nefarious reasons for Rónán's inaction. Fear hadn't even been on her list.

"Afraid of what?"

He shrugged and sat down on the edge of the futon, hands clasped together, his head hanging down. "Afraid I'll go mad, or do something dangerous. Afraid of what they'll do to me. Afraid they'll make me like her."

"That's absurd," she said, crossing her legs to sit in front of him on the floor. "You won't become her. You didn't become Darragh when you shared his memories, did you?"

He lifted his head to look at her in surprise. "Didn't I? You're the one who's always telling me how like Darragh I am."

"That's because you're identical twins, idiot, not because of the
Comhroinn
you shared with him."

He shook his head. Trása wasn't sure why. "I never told you what happened when we went back to Pete and Logan's true realm, did I?"

"It was a dead world. Pete said there was nothing left alive there. He didn't know why."

"I tried to find out why."

Suddenly, Trása thought she understood. "You accessed Delphine's memories?"

He shook his head. "I
became
Delphine. I tried to kill Pete and Logan. I couldn't control it, Trása. She's dead, for God's sake and she took me over like she'd found another body to inhabit."

"That's why Pete and Logan are so insistent that you don't try again?"

"You can't blame them."

"But ... Rónán, that was three years ago. You've learned so much since then."

"But what if I haven't learned enough?"

"Then Pete and Logan will probably kill you," she said, only half joking.

"I can feel her, you know ... Delphine pushing against my mind ... trying to break out. And I'm not an idiot, Trása. I do know what a gold mine of intelligence I've got tucked away inside my head. It's just -"

"You don't want to turn into an evil, murderous, child-stealing bitch with a lingering affection for Pete and Logan?" she finished for him.

Rónán managed a thin smile in response. "If it were only that, I'd have done this a couple of years ago."

"Then what's stopping you?" she asked, some of her frustration with him leaking into her voice. "We've been stuck here for three years, Rónán. You've been studying everything you can get your hands on. You've pretty much mastered everything this realm has to offer, including that crazy ninja
kuji-in
stuff. What's your problem?"

Rónán was silent for a time before he answered. When he did finally speak, what he said took Trása completely by surprise.

"I have nightmares."

"
Nightmares
?"

"Actually, it's only one nightmare that repeats itself over and over."

"Nightmares about what?" she asked, a little impatiently. Rónán seemed to be wallowing in a fair bit of maudlin self-pity. Trása couldn't figure out why and was in no mood to indulge him. Somewhere out there, Teagan was alone and frightened, a prisoner of the
Matrarchaí
, and she needed their help. The gods alone knew what had become of Darragh and Sorcha these past few years. Or Hayley - not that Trása really gave a fig about what happened to Hayley Boyle. But Rónán certainly didn't have time to feel sorry for himself.

"I dream about murdering babies."

Trása really had no idea how to answer that.

"I'm not sure whose children they are," Rónán continued, apparently content that she was listening. She didn't need to comment, "but in my dream I kill them in their cradle. I
think
they're Darragh's kids. He's in the dream, too, trying to talk me out of doing it."

"
Talk
you out of it?" she asked. "Not fight you or wrestle the weapon from your hands? Just calmly discuss why you shouldn't murder his babies?"

He shrugged. "In my dream, Darragh seems to know it has to be done."

"Do you think he's afraid they might be Empress twins?" She was intrigued now, in spite of herself. Besides, she was unable to imagine any other circumstance - even in his brother's imagination - where Darragh would agree to something so heinous. "Maybe you're trying to kill them in your dream so they won't become tools of the
Matrarchaí
?"

He nodded. "I realize that now, but here's the kicker. I've been having those dreams since I was twelve or thirteen. Darragh had them, too."

This was very interesting, but hardly helpful. "What does any of this have to do with why you won't access Delphine's memories, or us finding a way to rescue Teagan?"

"Since I locked away Delphine's memories, the nightmares have stopped."

Trása was silent for a moment as she let that sink in.

"You selfish prick," she said finally, disgusted at him. "You've let everyone rot here in this realm, you've left your brother stranded in another ... all because you don't want your
sleep
disturbed. You're unbelievable!"

Rónán glared at her, clearly annoyed by her anger. He stood up, shaking his head. "I knew you wouldn't be any help."

"You got that much right."

"Well, I'm sorry I disturbed
your
sleep," he said, heading for the door. "I'll not burden you again with my trivial, selfish problems."

Trása didn't bother to respond. She was glad to be rid of him.
How could anybody do such a thing? How could he be so self-absorbed, so callous, so -

She jumped to her feet, staring at him in shock, as it suddenly occurred to her exactly what he was trying to tell her. "Oh, my God, it's the Sight! You're having a
true
dream, aren't you?"

He stopped, his hand on the door latch with his back to her. "Don't worry about it, Trása. It's not your problem."

In three strides she was across the room. Grabbing him by the arm she turned him around to face her. "You're afraid if you delve into Delphine's memories you'll change something and the dream will come back. And if it's a
true
dream then it has to happen someday."

"Selfish of me to fear that, I know," he said, shaking off her grasp. "I'll be sure to be more thoughtful in the future."

"Get over it, Rónán. I was just ..." She threw her hands up. This was much bigger than she imagined and she really didn't want to fight with Rónán. Quite the opposite, in fact. He was just so ... so ... She sighed, yet again. "Okay, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said you were being selfish. I didn't understand."

"You meant it, though."

"Only because I wasn't thinking things through. You know me. I start yelling first, and then ask questions later. I said I was sorry."

He seemed unconvinced by her remorse.

"
Please
."

Rónán studied her in the dim light, as if debating how much he could trust her, and then he shrugged. "Do you
really
understand, Trása? Because I
do
want to help Teagan, I truly do. And it's eating me up that I can't go back for Darragh, but do you really appreciate the risk?"

She nodded. "If you do anything to change the status quo, then the dream will come back and then one day you really
will
have to kill Darragh's children."

"It's more than that," he confessed. "You see, if that nightmare ever comes true and if I
don't
have the balls to do it, something even worse will happen, because if there is one thing about that dream that rings loud and clear, it's that a lot more people will die if I stay my hand."

Trása was silent for a moment as she found herself forced to reassess everything she had thought about Rónán and what fuelled his inaction these past three years.

"How can I help?" she asked in the end. Nothing else really mattered.

"Tell me how to get into Delphine's memories without going mad. Without her taking me over. And without making that dream come back."

"Maybe it's not her memories being locked away," Trása said, as it occurred to her that Rónán's fear, while legitimate, might be misplaced. "What if it was Delphine's
death
that caused the dreams to stop, not the
Comhroinn
or anything she might have known?"

"How does that work?"

"Well ... maybe she was going to do something in the future that meant one day those children would be born and you killed her, which stopped it from happening? If that's the case, it doesn't matter what she knew, because you're not her, so you can't do the same thing in the same way and cause the problem."

Rónán frowned. "That almost makes sense. But what could she do?"

"The
Matrarchaí
are in the business of making babies, Rónán. She probably had some floozy lined up for Darragh to impregnate-"

"She did," Rónán cut in. "Brydie."

"Who is Brydie?"

"The girl the
Matrarchaí
threw at him. I have Darragh's memories too, remember. There was a girl back in
Sí an Bhrú
, her name was Brydie and she was sleeping with Darragh just before I arrived. Queen Álmhath introduced them at the shindig where they announced they were replacing the Undivided."

Trása pushed aside a fleeting stab of jealousy to concentrate on the more immediate issue of Rónán's dream. "That was more than three years ago, Rónán."

"I know, but ..."

"But nothing ... Don't you see? That must be why the dreams have stopped. If this Brydie girl had been pregnant when you and Darragh left our realm, she'd have had the babies long ago and you'd still be dreaming of murdering them."

"So you think she never got pregnant?"

"Maybe she did. Maybe she had a baby but didn't have twins. Maybe when they were born the babies weren't what the
Matrarchaí
were after, so there's no need for you or anyone else to kill them, and nothing for you to See."

"So without Delphine around," Rónán asked, looking relieved, "to introduce me or Darragh to the right girl to complete their plans to breed more Empress twins, there're no twins for me to dream of killing? And none in the future."

Trása nodded. "There you go! Nothing to worry about.
Now
will you drop the walls around the information in that crazy mixed-up head of yours and find out where they've taken Teagan?"

"I might still go mad, Trása," he warned, still looking uncertain.

"Don't worry about it, Rónán. Trust me, nobody will notice any difference to the way you are now."

"Cute," he said, pulling a face at her. "Do you have any
useful
suggestions as to how I do this without going mad? Even if nobody notices?"

She thought about it for a moment and then nodded. "We need the Pool of Tranquillity."

"Where is that?
What
is that?"

"It's a special place back in
Tír Na nÓg
," she said, thinking that was the safest place to be for such a potentially catastrophic situation. She decided not to mention it might be catastrophic to him, though ... no need for worry. "Let's do this somewhere there is plenty of magic and nothing breakable. Besides, if we do it in
Tír Na nÓg
and you do lose your mind completely, there are plenty of lesser
Youkai
there to help me contain you."