Through the Door (28 page)

Cedar realized she had stopped breathing and struggled for a moment to fill her lungs with air. For several heartbeats, she just stood there, reeling. “And my father?” she asked. “I mean, the man you told me was my father, who died when I was a baby? Did he even exist?”

Maeve shook her head.

“Why?” Cedar wailed. “Why didn’t you tell me this before?” Finally, she had answers, and yet she had never suspected this. All her life she had believed she was normal—a fatherless child, a struggling artist, a woman in love, then a woman abandoned, a single working mother. Now that foundation had cracked, and she could feel herself falling.

“She made me swear to never tell you, or anyone, who you were,” Maeve said, looking at Cedar with desperate eyes.

“But the rest of the Tuatha Dé Danann know, don’t they?” Cedar accused. “It explains everything—the half-truths, the whispers. No wonder they look at me with pity and revulsion. I’m a freak in both worlds. I’m not really human, but I’m not like them either, not anymore. This is what Finn wanted you to explain, isn’t it? How is it that everyone knows the truth, except for me?”

“I had no choice but to tell them!” Maeve protested. “Rohan called me as soon as you left their house the day you met them. He demanded that I explain how you could have birthed a Danann child. Riona came by, trying to see Eden in order to prove their suspicions, but I wouldn’t let her in. But they insisted I meet with them, which I did—alone—after
you returned home that day. As I said, I had no choice. He had the goblet of Manannan mac Lir; I couldn’t lie to him. And then he made me swear not to tell you, not yet. It was Eden they wanted, not you. They thought if you knew too much, you would make things more difficult. You’re the daughter of the High King…but a human. It’s something that in their minds should not be. I swore an oath not to tell you who you were, but I’m breaking it now, for you. Don’t you see? And Finn, he swore an oath too, but he wanted me to tell you.”

“
Why has everyone sworn an oath to lie to me?
” Cedar raged, her face distorted. “My whole life has been nothing but lies! Am I so weak, so pathetically human you didn’t think I could handle knowing who I was—or who I could have been?”

Maeve stood up and held out her hands in a calming gesture. “No, Cedar, it wasn’t like that. I wanted to tell you—”

“Did you?” Cedar interrupted. “If you had really wanted to tell me, you would have. Your oath isn’t stopping you now, is it? I bet you enjoyed keeping it a secret, knowing you had Brogan’s child all to yourself, telling yourself you were keeping me safe while clinging to the memory of the man who rejected you!”

Maeve winced as if Cedar had struck her across the face, but Cedar didn’t stop. It was too late now; this storm was going to run its course. “All of this is your fault! If I had known who I was, none of this would have happened! Now Eden is gone, and who knows what’s going to happen to her!”

“She’d have been in the same amount of danger if I had told you the truth!” Maeve snapped back, her eyes blazing. “Everything I have done has been to protect you, and to protect that little girl. If I had told you who you are, and who she is,
you would have delivered her straight to them. They give too much weight to that damn prophecy.”

“What are you talking about? What prophecy?” Cedar asked, vaguely remembering Deardra and Rohan’s argument on the beach.

“Eden is the dyad, don’t you see?” Maeve said. “
The dyad that should not be will rise from the ashes and purge the land of the coming poison.
They’ve been clinging to that prophecy ever since Lorcan gained power. If they find her, they’ll raise her to be a warrior and send her to fight Lorcan. That is why I didn’t tell you about what she might become. I needed to keep you away from them! But you went to them anyway.”

“Did you think I wouldn’t find out?” Cedar asked, her cheeks still burning with rage. “That I wouldn’t wonder when she started opening magic doors all over the place?”

“I honestly didn’t think it would happen,” Maeve said, her shoulders drooping. “I thought it was impossible.”

“Why?”

“Only two members of the Tuatha Dé Danann can produce another, and I thought you were, well, you
are
human. That’s why Eden fits the prophecy. She’s the impossible result of mating between a Danann and a human. But maybe I was wrong, maybe there is some Danann left in you, or…” Maeve trailed off, looking at Cedar as though she’d never seen her before.

“What?” Cedar snapped.

“I just realized how…” she stared at Cedar for a few more seconds, her mouth slightly open. Then she closed it firmly and shook her head. “Nothing. It’s nothing,” she said.

At once, Cedar fired up again. “Have you heard anything I’ve said?” she shouted. “No. More. Secrets.”

Maeve opened her mouth again to respond, but before she got a word out her eyes fell on something behind Cedar. All at once, the blood drained from her face as she stared in undisguised astonishment over Cedar’s shoulder. Cedar turned to see what had caught Maeve’s attention and noticed that the necklace Finn had given her in New York was lying on one of the bookshelves behind them.

Maeve’s voice was barely a whisper. “Where did you get that?”

Cedar glanced at the necklace again and then back at Maeve, who was swaying slightly on the spot. “The necklace?” she asked. “Finn gave it to me. It’s Riona’s. He called it a starstone or something.”

“I know what it is,” Maeve said in the same ghostly whisper. “Yes, of course, that might work.”

“What are you talking about?” Cedar asked, coming to stand right in front of Maeve. She waved a hand in front of Maeve’s unblinking eyes, which were focused on something far away. “Are you okay?”

Maeve looked at her suddenly. “Yes,” she said. “I’m fine. But I must go.”

“Go? Go where?” Cedar demanded, hands on her hips. “I’m not letting you do this again. Tell me what’s going on!”

Without a word, Maeve picked up her purse and headed for the door, almost colliding with Finn in the hallway. She pushed past him, her purse swinging wildly as she ran down the hall.

Cedar followed Maeve into the hallway and stared after her with an open mouth. Then Finn spoke in a soft voice.

“She told you?”

Cedar should have been angry with him for not telling her. She wanted to rage and scream and accuse him of horrible things, but the weight pressing down on her was so heavy she could barely breathe.

She nodded, her mouth in a tight line. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

For such a powerful being, he looked incredibly fragile at that moment, like smoke drifting from a recently blown-out candle. When he spoke, it was ever so gently.

“I didn’t know, not when we were together. I had no idea. Last week, when Rohan first told me, I wanted to rush to you, to tell you everything, but he made me swear not to say anything. He made me promise that if I told you, I would have to leave you again.” He shook his head. “So I stayed silent, hoping you would find out another way, hoping that when the time came you would find it in your heart to forgive me…again.”

Cedar stared at the spot where Maeve had disappeared around the corner. She didn’t want to see his face right now. She didn’t want be reminded of what she had lost. “Just go,” she said. “Go back to your people. They’re always going to come first with you.”

“Cedar, please believe me,” he pleaded. “I learned who your parents were when I was summoned back here, when they told me about Eden. It was only days ago. But it doesn’t change how I’ve always felt about you. I didn’t lie to you.”

Cedar looked up at him, disbelief written across her face. “You don’t think you lied to me? Pretending all this time not to know who I was? Letting me think Eden was special just because you’re her father, and I had nothing to do with it?”

She shook her head, and her voice broke when she said, “I’m so stupid. How did I not see it? I was so convinced that I was completely normal. I
am
normal. Human,” she corrected herself. “I thought Lorcan just wanted Eden so he could open the sidhe, but it’s more than that, isn’t it? She’s the heir to the throne. Assuming I don’t count, and I’m sure everyone agrees that I don’t, she’s the only heir of his greatest rival, which also makes her his greatest threat.” Her throat seized up, and when she could speak again she whispered, “There’s no chance he’ll let her live.”

“He will. He needs her alive, remember? Besides, it hasn’t come to that yet,” Finn said firmly.

“How could you possibly know that?” Cedar asked, her voice rising with frustration. She stalked back into the apartment. Finn followed and immediately picked up where he had left off.

“Don’t start thinking that way. Don’t give up. She is still here, still in this world, I’m sure of it. If the painting didn’t work, there’s no other way for her to get to Tír na nÓg. Nuala can’t run forever. We will find her. We’ll find Eden.”

He tried to put his arms around her, but she jerked away and glared at him. “No,” she said. “I don’t want to be with you, Finn.” She spoke every word clearly and firmly, even though she felt a little bit of herself dying with each syllable that left her mouth.

For a moment he looked stunned, and then, to her surprise, angry.

“This isn’t just about you, you know,” he said, with an edge to his voice. “Eden is my daughter too.”

She looked at him coldly. “You impregnated me. Don’t delude yourself into thinking you are her father in any way other than that. You’ve never even met her.”

“And I will never get to meet her if you give up on her! Do you have any idea what it’s like for anyone else? Yes, they lied to you, they didn’t tell you who you were, and I’m not saying they were right to do that. But in Maeve’s case, it was only to keep you safe. She didn’t have to raise you, but she did, as a single mother, and you know how hard that can be.

“I’m not blaming you,” he said in a quieter voice. “I have no idea what you went through when I left or what it’s been like to raise Eden on your own. I will never forgive myself. But you need to realize that other people have made sacrifices too. Maeve devoted her entire life to you. I spent seven years in exile to keep you safe from Nuala, knowing I would spend every day of the rest of my life aching for you. My parents, and the others like me, fled the land they loved out of the desperate hope that they might find Kier and her child here, only to be told by the druid that they were dead. Can you imagine how they felt, two decades later, when they realized Brogan’s daughter was alive after all—the hope that must have inspired? But then to find you had been made human…all the hopes they had treasured for years shifted to Eden, who was clearly one of us. Then she was taken, from them as much as from you.” Cedar started to speak, but Finn held up his hands and continued.

“I’m not saying she belongs to them, or that they have any claim on her. They don’t. She’s your daughter, and you’re right, I haven’t been a father to her. But I
want
to be. If you could only try to understand what she means to me, what she means to all of us. She is more than a way for us to get home. She’s even more than our rightful queen. She is
hope.
She’s a second chance, a sign that all is not lost, that maybe, just maybe, everything sad can be undone. And we’re not ready to give up on her yet.”

Cedar could feel his gaze, but she kept her eyes trained on the floor. She tried to imagine escaping a war zone and starting over in a strange land, with only a slim hope of ever returning home. She remembered being curled up on Maeve’s lap as a girl, and wondered how it had felt for Maeve to raise a child born to the wife of the man she loved. She thought of her own daughter, and how hard it had been at times to look at her without seeing Finn, and how much more difficult it must have been for Maeve. And yet Cedar had never felt unloved as a child. She thought of Finn, and tried to imagine being forced to leave him in order to save his life. She would have done it in a second.

Tears pricked at her eyes, but not from anger this time. “I haven’t given up on her,” she said softly.

“And neither will I,” said Finn, his face grim with determination. “Ever. Nor will I give up on you.”

There was a pause, and then he asked, “Did Maeve have any new information? Did she tell you what she’s been doing?”

“Just druid stuff. Divination and other things out at the old house. But she said it didn’t work, and then she just took off.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Really? Why?”

She told him about Maeve seeing the necklace and asking about it, and about how strangely she had reacted.

His face darkened as he considered this. He walked over and picked up the necklace, studying it.

“What do you think it means?” she asked.

“I’m not sure, but I don’t think it’s good. Why else would she leave so suddenly, without any explanation? If she has a lead on Eden, she should tell us.”

“She doesn’t trust you,” Cedar said. “Any of you. She thinks you want Eden to lead you into battle against Lorcan,
because of some prophecy. Do you?” She remembered what Rohan had said the morning after Eden had disappeared.
We will take full responsibility for her. She needs to be raised as part of this family—her true family.

Finn exhaled slowly. “No, I don’t. I don’t set much store in prophecies. There are too many interpretations, too many ways they can be twisted to suit one’s own ends. But not everyone feels that way. There
are
those who think she is the dyad, and that she will play a key role in restoring Tír na nÓg to peace.” He paused for a moment, considering. “I suppose that helps explain why Maeve hates us so much, if she believes we only want to use Eden. Between that and what happened with Brogan, I can’t say that I blame her. But I don’t like this—her leaving like that. If she’s acting against us…” he trailed off, his expression dark.

Cedar bit her lip. “I’ll call her, find out where she’s headed. But…you should go.”

The expression on Finn’s face almost made her change her mind.

“I’ll call you later,” she said. “I want to be alone right now. I need to wrap my head around all this—who I am, who my mother is, who my daughter is. I need to figure out whom I can trust. And honestly, I don’t know if that’s you anymore.”