When the Stars Threw Down Their Spears: The Goblin Wars, Book Three (15 page)

“Mamieo says breakfast is ready,” Teagan announced to Aiden and her dad as she passed back through the living room and started up the stairs. Abby and Roisin were already coming down, Grendal hopping behind them.

She felt the electric tickle of Finn behind her. He must have come from the hallway. She turned.

Standing on the first step, she was almost eye level with him. He’d carried the irresistible smell of the morning in with him, caught in his hair and clothes.

“Good morning, beautiful,” he said. Teagan leaned closer.

“What are you doing?” Aiden asked.

Sniffing Finn
. How weird would
that
sound? She changed the sniff into a kiss on the cheek, but Finn turned just before her lips met his face. She felt a shock as their lips touched, the
wild
inside her exploding like fireworks, rocketing through her to Finn. He swayed, and she managed to get her arms around him before his knees gave way.

“Wa,” he gasped. “Could you steer me toward the couch, girl?”

“Oh, my god,” Abby said from behind her. “
The couch?
Are you going to let them do that in your living room, Mr. Wylltson?”

“Do what?” Finn flushed red. “Oh. I just meant . . . I need to sit down. The girl’s that good a kisser.”

Thomas and Mr. Wylltson were staring. Aiden’s mouth was hanging open.

“What were you doing, Tea?” Abby asked. “You totally lunged at him.”

“I did not lunge.”
I was just sniffing him
. That would sound worse than lunging. “I just . . . caught him.”

“Then why don’t you let him go?”

Because he wasn’t steady on his feet yet. Finn’s electronics had gone haywire.

“Well played.” Thomas winked at Finn and grinned at Teagan. “And well caught.”

Finn groped for the banister. “I’m telling you I never meant to kiss her. Not in front of her da, that is—”

“Unhand the young man, Teagan, and step away,” Mr. Wylltson said. “You are befuddling him.”

“By that”—Finn found the banister and Teagan let go and backed up a stair—“I did not mean that I intended to carry on behind your back. This whole thing isn’t what it looks like”— his eyes lifted to Teagan—“is it?”

“Absolutely not. No.”

“I didn’t think so,” Finn said. “Mr. Wylltson, I’m not completely sure what just happened. I don’t quite understand—”

“I was married to her mother,” Mr. Wylltson said. “Which is to say, I understand completely. But there is a vast distance between understanding and approval. A great gulf, Mr. Mac Cumhaill. And she is my daughter.”

“Dad.” Teagan came down to stand beside Finn. “
I
kissed
him
.”

“Very true.” Mr. Wylltson folded his arms. “And we will have a discussion about the relative virtues of spontaneity and restraint. But Finn was the one who offered to complete a quest.”

“I did what, now?”

“On the way home from the police station, you said, in reference to being the right man for my daughter, ‘Tell me what I have to do to prove it to you. I’ll do it.’”

“And?” Finn looked a little uneasy.

“And that’s a quest. It appeals to the romantic in me. As I can tell that my daughter . . . erm . . . likes you a lot, I’m going to give you a chance to prove that you are the man for her.”

“And how will I do that?”

“Get a job?” Abby suggested.

“This is between Mr. Mac Cumhaill and myself, Abigail,” Mr. Wylltson said. “We’ll discuss it later, Finn. You and I will have another talk as well, Tea.”

“If you’re done with the canoodling, leering, and lecturing”—Mamieo had stepped into the room, and her glare took them all in—“I sent the girl to call you all to breakfast.”

“What’s canoodling?” Aiden asked as he followed Tea toward the kitchen. “Is it kissing?”

Thirteen

“I
PUT
a plate of food out the door for the beastie,” Mamieo said. “Joe didn’t want any.”

Mr. Wylltson pulled out a chair for Teagan, and pointed Finn to one on the opposite side of the table. Raynor looked up from his magazine as Thomas sat down.

The
lhiannon-sídhe
held a chair out for Roisin, and then nodded at Raynor as he sat himself down. The angel blinked, and focused on his breakfast plate. Which was progress. As far as Teagan knew, it was the first time they had willingly shared a room, much less a table, since Raynor had fled Mag Mell with Saint Patrick.

Aiden coiled his whip and tried to hang it over his arm like Indiana Jones in the movie poster, but it just fell off.

“Leave it, pratie,” Mamieo said. “Eat your breakfast, or we’ll be late for school.”

“Wait, wait, wait,” Mr. Wylltson said. “I’m not sure he should be going, Mamieo, considering the circumstances—”

“We don’t know when the creatures will be coming.” Mamieo finished filling the kettle and put it on the stove. “I learned a long time ago that you can spend your life waiting for the end of the world, or you can spend it living. Schooling and” —she winked at Teagan—“canoodling, marrying, and such.”

Roisin asked Thomas a question in Gaelic, and he grinned at Finn as he answered in the same language.

“There will be no marrying in the immediate future,” Mr. Wylltson said. “And we will not be discussing this as a family at the table.”

“But I want to know what—” Aiden began.

“Son,” Mr. Wylltson said warningly.

“Lennie told me a joke about how porky pines hug and kiss—”

“Son,” Mr. Wylltson said again.

“Rats.” Aiden started eating his eggs.

Teagan gave her father a grateful look. If they never mentioned it as a family again, it would be too soon. And it would be nice if kissing Finn did not always turn out to be a spectator sport. Especially if it knocked him off his feet.

“Moving on to the subject of school,” Mr. Wylltson said.

“I’ll be right there in the classroom watching over the boy, John Paul.” Aiden’s teacher had been threatening to quit before Mamieo had volunteered as a classroom aide. When Aiden was unhappy, he sang under his breath. And his songs bent every other child in the room. He was part Highborn, too, after all.

“But what would you do if a goblin did show up, Mamieo?” Mr. Wylltson asked. “Creatures like the ones that came after Teagan at her school?”

“I could run,” Aiden said. “But I wouldn’t, because then it would get you. You’re really
old
, Mamieo. I can tell by the wrinkles.”

“Old age is the one thing you can’t outrun, pratie, and that’s a fact,” Mamieo said. “But these wrinkles should give you confidence. They mean I know a thing or two about staying alive.”

Aiden took her hand in both of his and examined it. He stretched the skin smooth. “Do wrinkles hurt?”

“Only when I look in the mirror.”

“If it makes you feel any better, John,” Raynor said, looking up from his food, “I can get to Aiden’s school if they need me. I’m not tied to the park anymore.”

Finn shook his head. “The place is some distance from here, not just across the street.”

“It’s my job to be in the right place at the right time,” Raynor said. “Angels take shortcuts.”

“Shortcuts?” Mr. Wylltson asked.

“Through space and time.”

Shortcuts through space and time
 . . . Teagan had heard that before. “Are you talking about traversable wormholes?”

“Where did you hear that term?” Raynor asked.

“I had a math teacher who was obsessed with the idea of space travel. Mr. Macy. He thought we would someday use wormholes to reach the stars.”

Abby leaned toward Finn. “Tea’s totally out of your league.” She was still whispering way too loudly. “You know that, right? She’s almost the smartest person at school.”

Almost?
Teagan smiled.
Jing
. Of course, Abby was thinking of Jinghez Khan.

“Shouldn’t Tea be the one to decide that, Abigail?” Mr. Wylltson asked mildly.

“But you just said you didn’t approve!”

“I said
understanding is far from approval
. They need time to sort this out.”

Teagan tried not to squirm. Her father had said something like that before. Walk together a little longer before you decide about something like marriage, he’d said, just before offering to throw Finn out of the house. She wasn’t sure she liked the look her father was giving Finn now. It was far too . . .
thoughtful
.

“You let me worry about giving them that time, Abigail.”

Abby frowned.

“So, wormholes.” Teagan was desperate to change the subject. “Raynor. You were explaining wormholes?”

“I wasn’t explaining them,” the angel said. “I just asked how you knew the term.”

“I don’t like worms,” Aiden said. The eyeless creatures that insisted on crawling out of the lawn and shriveling on the sidewalk after each spring rain had made Aiden’s
very scary
list years ago. Lennie had told him that’s where ramen noodles came from. Aiden hadn’t touched worms or ramen since.

“There are no worms in wormholes,” Teagan said. “It’s just a name.”

“Are you
sure?
” Aiden looked around the room as if a wormhole might open and a worm pop out at any minute. “Do you
know
what’s in them?”

“I don’t,” Teagan admitted.

“But I do.” Raynor had finished his breakfast. “And in this case, your sister is right. There is nothing wiggly or damp in a wormhole. Traveling through them is like riding a locomotive down a roller-coaster track faster than the speed of light. God, I love my job.”

“You can go anywhere in the world . . .
instantly?
” Mr. Wylltson asked.

“Anywhere in this universe,” Raynor corrected. “Almost instantly. Traveling between worlds of the multiverse by wormhole is more complicated. Mag Mell, for instance, is closer than the room next door, and farther than the most distant galaxy in this corner of creation. It takes a little more time and a lot more energy to get there.”

Mamieo put her fists on her hips. “Are you telling us you could crawl through one of these holes into Mag Mell and take care of Fear Doirich, then?”

“I would if I could. After Pádraig visited, Fear sang a shell around her.”

“A force-field shell?” Aiden asked. “Like Violet in
The Incredibles
?”

“More like an egg,” the angel explained. “Gases and water vapor can pass through eggshells, but larger things cannot.”

“Hellhounds came out after us,” Aiden said. “They were way bigger than you.”

“Looks can be deceiving,” Raynor said mildly. Thomas nodded.

“What an incredibly useful trait,” Mr. Wylltson said.

“That’s angels,” Raynor said wryly. “Useful, useful, useful.”

“So, the boyo is going to school, then?”

“I think so.”

“Rats,” Aiden said again.

“I’ve packed a lunch already.”

“Did you pack Lucy’s lunch?” Aiden asked.

“I’m not touching Lucy’s lunch,” Mamieo said.

“Me, neither,” Aiden shuddered. “It wiggles.”

“I’ll get it.” Teagan put her plate in the sink, then opened the fridge. Lucy came out of her cup when Teagan took out the mealworms. She shook some into a Ziploc bag, and then held them up for the sprite to examine.

Lucy chirped plaintively, and Teagan shook in a few more. When the sprite was satisfied with the size of her lunch, Teagan sealed the bag.

“You’re not to put those crawly things in with our food,” Mamieo said. “The boyo can carry them in his kit.”

“My kit!” Aiden jumped up. “Excuse me, please!” Mr. Wylltson nodded, and Aiden started for the maid’s stair.

“Put the whip away while you’re up there,” Mr. Wylltson said, then turned to Raynor. “How will you know if they need help? Do guardian angels just
know?
”

“Of course not,” Raynor said. “We’re not psychic or omnipresent, just really fast. They’ll have to call.”

“You mean on the phone?” Finn’s eyebrows went up.

Raynor nodded.

“Mamieo doesn’t have one.”

“I’ll loan you mine, Mamieo.” Mr. Wylltson unplugged it from the charger on the counter and handed it to her.

Mamieo held it at arm’s length and squinted. “I can’t see the wee buttons.”

“What have you done with your glasses this time?” Finn asked. “I thought you had a chain for them.”

“My mother has the same trouble,” Abby said. “Let me have it a minute.” She punched in some numbers. “There. Now the Wylltsons’ home number is on speed dial. Just push the top button on the right.”

Mamieo tried it twice, and looked immensely pleased with herself when it worked both times.

Aiden came back with the black plastic purse he used as a kit.

“Dad,” Teagan began as she checked the purse for weapons, “I need to take the dead
cat-sídhe
we found on the sidewalk to the woods at Rosehill and bury him. I’d like to look around the lake and the wildlife preserve, too.”

“For a gateway to Mag Mell,” Mr. Wylltson said.

Teagan nodded.

“I don’t want you going there alone.”

She confiscated a giant rubber band from Aiden’s kit and dropped in the bag of mealworms. “Raynor needs to stay near the phone. I was hoping Finn would come with me.”

“Of course he’ll be going with you.” Mamieo turned to look at Finn, who had put his plate in the sink and was digging through the kitchen utensil drawer. “What are you looking for, boyo?”

“A knife,” Finn said. “I don’t like to be without one.”

“Without one? Where’s the one you had from your da?”

“I’ve lost it, Mamieo.”

“
Lost it?
That blade was forged by a tinker with the blood of the Fir Bolg in his veins. It’s been in the family for generations,
and you lost it?
”

Finn pulled out a serrated knife with a black plastic handle. “Don’t go on about it. I feel bad enough, but it couldn’t be helped. When I stabbed it into Tea—”

“You stabbed my daughter?” John Wylltson asked incredulously. “And now you want me to let you go out with her?”

“He had to, Dad,” Teagan said quickly. “It was the only way home.”

Finn met John Wylltson’s eye. “The world was disappearing around me—expanding like a balloon, so fast it was tearing us apart. I needed both hands to hold on to her. There’s nothing in heaven or earth that could make me let go of her, not so long as she wants me to hold on. I know I’m . . .” he was clearly searching for a word and coming up blank.