When the Stars Threw Down Their Spears: The Goblin Wars, Book Three (36 page)

He was barely upright when Seamus and the redheaded giant from Samhain Market came into the clearing. The lawyer had Aiden’s whip coiled Indiana Jones–style in his hand and not a single scratch on him.

The Cú Faoil snarled at the former phookas. The shaggy men picked up the weapons they had dropped, ready to fight.

“Don’t let them, McGillahee!” Teagan shouted.

Seamus gave a command and the hounds dropped. Then he saw Finn, and his face went pale.

“You need a little help, Mac Cumhaill?”

“Nope.” Finn swayed, and Teagan stepped under his arm to catch him, and then Enkidu was holding him up from the other side. The shaggy men had disappeared into the woods.

“Got it under control,” Finn said.

“You’ve got a scepter sticking out of your chest.”

“About that,” Teagan said. “I need to break it off. He’s going to be hard to move this way.”

The redheaded Fir Bolg stepped forward. Teagan steadied the portion of the scepter sticking out of Finn’s back while Thomas held the front. The Fir Bolg took the wooden shaft in his hand and snapped it like a matchstick.

“How did you get here so fast?” Teagan asked as the giant weighed the gold globe in his hand and smiled.

“Mag Mell seems to be functioning again,” Seamus said. “Making long journeys short, and twisted paths straight. What do we do about Finn?”

There was a pop and a roar, and Raynor and his motorbike reappeared. He was wearing Fear Doirich’s gold circlet like a bangle bracelet, and he smelled like the breath of a volcano again. He shoved his goggles to the top of his head and looked at Finn.

“Raynor.” Abby gripped Aiden’s shoulders. “Did you see Jing? I mean when you—”

The angel ignored her.

“I’m so sorry, Aiden. Tea. I would have done anything I could—” He shook his head. “Mab?”

“She’s dead.” Teagan didn’t know any way to soften it. “I’m sorry too, Raynor.”

“Jing!”
Abby shouted.
“What about Jing?”

“Jing’s fine,” the angel said. “He’s at St. Drogo’s. You’re not dying too, are you, Finn?” Raynor sounded almost like a child. “I came as fast as I could. And I brought you something.” He held up Fear Doirich’s circlet. “It belonged to your family before the Fir Bolg fought and lost Mag Mell. It’s yours now.”

Finn looked at the thin crown of gold.

“Crap,” he said faintly.

“‘Crap, I’m dying, so I don’t get to be king’?” Raynor asked. “Or ‘Crap, it won’t fit’?”

“Crap, I don’t want the thing,” Finn said. He was starting to look a little blue.

“Raynor, can you settle this later?” Teagan started hauling Finn toward the motorbike. “He needs to get to a doctor.”

Raynor handed Teagan the crown as Enkidu lifted Finn onto the bike.

“You might consider McGillahee.” Finn’s voice was barely a whisper. “Mag Mell’s the perfect place for him.”

“Why?” Teagan asked.

“No cars.” Finn was definitely turning blue. “He won’t be running over anyone.”

“Hurry, Raynor,” Teagan said.

Raynor put his goggles on. The Indian Four roared to life— and they were gone, leaving Teagan holding the crown.

Abby was staring at Seamus. “Consider McGillahee?”

Seamus nodded. “I’m the logical choice.”

“You think you’re the lad born to be king. That song was all about you.”

This time he grinned. “Of course I am.”

“Not so fast,” Teagan said. “Finn said consider Seamus, not hand a kingdom to him. Mag Mell is more complex than she was in the time of the Fir Bolg. There are wild men now, and
cat-sídhe
, the Highborn and lowborn, and all sorts of creatures that came here with Mab.”

Seamus nodded. “The Fir Bolg weren’t just for this world, were they? They stepped into all the worlds of creation to mend and tend.”

Her dad had been right. He was the Scarecrow, the Lion, and the Tin Man rolled into one. Seamus McGillahee had the brains, the courage, and the heart to mend and tend this place. And the crazy arrogance to think he could get it done. Plus, no one else was applying for the job, and she needed to get home to Finn.

“It is yours.” Teagan held out the crown. “With a few provisions.”

“Provisions?”

“That you truly are mending and tending
all
the creatures here. That even the lowborn are given a chance to choose. To change their future.”

Aiden slipped his hand into his sister’s. “Teagan even likes
worms
.”

“I do,” Teagan agreed. “I understand that choices have to be made. But if I hear that any creatures are being hunted or abused, I will come back and take this off your head.”

“Whoa, Tea,” Abby said.
“You’ll take off his head?”

“I’ll help,” Enkidu said happily.

“I didn’t say I’d take
off
his head. I said I’d take the
crown
off his head.”

“It was totally in your tone of voice, though,” Abby insisted.

“You used that voice like Mom’s, Tea,” Aiden agreed. “It was really scary.”

But Seamus nodded seriously. “I’ll bring justice, Teagan Wylltson.” The power was back in his voice, and this time it didn’t falter. “On my word. I’ll mend and tend them all, and Fir Bolg will step into all creation again.” He set the crown on his own head. “This is my destiny.”

“There is no such thing as destiny,” Teagan said, looking around for the knife Finn must have dropped when the Dark Man changed him.

“Of course there is.” Seamus studied his reflection in the pool. “I’m living proof of it.” He pointed at his head. “See? King.”

“I chose to give it to you. See? Free will.”

“Keep telling yourself that.” Seamus adjusted the circlet.

Teagan didn’t stop to check the wound on her arm until she’d found Mamieo’s knife and wiped the phooka blood from the blade. When she did check, she decided that she’d probably need a course of strong antibiotics as well as stitches. Red lines of infection were crawling up her arm.

“I left Finn’s knife in the city. I’ll need that one, too. Then I’m taking Aiden home,” Teagan said.

“Aiden’s not staying?” Seamus asked. “I thought . . .”

“Nope,” Aiden said. “Lennie needs me.”

Mag Mell opened the path without Aiden singing a single note, and decorated the world around him with rainbows and flowers. Seamus, the redhead, and the Cú Faoil led the way, while Aiden pulled Abby along, showing her everything. Thomas walked quietly beside Teagan while Enkidu brought up the rear, still watching for trouble. Such as shaggy men who had once been phookas. They hadn’t gone far. Teagan saw them following along, peering at them from behind fern fronds.

“What are they?” she asked Thomas quietly.

“They are the
wodewose
, the wild men of the woods,” the
lhiannon-sídhe
said. “Generations ago, when Mab came to their world calling them to follow her, she demanded that their leader sacrifice his little daughter to Fear Doirich. He told her that men do not kill children, and they hunted Mab through the woods instead. They would certainly have killed her,” Thomas went on, “if Fear Doirich hadn’t come.”

“He twisted them,” Teagan guessed. “Like he twisted Finn and me.”

Thomas nodded. “The lust for child flesh was something extra. A little bit of Mab herself.”

Men don’t eat children
. Finn had given the phooka a glimory without even realizing it, and Enkidu had followed that tiny glimmer until he found . . . himself.

One of the men following them stopped at a patch of edible fungus, and another bellowed and jumped on him. They started whaling away at one another with their fists.

“Aside from the hooves, heads, and fangs, and the little bit of Mab, they didn’t change all that much,” Thomas said.

As Mag Mell led them, Teagan thought she recognized some of the paths. She was sure of it when they came to the deep pools. Aiden was singing Disney’s “Once Upon a Dream” to call out the creatures for Abby. The frogmen emerged to croak a chorus as they marched behind him.

The Cú Faoil had to snarl and snap to keep the wild men from catching a few for lunch. Lucy glared at the sprites that came to dance for Aiden, but she didn’t start any knife fights. Eventually, the paths left the ponds for another place that Teagan recognized.

Aiden stood silently, looking up at a tree that had once been a man named Eógan. The fiddler had been Thomas’s slave until he tried to run away. The mending had come too late. Roots that had once been toes plunged into the ground, and one branch wrapped tightly around a fiddle, pressing it to the trunk of the tree.

The
lhiannon-sídhe
touched the fiddle’s strings. “You go on,” he said to the others.

Teagan picked up Aiden and carried him out of the clearing. Mag Mell led them straight to Samhain Market after that. The phooka tent village was full of dazed-looking men, women, and children, the fair a shambles.

When Teagan saw the shimmer of the gate, she stopped. She needed to go into the city and retrieve the iron knife before she stepped through. But Finn was on the other side of that shimmer, fighting for his life.

“Right,” Seamus said, when he saw the look on her face. He pulled up a wooden crate. “You just sit here a few minutes. The Cú Faoil will watch over you. Tell me where the knife is, and I’ll bring it to you.”

Teagan explained exactly where she had left it, and sat down on the crate as Abby and Aiden paced. Enkidu sat down beside her and studied his hands, then glanced sideways at her. But he didn’t say anything.

“Thomas is coming,” Aiden said.

The
lhiannon-sídhe
was walking through the mess of the market, looking like a dark, sad prince.

“You’re coming back with us, right?” Abby asked.

Thomas nodded. “Some things can’t be mended, can’t be undone. And I have done far too many such things. Toppled kingdoms, tortured poets, sent good men to their death.” He took a shuddering breath.

“Killed murderesses, banished evil gods,” Teagan reminded him. “Where are all the Highborn?” She suddenly realized that she hadn’t seen any in the market or coming from the city.

“They’ve left Mag Mell, gone into the pools and away. Roisin isn’t here now, if she ever was. She might have gone back to your world. I need to find her. There’s a chance I can keep her from . . . doing things that can’t be undone. More than she already has.”

Seamus returned with the knife in a leather bag. “You don’t want to be carrying two knives through the streets of Chicago,” he said. “You already look disreputable enough to attract attention from the police.” Teagan put Mamieo’s blade in with the other.

“Well,” Seamus said, “I guess that’s it.”

Aiden stood up. “No, it isn’t.”

“What?” Seamus asked.

“I want my whip back. Lennie gave it to me.”

“Oh.” Seamus handed it over reluctantly. “I suppose I can get another. I am the king.”

“Aiden,” Teagan prompted.

“Thank you for showing me how to work it,” Aiden said, clutching it to his chest.

Teagan nodded. Suddenly she didn’t know how to say goodbye, didn’t want to form the words, so she started toward the shimmer.

Enkidu caught her hand. “You could stay, Teagan. Fear Doirich is gone. You could stay.”

“I’m not going to do that. I love Finn.”

“I’ll miss you,” Enkidu said.

Teagan hugged him. “Fir Bolg weren’t the only ones meant to walk in many worlds. I’ll be back.”

“Promise?” he asked slyly as she let go.

“I don’t have to promise,” Teagan said. “I love you, remember?”

“Like a friend.” Enkidu sighed.

“Like a brother.” Teagan let go of his hand.

“Ouch, Tea,” Abby said as they walked toward the shimmer. “That’s, like, worse than telling them you love them like a friend. You know that, right?”

And then they stepped through the gate, out of Mag Mell and into what had been Rosehill Cemetery. The fire of creation had melted tombstones and slumped mausoleums into bizarre sculptures of atomic glass.

Teagan suddenly realized that she was barefoot and wearing nothing but Finn’s oversize shirt. No wonder McGillahee had said she looked disreputable. Mag Mell must have moved every sharp stick and stone away as she walked, because she hadn’t so much as stubbed a toe. Teagan could see police cars parked outside the gate, and people in HAZMAT suits wandering around. People with Geiger counters.

The atomic glass was cool beneath her feet, and she couldn’t hold the tears back. This was where her dad had stood. Had died.

The Minstrel fell! But the foeman’s chain

Could not bring that proud soul under
.

Abby knelt and touched a puddle of metal that must have been Rafe’s gun.

“Bada-bing. You idiot,” she said.

Aiden patted Abby’s back. “Rafe is a good guy.”

“
Is
a good guy, Choirboy?” Abby looked worried, and shot Teagan a look that said
He knows they’re dead, right?

Teagan nodded.

“I heard them, Abby,” Aiden said. “Leo and Rafe are really far away, like the stars in the water. We can’t get there yet. Zoë!”

The dance therapist and Raynor Schein were walking toward them, past the police and HAZMAT crews.

“No way,” Abby said. “No freaking way is this possible. She was right there with your dad.”

Abby was right.
This wasn’t possible
.

Zoë met Teagan’s eyes and smiled.

Teagan was suddenly sure that the woman hadn’t been the least bit out of her mind when they’d found her rocking a baby phooka in Mag Mell.
When she’d asked Finn to give a certain goblin child a coin so she could buy green glass beads . . .

Three peoples could walk in any world of creation, but Zoë had done more than that.
She’d given a song to Aiden in the pool
. Zoë Giordano walked in and out of . . . death.

“Plus, why aren’t the cops stopping them?” Abby asked.

“Raynor’s an angel,” Aiden said. “Duh.”

Whatever Zoë was, Aiden loved her. He broke away from Teagan and ran to the woman. She scooped him up in her arms.