Page 136 of Her Irish Treasures
Aidan and Doran both stood and went to the windows in the living and dining area, shutting blinds and drawing curtains. Keane did the same over the kitchen sink.
A gloomy hush fell over the house. The guys gathered around me and the painting. Aidan had even snagged his swords from somewhere—I was sure he hadn’t been wearing them across his back earlier.
“Ready?” Ivarr asked.
I took in a deep breath and let it out. “What do you think will happen? Are pookas going to tear a hole in the side of the house or something?”
Aidan shrugged. “You never know. Remember what lurked in that Branson lake. Dark fae for miles around have already sensed the magic flowing out of the painting. Without daylight to stop them, they’re guaranteed to come investigate.”
I met Ivarr’s gaze and he nodded. “If anything dares show its scaly hide, I’ll blast it with light. We’ll have crispy imps in no time.”
“Okay,” I whispered, lifting the hag stone to my eye.
He turned off the light.
And I was no longer in the kitchen.
23
Istood on a hill that I didn’t recognize. Night wrapped the hill in silent darkness. No insect noise. No wind.
For a moment, blinding panic filled me. I didn’t want to be trapped again, separated from the guys, stuck in a nasty swamp or worse.
Doran’s deep, rumbling voice came from miles and miles away, though I could still hear him. “What do you see?”
My head fell forward with relief, my shoulders drooping. Panting, I concentrated on them in my mind. I could still feel them. The magical wheel shimmered in my head, ready to spin out power to the treasures to defeat our enemies. I wasn’t trapped or powerless.
Part of me was still there on the hill in the silent night, but the other part of me could sense the kitchen and men around me.
“There’s a hill,” I said aloud, my voice echoing strangely. “It’s nighttime.”
“What else do you see?” Warwick asked.
I turned my head, scanning the top of the hill. As my eyes adjusted to the darkness, I could make out dark shapes circling me. Not trees or poles—they were too thick. “Stones, I think? Standing stones.”
“How many?”
I wasn’t sure why it mattered, but I started to count them, whispering out loud. “One, two…” As my gaze fell over each stone, it lightened from dark black to granite gray. Chills crept down my spine, hairs rising on my arms and nape. The air thickened as I counted. The night weighed heavier. My ears ached as pressure built.
“Eleven. Twelve.”
Twelve stones lightened to gray in a circle around me, but the oppressive weight grew. My bones ached. My ears rang even though I didn’t hear anything. The air felt close and stifled. Maybe it was my imagination, but the stones seemed bigger and closer, looming over me. Surrounding me.
I blinked, trying to break the illusion, but towering stone encircled me, leaning ever closer.
“Magh Slécht,” Warwick said, his voice hushed and reverent. “There should be another stone in the center, covered in gold.”
I turned a full three-hundred-and-sixty degrees. “I only see the twelve stones. Nothing else.”
“Look on the ground, in the center of the stone circle. It could be covered.”
I was in the center, as far as I could tell. I scanned the ground, but in the dark, it was hard to see much. Knee-high grass rippled around my feet. My ears throbbed and I couldn’t stop looking up at the stones, back over my shoulder, sure that they closing in on me. I kicked through the grass, looking for anything that could be hidden.
“Do you have the hag stone there?” Doran asked.
Duh. I tightened my fingers on the forgotten stone and lifted it up toward my face. Had I stopped looking through the stone when I stepped onto the hill? But surely I was still holding it in the kitchen, or I wouldn’t still be seeing the stones leaning in like grim sentinels.
Looking through the hole, I froze. Another stone lay flat on the ground just a foot away from me. The grass had been trampled down all around it, but I’d never seen or sensed it until I looked through the stone. It wasn’t nearly as big as the others, maybe a foot or so long and a few inches thick. It looked like a toppled gravestone.
