“All at once, everybody at once.” And she noted from the look on Bran’s face as he came in with Sasha he’d already been partially briefed.

“Okay, here’s the deal.” To fortify herself, Riley took a glass, took a gulp. “Sawyer and I shifted to Dublin.”

“What is Dublin?” Annika asked.

“The capital of Ireland.” Doyle’s gaze hardened. “On the east coast of the country.”

“That’s very far for food supplies. It’s a city?” Annika continued, drawing back from Sawyer. “But you didn’t take me?”

“No, I . . . Well, we—”

“He needed to go there to do something for you. A surprise for you.”

Far from mollified, Annika frowned at Riley. “A surprise for me? What is it?”

“Anni, a surprise means you don’t get to know yet. I went to help him with it.”

“Regardless,” Bran interrupted, his tone as dismissive as Sasha’s had been. “Traveling that far, for any reason, without telling the rest of us, is directly in opposition to everything we’ve done and become.”

“It’s my fault—” Sawyer began, but Riley cut him off.

“No, we’re in it together. And you’re right. I’m going to say we got caught up and leave it at that. Sawyer can grovel later.”

“Hey.”

“I just think you’d be better at groveling than me. We can keep talking about how stupid or irresponsible or whatever we were. Or we can tell you what happened that’s a hell of a lot more important.”

“You suck at groveling,” Sawyer muttered.

“Told ya.”

“Nerezza. It was Nerezza.” Sasha stepped forward. “I can feel it now.”

“Alive and in person. Or in the person of a waitress at this pub off Grafton.”

“You went for a pint?” Doyle demanded.

“Oh, like you wouldn’t have done the same. We finished our . . . business, went for a beer before heading back. And I’ve barely gotten a good start on my Guinness when the waitress comes over. At first, it was her own face and body, her own voice. But the words?”

Riley closed her eyes a moment to bring it back. “She said: ‘When I’m done, and this world is dark, I’ll drink your blood.’” Riley glanced down at the red wine in her hand, considered, then drank it almost for spite. “And if you don’t think it’s a jolt to hear some pretty young waitress say that in an Irish accent, let me tell you, it is.”

“People are just going about their business,” Sawyer added. “We can’t go at her. She’s just a girl. Nerezza’s using her, so it’s not like we could knock her on her ass.”

“Or shoot her, as Sawyer pointed out to me. She said we were weak, and she was growing stronger.”

“To prove that, she showed us. The girl changed, and there she was, standing in this crowded pub. Her hair’s not all gray now. It’s got black streaks through it, and she’s got some age on her, but not like she did when I had a grip on her over Capri.”

“She’s healing,” Sasha murmured. “Regaining her strength and powers.”

“Riley dissed her. Pulled the ‘bored now’ bit.”

“Bad Willow. Buffy reference.”

Doyle gave Riley a light shove. “Do you mind?”

“Look, seeing as it was, in reality, some innocent girl, dissing was all I could do. All we could do.”

“She said maybe she’d make Riley a pet, give her to Malmon.”

“As if.”

“Don’t toss that off,” Sawyer argued. “For whatever reason she’s gunning for you right now. When she got pissed at Riley, the pub shook. Bottles, glasses rattling around. Nobody noticed.”

“Then Sawyer took a solid dig at her, said maybe she could get us some beer nuts. Pissed her off more, so then it was all peeling our skin off, feeding it to dogs. Since we couldn’t go at her, we shrugged it off. The last thing she said was: ‘The storm comes.’ Then the waitress was back, looking dazed and confused.”

“She didn’t try to harm you.” With a nod, Bran finally picked up the wine, passed one glass to Sasha. “She had you down to two, in an enclosed, public space where you’d have hesitated to use force or violence, but she didn’t strike at you.”

“Because she couldn’t,” Sasha concluded. “She’s not strong enough for that yet. For illusions, for using other means. But not striking out herself.”

“She wasn’t actually there. Do I have that right?” Doyle turned to Bran. “The illusion of her only.”

“That would be my take on it, yes.”

“If she had been stronger, we wouldn’t have been with you.” Annika stepped over to Sasha—away from Sawyer. “We wouldn’t have known you were far away. And if you were taken or hurt, we wouldn’t know.”

“We weren’t.” Sawyer felt it vital to point that out. “I’m sorry, bad judgment, but we weren’t taken or hurt. And all of us are alone or with only part of the team all the time.”

“Not alone or in part in bloody Dublin,” Doyle snapped.

“Hence the bad judgment. It was the wrong way to go about it, but we pulled in some information. You can keep slapping us back for the bad judgment, or we can use what we brought back.”