She unpinned her cloak as she studied the faces of those she’d come to know so well.

“What plans are you making that has Larkin so worried?”

“Sit down,” Glenna told her. “Hoyt and I have something. If it works,” she continued as Moira walked to the table, “it would win this.”

As Moira listened, the little quiver became a frozen knot. So many risks, she thought, so many contingencies, and so many ways to fail. For Cian most of all.

But when she looked into his eyes, she understood he’d already made his decision.

“It lays most on you,” she said to him. “The timing... if it’s off by a moment—”

“It lays on all of us. We all knew what we were taking on when we started this.”

“No one of us should be risked more than the others,” Larkin interrupted. “We may sacrifice one of us without need, without—”

“Do you think I bring this lightly?” Hoyt spoke quietly. “I lost my brother once, then found him again. Found more, I think, than either of us had before. Now doing this, doing what I was charged to do, I may lose him again.”

“I’m not getting a sense of confidence in my abilities.” There was a tankard on the table, and Cian lifted it to pour ale. “Apparently surviving over nine hundred years isn’t considered a strong point on my résumé.”

“I’d hire you,” Blair said, and held out her cup. “Yeah, it’s risky, a lot of steps, a lot of variables, but if it works, it’d be one hell of a thing. I’m figuring you’ll make it through.” She tapped her cup to Cian’s. “So this has my vote.”

“I’m not a strategist,” Moira began. “And my magic is limited. You can do this?” she asked Hoyt.

“I believe it can be done.” He reached for Glenna’s hand.

“We got the idea, actually, from something you said back at Castle Geall,” Glenna told her. “And we’re using Geall’s symbols. All of them. It would be strong magic, and—I think—though it takes blood to bind it, pure.”

“I believe separately we have more true power than Midir.” Hoyt scanned the faces around him. “Together, we’ll crush him, and the rest.”

Moira turned to Cian. “If you stayed back? A signal to you, to all of us once all the steps have been taken—”

“Lilith’s blood on the battleground is essential. She has to be wounded, at least, by one of the six of us. And Lilith’s mine,” Cian said flatly. “If I get through or don’t, she’s mine. For King.”

For King, Moira thought, and for himself as well. Once he’d been innocent, too. Once he’d been a victim and his life taken from him. She’d shed his blood, fed him hers. Now, what they’d shared might be vital to the survival of mankind.

She rose, carrying the weight of it, and walked to Larkin. “You’ve already decided.” She looked back at the four who sat at the table. “Four of the six, so it would be done as you’ve planned however Larkin and I vote on this. But it’s best if we’re together. If the circle agrees, with no breaks, no doubts.” She took Larkin’s hand now. “It’s best.”

“All right. All right.” Larkin nodded. “We’re together then.”

“If we could go over it oncemore.” Moira came back to the table. “The details and the movements of it, then we’ll pass this on to the squadron leaders.”

It would be like a brutal and bloody dance, Moira thought. Sword, sacrifice and magic playing the tune. And the blood, of course. There must always be blood.

“The first preparations in the morning then.” She’d risen to pour and pass short cups of whiskey for each. “Then we’ll each do our part, and the gods willing, we’ll end this. And end it, fittingly I think, with the symbols of Geall. Well, to us then and the hell with them.”

When they’d drunk, she walked over to the vielle. “Would you play?” she asked Cian. “There should be music. We’ll have music, and send it out to the night. I hope she hears it, and trembles.”

“You don’t play,” Hoyt began.

“I didn’t speak Cantonese once upon a time. Things change.” Still Cian felt a little odd, sitting down with the vielle, testing the strings for tune.

“What is that thing?” Blair wondered. “Like a violin with gout?”

“Well, it would be a predecessor.” He began to play, slowly, feeling his way back from war to music. The oddness faded away with the quiet, haunting notes.

“It’s lovely,” Glenna said. “A little heartbreaking.” Because she couldn’t resist, she went for paper and charcoal to sketch him as he played.

From outside, pipes and harps began to play, blending in with Cian’s music.

Each note, Moira thought, like a tear.

“You’ve a hand with that,” Larkin told Cian when the notes faded away. “And a heart for music, that’s the truth. But would you be after playing something a bit livelier? You know, with a little jump to it?”

Larkin lifted his pipe and blew out quick, cheerful notes, so those echoes of melancholy were swept away in joy. More music poured in from outside, drums and fifes, as Cian matched melody and rhythm. With a quick hoot of approval, Larkin stomped his feet, his knees like loose hinges while Moira clapped the time.

“Come on then.” Tossing his pipe to Blair, Larkin grabbed Moira’s hands. “Let’s show this lot how Geallians dance.”

Laughing, Moira swung into step with him in what Cian saw was cousin to an Irish step-dance. Quick feet, still shoulders, all energy. He bent over the vielle, smiling a little at the persistence of the human heart as shadows and firelight played over his face.

“We won’t let them get the better of us.” Hoyt yanked Glenna to her feet.

“I can’t do that.”

“Sure you can. It’s in the blood.”

The floorboards rang with booted feet, and it flowed out into the night, the dance, the tune, the laughter. It was, Cian thought, so human of them, to take the joy, to not only use it, but to squeeze every drop of it.

There, his brother, the sorcerer who prized his dignity as much as his power, whirling around with his sexy red-headed witch who giggled like a girl as she tried to do the steps.