The Web (Fianna Trilogy Book 2) Read online

  Also by Megan Chance

  YOUNG ADULT FICTION

  The Shadows

  Book One of The Fianna Trilogy

  ADULT FICTION

  Inamorata

  Bone River

  City of Ash

  Prima Donna

  The Spiritualist

  An Inconvenient Wife

  Susannah Morrow

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  Text copyright © 2015 Megan Chance

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  Published by Skyscape, New York

  www.apub.com

  Amazon, the Amazon logo, and Skyscape are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.

  ISBN-13 (hardcover): 9781477827093

  ISBN-10: (hardcover): 1477827099

  ISBN-13: (paperback): 9781477827086

  ISBN-10: (paperback): 1477827080

  Cover illustration by Don Sipley

  Cover design by Regina Flath

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2014912060

  For Maggie and Cleo

  CONTENTS

  START READING

  Cast of Characters

  ONE

  TWO

  THREE

  FOUR

  FIVE

  SIX

  SEVEN

  EIGHT

  NINE

  TEN

  ELEVEN

  TWELVE

  THIRTEEN

  FOURTEEN

  FIFTEEN

  SIXTEEN

  SEVENTEEN

  EIGHTEEN

  NINETEEN

  TWENTY

  TWENTY-ONE

  TWENTY-TWO

  TWENTY-THREE

  TWENTY-FOUR

  TWENTY-FIVE

  TWENTY-SIX

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  TWENTY-NINE

  THIRTY

  THIRTY-ONE

  THIRTY-TWO

  THIRTY-THREE

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  She left the web, she left the loom,

  She made three paces thro’ the room,

  She saw the water-lily bloom,

  She saw the helmet and the plume,

  She look’d down to Camelot.

  Out flew the web and floated wide;

  The mirror crack’d from side to side;

  “The curse is come upon me,” cried

  The Lady of Shalott.

  “The Lady of Shalott”

  —Alfred, Lord Tennyson

  Cast of Characters

  [AND PRONUNCIATION GUIDE]

  ––– THE KNOX FAMILY –––

  Grainne Alys Knox [GRAW-nya]—Grace

  Aidan Knox—Grace’s brother, and the Fianna’s stormcaster

  Maeve Knox—Grace’s mother

  Brigid Knox—Grace’s grandmother

  ––– THE DEVLIN FAMILY –––

  Patrick Devlin

  Lucy Devlin—Patrick’s sister

  Sarah Devlin—Patrick’s mother

  ––– THE FIANNA (FINN’S WARRIORS) –––

  Diarmid Ua Duibhne [DEER-mid O’DIV-na]—Derry O’Shea

  Finn MacCumhail [FINN MacCOOL]—Finn MacCool, the leader of the Fianna

  Oscar

  Ossian [USH-een]—Oscar’s father

  Keenan

  Goll

  Conan

  Cannel Flannery—Seer

  ––– THE FENIAN BROTHERHOOD [FEE-NIAN] –––

  Rory Nolan

  Simon MacRonan—Seer

  Jonathan Olwen

  ––– THE FOMORI –––

  Daire Donn [DAW-re DON]

  Lot

  Tethra

  Bres

  Miogach [MYEE-gok]

  Balor

  ––– THE DUN RATS (A BROOKLYN GANG) –––

  Hugh Bannon—their leader

  Miles

  Bridget

  Little Joe—Bridget’s younger son

  Colin—Bridget’s older son

  Molly—Bridget’s older daughter

  Sara—Bridget’s younger daughter

  ––– IN LEGEND –––

  Tuatha de Dannan [TOO-a-ha dae DONN-an]—the old, revered gods of Ireland, the people of the goddess Danu

  Aengus Og [ENGUS OG]—Irish god of love, Diarmid’s foster father

  Manannan [MANanuan]—Irish god of the sea, Diarmid’s former tutor

  The Morrigan—Irish goddess of war; her three aspects: Macha [MOK-ah], Nemain [NOW-nm], and Badb [BIBE]

  Danu—Irish mother goddess

  Domnu—Mother goddess of the Fomori

  Cuchulain [COO-coo-lane]—Irish hero

  Etain [AY-teen]—Oscar’s wife in ancient times

  Neasa [NESSA]—the Fianna’s Druid priestess

  Cormac—ancient High King of Ireland

  Grainne [GRAW-nya]—Cormac’s daughter, promised in marriage to Finn, eloped with Diarmid

  King of Lochlann—Miogach’s father

  Glasny[GLASH-neh]—Neasa’s protector

  Cliodna [KLEE-uh-na]—Irish goddess of beauty who was taken from her mortal lover by a great wave sent by Manannan, which brought her back to the Otherworld (Cliodna’s Wave)

  Boar of Ben Bulben—Diarmid’s half brother, who was shape-changed into a boar and killed Diarmid on the plain of Ben Bulben

  ––– OTHER PEOPLE –––

  Rose Fitzgerald—Grace’s best friend

  Lewis Corley—fortune-teller and mystic

  Billy—leader of the gang Billy’s Boys

  Justin—newsboy and messenger for the Fianna

  ––– THE SIDHE [SHEE] –––

  Deirdre

  Battle Annie—queen of the river pirates

  ––– OTHER WORDS –––

  ball seirce [ball searce]—the lovespot bestowed on Diarmid

  cainte [KINE-tay]—one who speaks/sees, Druid poet

  dord fiann [dord FEEN]—Finn’s hunting horn

  Dubros—an ancient woods in Ireland where the legendary Diarmid and Grainne find refuge

  geis [GISE]—a prohibition or taboo that compels the person to obey

  mo chroi [muh CREE]—my heart, an endearment

  ogham—ancient form of Irish writing

  Samhain [SOW-in]—ancient Celtic festival, October 31

  Slieve Lougher [Sleeve Lawker]—location in ancient Ireland

  veleda—ancient Druid priestess

  New York City

  July 9, 1874

  Grace

  You must find the archdruid. He can help you.”

  I stared down at my grandmother. She was still as death, pale and barely breathing, in a coma that had begun the night she’d said those words to me more than two weeks ago.

  Since then, I’d thought of them nearly every moment. “There is a key . . . The sea is the knife . . .” I’d twisted those phrases over and over in my mind, trying to undo the puzzle of them, but I was no
closer to understanding what they meant.

  “Please, Grandma,” I whispered. “Please. Wake up.”

  There was nothing to tell me she heard. No one could reach her. Not even me. And I had more need than anyone.

  That night of the summer solstice, my whole world had changed. It had started when Patrick Devlin—now my fiancé—told me that he and the Fenian Brotherhood had called the ancient Irish warrior-heroes, the Fianna, from their undying sleep to help Ireland win self-rule from Britain. But the Fianna had not appeared, and so they’d called the Fomori—the Celtic gods of chaos, and the enemies of the Fianna. But in fact, the first spell had worked: the Fianna were here, and the old prophecies were in play. Prophecies that had at their center a priestess called a veleda, who now had to choose between the Fianna and the Fomori, and sacrifice her life and power to her choice during a ritual on Samhain—October 31, only a few short months away.

  And I was that veleda.

  Or so Patrick said. But my grandmother had spoken of curses and archdruids and asking the sidhe for help, the most confusing thing of all. I’d heard tales of the fairies my whole life. Grandma had always said the sidhe were cruel and tricky and that I should avoid them. And now suddenly . . . “The sidhe will help you.” I had never thought they were real. But I’d also thought the Fianna and the Fomori only legends, and here they were, in New York City.

  “Grandma, please,” I begged again—for the hundredth pointless time. “Please. Tell me more about the veleda. Tell me what I must do.”

  “The veleda?”

  I looked over my shoulder to see my mother frowning in the doorway. I hadn’t wanted to trouble her with any of this.

  “It’s nothing, Mama. An old story Grandma told me.”

  “The veleda is nothing but Irish superstition.” Mama stepped up beside me. Her elegant fingers gripped my shoulder, stronger than I would have suspected. “What did she tell you?”

  That terrible night, I’d seen things I couldn’t explain, and I knew my mother had too. But she’d denied everything. I didn’t want to distress her, which I was certain to do if I reminded her that my brother had been shooting purple lightning from his fingers. The habit of not worrying my mother was hard to break. Since my father’s death two years ago, we’d lost nearly everything. She was so frail that I’d kept the worst of our financial troubles from her. My marriage to Patrick was supposed to help us. And yet . . . what did it matter now? I was supposed to die.

  How did one say, Well, Mama, it seems I might be this veleda you say doesn’t exist, and I have to die on Samhain?

  I decided to blurt it out. “Grandma said I was the veleda.”

  Mama’s sigh was pained. “Don’t tell me you believe her? And I suppose she told you that you have to sacrifice yourself for some foolish choice. And that you must die.”

  I stared at her.

  “I’ve heard the stories, too, Grace. When the Fianna are called from their undying sleep, the veleda must decide if their fight is worthy, and then she must sacrifice her life to her choice. But this is the nineteenth century. There’s a reason most Irish are living in the slums. Superstition and nonsense keeps them backward.”

  “Patrick believes it,” I said.

  “Patrick’s father was no better than your grandmother. Collecting all those . . . those relics. They’re from days long gone, Grace.”

  “Some of them still have the old magic, Mama. My old hunting horn, the one”—Aidan lost in a bet, I started to say, but then bit back my brother’s name—“that was lost. Remember it? Patrick says it was the dord fiann—”

  “The horn meant to call the Fianna?” My mother’s voice rose. “Ancient warriors? Really? And where are those august heroes now?”

  In a tenement near Mulberry Street, pretending to be a gang. But I didn’t say it. I didn’t want to think of it. Not of the tenement, nor the Fianna warrior who’d been sent to find me: Derry O’Shea, who was not really Derry O’Shea, but Diarmid Ua Duibhne, possessor of the legendary lovespot, which compelled any girl who saw it to love him. The lovespot I knew he’d used on me.

  I hadn’t seen him since that night. But I hadn’t stopped dreaming of him. Every night, and each dream as troubling as the last. Patrick’s words circled in my head: “He means to seduce you into choosing them, and then once you do, he’ll kill you.”

  You’re compelled. Bespelled. This desire isn’t real. Everything you felt for him was a lie.

  Mama’s voice brought me back to the moment. “Grace, this is all nonsense. What makes you think you could possibly be a Druid priestess?”

  And that was the crux of it. Because I didn’t have any power. I’d seen the Fianna glow, and I’d been burned by a Druid spell-casting stick, but that was all. And Aidan . . . My brother was a drunk, a gambler who’d lost whatever the bill collectors hadn’t taken from us. But that night, he’d been glowing with power, calling up thunderstorms and opening the clouds to release a drenching downpour.

  Impossible. It was impossible.

  “Aidan will know,” Grandma had said. I burned to ask him questions. I wondered if he might understand the things she’d said. If he could tell me what I suspected: that everyone was wrong and I was not the veleda. But Aidan had disappeared that night.

  “I don’t know what power I’m supposed to have,” I said to Mama. “But Grandma said there was an archdruid who could help me. She told me to find him.”

  Mama snorted. “An archdruid? Well, there haven’t been Druids for . . . for what? A thousand years? More than that? I don’t know why a clever girl like you would believe such things. Your grandmother is mad. It’s time we admitted it. She’s been living in a world of fairies and legends, but it’s not real.”

  I wanted to believe I was just a normal seventeen-year-old girl who was marrying a boy who loved me and whom I thought I could love, and that Derry was only a ruthless gang boy I could easily forget. I wanted to ignore the fact that the story of the veleda explained everything that had confused me over the last months.

  But I couldn’t. There was magic in New York City. I’d seen it. I couldn’t dismiss everything, and because I couldn’t, I had to admit at least that I might be the veleda.

  Which meant I had to find the archdruid. I needed whatever help Grandma thought he could offer. Maybe he would tell me that it was all a mistake. But if not, then perhaps he could help me find some other spell, some other ritual. Some way that I didn’t have to die on October 31.

  Until I could find him, though, I could not just continue as if nothing had happened.

  Mama took my chin between her fingers, forcing me to look at her. “You listen to me, Grainne Alys Knox. You are no veleda. You are not going to die on Samhain. You have a long life ahead of you. One full of love and blessed with children. A happy life.”

  “I hope so,” I said.

  “There is no doubt. In fact, perhaps we should set a wedding date.”

  “I thought you wanted to wait until my debut.”

  “Yes, I did. But we may have to abandon those plans.”

  “Why?”

  “I received the summons this morning. The doctor . . . he’s suing for the house.”

  I took a deep breath. We hadn’t been able to pay the doctor who had treated my grandmother, and he’d threatened a lawsuit. Not just a threat now. “I see.”

  “It’s the real world we must worry about,” Mama said with a bitter smile. “Though it would be nice to think there were fairies to save us, I’m afraid we’re on our own. You must speak to Patrick about a date. And now I suppose you’d best return to him. You’ve been here over an hour and Patrick’s men are getting restless. You know he doesn’t like you to be away from him for long.”

  “I know.” Guards attended me every time I left Patrick’s house, where I was staying. To keep me safe, he’d said. From the Fianna.

  From Derry.
>
  I rose, glancing back at my grandmother. “You’ll let me know if she wakes?”

  “Of course. But Grace, I don’t expect her to. You must get used to the idea that she’s not long for this world.”

  That was another thing I could not bear to think about.

  When I looked at my mother, she was blinking away tears. I hugged her. “I should be here with you.”

  “Patrick needs you more. And your safety is all I care about. Now go on—you’re very busy these days. Patrick told me of the dinner tonight. How wonderful that he’s introducing you to his friends.”

  Tonight was more important than Mama knew. Tonight I would formally meet the Fomori, though I’d already met the beautiful Lot the night they had arrived, and I’d seen the others from a distance. They looked nothing like the monsters described in the stories. Patrick said that history was written by the victors, and the Fianna had reason to make the Fomori seem as vicious as possible. He also said that the Fomori had promised to find a spell to save me, and I wanted to trust them. Perhaps none of it mattered anyway. Perhaps I wasn’t the veleda.

  If I wished hard enough, perhaps I could make it true.

  That night

  Grace

  I dressed carefully in my best gown of dove-gray silk, a dress Patrick had already seen too often. He knew how poor we were, so the only thing it hurt was my pride, but it hurt that quite a bit. There was no help for it. I couldn’t snap my fingers and conjure another dress—and as long as I was thinking about powers I didn’t have, I might as well add that one to the list.

  When I was ready, I went to the parlor. I was early, and I’d hoped for a few moments alone to settle my nerves. But Lucy, Patrick’s sister, was already there. She stood at the French doors looking out over her mother’s rose garden, and I saw her yearning. I knew who she was yearning for. I turned to go, not wanting to hear it all again.

  “Grace,” she said, stopping me. Lucy’s pink silk gown set off her fair coloring to perfection, but there were dark circles beneath her blue eyes that hinted at sleepless nights. “You were out today. Did you see him?”