“Well, here’s hoping the next time we need to catch a ferry, you’ll have learned a little more about storm control and can make the crossing a lot less rough.”

I shifted my feet and let him pull me up. “Personally, I’ll just be catching a damn plane the next time I have to come to Dublin.”

He laughed, kissed me tenderly, then handed me my purse and gathered up our overnight bags.

We joined the queue of people heading down to the car bay, and though I kept an eye out, I didn’t see anyone resembling Vincentia, though there were a number of redheads sprinkled amongst the mostly brown-haired crowd. Not surprising given—despite what a lot of people thought—only around ten percent of the Irish human population had red hair.

Once the ferry had docked and the ramps lowered, we got underway. My stomach immediately felt better once we were back on solid ground, though I was reluctant to test it out with anything stronger than a cup of tea.

It was very large cup of tea, though.

We took the fastest route out of Dublin, and once we were nearing Galway, I punched my aunt’s address into the GPS and let it guide us from there. She didn’t actually live in the city, but rather on the outskirts of a little village called Menlo, in a two-story stone farmhouse surrounded on all sides by a forest. I’d never actually been there, but I’d employed the power of Google Maps and will admit to feeling a wee bit of jealousy at the location’s perfection. I loved where I lived, but that didn’t mean I had no desire to retreat to the forests every now and again. Or maybe even retire to them.

As the GPS indicated our destination was ahead on our left, Cynwrig pulled over onto the narrow verge and stopped. “How do you want to handle this?”

I hesitated. “To be honest, I have no idea how she’ll react when she sees me. I’m guessing it’ll depend on whether she knows what Vincentia is up to.”

And whether Vincentia had beaten us here, however unlikely that might be.

“Then we need to be ready for all possibilities. You should wear your knives.”

“My aunt isn’t going to attack me—”

“You can’t say that with any real degree of certainty,” he said. “You don’t know either of them very well, remember. Not anymore.”

A truer word had never been spoken. “I’ll tuck the knives behind my back rather than strap them on. That way, Aunt Riayn won’t see them and take offense.”

“Wearing your knives is hardly a reason to take offense.”

“It suggests I don’t trust them.”

“Well, you don’t.”

“But they don’t need to know that straight away.” I paused. “It might also be an idea if they don’t know you’re with me. That way, if things go wrong in there, you can ride to the rescue.”

He nodded, and we climbed out of the van. I walked around to the back and, after he dropped a quick kiss on my lips, watched him walked across to the head-high stone wall that divided the property from the road and disappear over it. I continued on to the driver side, shoved the van back into gear, and drove through the open metal gate.