The other band members exchanged glances.

“I’d love to play with him,” Lizzie said.

Siobhan gave a glum nod. “Me, too.”

“He’d know all the tunes,” Andy said. “Amy told me once that unless you write the tune just before you play it for him, he probably already knows it.”

“And he would know it by the time you’ve gone through it a couple of times,” Con said. “So, what do you think? Should I ask him?”

The rest of the band nodded their agreement.

“Then I’ll call him first thing in the morning,” Con said.

He lifted his whiskey and the others followed suit, clinking the glasses against each other.

“No offense,” Liam said to Siobhan, “but this is going to be sweet. If you guys can get him to play, I mean.”

Siobhan shrugged. “At least I’ll get to hear some great music.”

It wasn’t until they were alone again in their room that the two women addressed what had really happened in the stairway.

“Oh, I’m sure I was pushed,” Siobhan said in response to Lizzie’s question. “I could feel the hands on the small of my back just before they gave me a shove.”

They both looked nervously around the room.

“This is all my fault,” Lizzie said.

“Oh, right.”

“No, it is. I’m the one who got involved with them in the first place and that’s gone and brought you to their attention.”

“Mouthing off.”

Lizzie shrugged. “They’d probably never even have heard you if they weren’t already spying on me.”

“It’s not like you asked to be attacked by them in the first place.”

“I know. But still . . .”

“Still, nothing. It wasn’t your fault, and this is a free country where we can say what we want, so it isn’t my fault either.” Siobhan gave a meaningful look around the room. “There are other, more civilized ways of making your point in an argument.”

They fell silent, almost expecting a response, but none came.

“So what do we do now?” Lizzie asked.

“I don’t know.” Siobhan gave another look around the room. “Keep our mouths shut and try to get along, I suppose.”

Lizzie smiled. Like that would be easy for her cousin. She wasn’t normally bad-tempered, but she certainly wasn’t shy about speaking her mind.

“Do you remember any of the protections against fairies that Pappy told us?” she asked.

Siobhan reached into drawer of her night table with her right hand and took out the expected copy of the Bible.

“There’s this,” she said. “And I remember iron and rowan twigs and oatmeal.”

Lizzie nodded. “None of which we have.”