"I'm just telling you what I've heard. They do find it funny, though, how you strut around like you're royalty. Your father commanded respect and loyalty, but you . . . they say it's a shame you're not more like him."

Danni felt a jolt of sheer delight coursing through her as she watched the effect of her words drain the blood from his face before suffusing it with the stain of humiliation. She hadn't even touched the Book yet, and it was already controlling her. Already dominating her thoughts and actions. Like a weed, it took root and grew wild inside. She felt it sprouting something dark and insidious deep within her soul. Something that would leave tendrils behind if she managed to dig it up.

It was Cathan's turn to smile. "Is it fucking your mind yet, Danni? Plunging in and out, looking for that weakness it can seed? And you haven't even touched it yet. You must have something it wants very badly for it to reach so far."

She swallowed hard, feeling those sharp tendrils, probing, twining . . .

"Is that how it found you?" she demanded. "It wanted something you have?"

His eyes gleamed. "A good question. One I couldn't answer until just now. It does want something I have. The question is, why would it think of you as mine?"

It took a moment for Danni to comprehend his words. She stood there, the Book of Fennore clenched in her hands, and the idea of it washed over her. Was he saying the Book had come to him in order to find Danni?

"That's right. It called me, sweet Danni. Called me like a supper bell. I could see it in my head, the way it gleams, the way it thrums. I wanted to touch it. To hold it."

He took a step closer and Danni shuffled back.

"It took years of digging through old documents, plotting my family line back to the ages before we wrote our history. I listened to every senile geriatric who claimed to know a thing about it. And then I found her, my lovely bride, just waiting for someone to save her from her greedy mother and failing sister. From the fate that waited just around the corner. Fia's mother would have made her use it once her sister . . . expired."

His voice had deepened and it wove a spell around her until it was all she heard. She watched him, fascinated and repelled by what he said. She knew what terrible fate her mother had been destined for, could still hear Edel's shriek and Fia's mother blandly planning to send Fia next.

"After her sister used the Book for the last time and never came back, Fia was more than happy to let me rescue her. She thought she'd seen the last of the Book of Fennore, especially once her mother passed, poor wretched thing. It was a terrible accident, her mother falling like she did. Like someone had pushed her down those stairs. I convinced her the Book was lost. That somehow Edel had taken it with her. Fia wanted to believe it, so she did."

He was closer. Danni hadn't seen him move, but he was definitely standing closer than he'd been before. She took another step back and felt the solid rock wall behind her.

"What will you use it for, Danni? What deep and dark secrets lurk in your heart?"

"It's not my heart that's dark. It's yours. I don't want to use it. But I have to."

"You must," he said his voice mellow and soothing. "Yes, I understand that. It was my reason as well. I couldn't lose my home, my castle. I am king here whether the idiots know it or not. I could wipe them out, just by wishing it. Sometimes I almost do-wish it. I think of them writhing on the ground, all those green paddocks stained red with their blood, slick with the carnage. Can you picture it?" he whispered. "I can."

She gulped, clenching her eyes against the vivid image that filled her mind. The Book responded to Cathan's grisly description. Joyously it sang out, begging Danni to touch it, stroke it, embrace it . . .

"Making someone fear you doesn't make you powerful. It doesn't make you a king."

"Never underestimate the power of fear, Danni. It's a formidable weapon."

He took another step, and there was no place to turn, no room to evade. The Book shrieked with frustration, terrifying her beyond her ability to think. To react. A part of her mind simply shut down.

"Moment of truth, love," he said. "I want to help you. I do. Your eyes are like windows, and I see how frightened you are. Once you touch it, once you use it, you're never the same. You can never go back. Whatever it is that has made you desperate, tell me and I will make it go away. Let me spare you this horror. Let me shoulder your burden."

She felt strangely disoriented as she stared into his faceted, glittering eyes. He wanted to help her. Of course he did. He was her father and fathers helped their daughters.

Something shifted in his expression, and for a moment, he looked confused. He stared at Danni as if seeing her for the first time. "Who are you?" he asked softly. "Who are you really?"

She wanted to tell him. Some part of her still believed that once he knew, everything would be different. He'd open his arms with love and do what she'd always dreamed daddies do-make everything right. Even as she thought it, he changed again, and now he looked at her with sly calculation.

"I knew you weren't Danni Ballagh," he said. "You almost had me fooled, sweet Danni. But you're no innocent, are you? It's you that brings us back to this place again and again. Well, this will be the last time for it. I don't give a fecking shite if you're Herself in the flesh, I swear to you this will be the last of it."

Now the image in Danni's head was of the keening banshee. The white ghost. Herself in the flesh. Though his words were cold, she felt his fear.

"The Book is mine," he said. "It will always be mine."

He trapped her with his gaze as he reached for it. A voice in her head tried to shout, tried to warn her, but Danni couldn't move. The whining drone of the Book dulled her senses, feeding on the terror inside her. She felt drugged, powerless. Knowing it would be a fatal mistake to let him take it, Danni stood paralyzed as he reached for the Book of Fennore.

Chapter Forty.

"NO!" The shout snapped Danni out of the trance Cathan had put her in. She felt light-headed, as if he'd somehow sucked the air from her lungs, the oxygen from her brain. At the opening that led to the stairs, Dairinn and her mother stood like wax figures. Fia's expression was stretched in a mask of horror.

Cathan turned in a rage to face them, and Danni used the distraction to escape the corner where he'd pinned her.

"What are you doing?" Fia breathed, looking back and forth between Cathan and Danni. "Do you not know what it is? It's evil. Why would you bring it here?"

Before Danni could answer, she heard the sound of a motor, and a moment later, a dingy slid through the narrow oval at the mouth of the cavern. Niall Ballagh cut the engine and stared in shock at the cluster of people inside. The boat drifted for a moment before Niall regained some composure and barked an order at Michael to tie off the boat using the stake embedded in the cavern floor for that purpose.

"What's this?" Cathan asked, his voice as cold and dark as the waters lapping against the stones. "What in bloody hell is this?"

No one spoke as they stared at one another. Danni felt as if she'd been pulled out of her body to watch from above. She saw a shadow move at the doorway leading in from the rocky shore, and Rory appeared, towing Sean behind him. The two stopped and joined the suffocating silence.

Everyone was gathered now, just as they'd been in the vision. In a moment, Cathan would pull his gun, aiming for Niall, but mortally wounding Michael. Danni would be his next target-now she understood why. She still clutched the Book tightly in her arms. He would simply kill her and take it.

And then everything would begin again.

"No," she said. Her voice sounded strange in the cloying quiet, so she said it again. "No."

The time for questions-for doubt-had passed. Danni ripped away the canvas covering and held the Book of Fennore in her bare hands. It trembled, shivering with excitement as she prepared to go to that frozen, black land Cathan had described. As she braced herself for what would come. Closing her eyes, she said, "This will not happen again. . . ."

Before she could finish, Rory let out a scream that echoed like an explosion in the enclosed chamber of rock. Danni faltered and Cathan moved quickly, snatching at the Book. Danni fought for it, but he was too quick, too strong. Even as Sean rushed forward, Cathan wrenched it free with a triumphant shout. He didn't hesitate, not like Danni had. Using one of the boulders as a table to hold the heavy Book, Cathan planted his left hand on the cover and closed his eyes.

The vibration in the air took on substance until it seemed like they were all plunged into deep, frigid waters that pounded fiercely against a seawall. As they watched in horror, the vibration seemed to sink beneath Cathan's skin. He looked like a mirage, shimmering in the heat of a relentless sun. It seemed he wasn't really here anymore, yet they could see him fluctuating with the pulsing beat of the Book.

It was horrific and captivating and not one of them could look away. Cathan had a gun ready and pointing at them before anyone noticed that he'd fumbled it from his pocket with his free hand. It felt to Danni that everything happened at once, and yet, somehow it came painfully, dreadfully slow. Each instant registered before moving to the next.

"You'll never have my wife," Cathan said to Niall, the look of hatred burning in those terrifying eyes. Without warning, he pulled the trigger.

The bullet appeared to glide across the cavern, and Danni thought for one brief second that she might actually stop it. Perhaps it wasn't too late to change her destiny. Perhaps she hadn't failed.

But even as she moved to intercept it, she saw Michael rush at his father, push him out of the way just as the bullet slammed into the boy's chest and into his heart.

At the same time, the grown-up Sean bellowed with agony, and Dairinn let loose a cry that echoed endlessly around them. Torn between going to the boy or the man, Danni hesitated, and Cathan's next shot caught her in the back. It felt like a fiery rod, jammed deep into her flesh. She fell to her knees then collapsed on the stone floor.

She was instantly numb and couldn't move her arms or legs. It took all her effort to turn her head. Sean was trying to make his way to her but he moved like a man underwater, and even as she watched, he began to fade.

"I love you," Danni tried to say. But her voice was just a hoarse whisper. Why hadn't she told him before? Why had she let him walk away without saying those simple words?

"Danni," he said as his image wavered. "You can stop it. You don't need the Book." Blackness crowded into her head, and his words became distorted. What did he mean?

"You can change it. Trevor is alive. You changed the past. You saved him."

It made no sense. What was he talking about? And then Danni remembered those moments when she'd clasped hands with Dairinn and Rory, when the image that came to her had been of Sean's brother, dead on the kitchen floor.

Comprehension was there, hovering just above her ability to grasp it.

Still Sean struggled. "What happened when my mother died, it was different. The first time, Trevor died with her. But today . . . he's alive. You saved him."

She still didn't understand. But she couldn't ask because he was vanishing-vanishing. Tears streamed down her face as she saw the realization come over him.

"No," she whispered. He didn't know she loved him. He didn't know how much he meant to her. "Don't leave me."

He was gone in an instant.

A sob caught in her throat as hot tears streamed down her face. Danni turned her head and watched as a ghostly shadow stepped from Michael's inert form and faced her. Niall began to moan as he gripped his son's lifeless body against him.

It seemed like hours had passed since Cathan had fired his first shot, but only seconds had lapsed. Now it was Fia's voice she heard as her mother tried to keep Dairinn from launching herself at Cathan-at the Book he held in his hands. Fia managed, but at the same time her other child raced forward. Fearlessly, Rory attacked, slamming his small body into his father's, catching him at the waist and knocking him off balance. Cathan stumbled back, pulling the Book with him while Rory grappled to take it away.

That wasn't supposed to happen, Danni thought as consciousness began to ebb with the waning thud of her heart.

Rory gave a mighty shout and yanked the Book free. For a moment, he stood petrified, his small hands sinking into the shining black cover. His eyes were wide with the horror of whatever he saw and then Cathan flung himself at the boy and they both disappeared into thin air.

Chapter Forty-one.

DaIRINN stared at the place where her brother had been and fear like she'd never imagined closed on her. She could hear her mother crying, hear Michael's father sobbing, see the blood pooling beneath Danni's body. And in her head, she heard her brother shouting, begging her to help him.

Her arms and legs felt stiff as she jerked free of her mother's hands, crossing to where Danni lay. She knelt beside her, feeling the blood soak through the knees of her pants. It was already cool.

"What did he mean?" Dairinn asked, looking into Danni's gray eyes, feeling as if she was looking into a reflection of her own. "He said you saved Trevor. What did he mean?"

Danni blinked her eyes and her lips moved, but she couldn't speak. She was dying.

"Come away," Fia said, trying to pull Dairinn to her feet. "Come away from her." And then suddenly Fia stilled. She stared down into Danni's face, her own blanching as her fear became something else. Slowly she looked to her daughter, Dairinn, and then back again. Danni saw comprehension, disbelief, and anguish war for control of Fia's emotions. And then something else gleamed in Fia's eyes. It was love; it was remorse. It was pride. In that split second, Danni thought Fia had realized the situation-somehow put together all the missing pieces and come away with the whole picture.

Whatever she might have said was lost, though, because Dairinn used her mother's shock to dodge free of her grasping hands. Scooting closer to Danni, she demanded again, "What did he mean?"

Danni moistened her lips, looking to Michael, and suddenly Dairinn saw the shadowy form standing over the boy's body. It was his spirit. She knew this even as his eyes lifted to meet hers. Her body went rigid. She felt like a tether bound them, pulling them tight into a circle that couldn't be broken. Dairinn and Danni. Michael and his spirit.

She reached down and took Danni's hand in hers. Leaning over, Dairinn stared into the eyes that looked so much like her own. In that moment, another deep understanding seemed to wash over her. They were connected, though she didn't know how.

Danni's husband had said, You can change it. He'd said Danni had saved his brother, Trevor.

Dairinn's eyes widened as she snapped her gaze back to the spirit who'd materialized in almost the same way Mr. Ballagh had disappeared. An inkling of the truth hovered over her. Then she heard Rory's voice, weaker now as he shouted in her head. Help me.

Chapter Forty-two.

DANNI focused on the intensity of Dairinn's eyes and everything else fell away.

You can change it . . . .

It was Sean's voice and it was Dairinn's and it was her own, speaking from some well of knowledge within her. You can change it . . . the voice insisted again. Louder this time.

She felt something stir in her heart. It shuddered and built until it was a pressure that threatened to explode. Danni stared into the eyes of her child-self and reached for that pressure, wrapped herself around it and let it expand and expound until it engulfed her completely. Surrounded by the shimmering spark of it, Danni focused on the center where explosions of energy snapped and popped and sizzled.

She forced any fear from her mind, because what did she have to lose now? Everything she'd ever wanted, everything she'd ever dreamed of was gone. But she could get it back, if she just believed.

She steeled herself for the pain that would surely come. In her mind, she stepped to the edge of that swirling nucleus lurking inside her. The searing jolt tore a gasp from her lips and brought her consciousness back to the cave. Back to the child holding her hand, feverishly begging her to do it-whatever it was. Danni pictured her thoughts like tendrils of smoke, seeping into quiet places, finding a way through the barriers that kept her separated from the child she'd once been. Dairinn inhaled sharply, and Danni forced herself in with it, following the gasp into Dairinn's lungs, through her blood to her heart, her mind. The child took another breath and suddenly they were one.

Danni's memories were streaming out like a film played in fast-forward for Dairinn to see. She felt Dairinn trying to slow them down so she could absorb them. Together they watched Fia hugging her sister in front of a bungalow on a sunny street by a beach, promising to be back soon. They left Rory behind in Edel's care as they climbed into their car. Then Danni and Fia were driving across the desert, her mother quizzing Danni about their new names, where they were from, who they were.

Fia had gone to Arizona because it seemed like the other side of the world. Cathan would never find her there. She'd separated her children for their safety, fearing together they might somehow send a signal that Cathan, through the Book, would receive.

She'd always intended to go back for Rory as soon as it was safe.

Finally Danni saw the answer to why her mother had abandoned her. Cathan had found Fia. Her mother had seen him first, though, and she did the only thing she had time for. She'd left Danni at Cactus Wren Preschool and ran, praying Cathan would follow her and not find the children.

As one, Danni and Dairinn felt the memories, the years of not belonging. United, they experienced the years of isolation, of never feeling a part of the world. There was Yvonne with her smile and biting wit, offering sanctuary in the chaos. And then Sean was at Danni's front door and there was no slowing down anymore because it all came in a tide that washed over them both.

"We can change this," Danni said in her mind. "Help me."

Her free hand felt like lead as she tried to lift it. The effort pulled her shredded muscles and made her want to scream, but somehow she managed to get her fingers around the Celtic pendant at her throat. She felt it swell in her grasp, felt it burn against her palm. And then it moved-she felt the silver strands changing, unraveling, spinning into something new.

Dairinn clutched Danni's other hand, and she knew the child felt it, too. They were scared-both of them-but they didn't turn back. They didn't push away. Dairinn channeled Rory's pleas into Danni's thoughts until she felt a spark and then a flaring of life. The air around them began to tremble and quake, shaking loose stones that rattled down to the floor and plunged into the water. Her mother was screaming, but Danni and Dairinn held on. Inside Danni's head, pictures flashed like lightning, then everything else seemed to warble and slow to a grinding halt, as if time had simply stopped.

Danni opened her eyes and looked around. Her mother stood with her mouth open, hands frozen in midgesture. Niall knelt beside his son, tears suspended on his face. Michael's spirit hovered motionless in the air.

Dairinn looked down at Danni and found her staring back. She gave a small nod and then the air shifted slowly, screeching like a rusty wheel on an ancient axle. It whispered past them, gaining momentum, blowing faster and faster until it seemed to howl. The pool of blood beneath Danni began to shrink and Danni took a deep breath, her eyes clearer, her grip stronger.