“I do work hard at that,” he said.
Ryder shrieked gleefully, sending laughter through the line of hungry crew members. Huh, my brother didn’t need me, which meant I was free, which was weird. “According to the side, I have hours before I meet with Julian. What should we do, Eamon?”
Eamon’s face lit up. “We could go down to the quay. Or the sweater market.”
I lifted an eyebrow. “Really? That’s what you’ve got?”
“What would you want to do?”
Oddly enough, I found myself thinking about the scene I’d read to Ryder. About the cliff and the remains of Manifest. “Did you know that my grandmother lived in Ireland?”
“I did. Did you know that she came to this very island many times? I’ve got a picture of her up at Dun Aengus.”
I blinked at him. “What? How?”
He swung his backpack off his shoulder and pulled out a torn-up biography titled M. E. Thorne: A Legacy in Magic & Grief. I knew biographies about my grandmother existed. The doctoral candidates always came knocking, and my dad loved giving them “the real story” that he wouldn’t tell me, but I’d never been close to one before. I poked it with a wary finger. “Why do you have this? Oh no, you’re one of those die-hard Thornians, aren’t you?”
“It’s research for my role,” he said. He flipped to the middle of the book, to the glossy chunk of pages containing all the pictures, and then held one out to me. It was a gorgeous picture of Grandma Mae. She was maybe forty. Smiling at the camera with her long, black hair blowing out around her. Her toes were on the very edge of a cliff drop.
“I wonder who she was smiling at,” Eamon said. “Your grandfather?”
“Not likely. They never married. My dad barely knew him.”
“Who then?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know anything about her. My dad says it’s not my business.”
“You could read this.” Eamon held out the book, but I leaned back.
“Would you want to find out all the ugly things in your family’s past from a book?”
He shook his head; at least he understood. “But then how do you know they’re ugly?”
“Because I’m not dumb,” I muttered. I looked at the picture again. “This is here?”
“That’s Dun Aengus,” Eamon said. “The fort we saw from the ferry.”
“You mean Manifest?” I asked.
“Yeah.” His grin sparked. “You want to see it? You can stand where she stood.”
I leaped up. “Let’s go.”
• • •
A half hour later, I was breathing like a beast, seriously doubting this decision. I was riding the oldest purple bike known to man, and we were in the middle of nowhere, stuck on a low-grade incline. All around, the green land was set into patches by crumbling stone walls.
“Is it…uphill…forever?” I called out.
Eamon was a few yards ahead, riding his rusty bike with ease. “There.” He pointed toward the top of a great hill, the backside of the ancient fort we’d seen the day we’d arrived. We kept pedaling until the road dead-ended and then parked our bikes. Eamon pointed up the grassy slope. “Dun Aengus. Three thousand years old!”
“Dun Aengus.” I struggled with the pronunciation. “Is that Gaelic?”
“No. That’s the English version.”
“Is it really that great? It looks like a cliff and a bunch of strategic rock piles.”
“It is really that great,” he said without missing a beat. He started climbing and I followed, glad I had put on my hiking boots. “I’ve been thinking we should get to know each other better, Iris, so I’ve sorted out a question for a musician. What’s your top song?”
“My what?” I asked. “Do you mean my favorite? I don’t have a favorite song.”
“Rubbish. Everyone should have a favorite. It’s says so much about a person. Tells you where their heart is.”
“My heart is in my chest.”
“There’s that comedic literalness I’ve come to admire, but what else have you got inside you?” He stopped climbing the hill and faced me.
I nearly bumped into him. “What’s your favorite?”
“I was hoping you’d ask.” He pulled out his phone and started a track.
I recognized the bass rhythm, shaking my head. “Oh no. Queen?!”
“Freddie and Bowie. Pure magic.” Eamon bobbed his head and sang “Under Pressure.” It had been a while since I’d given the song an honest listen, and it actually was better than I remembered.
We kept climbing, this time our steps set to music. When the song ended with its odd finger snapping, I glanced at Eamon, which was starting to get tricky. Maybe I was growing used to his face, but every time I looked at him, I liked him more. “So what is that song supposed to tell me about you?”
“I suppose that I’m old fashioned, like the tune. And I’m great under pressure. Mam says it’s my superpower. No matter how crazy things get, I’m groovy.”
I tried not to giggle. “Groovy, huh? You’re definitely old fashioned.” We were nearly at the top, searching the outer wall for a doorway.
“You should have a favorite song, Iris. You could always change it. I hear it’s a fine acting tip. Always have favorites. It means you can make decisions on your feet.”
I laughed. “That sounds like the first terrible acting tip that comes up when you google ‘How to act.’” It was a joke, but Eamon looked away. Was he embarrassed? “I didn’t mean—”
“No, you’ve caught me. I searched ‘how to act.’ I’m a phony. Never been in an audition or even a school play before this.” For a moment I thought he was kidding. His bleak expression proved otherwise.
“Wow.” I tried not to sound too surprised. “It’s, uh, exciting you’ve won such a breakthrough role.”
“We’ll see.” He frowned, his hair covering his eyes like a cloud. “Maybe I’ll fail then.”
Oh God, I’d sunk the grinning, adorable, self-professed “great under pressure” guy in a few minutes. Maybe that was my superpower. Jaded Iris, a villain.
“‘Rabbit Heart,’” I blurted. “By Florence and the Machine. That’s my favorite.”
“I know that song.” He pushed his hair back to look
