ROOK AND RAVEN: The Celtic Kingdom Trilogy Book One by Julie Harvey Delcourt

particular king alive.  The coup that had put most of Celtica into the hands of the Black Axes and the Gooar Odin had been seen as nearly horrific as the revolution in France.   
    Back in London Jessy opened her front door with a feeling of utter relief.  Home was a place where masks could be removed along with one’s shoes.  It had for years now been her sanctuary in a demanding world.  That world had now become even more of an exhausting challenge and she wanted nothing more than to fall face down on her bed and into oblivion.  She didn’t remember ever being this exhausted.  The day had brought too much emotional excess and that was something she was no longer used to experiencing.  She hadn’t felt such highs, lows and everything in between since Sebastian had left her.  
    She slowly made her way up the stairs of her small, but comfortable house and walked into her bedroom.  Nanny Bird was, of course, waiting up for her.  She had an uncomfortable sixth sense regarding any changes in the winds of Jessy’s life.  To think she would have gone to bed, instead standing there tapping her toe, would have been completely improbable.
    “You are home early my chick,” she bustled over and removed Jessy’s domino with a frown.  Jessy knew that look.  Nanny most decidedly did not approve of her “antics” as she referred to Jessy’s less proper outings.
    “Let’s get you into your night dress and then sit you down.  You can tell me all about it while I brush and braid your hair.”
    As she had as long as she could remember, except for those desperate months when she had ran away, Nanny Bird had tended to her.  Nanny and David had always held fast in her life, twin anchors from her past, and she loved and appreciated them both more than she could ever put into words.  
    But for her bright and shrewd eyes, nothing else was at all birdlike about Nanny.  She was stout of figure, nearly as tall as most men, hair the color of iron and of steel will.  She had come with Jessy’s mother when her first charge had married and stayed for the second chick she had raised.  Fearsomely devoted to both mother and daughter, she had fretted herself nearly sick with worry when Jessy had disappeared.  She had made a vow to herself that never again would she fail in what she saw as her nearly divine mission to protect her girl.  Her motherless lamb needed her and she’d take on anyone, with her bare fists if need be, to protect her.
    She set Jessy down with a tsk of disapproval at the state of her hair, and began to brush it with long sure strokes.  It was obvious to her what had happened to Jessy’s coiffure and she wasn’t deaf or blind.  She knew quite well who was back in town after cavorting in foreign parts with other women.  Sebastian St. Just had put that worried and lost look on her girl’s face or she wasn’t Bridget Bird.
    “Tell me what’s put that sadness on you now, as if I couldn’t guess.”
    “He’s back Nanny,” Jessy said simply.
    “Aye, I know it.  The gossip about that one flew on wings today.  Came looking for you did he?  I thought he might have had the good sense to keep away, at least for a bit.” 
    “No such luck.  He came to the theater.”
    “Humph.  That did not happen to your hair at the theater.  You may have seen him there, but he got his hands on you sometime later I’m thinking,” Nanny didn’t bother to keep the scold out of her voice.
    “Oh Nanny what am I going to do?” she embarrassed herself by nearly wailing.
    Nanny put down the brush and wrapped her arms around Jessy.
    “We do what comes next.  What matters is that you tell me the truth.  All these years later after seeing him again, do you still love him?”
    Jessy turned on the seat and looked up at the person she trusted most in the world and whom she had never lied to in her life. Birdie would get right to the heart of the matter without allowing her a moment to prepare.
    “I shouldn’t!