"All I know as of now is that since he's come back, she's been trying to decide what he wants from her. And since the man couldn't ask for water if someone lit him on fire, you see the trouble here."

Marcello sighed. "And of course, even if he didn't want anything at all, Niabheara would worry about what he wanted, because that's her nature." She tugged at her earring. "He's always been perfectly-- well, he seems to be perfectly frank with me if I confront him directly."

Morgana stopped short and turned back to Marcello. "I'll be frank: I stay far from the subject of O'Niall. There's too much bad blood between us. Anything I know of him, I get from Mother or from Niabheara, and now from you. I can't make a judgement on what he's doing, or what he might do. I know what he's done, but he's been long since vanished."

"And brought back to life by the little boy in your cottage," Marcello said with a sigh. "He's working for Fiona now. She sent him down here as an ambassador of sorts."

"Better there than here, I say," she replied with unusual bitterness. Then she sighed. "I don't want to accuse the man of anything just because I don't like him, is the trouble. I don't know enough to say rightly."

Marcello raised an eyebrow. "You know, I don't think I've ever heard you say you don't like someone, Meg," she said thoughtfully. "I...that's a strong vote against a person. Is it...because of the war, or is it more than that?"

"Some of that, and some of the way he's treated Niabheara, and some other things." She stirred the contents of her basket as an excuse not to look at Marcello. "I've never met him eye-to-eye, but I always forget that because of her. She says they look very much alike."

Marcello blinked. "You've never met him?" she asked, looking shocked. "I just assumed...you would have dealt with him when Niabheara was a child, at least. He...the Puck's turned him into a woman," she said. "The two of them...well. He looks exactly like Mabhe. With her head, of course. The spitting image. Niabheara...you know, it's odd, but you'd think with Judith in the mix, her features would be sharper than his, but they're not. Hers are softer."

Morgana's smile was flat. "He's one of the ones my hedge is set to catch," she said. "I never met him when she was a child. Mother dealt with him on the few times he needed dealing with, and that wasn't until after we found out Jochy'd gone and introduce Niabheara to him behind our backs."

She chuckled a little at Marcello's observation. "She wears hers differently," she said.

Marcello nodded, smiling softly. "Maybe so," she agreed. "She's less tempestuous than either of them, it's like the way they think and act changes they way they look."