“Of course you can, love.”
She stilled her mind, then whispered the words of the spell, using a different name, one she was convinced would do nothing at all.
A book leapt off the shelf in front of her and fell at her feet.
Acair picked it up “Damnation.”
“What is it?”
He held out a book, then opened the cover.
All the pages were missing.
“Well,” she said uncomfortably, “that’s something, isn’t it?”
“And not a damned thing on the cover to tell us what had been inside. I’m guessing the contents were removed several decades ago.” He looked closely at the cover, then swore and shoved it in the shelf above his head. “Useless. Why this answered to Slaidear and not Sladaiche is something I believe we’ll leave as a mystery for someone else. I think we might be finished here. Can you put these in your satchel for the moment? I’ll carry them later.”
She shot him a look, but supposed she didn’t need to add that she was accustomed to carrying saddles and hay. He only smiled and handed her the books.
“Let’s be away before we’re caught. I think we have what we came for.”
“Is there time to look for that finely patterned divan?”
He laughed softly. “We’ll befoul it a different time and blame it on Soilléir. Off we go.”
She wondered, a moment or two later, if they ever might manage to exit somewhere they weren’t supposed to be without having the master or mistress of the house catch them before they could.
A faint light appeared next the hearth. A fire joined it, blazing to life tidily in that same hearth.
Acair sighed, then took her hand. “It could be worse,” he murmured.
She decided to withhold judgment for the moment. A blond man sat there, dressed in well-made but not excessively fine clothing. His boots, however, were very nice, indeed.
Acair stopped in front of him and made him a low bow. “Your Highness.”
“My lord Acair.”
Léirsinn wondered if the day would come when she would stop being surprised by the people Acair knew—and those who knew him.
“If I might present to Your Royal Highness my beloved companion, Léirsinn of Sàraichte,” Acair said formally. “Léirsinn, this is His Royal Highness, Coimheadair, the crown prince of Cothromaiche.”
Léirsinn attempted a curtsey to go along with Acair’s very posh accents, but it didn’t go very well. That was definitely something she was going to have to work on when she had a bit of free time.
“Sàraichte,” Prince Coimheadair said with a frown. “Don’t you mean An Caol?”
“Your Highness?” Acair said.
Léirsinn realized the prince was looking at her, but she wasn’t sure what she was supposed to say.
“Don’t you know who you are, little one?”
Acair caught his breath, almost so quietly that she would have missed it if she hadn’t been doing the same thing.
“Your Highness, why do you say that?” Acair asked.
“Well,” the crown prince of Cothromaiche said with a shrug, “because I knew her mother, of course.”
Nineteen
