He only waited.
“I started thinking about your runes that look like coins and things, but have your power and magic hidden in them. That led me to wondering if someone might not just hide a spell in a book, but hide a spell inside a tale inside a book.”
His mouth fell open, but he seemed to be incapable of speech.
She nodded. “Everything comes back to dragons, doesn’t it?”
“Ye gads,” he said, looking stunned. “So you’re saying that someone hid a spell in that tale from your book that is no longer there.”
She shrugged helplessly. “I was just thinking that it was odd that the dragon said so little.”
He frowned thoughtfully. “I can’t say that’s unusual. A taciturn lot, those scaly beasts. Hearn might have a different opinion, but…why do you ask?”
She pulled away from him and walked back over to the fire. She looked over her shoulder to make certain he was following her, though she supposed she needn’t have. He was hard on her heels, wearing a gratifying look of concern.
She sat down on the sofa and dug out the notebook that contained his grandmother’s map. She pulled a pencil from her satchel, turned to a fresh page, and wrote down the words the dragon had spoken. She knew they were exactly as they’d been written because they were burned into her memory.
She handed the notebook to him. “That’s what the dragon says.”
He read it, then dropped the notebook. She picked it up, then handed it back to him.
“I think this is from the same language my father spoke. I can’t be certain, of course, but they have the same sort of cadence my father’s lullaby had.” She looked at him helplessly. “Like a horse’s gaits, you know. They all might canter, but each horse will have his own individual way of doing that.” She paused. “What do you think?”
He looked at her with an expression of awe. “I think you are a miracle.”
“What is that magic, do you think? Perhaps whatever they used in Ionad-teàrmainn?”
He looked up at the ceiling and shook his head. “And there I’ve built a house atop the damned barn.” He rubbed his hands over his face. “If your true sire’s family came from there, and Slaidear was the one who was exiled for his activities—”
“Perhaps he thought someone in my family had the spell?”
He looked at her in astonishment. “I can’t believe we didn’t see this before.” He read the words again, then frowned. “This isn’t complete, though.”
“How do you mean?”
“The spell.”
“Oh,” she said. “I suppose not.”
“We’d all be husks otherwise. Though even just this much is terrifying.” He shivered. “I can hardly believe anyone would write even this much down, and you know I have a decent stomach for terrible spells—”
A discreet knock sounded against the door, interrupting him. He handed her the notebook.
“Keep that safe.”
“But you’ve memorized it already.”
He lifted his eyebrows briefly and smiled. “You know me.”
Indeed, she did. She watched him walk swiftly over to answer the door and wondered at the twists and turns of her own life. Who would have thought that his present and her past would meet in a barn, perhaps the most unlikely place of all for anything besides grain and hay to meet the interesting end of a pony.
She came back to herself to find Acair collapsing next to her. He handed her a gilt-edged invitation.
“We’ve been invited to supper.”
“What do we do?”
“One foot in front of the other,” he said. “Hopefully there might actually be something decent to eat.”
