She nodded and followed him back out into the passageway where she almost ran bodily into her siblings and Soilléir. Acair pulled the door shut and dropped a spell in front of it she imagined Soilléir himself might have to make an effort to breach. She exchanged looks with her siblings, then followed Acair down the passageway to stop in front of her uncle’s solar.
Acair banged on the door without any decorum whatsoever.
“Come!”
Acair looked at her. “I’ll go first, so you’re safe.”
“And you?”
He shot her a look that made her smile.
“Very well,” she said. “After you.”
She followed him into her uncle’s solar and had the oddest feeling of having done the same thing for so many years, yet having everything so changed. Fuadain looked at the five of them, slapped his hands on his desk, and rose to his feet. His expression was far less panicked than hers would have been in his place, but perhaps he knew things she didn’t.
Things such as a spell of death that he threw not at Acair, but at her.
Acair caught it, examined it as if it had been a piece of questionable fruit, then tossed it into the fire.
“I wouldn’t,” he advised.
Fuadain blanched. She knew she shouldn’t have enjoyed that as much as she did, but she thought she might be justified. And if her brother moved to stand in front of her and her sister, well, perhaps she shouldn’t have expected anything less. She did manage to look around his shoulder, though, because she had spent the whole of her life that she could remember standing on that very carpet, biting her tongue, and she thought she might want to see that man behind the desk be on the receiving end of some well-deserved comeuppance.
“You’re supposed to be dead,” Fuadain spat. “As are those three!”
“Choose better assassins next time,” Acair suggested. “Now, whilst my temper is still in check, show me where Sladaiche gathered the souls he took. It couldn’t possibly have been something you managed all on your own.”
“How dare you,” Fuadain breathed. “Of course I managed it on my own!”
Tais held his hand out to stop her from moving, though she could have told him she had no intention of stepping in front of anyone else any time soon. Her chest ached abominably still.
“I find that difficult to believe,” Acair drawled, “given the sadly inferior quality of your magic.”
“Do you have no idea who I am?” Fuadain said haughtily. “I, unlike that barn worker Slaidear, can trace my ancestors back directly to Bhaltair of Mìlidh.”
Acair looked at him, puzzled. “Who?”
“Mìlidh, you fool!”
“Never heard of it.”
“It isnextto Wychweald, to the east.”
“Still not ringing any bells, old bean,” Acair said with a shrug.
“It bordered Ionad-teàrmainn hundreds of years ago,” Fuadain growled. “We were a warlike and fierce people, unlike those bloody horse lovers.”
“Why the hell did you choose Sàraichte, then?” Acair asked, sounding genuinely baffled.
“Everything flows through here,” Fuadain said, drawing himself up and looking down his nose. “Everything important, that is.”
“I think that’s a fanciful rumor begun by my great-aunt,” Acair said, “but you obviously believe it. Is that why you thought you could draw all these souls here? Or was Slaidear doing all the true work whilst you wished you had better spells?”
Léirsinn listened to Acair poke at Fuadain and thought it might not have been his first time doing the like. He seemed to know exactly what to say to bring out the worst in her step-uncle, leaving Fuadain becoming increasingly red in the face.
Fuadain strode over to his sideboard and drew out a glass decanter. He glared at Acair as he slammed it down on his desk.
“They reside in here,” he said haughtily. “I’m keeping them until Slaidear finds the proper spell and returns to give it to me.”
