She rubbed her arms suddenly. “When will your fire heat up?”
“Almost immediately after you drink that brandy I’ve set on the mantel to warm for you.”
“I’m not sure I can,” she said with a shudder. “I’m not sure howyoudrink it.”
“So says the gel who tossed back all that whisky last evening with the enthusiasm of a Meithian princess trying to forget her last encounter with a prince of Neroche.” He walked over to the hearth, fetched her the glass that was indeed sitting on his mantel, then brought it back and handed it to her. “You’ll be warmer, at least.”
She had a sip of something she wished she’d left alone, then gave him the rest. “Disgusting,” she said hoarsely.
“Not nearly as awful as what King Uachdaran brews,” he said, draining her glass and returning it to the sideboard. “Come and sit, darling. I’ll put more wood on the fire for you.”
She nodded, realizing then how accustomed to his very lovely manners she’d become. She sighed deeply, then went to perch on the edge of a chair drawn up to his library table. She looked at the papers spread out everywhere and noticed that atop them all was a map she hadn’t seen before. She imagined he’d drawn it himself given that there were marks where she could remember having seen those terrible shadows. There were also Xs where she knew they’d encountered the mage following them, including the spot where she’d asked Soilléir to give her what currently ran through her veins like a fever.
She looked up to find Acair sitting around the corner from her, watching her with those pale, sea-green eyes of his that saw more than she wanted him to.
“I don’t want to talk about it,” she said, holding up her hand to hold him off.
He smiled briefly. “So many possibilities there.”
She gestured toward the spot on his map where she’d lit half the forest alight, then realized that location was rife with possibilities as well. She cast about for anything else to discuss.
“I wonder if Mansourah is…ah—” Damnation, but that was no easier than anything else.
“Alive?” He sighed deeply. “As much as I love to mock him for his failings, I have to concede the lad is canny. For all we know, our common enemy was either too distracted or too stupid to hunt him down and finish him. I’m not looking forward to facing my sister if that isn’t the case.”
“She’s very fond of you.”
“Her husband will be much less so if I’ve lost his brother,” he said grimly. “We’ll go look for him once we’ve attended to this business—and that other thing you don’t want to discuss.”
She supposed that since she had seen him at his worst, he might as well see her at hers. She clasped her hands together and took a deep breath.
“I’m terrified,” she admitted.
“There’s no shame in that, love,” he said quietly.
“But you aren’t, are you?”
“Do you think I would admit it if I were?” He looked at her seriously. “He can undo it, you know. Soilléir, I mean.”
She knew who he meant, but couldn’t bring herself to say as much. “I thought you said the change back was never perfect.”
“That’s what he claims, but I think he lies more than he’s willing to admit. He will undo what’s been done, not only because he’ll want you to be at peace but because he knows what I’ll do to him otherwise.”
She felt herself relax almost to the point she’d reached standing at his front door, looking at the sea. “Planning on engaging in that essence meddling of yours?”
“I will meddle until he begs me to stop,” he muttered. He leaned forward and propped his elbows on the table. “The truth is, I would rather you not have to use anything. You have no idea how much it galls me to see you in this position because of me.”
“It was my idea,” she said, beginning to wish she’d continued on with her avoidance of the whole subject. She gestured to his map. “What did you discover about your grandmother’s map besides that list of places you wouldn’t want to go?”
He rubbed his hands over his face, then shook his head. “Nothing interesting save perhaps wondering why my house figured so prominently on it. I finally decided that she covets my stash of port and doesn’t want me to drink it all before she can lay her greedy hands on it.”
She ran her fingers over places on his map that she recognized. The only thing that did for her was to put her forearm in front of her where it reminded her that she’d broken it terribly. She wasn’t sure she would ever forget the sight of it bending where it hadn’t been meant to.
Now, though, ’twas difficult not to simply stare at it. Though her flesh hadn’t been torn by her bones, there was still a spot where it looked as if the magic might be lingering on her skin in one of the most beautiful rashes she had ever seen.
“Fadaire is a beautiful magic.”
She looked up. “How do you know any of it?”
