“Do you remember where you got it?” Her hand was trembling, but she hoped he wouldn’t notice. “I’m just curious.”
He took the book, studied it, then smiled wryly. “I do, as it happens, for it cost me a ridiculous amount of my own coin.” He looked at her again, then frowned. “You’re very pale. Let’s find somewhere to sit—”
“I’m fine,” she said, perhaps more sharply than she intended. She attempted a smile. “Sorry. I’m just restless.”
“Well, I understand that.” He ran his finger over the cover, tracing the shape of the pegasus there.
Léirsinn suddenly wished she’d agreed to the idea of a chair.
“You know, this is a strange little book. I was skulking about somewhere I shouldn’t have been—in Bruadair, if memory serves—and a peddler almost ran me over on the sidewalk with his cart of treasures. I gave his wares a look, because you never know what you’ll find in a dusty corner, and he insisted that I needed this.”
“Oh,” was the absolute limit of what she could manage.
He shrugged a bit sheepishly. “Foolish, I know, but ’tis a lovely thing, isn’t it? But I’m always a bit dazzled by a tooled leather cover, truth be told.”
“Beautiful,” she agreed.
He looked at her and smiled. “If you tell me you had one as a child, I will refrain from pointing out how jaded you’ve become in spite of it.”
She took the book as he handed it to her. “Something very like it,” she lied. “You can blame my parents for filling my head full of this sort of rubbish.”
His smile faded. “I’m sorry,” he said carefully. “The memory must be difficult.”
She shook her head. “Actually, it isn’t,” she said, finding it was true. She took a step back. “I’ll keep looking.”
“I’ll read to you tonight, if you like.”
“From this or from that book King Uachdaran gave you about terrible mages?”
“Your choice. The content will be about the same, I’m guessing.” He nodded toward the door. “There’s stew, if you’re hungry. Coming?”
“I’ll be there in a minute,” she said. “I’ll put this back.”
He nodded, looked at her with another faint frown, then walked toward the door. Léirsinn turned to the bookcase, but found she couldn’t place the book back where she’d found it. There was something about it that wrenched at her heart in a way she couldn’t begin to describe.
Acair had bought it from a peddler. Her relief over hearing those words was as terrible as the abyss she’d almost stepped into at the thought that he might have gotten it another way.
“Léirsinn?”
She couldn’t turn around. “Aye?”
She heard him come to stand next to her but she couldn’t look at him.
“Is that your book?” he asked quietly.
She had to take a deep breath. “My sister’s.”
His breath caught.
She looked up at him then. He looked as surprised as she’d ever seen him, but his eyes were full of the terrible thoughts she’d already entertained.
“How do you know?” he asked, looking as if he wished they were speaking of anything else.
She held the book out. “Look in the back.”
He took the book with a hand that was no steadier than hers, then held it with both hands for a moment or two, as if he hardly dared open it. She watched him take a deep breath, let it out carefully, then flip the book over and simply open the back cover.
Marching into the middle of the fray instead of lingering on the edges. How like him.
