“You’ve met red-haired women before, I’m certain.”
“None that I remember speaking to,” he protested, though he supposed that wasn’t entirely accurate.
Then again, the only one he could think of was Ruithneadh’s wife, Sarah. She was one of those dastardly dreamweavers, though, and capable of all manner of terrifying things. She and Léirsinn should never meet over tea. They would likely burn the whole damned world to cinders.
Well, and that gel who had helped him escape the gates of Eòlas after he’d sent Léirsinn and Mansourah off on his horse. She’d had red hair…
“I wonder if he was in Briàghde when those mages wanted you dead. That mage said you knew too much.”
He pushed aside things he simply didn’t have the strength to contemplate and struggled to focus on what she was saying.
“Those lads—oh, those mages,” he said, realizing he was slurring his words but unable to help himself. “Braggarts. Know the type.”
He was the type, but he imagined she already knew that. He groped for her hand and felt her brush his hair out of his eyes. It was perhaps one of the most profoundly intimate gestures he’d ever experienced, but, he had to admit, he had been accustomed in the past to tiara-wearing princesses wielding fans and perhaps one too many witches and magick-possessing noblewomen wielding spells.
What a lovely change.
He squeezed her hand and felt himself slide into darkness.
Sixteen
Two days later, Léirsinn sat in the same place, watched the man lying on the pallet in front of the fire, and wondered if he would ever again wake.
After the events of the morning, she was wishing quite desperately that he would.
Perhapseventswas overstating things. She’d had a single event that had completely changed her opinion of those coins sitting on the mantel and left her counting them over and over again in her head, reminding herself of what they would do if she needed to use them.
Sianach lifted his head suddenly and that motion alone almost left her jumping out of her skin. He looked at her as if she’d lost her good sense, which she feared she might have. She put her hand over her chest to keep her heart where it was meant to stay, then reached out and patted Acair’s pony on the head.
He licked his chops—she didn’t want to know what he’d hunted out in the garden—and put his muzzle atop her bare foot. Comforting, if she could ignore the teeth that were still a bit too large for his mouth and weren’t exactly pleasant against her flesh.
What was less pleasant was thinking about what had happened to her earlier that morning.
She shouldn’t have gone out to the garden. She was fairly certain Acair had roused long enough the day before to remind her that she should stay inside. She was absolutely certain that she’d suggested tartly that he mind his own affairs and leave her to do as she pleased, but by then he’d fallen back asleep and likely hadn’t heard her.
When it came to mages and magic, she thought she might want to take his suggestions more seriously the next time around.
An innocent walk out in the garden, though. What could possibly have gone amiss there? She’d had confidence in Acair’s spell, so her most pressing concern had been finding a cloak to use in warding off the chill.
The mage had been waiting just outside the garden gate. How he’d known she was outside she didn’t know given that Acair’s spell of concealment had still been hanging there, doing what he’d created it to do.
Perhaps Sladaiche had heard the back door open. Perhaps Sianach’s barking had alerted him to someone in the garden. Perhaps he had simply taken a stab in the dark and crossed his fingers that someone had come outside. She wondered if he’d actually believed that she would be foolish enough to simply walk through the gate and give herself up for lost.
She hadn’t expected him to fling a shard of magic toward the house that she’d been convinced was going to go directly through what lay over the garden and slay her.
Acair’s perfectly impenetrable spell had fluttered just the slightest bit, once, then gone on about its glorious task of keeping her safe.
She’d turned and walked calmly back the way she’d come. If she’d only managed that for a total of four paces before she’d bolted up the stairs and into the house, slammed the door shut, then fetched a chair to wedge under the latch, she supposed she was the only one who would know. Sianach had barked at the door immediately after, which had almost sent her into a dead faint.
She’d been tempted to leave him outside to fend for himself, but she wasn’t that cowardly. She’d brought him in, replaced the chair, then run through the house to perch on the edge of her current roost and indulge in a prayer or two that Acair would wake. She’d made a fire, but that had burned to embers an hour ago and she hadn’t dared go outside for more wood.
The fire leapt to life suddenly and she shrieked.
“Just me,” Acair said hoarsely.
She realized he was awake and watching her. She dropped to her knees next to him and suppressed the urge to fling herself at him. He reached for her hand.
“How long?”
