Scarlett exhaled, a laugh breaking loose. For the first time since she’d set foot in Gundor, she felt not like a stranger being measured but like a woman being welcomed into a home.
Scarlett invited Katie for tea as soon as she finished greeting the rest of the clan.
Robert was nowhere to be seen. He wasn't in the hall, and the corridor was empty. He wasn't even looming at the back of the room.
She told herself she hadn't looked for him.
She focused on the tea service instead, her movements sharp and deliberate. She smoothed her skirts and sat down, refusing to glance at the door again. If he chose to be a ghost in his own castle, she wouldn't be the one to go hunting for him.
Scarlett leaned back in her chair with her fingers curled around a warm cup of tea. Katie sat across from her with one leg tucked casually beneath the other, laughing at some jest she’d just delivered.
“I tell ye, the old laird near fainted the first time I told him his back pain came from sitting too stiff and puffing himself like a rooster,” Katie said, grinning as she sipped her tea. “Men think strength is in their chests, but it’s in their spines, aye? And in their heads if they’d only use them.”
Scarlett chuckled, shaking her head. “Ye’ve a way of speaking that makes me forget I’m meant to be proper.”
Katie leaned forward, and her eyes gleamed. “Proper is for kirk and funerals. The rest of life’s meant to be lived. So, what’s it like, then, being Lady of Gundor?”
Scarlett hesitated, swirling the tea in her cup. “It feels… unfinished. Like I’ve stepped into a play and daenae know me lines.”
Katie smirked. “Then make new ones. Who’s to say a lady cannae write her own part?”
Scarlett laughed softly, grateful for the woman’s ease. She had expected healers to be stern and serious. Katie was neither. She was quick, witty, and far too comfortable speaking truths most would swallow.
The chamber door burst open, and Mary hurried in, skirts rustling, cheeks flushed. “Me Lady!”
Scarlett set down her cup, startled. “What is it?”
Mary held up a sealed parchment. “A letter’s just come from Hallow.”
Scarlett was on her feet in a heartbeat, snatching the letter from Mary’s hand. Her fingers trembled as she broke the seal.
The handwriting was familiar. “Edith”.
Scarlett’s heart squeezed as her eyes drank in the words
Dearest Scarlett,
I am well. Truly, I am. Your brother has kept his word, books and silence are mine, and I find peace in them. The halls feel emptier without you but not unfriendly. I walk the library daily, and no one troubles me. Laird Gallaway hardly speaks unless necessary, but he is civil, and for that I am grateful. You need not worry about me. I know why you chose as you did, and I will never forget it. You have given me a home when I had none and a place in your heart always. I am safe, and it is because of you.
Always yours, Edith.
Scarlett blinked at the words swimming on the page. She pressed the letter to her lips, whispering, “Thank God.”
Katie tilted her head. “Good news, then?”
Scarlett nodded, reading the lines again, slower this time, savoring each curl of Edith’s hand. Her friend was safe, happy even, surrounded by the books she loved and a kind of quiet that was rare in Hallow. Scarlett’s chest swelled with relief.
Scarlett folded the parchment. Her movements were careful and slow, her fingers gripping the paper until the edges bit into her skin. She didn't press the letter to her heart; she flattened it against her knee, smoothing the creases until her palms were warm from the friction.
Edith was safe. That was the truth she’d bought and paid for.
She just hadn’t expected safe to feel like a different world.
She stared at the small, folded square of paper, the only piece of home she had left, and realized that while Edith was free, Scarlett was the one who had been locked away behind stone and silence.
Katie leaned back, watching her closely. “This Edith, she’s dear to ye.”
“Like a sister.” Scarlett smiled faintly though tears burned her eyes. “When me mother passed, Edith’s mother took me in as her own. She taught me things me father and brother never could. Softness, patience. Edith was always beside me, listening when Aaron barked at me and even holding me when I wept. She gave me a place to be meself, not just the daughter of Gallaway. I couldnae leave her to face the village alone. I insisted that Aaron should take her in; that was me only condition to get married.”
