Perhaps it showed a little too, for when Sorcha peered around the doorframe of the dining hall and caught my eye, her lips pulled back in a grimace. A few moments later, she was ferrying a cup of milky tea into the main tavern. She set it down on the bar beside me and gently pried the unused cleaning rag from my hand.
“Not quite the Yule Eve we’d imagined, is it?”
There was something in her voice that cut through my scattered focus with cold precision. A tightness. I turned my head, frowning – and my mouth fell open on a gasp.
“Sorcha!”
Her apron was streaked with blood.
I whirled and grabbed her by the shoulders so I could look her over. She wasshaking, her cheeks flushed and eyes overbright. Fire flickered between my ribs. “What happened?”
Sorcha shrugged me off and tried to wave dismissively, but immediately winced at the movement. I took her hand gently in mine, and when she tried to pull back I held firm to her forearm.
“He’s just drunk, Roz, it’s nothing I can’t handle —”
I wasn’t listening, couldn’t hear her through the deafening noise between my ears, the roaring of a rising fire. Her fingers were laced with bloody rivulets, a dark red mess smeared over the back of her small hand. I stared up at her, simmering rage filling my lungs so rapidly I could barely breathe out the words; “What did he do?”
Sorcha gave a stuttering shake of her head. “I took care of it.”
“What. Did. He. Do.”
Her lip trembled, but she set her chin and took a long, steady inhale through her nose.
“He thanked me for serving his lunch,” she said, then paused reluctantly. “And asked if I might provideotherservices, too. Then he pulled me into his lap.”
She shuddered and brushed her hands over her hips like she could still feel his touch, but shook her head again when she caught me eyeing the unconscious gesture.
“He’s acretin, but I handled it.”
“Right,” I gritted out, staring past her at the dining hall entrance.
“Roz,no, don’t risk —”
But I was already moving, already out of reach before she could stop me. I stormed for the dining hall and threw open the door.
It was so chaotic in here that nobody even looked up at my dramatic entrance. A pair of grown men tussled like puppies in a corner while others laughed and egged them on. Of those seated, half watched the fight over the backs of their chairs, blindly reaching for the large dishes of fruit on the table behind them and scooping up messy handfuls, berries rolling off the edges of the platters. The wide-eyed newlyweds sat rigidly side by side halfway down the table, flinching in unison when the soldiers either side of them leaned over their place settings to gleefully sling insults at one another. One large, bearded soldier sat balanced on the back legs of his chair, head tilted back in a hearty guffaw. His dusty boots were propped up on the table just a handspan from Madame Bracken’s place setting and her scowl twisted her papery brow so tightly that I vaguely worried she might kick at his already teetering seat and leave me an awful mess to clean up.
I would have intervened, if Captain Caelan hadn’t glanced up the moment I stepped fully into the room. We locked eyes,his lips still lifted in laughter from whatever Brennan was saying at his side. In one brief, suspended moment, it occurred to me that this was the first time we had so much as made eye contact sincethe incident.His smile slid slightly – then flared to life in time with the sudden flicker of warmth in my chest, my magic rearing from its hiding place without warning.
The sensation made me stumble midstep, but that shock was a fuel to my anger and I recovered between one step and the next, striding around the table to arrive at the Captain’s side, hands planted on my hips. Some of the soldiers nearby chorused a lowoohat my obvious wrath.
Fucking schoolboys.
The Captain ignored them and turned his head to me, unphased.
“Afternoon, Rosie.”
He smirked, and my magic gave another little jolt, stealing my breath again.
Stop that.
“Your deputy is a menace. I want him out.”
The Captain huffed a short laugh while the men around him jeered.
“You think this isfunny?”
He gave a slow blink, not quite rolling his eyes.
