Page 56 of Immortal Game

“For your cloak, I know. And you will, I’m sure, when you see her next.” Shea pinned her with an irritable look. “Let me take care of you first.”

She hadn’t meant it to sound so intimate, but she couldn’t take the words back now. Shea’s face warmed at the astonishment in Ciara’s eyes. “Very well.”

Carefully, Ciara shrugged out of her cloak. She held it out with a look of great concern, drinking in the jagged tears and bloodstains. She shook it out like a sandy beach towel, and whenshe finished, it looked pristine once more. Next, she unfastened the opalescent buttons of her blouse until she could free her wounded arm from its sleeve. For a moment, Shea could do nothing but admire the expanse of bare skin over her collarbones, dusted silver in the moonlight and pearled delicately with water.

Her gaze landed on the gash on her shoulder. “That looks horrible.”

Ciara huffed. “It feels horrible, too.”

Shea busied herself with soaking a cloth in water and soap. “Will it heal quickly?”

“Perhaps in an hour or so.” When Shea dabbed at the cut, Ciara sucked in a breath through her teeth. “Thatstings. Be careful, or this really will kill me.”

“Sorry. I couldn’t exactly fit first aid into my tournament prep schedule.” As she worked, she thought of the sorceress who’d attacked them—and the way Ciara had spoken to her. “You recognized that woman, didn’t you?”

Ciara closed her eyes. “Yes. Her name is Fuamnach.”

“Fuamnach? Like, the same Fuamnach in that story you told me? Midir’s first wife?” Shea’s temples pounded. That name… That was right. She knew that name. The memory of Midir’s first appearance in her life came hurtling back.

“Tell me,” Aideen had asked Midir, “what was it that parted us?”

“No hard matter,” Midir had replied. “The sorcery of Fuamnach and the spells of Bressel Etarlam.”

“The very same,” said Ciara.

“But that’s impossible. You said she was executed.”

“She was supposed to be,” Ciara said gravely.

“Then what is she doing here?”

“She must have escaped—or someone spared her.”

Shea’s head was spinning. “But why interfere with a chess tournament—and why this one, when she’s been gone for a thousand years?”

“I don’t know.” Ciara frowned. “We theorized a sorcerer was aiding a competitor. But perhaps sheisa competitor.”

Shea poured water over Ciara’s wound to rinse it, then began to wrap her shoulder in linen. “You think she’s impersonating someone.”

Ciara winced. “It’s possible, yes. Since she’s trying to sabotage mortal competitors, I suspect she wants to win Midir’s boon. It’s the only way she would be able to get to Aideen, since he keeps her hidden. Fuamnach swore that in whatsoever part of the world Aideen might be, in whatsoever shape she might be, as long as they both lived, she would do nothing but harm to Aideen.”

Shea tightened the bandage’s knot with more force than she’d intended. Ciara’s soft gasp of pain was masked by theshushof fabric as it tightened. “Then we have to tell Midir.”

“No. He’ll cancel the tournament.”

They couldn’t allow that to happen. “Then what do we do? We can’t just—”

“It is my fault we are in this position.” Ciara’s face twisted with regret. “I should have stopped her tonight. Without her switch, she cannot cast spells. Had I disarmed her…”

“Wait,” Shea interjected. “Ciara, what are you talking about? None of this is your fault.”

“I wasn’t strong enough.” She smacked the bed frame. It was a familiar gesture of frustrated self-reproach—the same aswhen she slammed her fist onto a chessboard after a tough loss. “I have never been strong enough to make a difference.”

I ran away like a coward, without even stopping to think.

The things we do in desperation… It is impossible not to regret them.

Is that really what Ciara thought of herself? “But you saved me—and Daniil. And Beann, too, last year. Doesn’t that mean anything?”