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“Only a fool would not,” agreed the dark one.
She looked at the room full of riches, then other two, their shoulders against the wall, staring at her impassively. Criminals, all. Cold-hearted mercenaries. They were just as Tadhg had said they were, soulless outlaws. Stark naughts.
“Then why did you not do so?” she asked softly, looking back to their leader.
There was a telltale stillness to his dark, downturned head.
She pressed. Took a step closer to where he sat at the table, looking at the fire, not her. “Why did you not inform on Tadhg after we first visited?”
“How do you know I did not?”
“Because you let us go. Because you let me back in. Because of the way you will not look at me now. Because of the way you looked at Tadhg, just before he walked out. You did not tell anyone he was here. You did not tell anyone then, and you will not tell anyone now, and so now, you are committed.”
He laughed but also lifted his head and looked at her. “Committed to what?”
“One good deed. Reclamation.”
Against the wall, the dark-eyed one shifted restlessly. Fáelán turned his chin that direction, but did not take his eyes off her. “And if we do not wish to be reclaimed?”
She made an impatient gesture. “Nevertheless, it is upon you.”
He smiled, then pushed to his feet and started out of the room.
Her jaw fell, then her heart began to plummet, and she felt dizzy as the bottom dropped out of all her hopes, leaving nothing behind. Panic crowded out s
ense, and she began talking without thinking.
“He is better than all of us, you know.”
Fáelán kept moving. The other two stepped aside to let him pass.
“You, me, we all of us, we are the stark naughts,” she said to his back. “The lost ones, the ones who do things only to further our own ends, petty though they are. Tadhg is the only among us one who has aimed higher. The only one of us who has sacrificed on behalf of someone else.”
The leader stopped beside one of the oak beams.
She took that as a hopeful sign, and stepped forward. “He has given his entire life to the cause of being better than he is, of saving something, and he saved me in the process. That is why he is better than all of us. For I am no better than you. But he is better than us all. That is why we must save him. It is not we who must be reclaimed, it is he.”
Nothing from the hard muscled back. Then he turned, the sword at his hip swaying. His pewter blue eyes met hers.
She pushed the dagger across the table toward him. “Help me.”
He made a gesture, beckoning the others forward. They came and stood behind him, one on each side, and looked down at the dagger.
“That truly is one monster ruby,” the tawny one muttered. He touched it with a huge hand, so gently Magdalena looked up at the incongruity.
Máel ripped his gaze off the dagger. “You want us to expose ourselves, we who’ve hidden so well, risk our lives and riches, to save the one who abandoned us? Where is the wisdom in that?”
“It is true,” she agreed softly. “Wisdom cannot guide you here.”
Máel made a sound of disgust and spun away from the table. “I’ll not be part of any godforsaken rescue attempt.”
Rowan’s indolent sensuality vibrated with tension as he looked at Fáelán. “That dagger could never pay what this deed will cost us if things go ill.”
“No, it will not,” Fáelán agreed softly.
Despair swept through her in waves, like an icy tide. “But it is worth a king’s ransom,” she cried.
Fáelán smiled his cold smile. “That only matters if one wants a king.”
