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A shadow loomed over her. The rustle of skirts. Breathing heavy and frantic.
Daigh’s gaze moved beyond her. “Tell her. You understand.”
Sabrina threw a confused look over her shoulder. Ard-siúr. Sister Ainnir. Both frowning. Both frightened.
“He’s right, Sabrina,” Ard-siúr intoned. “Your gifts are not necessary.”
“But . . .” She clamped down on her fear. Focused instead on the blood. The gore. Sticky. Black. A stench of murder and vicious death rising in fetid waves.
Daigh shuddered, his muscles leaping in spasms. His breath quick and sharp and painful. Pupils dilated and unseeing.
But no wounds.
Nothing but puckered pink flesh marring the hard-packed ridges of his stomach. The broad expanse of his chest.
“He’s . . .” Her hands curled to claws, the nails digging into her palms. Unable to shake the image of a man reveling in the battle. Drunk on mayhem. Lost to everything but killing. “It makes no sense. He was shot. I saw it.” She searched the faces of the bandraoi. “Why? How?”
“That would be a question for Mr. MacLir.” Ard-siúr’s attention never left the man lying upon the ground in his own spilled blood.
He shook his head. Spoke through chattering teeth. As horrified as any of them. “I don’t know. I can’t remember.”
“Rapid healing from lesser injuries, I’ve seen. But never from a killing wound. Never to such an extent and so quickly.” Sister Ainnir shook her head as she paced the room with slow, arthritic steps, hands clasped behind her back. “I’d say it was impossible did I not see it with my own eyes.”
“It’s unfortunate you were not the only one among us to witness it. Already the order’s abuzz with lurid stories of our mysterious guest.” Ard-siúr followed Sister Ainnir’s painful perambulations from her desk, face a study of thoughtful worry as she stroked the fat, purring tabby.
Sabrina huddled in her corner seat, mind swirling with questions and possibilities. None of them sensible. All of them the stuff of wild, outrageous fantasies.
Was Daigh true Fey? That would explain his apparent invincibility. The crushing, impenetrability of his stare. The strength contained within a titan’s frame. But a tiny voice persisted in denying that explanation. Pushed her to look elsewhere for answers. It was the same irritating voice whispering to her in the bleak hours of night, warning her Daigh’s arrival was not coincidence. He’d been brought here fo
r a purpose. And if she could only puzzle out the bizarre bond they shared, all the other answers would follow like tumbling dominoes.
“So do we follow Sister Brigh’s stern counsel and send him on his way?”
“It would seem the most prudent course.”
Ard-siúr and Sister Ainnir’s back-and-forth sounded as a dull bass line to her own noisy thoughts.
If not Fey, what? No normal human could survive a pistol shot square to the chest. Or the myriad dagger cuts spilling a river of blood she relived in nauseating crimson detail every time she closed her eyes. But if he wasn’t Fey and wasn’t human, what did that leave?
“Or would it be wiser to keep him close while we seek to unravel what nature of man he is?” Ard-siúr continued with her slow deliberation.
Sabrina picked at the dried blood remaining beneath her nails despite a hasty scrubbing. Skin still crawling with the feel of the bandit’s hand at her throat. The stench of his unwashed body souring her nose. Daigh had saved her. He’d been her knight-errant. Her champion. Could she remain silent while others argued out his fate? Or should she risk speaking out?
She lifted her head. Searched out Ard-siúr’s cool, appraising eyes. “You can’t send him away,” she decreed.
Sister Ainnir regarded her with shock, as if she were a piece of furniture sprung to life. Or a normally submissive apprentice gaining will and voice.
Ard-siúr’s pale brows rose to be lost in her kerchief. “You have something to say, Sabrina?”
Now that she’d become their focus, she lost the certainty of her own conviction. Who was she to tell Ard-siúr what to do? What did she know? It was her larking about that had resulted in her and Jane being caught in the ambush.
“I . . . that is, he . . . we can’t just . . . that is after . . .” Her words trailed off as she deflated beneath their level, questing stares, returning to the childhood comfort of silence.
Sister Ainnir shook her off like a bothersome fly. Resumed her worried pacing. But Ard-siúr’s gaze never faltered. She caught Sabrina in a disconcerting look that seemed to see right through her to the wall behind. “Go on. If you have something to add to the discussion, voice it now.”
Courage surfaced through an icy layer of nervousness. Now that the urge to speak her opinion had come, it slid over her like a glove on a hand. “No matter who or what he is, he didn’t abandon me. I can’t abandon him.” Hurried to amend. “We can’t abandon him.”
Ard-siúr’s smile felt like sun through clouds. She nodded. “Well spoken, Sabrina. And though Mr. MacLir’s body remains inviolate, I am as unclear about his mind. His is an odd tangle of impossibilities that makes me question my scrying’s accuracy. As a result, I believe keeping him within our care would be best.”
