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Drunk on her teeny victory and resentment making her reckless, she volleyed, “Are you so certain of that?”
Ard-siúr’s drumming stopped, a new awareness in her gaze.
“You once asked if I’d ever received a letter from Brendan,” Sabrina brazened. “You believe the Amhas-draoi, don’t you? You think he’s alive.”
Ard-siúr spread her hands in a question. “I know only the rumors. Though they strengthen every day, they are still just that—mere speculation.”
The tangle of frayed threads caught Sabrina’s eye, the knot returning tenfold. “Do you believe he really did those things? That he was as evil and dangerous as they claim?”
Ard-siúr noted the track of her gaze. “And of whom do we speak now?” she asked gently. “Brendan Douglas or Daigh MacLir?”
Sabrina shrugged off her question with her regrets. “Never mind. It hardly matters anymore, does it?”
The wisest and most powerful of the priestesses steepled her fingers against her chin. “I believe to you, Sabrina, it matters very much.”
Cork teemed with life. Crowded, jostling bodies. The rumble and squeak of wheels through narrow streets. A choking press of sound and scents and life that only the salty, brackish sea air kept from overwhelming him. He focused on his quarry. Black Jacket had stabled his horse, threading the roads and alleyways on foot as he made his way through town. Found his way to a snug harborside inn and a private, second-floor parlor. All unheeding of the silent watcher tracking his movements. An ever-present shadow.
The parlor was located at the end of a narrow, rickety outside walkway. Below in the courtyard, ostlers shouted as carriages were hitched and unhitched, passengers chattered as bags were stowed and coaches set to. Horses pawed their
impatience upon the cobbles, and coachmen swore and stamped against the damp cold. Din enough to drown out the clumsiest of shadowing. But he wasn’t clumsy. And it took a moment’s skill to crack the door. Stand idly upon the walk outside as though doing nothing more than enjoying the spectacle below.
“. . . better be. Máelodor will have our heads otherwise.” Black Jacket’s associate. A light urbane voice. Almost effeminate.
“Has to be. I searched that place top to bottom. And look, it’s obvious this is the tapestry. The litter. The tomb. The Earl of Kilronan’s diary spoke of both.”
Daigh’s breath caught in his throat.
Kilronan. Sabrina’s brother. What the hell had he to do with this? And was Sabrina involved?
It didn’t matter. Sabrina didn’t matter. Not anymore. He ignored the gnawing ache that had been his since leaving Glenlorgan. The drag of useless emotions. Concentrated on the conversation.
A silence followed, movements within the parlor swallowed by the continuous come-and-go downstairs. Farther down the passage, a door opened. A man and woman emerging, their conversation of weather and passage bookings and the expense of their room seeming out of place among the dark plottings just a wall away. The man tipped his hat as they passed on their way to the staircase, the woman eying Daigh with blatant admiration.
“And Máelodor’s creature?”
Daigh strained to catch their words over the arriving blast of a mail coach. The jangle of harness, clatter of hooves, and a fresh bustle from the courtyard beneath him. Like ants from a kicked hill, the inn swarmed with activity, making eavesdropping nigh impossible.
Thoughts of crashing through the door in a storm of deadly violence elicited a thin smile and a twitch of hardening muscles, the serpent stirring from the darkest corner of his soul, but he fought it back.
Better to wait. To follow.
“. . . there . . . attacked me . . . not even a Domnuathi could have survived that.”
“. . . fool”—the scrape of drawn chairs—”. . . take it to Máelodor . . . tell him about Lazarus . . . what he wants to do with it . . . head to Dublin . . . the Amhas-draoi . . .”
Shared laughter.
“. . . focus is all on Douglas. Máelodor’s dead”—the chuckle of conspirators—”. . . information for him. See that he gets it immediately.” A clink of glasses. The squeak of floorboards. The meeting breaking up.
Daigh fell back from his position. Slipped up the passage, ducking into the first open door, waiting until Black Jacket passed. Follow him, and he’d find the mysterious Máelodor. The spider at the center of this hideous web.
He’d only just swung back into the passage when the slide of a knife caught him beneath the chin. “Did you catch all that, Lazarus? Or should I fill you in on the parts you missed?” The high tenor of Black Jacket’s fellow conspirator.
The knife pressed deep into his neck. Blood dripping upon his collar. No time for the cut to heal before another slide of the blade opened a new wound.
“Inside, if you please.”
A slippery, vicious crackle of darkness burned along Daigh’s blood. It coursed within him like some foreign evil. Part of him and yet separate. Wanting blood and death and killing. An animal need to obliterate.
