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“Kill the miserable bastard for me.”
Daigh’s mouth curved in a vicious smile. “In that, we agree.”
The mail coach swayed and rocked like a boat on the sea. Windows tightly closed, and the four people sharing the compartment buried under an abundance of traveling rugs, mufflers, heavy coats, cloaks, and blankets, but still the icy draft swept through every crack, making teeth clatter and fingers ache.
Sabrina managed to read over half the novel she’d brought and the two magazines full of optimistic spring fashions, but now she regarded her fellow travelers from beneath lowered lids so as not to seem inquisitive.
A gentleman—perhaps in his mid-fifties—with the leathered face of a man who has spent a great deal of time out of doors in all kinds of weather, smiled paternally back at her.
A rake-thin woman in dowdy gown and a bonnet wreathed in black ribbon eyed Sabrina and the others with suspicion and pushed herself deeper into the corner, jamming her valise between herself and the fourth occupant of the coach—the only one of the passengers who’d remained aboard since their departure from Sackville Street two days ago.
He’d slept most of the time, hat pulled low, collar high, arms crossed over his chest, legs stretched in front of him. Awake, he remained eerily silent, only the thin gleam of his eyes visible from beneath the brim of his hat.
Sabrina had spoken to him once during an embarrassing and frightening encounter in Rathcormuck when a drunken passenger had lurched his way next to her, his breath sour in her face, his hand groping for her breasts. At that instant, the stranger had uncurled from his seat, gripped the drunk’s wrist, and spoken in a low whisper that seemed to shiver the already frigid air.
The lecherous drunk never moved again and disembarked at the next stop as if the wraiths of hell were after him.
“Thank you, sir,” she said shyly.
He snorted. “Dangerously foolish traveling alone. Does your family know what you’re about?”
So much for being polite. She stiffened in outrage. “My family is none of your concern. And I’m more than capable of taking care of myself.”
He snorted again. Shook his head. Mumbled something unintelligible but obviously disparaging.
And that was the last time she conversed with the rude man. She only wished he’d leave her to travel on alone. Instead, at every stage there he was. Stretched out and sleeping across from her.
Taking a handkerchief from her reticule, she rubbed the window pane and stared out into the sleet, her mind racing forward to the end of this long trip.
For the first time, it seemed as empty and depressing as the unbroken landscape outside the coach’s windows.
The bandraoi welcomed her back. Hustled her through the gates past huddled families and old men and women with hollowed, sunken faces who took up space in workshops and barns. Camped under hastily erected tarpaulins, their cook fires smoldering and sputtering in the damp.
Coughing. Muttering. Babies crying. Restless, impatient sounds.
“Who are these people?” Sabrina asked. “Where have they come from?”
Sister Ainnir barely glanced at the cluster of humanity as she hobbled past them. “They’re Other seeking sanctuary. Fleeing rumors of Duinedon persecution.”
“But the elders? The children? They’re harmless.”
The priestess waved away Sabrina’s question with a disgusted wave of her hand. “Tell that to the Duinedon. They see those bearing the blood of the Fey as the devil’s brood. Even a babe in arms could grow to threaten their precious mortal world.”
Sabrina clutched her valise, relieved when she left the tension-filled yard to climb the stairs to her bedchamber. But the images of frightened faces remained with her even in the quiet comfort of her room.
Had her father and the group of Nine been inspired by such scenes? Had they been wrong to want a world where being labeled Other didn’t mean harassment and discrimination? Their methods had crossed a line, but when failure could mean death, perhaps that line became less clear? The border between warranted action and malicious cruelty blurred?
She sank onto her bed, head pounding, mouth dry. The nervous energy holding her rigid through days of travel draining out of her in one gush of relief. She gazed around her. The same duck-shaped crack, the same lopsided corner cabinet. Even Teresa’s much loved and much read copy of The Children of the Abbey.
It was as if she’d merely stepped out for a few hours rather than a few weeks.
Sleep beckoned, but habit had her unpacking her bag, shaking out her gowns, the bright colors and sheer fabrics garish against the austerity of the chamber’s unadorned walls and bare floors.
A paper lay folded at the bottom of her valise.
She drew it out. Read the few words written there.
Tomorrow. Dusk. Outside the gates.
