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Daigh sat outside the workshop door, the winter sun glinting off the chaff cutter blade propped between his legs. He worked the edge with his whetstone, even though it had long ago reached killing strength. Still, it kept his hands busy in a task as unconscious as breathing.
Sabrina had joined him, despite—or perhaps because of—the disapproving looks from the bandraoi. For the last hour they’d sat in comfortable silence, neither one needing to speak, but both deriving solace from the company.
“If you had the chance to return to Wales would you take it?” Sabrina’s question caught him off-guard.
He glanced at her, but she wasn’t looking his way. Only the curve of her cheek and the tips of her lashes visible as she fiddled with a reaping hook on the bench.
His hand tightened on the stone. “There is naught left of that life.”
“Not the people, of course. But the sea would be the same. And the mountains. The air and the sky. These things don’t change. Even over centuries.”
“No, they don’t, do they? That is a comfort.” He took up a rag. Began rubbing a polish into the blade. By the time he was done, the tool would be better suited as a weapon of war.
“Belfoyle won’t have changed either. Not the parts that matter. The beaches. The cliffs. They’ll be just as they were when I drove away seven years ago.”
“You are less unhappy about returning?”
She shrugged in a noncommittal fashion. “Resigned. It can never be what it was.”
“And what was it?”
“You know, that special place where nothing bad can happen. That magic is gone forever.”
“True. But so is the child you were. And you’ve family. Kilronan and his new wife will be there.”
She pursed her lips, picking at the edge of one finger. “They’re like Father and Mother. So wrapped in one another, there’s no room for anyone else.”
“Perhaps because they came so close to losing one another.”
He shook off the smoke and flame memory, though the hellish aftermath of his failure was harder to ignore. He wore it on his skin. A reminder of what waited in his future if he failed a second time.
“But don’t you see? There’s no room for me in what they share. It’s their family. And as long as Brendan’s on the run, he’s lost to me as well.” She sighed. “Just when I think I can leave it behind me . . . when things might be right again . . . Why does the past always ruin the present?”
“The past and our memories have brought us here. Who knows? Perhaps they will save us in the end.”
“Sabrina? May I see you in my office?” Ard-siúr stood at the fringe of women who’d collected around the fire for their morning gossip. One or two looked up from their mugs of thick coffee and blackened sausages, but most merely rendered a quick shrug of interest before returning to their own worries.
“Of course.” Sabrina smothered her rush of panic in a smoothing of her apron over her knees. Straightened from where she’d been tending to an ugly steam burn from a cook’s pot. Followed Ard-siúr out of the blust
ering December wind and into the cool, dim passage. Up the stairs. Past the ever-cheerful Sister Anne, who waved a hello before faltering under Ard-siúr’s severe gaze.
What did she want? What did she know? Sabrina’s thoughts whirled like dry leaves.
Once inside, Ard-siúr took up position behind her desk, motioning Sabrina into a chair, her expression solemn.
“Is there something wrong?” Sabrina donned a look of innocent confusion, hoping the flush of heat staining her cheeks didn’t give her away.
There followed a long, anxious pause as Ard-siúr seemed to gather her thoughts, come to conclusions lost to Sabrina. Finally, she spoke. Slowly. Deliberatively. “Sister Brigh has come to me with her concerns over Mr. MacLir’s continued stay and your continued interest in him.”
“It’s no longer Sister Brigh’s affair. I’m a guest. Not a novice.”
Ard-siúr tapped the tips of her fingers together. “But you are also a young lady of good reputation. I would hate to see you throw that away on one such as Daigh MacLir. As, I’m sure, would your brother.”
“Kilronan may control my movements, but not my heart.”
“And your other brother?”
Sabrina felt through the fabric of her apron to the note folded within. What was Ard-siúr getting at with her roundabout questions and her long, tension-filled silences?
