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“Damn it all to hell.” The voice came weak and raspy, but still recognizable.
Despite the circumstances, her heart beat faster, and a crazy mix of joy and anger bubbled through her. “Brendan?”
There followed a rustle, a bitten-back moan, and a tired shuffling crawl. “Hold still, and I’ll try to get this sack off you.”
Long, anxious moments and much cursing later, the bag was torn from her head. Sweet air. She gulped in great lungfuls, savoring the coolness on her face. Squinting even against the blue-black dark of night.
Her eyes slowly adjusted, revealing a face. Familiar and yet not. The man kneeling in front of her bore a rugged breadth of shoulder and a muscled frame, though he held himself gingerly as if he were in pain, and he cradled one hand close against his body. His shirt clung damp and filthy to his chest, and even in the blanketing shadows, his face bore a mottled collage of bruising, a lip split and puffy, one eye swollen shut. But the unblemished eye held a familiar gold gleam, and his smile—split lip and all—bore the lopsided charm she remembered.
Had her hands been free, she would have flung herself at him. Though whether to hug him in welcome or beat him senseless, she wasn’t certain.
He’d left her. Run away when she needed him most. Let her think he was dead. And now he was here. She could make up for that last awful parting. Tell him what he meant to her. How much she truly loved him. Or perhaps she should just give him a good fist to the jaw for bringing hell down on her head.
“You,” she said, her voice shaky with anger, joy, and fear.
“Try to curb your enthusiasm,” he answered dryly.
And just like that, seven years shrank to nothing. Tears spilled over. Ran like rivers down her face. “Oh gods, Daigh said . . . and the notes . . . and then . . . but I tried not to believe. I didn’t want to be disappointed. But you’re here. It really is you.” Horrible, wretched weeping shook her, making her nose run and her throat ache.
“That’s more like the response I’d hoped for,” Brendan teased.
She snuffled. “You’ve changed.”
“Seven years spent looking over one’s shoulder can do that to a fellow,” he answered through chattering teeth.
“You’re soaked.”
“Compliments of a few buckets of water from St. John’s flunkies.” He bent to examine her wrists. “I can try to undo those knots, but it may take a while. St. John’s hurt my right hand. I think it’s broken.”
She turned her back to him as he began working at the knots, an awkward silence falling between them.
What should she say? What did one say to a brother who, until a few short weeks ago, was assumed long dead? Where had he been? How had he lived? Why had he come back now?
Questions banged around inside her mouth, yet she remained speechless unable to form any of her thoughts into words. Instead she resorted to, “You didn’t write that last note, did you?”
“Actually, I did. St. John’s arguments became overwhelmingly compelling. And extremely painful. It was only after I had done it that he stomped on my fingers for fun.” His breath came labored as he picked with frustrating slowness at the knots.
“But why does he want me? What use could I possibly be to him?”
“The sisters wouldn’t question your movements while you lurked about looking for the Rywlkoth Tapestry.”
“It really is hidden there?”
“It won’t be for long if St. John has his way. He’s got orders to retrieve it. Using any means necessary. You, my darling sister, are those means.”
“But I don’t even know what it looks like. How—”
“Shh,” Brendan cut her off. Dropped his voice to a whisper. “Don’t tell St. John that. Let him think you know what and where it is. Get him to let you go back for it. And don’t return.”
“St. John will kill you.”
“I’m safe from St. John. He may beat me black and blue, but he’s got strict orders to keep me alive. When you get back, go to your Ard-siúr. She can send for the Amhas-draoi. They’ll know how to handle St. John.”
“But the Amhas-draoi . . . they want to kill you.”
“They’ll have to get to the back of the line.” She opened her mouth to protest. “Sabrina, I’d rather face a quick execution at the hands of the Amhas-draoi than a drawn-out death at the hands of Máelodor. He and I have a long history. None of it on friendly terms.” A long pause, a wrench of her arms, and, “There.”
The ropes came away. She faced him, rolling her aching shoulders, rubbing her wrists. “I can’t leave you.”
