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Elisabeth’s face hovered above him, wearing a fearful, stoic expression, her hair pulled into a hasty chignon at the back of her head, though wisps of curls framed her gray, tired face.
At his foot, a second woman knelt, her mouth pursed in a disapproving line, her dark brows arched over eyes sparkling with triumph.
Jack’s description hadn’t been nearly as exaggerated as he’d thought. Miss Roseingrave was beautiful in a panther-esque sort of way. Lean, dark, graceful, deadly. She’d eat poor Jack alive and spit out his bones.
A laugh boiled up through his chest. Why not? The situation reeked of farce. Club-over-the-head, dangle-from-a-cliff-edge comedy in its most unsophisticated form. They both looked at him as if he’d lost his mind. Perhaps he had. He’d escaped Máelodor only to fall into the Amhas-draoi’s hands.
Poetic. Ludicrous. Just his typical rotten luck.
nine
Upon opening his eyes, Brendan’s hand immediately flew to his throat. Not there. The chain. The stone. Gone. “Son of a . . . !” He clamped his mouth shut, feeling around in the blanket. It would be here. Had to be.
Elisabeth looked up, a small line between her brows. “The usual salutation is ‘Good morning, hope you slept well, lovely weather for a drive.’”
“Try having a blasted great hole in your shoulder and see how you greet the day,” he said while riffling through the folds. Checking under the trunk by his head.
“There’s laudanum.” She started to rummage through a bag.
“No.”
“But if your shoulder is bothering—”
“I said no, damn it!”
She flushed, her gaze uncertain. “I was only trying to help.”
He glanced away, embarrassed at his outburst. His weakness wasn’t her fault. “Laudanum makes me ill. I stay away from it.”
They were alone in the wagon. Who knew when they’d get another such chance to speak without fear of eavesdroppers?
“Where is it, Elisabeth?”
She gazed upon him, expression inscrutable but for a flicker deep in her dark eyes. “Helena says your wound is clean and no sign of infection.”
She was going to play it that way, was she? Fine. He’d allow it. To a point. Whatever it took to get that bloody stone back in his possession. “Helena, is it?”
“It seems silly after all we’ve been through to stand on such proper terms. Who are they, Brendan? What do they want with us?”
“Remember when I said there were people angry with me? Roseingrave is one of them. She’s Amhas-draoi.”
Elisabeth frowned, shaking her head.
“The
y guard the divide between the Fey realm and the mortal world. Act as protectors. Warriors and mages of the highest caliber, they’re both feared and respected by the race of Other.”
Her lips pressed to a thin disapproving line. “You can’t make normal enemies. Oh no. You have to fall afoul of cold-blooded murderers and a magic-wielding sorcerer army.”
“I strive to excel,” he joked before growing somber. “The stone, Lissa. Tell me you have it. Tell me Roseingrave didn’t find it. That stone is the key to everything.”
She looked away, fiddling with the buckle on one of the traveling cases.
“Do you want me to say I’m sorry? I will. I’m sorry. A thousand times sorry. You don’t know how sorry I am. I never thought it would come to this point, but you don’t know what it was like back then. The chaos of those days. I needed to hide the stone. Just until things calmed down. Until I could figure out my next move.”
She kept silent, her fingers worrying at the metal clasp.
“If Roseingrave took it—”
