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“Yes, I’m sure that’s it.” But he didn’t sound as if he believed it.
Their voices faded in and out as Ellery tried to follow the conversation. She was warm. She was relaxed. Couldn’t anyone see all she wanted was sleep?
“Con? Is that you? We’d given you up for dead.” A young woman hardly older than Ellery ran into the room, her muddy skirts rucked up to reveal riding boots. Her wet hair in a long braid over her shoulder. “Thought Asher was using your bones for toothpicks.”
“Your confidence in me is overwhelming.” For the first time in days, Conor’s face relaxed into a wide easy smile. Made him look almost cheerful.
Mikhal shot her an irritated glance. “Morgan. Your tact certainly hasn’t improved during your time with Scathach.”
She’d been studying Ellery in open curiosity, but turned to dismiss Conor’s father with a laugh. “Did you send me away to become a handmaiden or a shield maiden, Uncle?” She threw her arms around an unsuspecting Conor. “I’ve been searching every lane leading here since they told us you were on your way. Gram’s even had Ruan scouring the neighborhood, and you know how he hates rising before noon when he’s ashore.”
“I thought you’d be in Skye tormenting your instructors.” Conor frowned. “You haven’t been kicked out of there, have you?”
Ellery didn’t hear the answer, or what excuses he used to explain her presence. The steady stream of banter and welcome dissolved into gibberish, and the overheated room grew stuffy. She was so tired she wanted to cry.
Stepping back from the homecoming, Ellery felt lonelier amid the noise and confusion of these people than in all the days since Molly’s death. She had an image of her quiet house tucked among the hills above Carnebwen and longed to be home. Alone. With her old life back.
Her eyes flicked to Conor’s pinched, pale face. No, that wasn’t completely true. Not alone. Heat pooled deep in the pit of her stomach.
A voice sounded in her ear. Like water. Or music. “There will be time for such thoughts after a day and a night of sleep and rest. You deserve it.”
Ellery spun around, the heat rushing from her stomach to her face.
A tiny woman stood at her elbow, her lined skin parchment thin, her silver hair not tucked beneath a mob cap like other little old ladies, but looped and braided and caught with silver combs. She smiled and patted Ellery’s hand, her silver-gray eyes dancing.
“Kerneth. Child. Wasn’t I young once?”
Obviously, Conor wasn’t the only one of his family to pick a thought from the air as others picked fruit from a tree. She’d have to learn to guard against such intrusions if she stayed here for long. “It’s not like that between us,” she explained.
“Isn’t it?”
Ellery lost herself in those eyes. Swept up in them as if she witnessed the spinning of the stars, the vastness of the sea.
The old woman’s voice deepened, became stronger. “My grandson needs you, make no mistake. Your part in this is not yet over.”
Ellery’s whole body tensed, and her mouth went dry. She shook her head, trying to focus, but a slash of pain ripped through her skull. She bit off a cry, but the spell was broken. Conor’s grandmother was once more a fragile, stoop-shouldered dowager, nothing more than a twinkle in her kind eyes.
She tugged on Ellery’s hand as she stepped among them. The voices subsided. The others fell into line as if a general inspected them.
“Tact is not all that is lacking at Daggerfell these days, Mikhal Bligh,” Conor’s grandmother said. “Hospitality is also absent. Our guest needs sleep. Morgan and I will show her to her room.”
The corridor was dimly lit. Her room was only slightly brighter with a fire burning low in the grate and a candelabra guttering by her bed. A shelf of books below a window. A vase of narcissus and early spring primroses. A patterned rug on the floor. It wasn’t grand or intimidating. It was a comfortable, welcoming room. Snug and settled with age and a friendly charm. Not what she would have expected in the home of Conor Bligh.
A robe and nightgown lay across the bed. A pitcher and basin beside it on a stand. Everything as it should be. Everything as if they’d been expecting her arrival.
“Plenty of time for questions once you have rested. A tussle with Asher is no small matter and to come away unscathed is a victory in itself.” Conor’s grandmother Lowenna gestured to the bed. “Sleep now, child.”
It did look soft. Ellery’s whole body ached to fall across it without even undressing. Crawl beneath the quilts and stay there until they forced her out. But whether it was the restorative powers of the whiskey or her own irrepressible spirit, she already felt her mind cranking up. Spinning to understand. Sleep wouldn’t come any time soon.
“I hope I haven’t put anyone out by appearing out of the blue like this.”
Lowenna looked around her as if she’d only now seen the room for the first time. Her eyes went flat and staring. “The house is emptier than it should be. More departures than arrivals these days.”
An uncomfortable silence threatened to swallow Ellery. What could she say? She’d seen Simon. The jealousy and fear that prowled beneath his skin. The demon he’d chained himself to with the murder of his own cousin. She wished she were back to being too tired to care. Then suddenly it dawned on her. The simple beauty of the room. The homey feel of it. Oh, God. Her mouth went dry. A tightness ran down her back. Across her shoulders. “This isn’t Ysbel’s room,” she said. “Please tell me you didn’t…I can’t stay here.”
Conor’s grandmother laughed, and the panic subsided. “Relax. You aren’t trespassing on sacred ground. Or rattling the chains of the dead. Ysbel’s room is on this hall, but farther along. And locked.”
She must have seen the ghost of a question in Ellery’s expression. “Not to keep anyone out or anything in,” she continued. “Simply due to a grief too new and a family too burdened with other matters to take the time.”
