Jack nodded. His face felt hot; he couldn’t swallow.
“Mum told me I have an older brother who’s a bard,” his sister continued. “She said you’d return soon, but we didn’t know when. I’ve dreamt of meeting you!”
Jack forced a smile. It felt more like a grimace, and he narrowed his eyes at Mirin, who was finally looking at him, a pained expression on her face.
“Frae?” she said, clearing her throat. “Why don’t you go and sleep in my room tonight? You can see Jack tomorrow at breakfast.”
“Yes, Mum,” Frae replied in a dutiful tone, her arms falling away from Mirin’s waist. “Good night, Jack.”
He didn’t respond. He couldn’t find the words in time, even as she grinned once more at him, like he was a hero in a story she’d been hearing about for years.
Frae slipped into Mirin’s bedchamber, latching the door behind her.
Jack stood, quiet as stone, staring at the place where she’d been.
“Are you hungry?” Mirin asked, tentatively. “I left soup on the fire for you.”
“No.”
He had been starving up until that moment. Now his stomach was churning, his appetite gone. He had never felt more uncomfortable or out of place in his life, and his eyes swept toward the front door, seeking an escape route. “I can sleep in the byre tonight.”
“What? No, Jack,” Mirin said firmly, standing in his path. “You can have your old room.”
“But it belongs to Frae now.”
Frae. His little sister, whose entire existence Mirin had kept concealed from him. He gritted his teeth, felt the sting of his palm as his fingers curled inward.
Before his mother could speak again, Jack hissed, “Why didn’t you tell me about her?”
“I wanted to, Jack,” Mirin replied in a low voice. She seemed to worry Frae might overhear them. “I wanted to. I just … I didn’t know how to tell you.”
He continued to regard her, coldly. He wanted to leave, and Mirin must have sensed it.
She stretched out her hand to him, gently touching his face.
He flinched, even as he longed to see and feel her love for him. The love he had seen in her hands when she had touched Frae’s hair. Effortless and natural.
He felt the years that had been lost between them now, like a limb torn away. Time that could never be regained, time that had encouraged them to grow apart. Mirin might have given him life and raised him the first eleven years, but the mainland professors and their music had shaped him into who he was now.
Mirin’s hand fell away. Her dark eyes glistened with sorrow, and he worried she was about to weep.
His throat was still aching, but he managed to say, “I would appreciate some dry clothes, if you have them.”
“Yes, of course,” Mirin said, her posture easing with visible relief, as if she had been holding her breath. “Yes, I have clothes ready for you. I always hoped you would return, and so I … in here, Jack …” She strode into his bedroom.
Jack stiffly followed.
He watched as Mirin opened the wooden trunk at the foot of the bed. She withdrew a stack of perfectly folded garments. A fawn-colored tunic and a green plaid.
“I made these for you,” she said, staring down at the raiment. “I had to guess how tall you’d be, but I think I imagined right.”
Jack accepted the clothes. “Thank you,” he said, the words clipped. He was numb with shock and irritated from wearing Torin’s oversized, drenched clothes all day. He was hungry and tired and overwhelmed by the knowledge of Frae, by the request Adaira had made of him.
He needed a moment alone.
Mirin must have sensed it. She left without another word, closing the door behind her.
Jack sighed, dropping his guise. His face grooved in pain, and he closed his eyes, drawing in long, deep breaths until he felt strong enough to survey his old room.
A candle burned on his writing desk, washing the stone walls in faint light. His childhood storybooks were lined up in a row; he wondered if Frae had read them by now. He was surprised to find his slingshot still hanging on a nail in the wall, alongside a small tapestry that must have belonged to his sister. A reed mat covered the floor, and the bed sat in one corner, draped in his childhood blanket. Mirin had woven it for him, a warm covering to ward off the chilly nights of the isle.
His eyes traced it, catching on something unexpected near the pillow.
Jack frowned and stepped closer, realizing it was a bouquet of wildflowers. Had Frae picked these for him? Surely not, he thought. But he couldn’t help but assume that his mother and sister had been waiting for him to arrive all day. Ever since they heard of his presence on the wind.
He set his harp down.
He disrobed and dressed in the clothes Mirin had made for him. To his shock, they fit him perfectly. The wool was warm and soft against his skin, and the plaid came around him like an embrace.
Jack lingered in his room a moment longer, struggling to dissolve the emotion he was feeling. By the time he had regained his composure and returned to the common room, Mirin had a bowl of dinner waiting for him.
This time he accepted it as he sat in a straw-backed chair by the fire. The soup smelled of marrow and onions and pepper, of all the green living things Mirin grew in her garden. He let the steam ease before he began to eat, savoring the rich flavors of the meal. The taste of his childhood. And he swore for a moment that time rippled around them, granting him a glimpse of the past.
“Have you come home for good, Jack?” Mirin asked, sitting in a chair across from his.
Jack hesitated. His mind was still reeling with questions about Frae, with answers he was keen to learn. But he decided to wait. He could almost fool himself, thinking it was the old days. When Mirin had told him stories by the hearth.
“I’ll be returning to the mainland in time for autumn term,” he said, despite Adaira’s warning.
“I’m glad you’re home, even if it’s just for a spell,” Mirin said, lacing her fingers together. “I’ve been curious to hear more about your university. What is it like there? Do you enjoy it?”
He could have told her many things. He could have started at the beginning, recounting how in those early days he had hated the university. How learning music had come slowly to him. How he had wanted to smash his instruments and return home.
But perhaps she already knew that, from reading between the lines of the letters he had written her.
He could have told her about the moment when things changed, in his third year, when the most patient of professors had started to teach him how to play the harp and Jack had found his purpose at last. He was told to take great care with his hands, to let his fingernails grow long, as if he were becoming a new creature.
“I like it just fine,” he said. “The weather is pleasant. The food is average. The company is good.”
“You’re happy there?”
“Yes.” The reply was swift, reflexive.
“Good.” Mirin said. “I didn’t want to believe Lorna when she told me that you would prosper on the mainland. But how right she was.”
Jack knew the Tamerlaines had funded his education. The university was expensive, and Mirin alone could not have afforded it. He still sometimes wondered why he was chosen, out of all the other children on the isle. Most days he surmised that he was chosen because he was fatherless, troublesome, and wild, and the laird thought instruction far from home would tame him.