She heard Graeme shouting for her in the distance. She winced as her chest throbbed, and she glanced up to dimly see Torin’s father appear at the crest of the hill.
Overcome, she couldn’t speak. Graeme hadn’t left his house or his yard in all the years that Sidra had known him, and the emotion caught in her throat as he began to run down the hill.
“Sidra!” Graeme saw her. “Sidra, is that you? Are you all right, lass?”
“Da, I …” She didn’t know what to say. Her blood was still pounding when Graeme finally reached her. She must have appeared far worse than she realized, because Graeme’s face tensed. His eyes went wide as he looked at her.
“Daughter,” he whispered. “What happened?”
“A spirit took Maisie,” she said, struggling to keep her hysteria at bay.
His mouth went slack. “A spirit did this to you?”
“A spirit came for her, and I fought it, and it took her … we have to keep searching. She might still be here …” Sidra returned to the heather, even though every movement, every breath was like a knife in her chest.
“Maisie!” she shouted, over and over, seeking a trail, a spirit door, a scrap of clothing. Anything that would guide her.
Graeme firmly took her arm, drawing her close. “Sidra? Where are you wounded? We need to tend to you first, lass.”
Sidra paused. She didn’t realize how badly she was trembling or how cold she was until she felt his warmth and his strength. She frowned, struggling to understand why Graeme was staring at her with such stricken eyes until she glanced down, remembering the blood that stained her chemise. It had dried to a dark hue, crinkling the wool, but it was red as the blood in her veins.
“I’m not wounded,” she whispered. “This … this isn’t my blood. I struck the spirit with a dirk, and it bled.”
Sidra met Graeme’s gaze. She thought of the story she had read to Maisie, the night before. A story about Orenna having to prick her finger in order to bloom. How her blood ran thick and gold.
“The spirits …” Sidra began, but her voice faded.
Graeme read her thoughts, granting her a somber nod. “Don’t bleed as mortals do.”
Sidra stared at the bloodstains again. She felt as if the world had just cracked beneath her feet.
It wasn’t a spirit stealing the girls.
It was a man.
“Sidra,” Graeme rasped, still holding her arm, “we need to call for Torin.”
Sidra’s heart plummeted. The mere thought of telling Torin what had transpired … she felt like weeping. This was what he had married her for. This was woven into her vows to him. She had promised to raise, love, and protect his daughter.
She had failed him and failed Maisie. She had even failed Donella.
Sidra wavered for a moment, but the truth was beginning to eclipse the numbness of her thoughts. It hadn’t been a spirit who had taken Maisie, but a man, moving with impossible speed and stealth. She didn’t fully understand it, but she felt how precious time was.
“All right,” Sidra whispered. “I’ll call to him.”
Graeme was quiet, waiting. His hand fell away from her as she took a step deeper into the heather.
The sun had risen. A mist was creeping over the land. A bird continued to sing in the shadows.
Sidra fell to her knees.
Her voice broke as she spoke his name into the southern wind.
“Torin.”
PART TWO
A Song for Earth
CHAPTER 10
Adaira stood in her bedchamber before the window, watching the sun rise. Her hair was still damp from the sea, and her fingers were pruned from treading the waves with Jack. She wore nothing but a robe, and she shivered beneath its softness, remembering the way the spirits had stared at her, as if they were hungry.
She turned away from her reflection in the glass and walked to where her bath waited by the hearth, disrobing along the way. She stepped into the water, which was lukewarm, but sometimes the cold didn’t bother her.
Sometimes she craved the icy embrace of winter.
She watched the ripples form around her as she settled, leaning against the copper tub. She thought about what the folk had said to her, and she remembered the way Jack’s voice had melded with the music her mother had written years ago. Her chest ached, and she didn’t know if it was from grief at hearing Lorna’s music reborn or if it was frustration. Adaira had believed the spirits of the sea could help her find the girls. She had hoped to bring an end to this madness and the misery of vanished children.
But the truth was that she was nowhere closer to solving the mystery. In fact, her mind was only more scrambled now.
She covered her face with her hands and pressed her fingertips into her closed eyes, exhausted.
It is her, the folk of the tides had said. Even now, their voices echoed through her hollowness.
No, Adaira should have said to them. No, I am nothing like my mum.
Beware of blood in the water, mortal woman.
She let her hands drift away and opened her eyes, gazing at the water that embraced her. She thought of Jack again, of how he had come after her despite his own fear of the night sea. He had looked so angry breaking the surface with her—for some odd reason he had reminded Adaira of a cat that had been dunked in a rain barrel. But he had also looked content the longer he beheld her, as if he had finally remembered who he was. That he was isle born. And Adaira had done the most ridiculous thing. She had laughed, and it had felt like birds taking flight within her.
She stared at her wavering reflection in the bath and wondered what it would take to provoke a stoic man such as Jack Tamerlaine to laugh with her.
“Enough,” she whispered to herself, reaching for the sponge and a bar of soap. She began to scrub her skin, but it did nothing to the memories she wanted to keep at bay.
The last time she had swum in isle waters had been with Callan Craig, years ago. She had been eighteen, searching for something to fill her loneliness. That keen, endless loneliness was magnified by her mother’s recent passing, and Adaira found a remedy for those feelings in Callan.
She had been smitten with him and spent many stolen hours with him sparring on castle grounds, riding the hills, tangled in bedsheets. Adaira winced when she thought about how naïve she had been, how eager and trusting. After their relationship ended, she hoped that time would dull the heartache, but it flared every now and then, like old bones in wintertime.
She cast off those painful memories and plunged beneath the water, holding her breath. The world was quiet here, and yet she could still hear Jack’s music and voice as he sang. She wanted to sit and listen to him play for hours. She wanted to see the hall restored, the clan brought together by music.
She wanted Jack to be the one to do it.
It was strange how much time away had changed him. Adaira had first noticed two things about him: how deep and rich his voice was now, and how beautiful his hands were. But his grumpy disposition was the same. As were his many frowns.
She had hated him as a lass. But she was coming to learn that it was hard to hate what made her feel the most alive.
She rose from the water and dressed, then made her way to the bureau where her brush and mirror waited. A letter caught her eye. Its corner was tucked beneath a jar of moon thistles, and the parchment was crinkled, as though it had been carelessly handled.