“He’s in bed,” she was saying. “What can I help you with, captain?”
“I need to see him, Mirin.”
Jack was still leaning against the wall when Torin opened the door.
“Asleep at this hour?” the captain said brusquely, but Jack could tell something wasn’t right. Torin began to search his room, beneath the bed and in his oaken chest.
“I was until you called,” Jack said. “Is something wrong?”
Torin turned to him with an impatient flip of his hand. “Lift up your tunic.”
“What?”
“I need to search your back.”
Jack gaped at him but consented, pulling up his garment. He felt Torin’s cold hand skate across his shoulder blades before tugging Jack’s tunic back down. The captain was gone before Jack could muster another word.
Mirin and Frae were standing by the loom, concern etched on their faces as Jack emerged. A few of the guards were finishing a search of the cottage, and they left in a whirlwind.
“What was that about?” Jack wondered.
Mirin glanced at him, wide eyed. “I don’t have the slightest idea, Jack.”
He frowned and returned to his room, opening the shutters. He caught a glimpse of Torin, striding across the yard to examine the byre and then the storehouse.
Jack reached for his plaid, buckling it at his shoulder. He tethered his boots to his knees and nearly collided with Frae in the common room.
“Jack, can I come with you?” she asked.
“I think it’s best you stay with Mum for now,” he said gently. He didn’t want her to worry, but he could see the fear creeping across her face.
“Where do you think you’re going?” Mirin demanded. “You’re ill!”
He didn’t know how she knew that, aside from the fact that he had overslept and looked pale. Or perhaps she sensed it in him—how music had drained a portion of his health.
Jack briefly met her gaze as he stood on the threshold. “I’m seeing if I can assist Torin. I’ll be back in time for supper.”
He shut the door before Mirin could protest, jumping over the garden wall to intercept the captain.
Jack took one look at Torin’s face and knew it was bad.
“Another lass?” he asked.
Torin couldn’t hide his grief. The sunshine washed over him, unforgivably bright. He refused to make eye contact and said, “Maisie.”
Jack drew a sharp inhale. “I’m sorry, Torin.”
Torin continued his brisk walk. “I don’t need sympathy, I need answers.”
“Then let me help,” Jack said, rushing to keep stride with the captain. He remembered Maisie sitting next to him at breakfast, mere days ago. How curious and charming she had been, giving him a gap-toothed smile. It made Jack feel sick to know she was missing. “Tell me what to do.”
Torin stopped abruptly on the road. His guards were in the distance, moving on to the next croft.
The wind soughed as Jack waited. He expected Torin to send him back to the house—Jack had never been strong enough or good enough to be one of the East Guard—but then the captain looked at him and nodded.
“Very well,” he said. “Come with me.”
Jack soon gathered all the pieces of what had happened the previous night. It galled him, to think that while he had been sitting on the coast and singing for the water, a man had walked across the hills, assaulted Sidra, and kidnapped Maisie.
Torin’s orders were urgent. He told his guards to search the hills, the glens, the mountains, the caves, the coast, the city streets, and the byres and storehouses of crofts. To study the knoll between his land and his father’s property for a blood trail and broken grass from boots that had fled, to look for a man with a wound in his back.
No one would be spared, Jack had discovered.
Torin challenged his guards to question even their own fathers, their brothers, their husbands, and friends. To doubt their kin, down to every branch and root of their family tree. To doubt those they loved most, for sometimes love was like dust in the eyes, a hindrance when it came to seeing truth.
The culprit could be any one of them in the east, and the air felt grim and heavy with disbelief as the news spread—another lass was missing, and the spirits were not to blame.
Jack had searched five crofts and the span of eleven different men’s backs when Adaira appeared, riding a mud-splattered horse. Her countenance was rosy from the wind, her hair braided into a crown. She was dressed in a simple gray dress with a red plaid knotted across her body. She dismounted before the mare had even come to a halt, and Jack watched from where he stood in a yard as she went to her cousin.
She knew about Maisie then. Jack could see it on her face as she spoke to Torin. The panic, the fear, the desperation. The cousins spoke for a moment, low and urgent. Adaira’s eyes suddenly flickered beyond Torin to find Jack in the shadows. Her gaze remained on him, the tension easing in her expression.
It still shocked Jack when she called him over. He felt like he was intruding on a private moment, especially when Torin raked his hand through his tangled hair.
“Jack,” Adaira greeted him. “I think we should tell Torin what we’ve been doing.”
Jack’s brow arched. “Indeed?” It was not a light decision to reveal a secret she claimed had been held by bard and laird alone, but Jack saw how necessary it was to bring Torin into their confidence.
“What is it?” Torin barked. “What have the two of you been up to?”
Adaira turned to the wind. It was blowing from the south. “We need a private place to speak. There’s a cave not far from here. Both of you, come with me.” She reached out to snag the reins of her mare and began to walk into the hills.
Jack trailed her. He could hear Torin give his guards commands to move to the next croft before he followed Jack with a heavy tread.
Adaira led them to a steep hill, its exposed side showing layers of rock. About halfway up was a cave, indiscernible unless one squinted. Jack stopped abruptly, staring up at the cave’s small, shadowed entrance.
He remembered this place. It had been one of his favorite caves as a boy, given how dangerous it was to climb into its mouth.
“Adaira,” he began to warn her, but she was already climbing, nimble and confident, even with her long dress and shawl. Jack watched, but his stomach churned when he imagined her slipping and falling.
Within moments, she had made it to the perch of the cave, and she paused to look down at them.
“Are you coming, Torin? My old menace?”
Jack frowned up at her. “I think we are a little old for such antics. Surely there’s another place more accommodating for this talk?”
She made no reply, but he watched her vanish into the cave. Jack glanced at Torin, who was regarding him with a strange gleam in his eyes.
“After you, bard,” the captain said.
Jack had no choice. Here they were, grown adults, and they were clambering up to a cave like they were ten years old again. He swore under his breath as he approached the rocky wall. All of this was ridiculous, he thought as he began to climb. He slipped, caught himself, uttered another curse, and then slowly ascended, following the path Adaira had taken.
He eventually made it to the cave, trembling from the height. Jack chose not to look down and eased into the cool shadows of the hollow space. It was dim, but he could faintly see Adaira sitting on the stone floor. He crawled to sit across from her, leaning back against the jagged wall, their boots touching.