He obliged, with his harp balanced carefully on his lap. Sidra spread the salve over the backs of his hands, over every knuckle and vein.
“It might take a moment to feel its effects,” she said, transferring the rest of the salve into a jar he could take with him.
Jack closed his eyes. After a minute, he flexed his hands again and grinned. “Yes, this has been a tremendous help. Thank you, Sidra.”
She brought him his tonic and the salve. Jack tucked both jars in his pocket before asking, “How much do I owe you?”
Sidra returned to the table. “You owe me nothing.”
“I was worried you might say that,” Jack said wryly. He began to remove his harp from its skin. “I would like to play for you, while you work. If you will let me.”
Sidra was stunned. She stared as he propped the harp against his left shoulder. It had been so long since she had enjoyed music.
She smiled. “I would love that.”
“Do you have any requests?” Jack asked as he tuned the harp.
“I do, in fact. Lorna used to play a ballad on feast nights. I believe it was called ‘The Last Moon of Autumn.’”
“I know the very one,” Jack replied.
He began to strum. His notes filled the chamber, driving away the sadness and the shadows. Sidra closed her eyes, amazed at how the song could take her back in time to a bittersweet moment. She was sixteen, her hair in two long braids, anchored by red ribbons. She was sitting in the castle hall with her grandmother, listening to Lorna play her harp. This very song.
A slight breeze touched her face.
Sidra opened her eyes and saw the front door was agape. Adaira stood on the threshold, frozen by Jack’s music as it continued to trickle through the cottage. Sidra studied her friend closely; she had never seen this expression on Adaira’s face before, as if all the longings within her had gathered into one place.
Jack was wholly unaware he had a new audience member until he reached the end. His music faded in the air and he glanced up, his eyes finding Adaira. The silence felt tense, as if the two of them wanted to speak but couldn’t.
Sidra broke the spell.
“That was beautiful,” she said. “Thank you, Jack.”
He nodded and began to put his harp away. “I appreciate your help, Sidra.”
“My door is always open to you.” She watched as he rose and approached the threshold. Adaira angled her body so he could slip past her, and they still said nothing to each other, even as the air crackled.
Now that Jack was gone, Adaira entered the house, shutting the door. Sidra knew she had come to be with her, to keep her company, and to help create the guards’ tonics.
Adaira glanced over the table and rolled up her sleeves. “Tell me what to do, Sid.”
Sometimes this was what Sidra loved best about Adaira. Her willingness to get dirty, to learn new things. How direct she was.
She was the younger sister Sidra never had but always yearned for.
“Crush this stack of herbs for me,” Sidra said, edging the pestle and mortar toward her.
Adaira began to work, crushing with intensity. Sidra understood it, that nagging feeling: I need to do something. I need to do something that has meaning.
“What did you help him with?” Adaira eventually asked.
“Who do you speak of, Adi?”
“Jack, of course. Why was he here?”
Sidra reached for an empty bottle. She began to pour the tonic within it. “You know I can’t say why.”
Adaira pressed her lips together. She was tempted to draw it out of Sidra, and as the future laird, perhaps she could. But Sidra held her patients’ secrets like her own, and Adaira knew it.
The women fell silent, working together in tandem. Adaira was corking the bottles when she finally spoke again, her tone heavy.
“I need your advice, Sid.” She hesitated. “I don’t want to burden you with this. Not when you’re going through so much yourself. But time is not on my side.”
“Tell me what’s on your mind, Adi,” Sidra said gently.
She listened as Adaira spoke about the confidential trade, the letters she had been writing to Moray Breccan. The invitation to visit the west, and the first trade exchange, both of which were to be done alone.
“Sometimes I worry that I’m choosing the wrong path,” Adaira said with a sigh. “That my inexperience is going to doom us. That I’m foolish to yearn for peace.”
“It’s not a foolish dream,” Sidra was swift to respond. “And you are right to seek a new way of life for our clan, Adaira. For too long we’ve been raised on fear and hatred, and it’s time for things to change. I think many of the Tamerlaines inwardly feel the same and would follow you anywhere, even if that means a few difficult years of rethinking who we are and what this isle beneath our feet should become.”
Adaira met Sidra’s gaze. “I’m relieved you agree, Sid. But I still have a problem with the trade.”
“Tell me.”
“The Breccans need our resources, but what do we need from them? Their enchanted plaids and swords that they use to attack us with? Do I dare ask for such things, knowing it’s counterproductive for this notion of peace I’m working to establish between us?”
Sidra was quiet, but her mind was racing.
“This is what my father and Torin persist in asking me,” Adaira continued. “The Breccans have nothing we need. This trade will favor them at our expense, and it may not even halt their raiding ways. Torin predicts this will happen—the trade will be good for a season, and we’ll give our stores to them. But come winter, the Breccans will decide to raid. Such an action would tip us into war.”
“There’s a chance Torin is right,” Sidra said. “It’s a possibility we must prepare for, as much as I wish to reassure you peace would be easy and bloodless to obtain.” Her gaze swept the table, absently passing over her herbs. Her eyes caught on the last Orenna flower, which she was storing in a glass vial. A chill coursed through her, and she rubbed her chest. Her bruises were aching today as her body began to heal. “But what if the Breccans have something we need?”
Adaira frowned. “What do you mean, Sid?”
Sidra reached for the vial. She held the Orenna flower up to the light and realized her hand was trembling. She hadn’t dared to think along these lines yet because Torin was determined to find her assaulter in the east, having felt no one crossing the clan line. But neither had he found a graveyard, peppered with small crimson blooms.
“Has Torin told you about this flower?”
“Briefly,” Adaira said. “He believes it may be aiding the kidnapper.”
Sidra nodded. “This flower is called Orenna, and it only grows on a small patch of dry, heartsick land. Somewhere on the isle, in a graveyard. We have yet to find such a place in the east.”
Adaira studied the flower. Her eyes widened. “You think …”
“This flower may be growing in the west,” Sidra concluded. “I haven’t said as much to Torin yet because I’m hopeful he will find the graveyard here. But if the Orenna flower is growing on Breccan soil, not only could we use it for ourselves, but it would mean that the west is somehow involved with our missing lasses.”
Adaira released a deep breath. “Torin hasn’t felt anyone crossing the clan line, though.”