Acair paused on the edge of an outcropping of rock overlooking a large waterfall. There was a bridge there, gleaming dully in the gloom, but she didn’t think attempting the path down to it was anything she wanted to do in the dark.
“Did you do what you needed to?” she asked.
He shot her a quick smile. “For the most part.”
She tried to dredge up a stern look but feared she had failed. “You are absolutely incorrigible.”
“And I paid a steep price to the nymph who guards that bridge. Tonight cost me a necklace of my grandmother’s that seemed to be clamoring for an adventure when I found it in her solar several months ago.”
“I’m not at all curious whether or not it was given to you fairly.”
“Fairly fairly,” he said. “It fair leapt into my pocket as I passed through her solar, but if it eases you, she’s the one who shoved it there. I’m guessing she trusted I would find someone else appropriate to annoy with it.”
“How so?”
“I understand at certain times of the year, it sings an off-key Durialian drinking song. I would suspect the gem was hewn out of Uachdaran’s mines without his permission and he enspelled it as it was being helped across the border in some granny’s purse.”
She shook her head. “I’m beginning to understand where you get your bad habits.”
“My grandmother is always up for the odd, ribald jest at others’ expense,” he agreed. “The larger the crown—or the arrogance of the lad or lass wearing that crown—the better. In this case, that necklace was very useful. I thought it best the guardian of the waters be too distracted to notice I hadn’t kicked all five rocks back into their previous spots.”
“Three, then?”
“I’m offended.”
“Four, because you’re on your best behavior.”
He smiled and whistled softly for his horse.
***
She couldn’t say she would ever travel comfortably on the back of a flying beast of any sort, but she couldn’t argue with the view.
Acair patted her hands, snugly encased as they were in the gloves that King Uachdaran had so kindly gifted her, then pointed over to the right. She looked over Sianach’s scaly dragon wing, expecting to see…well, she wasn’t sure what she’d expected. Not what she was looking at, surely.
An entire day had passed and the sun had long since begun its descent through the western sky, but there was more than enough light for her to see clearly what was below them. Acair’s horse-turned-dragon skimmed over a faint breeze coming ashore which gave her the chance to view the coast in all its glory.
Directly beneath them was a crescent-shaped bay complete with perfect sand and crystal bluish-green water. Sianach swooped toward it, then turned abruptly, giving her full view of the rugged coast that lay to the north. Past a certain distance up that coastline, she could see nothing but open sea.
Sianach dove down toward the earth with an unseemly haste that should have left her worried that they’d finally been caught, but she suspected he was simply in a hurry to go off and look for supper. He landed a decent tromp away from the beach but only twenty paces away from a house. She slid off his back, waited a moment or two until her legs had recovered from hours in the saddle, then turned to gape at the building there.
The entire front of it was made of nothing but glass. She had the feeling that being inside would only be different from standing outside on the shore because of the protection from the elements. Sturdy wooden beams separated the enormous sheets of glass from each other and held up a heavy, beamed roof. She suspected the entirety of her uncle’s barn might fit inside what she could see from where she stood.
Fuadain of Sàraichte would have ground his teeth to powder with jealousy over it.
She looked at Acair to find him watching her with perhaps the most guarded expression she had ever seen him wear.
“Is this yours?” she asked.
He nodded. “Like it?”
“I’ve never seen anything so beautiful in my life,” she said honestly.
He smiled slightly, then walked around Sianach’s smoking nostrils to put his arms around her.
“Now, don’t fall to pieces on me and burn the damned place down with one of your maudlin displays,” he warned.
“You are an ass.”
“I hear that more often than you might imagine.” He sighed deeply. “’Tis just a pile of wood and stone, but rather handsome just the same, I suppose.”
She turned her head and rested her cheek against his shoulder so she could better look at what he’d created. She wasn’t surprised, actually. It was Acair after all and he could certainly trot out very fine manners when they were called for. That his home should be so lovely was perhaps nothing unexpected.
“I never bring anyone here,” he said quietly.
“I can understand why,” she said. “It would utterly ruin your reputation for murder, mischief and what is the third?”
“Mayhem,” he said dryly. “You haven’t seen the condition of the kitchens, so don’t speak too soon. I’m very rarely home, so the provisions might be a bit sparse.”
She pulled away and looked at him. “Why?”
He looked profoundly uncomfortable. “I’m not sure,” he hedged. “A poorly stocked wine cellar, probably.”
“Too much peace and quiet, more than likely. Who knows where that might lead.”
“Ye gads, woman,” he said faintly, “have a care for my poor self. I refuse to admit to anything, though the thought of depriving the world of my sparkling wit and flawless manners does leave me feeling slightly hollow inside. So many fine suppers, so little time to attend them all.”
She shook her head in disgust, then waited. He seemed to be in no hurry to go inside, which she found less comforting than alarming.
“What is it?” she asked uneasily. “Lose your key to the front door?”
“Well, that’s the thing,” he said slowly. “There’s a spell.”
She wondered why she hadn’t realized what that faint shimmer of something over his home had been. It could have been mistaken for a fine evening mist, but once she realized what she was looking at, she could see that it was anything but.
“It lets me sleep at night,” he said. “Protection, avoiding death, that sort of thing.”
And, was almost out of her mouth before she realized what he was getting at.
“And you can’t undo it now—wait, nay,” she said, holding up her hand. “Knowing you, the spell will allow you through with only yourself as the key, but no one else. Is that it?”