He took a deep breath and forced himself to look again at that evening with detachment. His tailor had borne no marks from a commonplace weapon, so the likelihood of a spell having been what finished him was very high. The goods in his workroom hadn’t been tossed about, which suggested that it hadn’t been a random burglary. That his own spell of distraction had been stolen suggested that someone had either known beforehand it was there or suspected it might be there and forced Odhran to reveal its location.
He supposed a third possibility was that finding that spell could have been simply good fortune, though it would have taken a mage with decent abilities to have recognized it for what it was.
Then there was that damned note Léirsinn had found that had announced, I’m watching you, but you knew that. Unoriginal and uninspired, but he was, sadly, accustomed to lesser offerings.
He supposed those words could have been dashed off by any noblewoman within a hundred-league radius of the city, but the uncomfortable truth was that they were almost identical to the missive he’d received whilst he and Léirsinn had been taking refuge in Tor Neroche. There had been no doubt in his mind that those words had been penned by a man with magic.
Nay, the author had been the same, which likely meant that they had been written by the mage who had stolen his spell.
Why was the question he simply couldn’t answer.
He rubbed his hands over his face, aching for the freedom of flight in a way that left him almost unable to draw breath.
“Acair?”
A soft knock startled him, but he managed not to fling anything in the air or knock over any of what he could see had become a rather alarmingly large collection of cups and glasses.
“Come in,” he called.
Léirsinn leaned in past the door. “Supper?”
He blinked and turned toward her. “Is it that late already?”
“I’d call it a very late lunch,” she conceded. “I’m just not sure you’ve eaten anything today. And if you make any untoward remarks about my cooking, I will throw something heavy at you.”
He heaved himself up out of his chair, gathered up half a dozen cups and glasses, and crossed over to her. “I’m still unsure where it was I went wrong with you. No one dares speak to me so carelessly.”
She only smiled and went to fetch the rest of the evidence of how long he’d been at his current slog. He staved off the impulse to ask her to carry him as well and followed her to his kitchen where she had set up a very respectable collection of edible things.
He ate without tasting anything and had no idea if he’d made decent conversation or not. His head was full of impossible questions and his eyes were full of mountain ranges and coastlines and the courses that rivers took through plains and valleys.
What he needed was a better vantage point.
He came to himself to find he was holding a knife in his hand and staring at nothing. He blinked and focused on Léirsinn sitting around the table from him. She was simply sitting back in her chair, watching him thoughtfully.
“Forgive me,” he said, the words feeling, unsurprisingly, as familiar as a pair of well-worn slippers. “My mind is elsewhere.”
“I’m sorry you can’t, you know.” She made flapping motions with her hands.
“As am I,” he agreed. “I would very much like—”
He stopped speaking because the possibility that occurred to him suddenly was almost enough to still even the continual stream of terrible thoughts that ran through his mind like a mighty Durialian river.
He could shapechange.
“Acair, you worry me.”
He pushed back his chair. “Let me help you with these dishes, then I believe I’ll go stretch my legs.”
She nodded and rose as well, but she was watching him far more closely than he was comfortable with.
His inability to make idle chatter was coming back to haunt him at the moment, for he had no means with which to distract her. Hardly had he dried the last plate and stacked it again before he realized that she had placed herself between him and the doorway that led to the rest of the house. She was wearing a look he imagined had inspired countless stable hands to blurt out their plans for mischief before she had even asked.
“I’m going to have a little look up the coast,” he admitted, finding himself, metaphorically speaking, standing there in dung-covered boots and holding onto a pitchfork.
“Are you mad?” she asked incredulously. “You know what’s out there!”
“I’ll slip out the back. He’ll never know.”
“And what will I do if you don’t come back?”
“Well,” he said, wondering what sort of list might be best. “You’ll tell Sianach to take a winged shape, then you’ll walk out of my spell and fly to somewhere that appeals. Cothromaiche, if you like. Seannair is daft as a duck, but still a decent fellow. The schools of wizardry—nay, Tor Neroche. Better still, Angesand. Hearn will give you a choice refuge with all the horses you can stand to ride.”
“Nay,” she said, “what will I do without you?”
It took him a moment to realize what she was getting at. He looked at her then, that glorious red-haired woman who had been ripped from the life she knew, thrown into a life she’d never asked for, and sacrificed what would no doubt be the peace she might have looked forward to in order to keep him safe, and he wondered if he’d heard her wrong.
But nay, she was simply looking at him as if she might have been concerned that he would nip out the back and be slain.
He caught his jaw before it made an abrupt trip south—something he was having to do with unsettling regularity. And damn those bloody magics in his chest, Fadaire and that rot Soilléir had crammed inside him, if they didn’t tangle themselves together in a fond embrace and give his heart a mighty squeeze. He could hardly catch his breath. Worse still, he felt torn between weeping and…well, weeping. He cleared his throat roughly.
“I didn’t realize you’d burned supper,” he said, grasping manfully for something that sounded reasonable. “Smoke is still lingering terribly, you know. Best open the back door next time.”
She walked over to him, leaned up, kissed him, then put her arms around his neck.
“You are a terrible man,” she said quietly.
“Such sickly sweet sentiments,” he said, clutching her to him so tightly he wasn’t entirely certain he hadn’t heard her squeak. “Awful wench that you are.”
“But you’re very fond of me.”
“I am. And I’m quite sure you return the feeling, though driving me to such displays is a very poor way of expressing it.”