“You won’t need that,” he said quietly, “but there’s no sense in not having a fall-back plan.”
She nodded, then tried not to shiver as the fire extinguished itself. The werelight was very faint by comparison, but she didn’t ask him to make it brighter. She imagined he would douse it entirely before he opened the back door.
“Your house is beautiful,” she croaked.
He pulled her into his arms and held her tightly. “We will return, darling. I promise.”
She would have attempted a nod, but it was beyond her. “What now?”
“I’m going to create a little something with my grandmother’s magic and send it off northward whilst we nip off to the east and a bit south. We’ll be at Seannair’s gates by sunset if Sianach behaves himself.” He pulled back, kissed her on both cheeks, then looked at her. “You’ll do what’s needful and so will I. This is just one more step forward.”
She didn’t want to say that she’d grown too accustomed to the peace and safety of his house to want to step away from it at all, but she imagined she didn’t need to.
He picked up their packs before he took a deep breath and led her outside.
She decided many hours later that he had known how long it took to reach the palace of Inntrig because he’d been there before on one of his forays into places where he shouldn’t have gone. There was something comforting about knowing that with Acair of Ceangail, some things never changed.
Twilight had fallen, which she might have found pleasing at another time. Presently, standing a hundred paces from gates she wasn’t sure they would manage to enter, she found the dark unnerving. She stood with her hand on Sianach’s withers and waited for her legs to stop shaking.
She distracted herself by examining the rather inadequate defenses that kept the king of Cothromaiche from being overrun by the rest of the world, then looked over her shoulder before she could stop herself.
There was no one behind them, but she wasn’t reassured. Sladaiche was just as likely as they were to be wearing a spell of un-noticing. What was even less reassuring was realizing that she was starting to find magic as normal as barn work.
“Léirsinn?”
She looked at Acair standing next to her, cloaked and hooded as he was, and shook her head. “I’m appalled by my own thoughts.”
“Shameless vixen.”
She couldn’t even dredge up the glare he deserved, so she settled for a deep breath. “I wasn’t thinking lecherous thoughts about you, I was contemplating magic.”
“That might be worse,” he said. “But whilst you’re thinking those sorts of thoughts, let’s speak again of how we’ll proceed from here. You’ll need to remove our spell of un-noticing, but make a production of tugging on that thread I showed you before. I’m going to be doing everything I can to remain unobtrusive.” He paused. “And just so you’re not surprised, my welcome here, should it come to that, might not be warm.”
She started to agree, then it occurred to her that there might be things she needed to know. “What haven’t you told me?”
“Whatever can you possibly mean?”
She shot him a look, but he only smiled and shrugged.
“You know me,” he said easily. “Off doing things I shouldn’t more often than I should.”
“Are you going to be specific so I know why the king wants you dead?”
“If you must know,” he admitted, “I laid a spell on the king’s hunting gear that caused arrows and whatnot to sprout flowers and vile smells—I know the two aren’t usually connected, but I was feeling particularly clever—when pointed in the direction of whatever hapless thing he was stalking at the time.” He paused. “I may or may not have also snuck into his bedchamber and written, I cannot find my arse with both hands on his nightcap in letters only others could see.”
Considering all the things he could have done, that didn’t sound all that terrible.
“Why do I have the feeling that isn’t all?” she asked.
He sighed deeply. “Very well, I also pinched his crown and tried to seduce one of his granddaughters, but in my defense I had no idea who she was—well, that isn’t true at all—but I was much younger and perhaps a bit stupid.”
She could only stand there and gape at him. “How old were you?”
He shifted. “Old enough to know better. She was also boasting of being betrothed to my half-brother Rùnach. I couldn’t not stir up a bit of trouble. Trust me, he had a narrow escape there and so did I. She was also dark-haired and substantially older than she looked. Lesson learned.”
She retrieved her jaw from where it had fallen. “Is that so.”
“I’ve set my sights on younger women, if you want the truth.”
She would have mocked him for being far too old for the likes of her, but it occurred to her quite suddenly and rather unpleasantly that she would likely not see the far side of four score while he most certainly would, and then some. Even if she did live longer than that, he wouldn’t look a day older than he did at present.
But she most certainly would.
He stepped closer, slipped his hand under her hair, then kissed her. She would have reminded him that they were in a bit of a hurry to get inside to relative safety, but perhaps the gate guards could wait. She also didn’t protest when he wrapped his arms around her and held her close.
“You know,” he said very quietly, “we might, if you’re interested, rely on my ability to weasel impossible spells out of almost anyone I meet and see if a long and happy life might be granted to us together.”
“Is that possible?” she said, ignoring the anguish she could hear even in her own voice.
He nodded. “If you’re interested in a long and happy life with one such as I, that is.”
“Are you going to change your crown-nicking ways?”
“Quite possibly not.”
She leaned up on her toes and kissed him quickly. “Just don’t hide them under the bed.”
“If you insist,” he said, but he didn’t move. He looked over her head for a bit, then met her gaze. “Are you interested?”
“Is that a proposal?”
“Almost.”
She took his hand because that seemed more sensible than throwing herself at him, on the off chance the gate guards could see through his spell. “Then, aye,” she said simply. “Almost.”
He cleared his throat roughly. “I’ll see what I can do.” He took a step back and winced at Sianach’s nose snuffling his hair. “Please, get us inside so I can put this uncontrollable nag in a stall and we can be about our business. I’d like to be in and out before dawn.”