He’d memorized it, of course, because that was what he did.
A charmed life and a terribly courageous woman with whom to enjoy it.
He thought things just might be looking up.
The sun was setting as they walked through the village of An Caol, still cloaked in that spectacular spell. He’d studied it as they’d flown and realized at some point during that flight that it was the same spell Soilléir had used in that rustic little pub in Neroche. At the time he had found the magic odd, but he couldn’t have said why. Now, he knew better.
It was the magic of Fàs.
He was definitely going to be having a wee visit to his grandmother’s solar, bribes in hand, to tattle on Soilléir. With any luck at all, there would be a battle of words and spells between the two of them that would be decent entertainment for the summer. He would, of course, be sitting by with notebook in hand. His posterity would thank him, no doubt.
He also wondered why he hadn’t taken the trouble to make note of that magic earlier. He was beginning to suspect that the magic of Fàs, honed to perfection in that tiny duchy of Fearann, hid behind honey and cones of thread to throw inquisitive mages off the scent. He had no idea what the stuff was really used for, but he would definitely be giving it a closer look when he was next at his leisure.
That might come after he’d unraveled what it was that Soilléir had so carefully placed in Léirsinn’s veins and the reason why.
He realized she had stopped. Sianach, currently wearing his drooling, hell-hound shape, had slipped his once equine head beneath her limp hand and given it a nudge. She patted him absently, but said nothing. She was simply looking at the very modest little house in front of her.
It had to have been her parents’, that much was certain. Acair wasn’t sure what the proper thing was to do at the moment, but didn’t wince when she groped for his hand and held it a bit too firmly. She looked away from the open doorway and met his gaze. He expected to see agony in her eyes, but there was only a solemn sort of peace.
He hardly knew what to think. She was so…whole. He was perhaps a bit too accustomed to rubbing shoulders with people who wanted as much from him as he wanted from them. That woman there, though. That red-haired, lovely, courageous gel who had put the fate of the world before herself was unlike anyone he had ever met.
“I will,” he said seriously, “beggar myself to buy you as many Angesand ponies as you can ride.”
“You’re daft,” she said with an affectionate smile.
“And soon to be very poor from said beggaring, but I’ll rob a few unwary monarchs so you have enough feed and hay.”
“Altruistic to the last,” she noted.
“That I am, love.” He hesitated. “What can I do?”
“Come with me inside?”
He took a careful breath and nodded. There was nothing else to be said and he wasn’t at all sure what he would find, but it had seemed as though their current footfalls were simply more steps on a journey that had been set out for the both of them long before they would have considered the same.
Soilléir saying take her home as he’d shut that damned border spell almost on his arse had been something to consider, of course.
What he hadn’t expected, however, was to realize that he had walked through that village himself decades ago.
“Are you unwell?”
He looked at her quickly. “Rather I should be asking you the same.”
“You’ve been here.”
He wasn’t entirely sure how to respond. “I believe so,” he said slowly. “If you want the entire truth, I believe I may have met your father’s father.”
“My father, or my step-father?”
“Your father, Niall,” he said carefully, “though he was a youth at the time. I’m sorry to say I can’t remember his father’s name, though I think we could find it easily enough. We’ll put my mother on the trail when next we see her.”
She took a deep breath. “I suppose my grandfather is no longer that, is he?”
“I think he would be heartbroken if you didn’t claim him as yours.” He thought she looked a bit ill, but he was afraid to ask her if that was from where she was standing or whom she was considering wedding. He decided abruptly that he didn’t want to know, so he cleared his throat and settled for the easier concern. “I could go in—”
“I’ll come.”
Sterling, beautiful, fearless gel. He nodded, then shot Sianach a pointed look. His horse turned in a circle a time or two, found himself a spot by the front door, and sat back on his haunches. Bared teeth gleamed brightly in the gloom, which Acair supposed was the best they were going to do for any sort of alarm. He took Léirsinn’s hand and walked inside her house.
It was as empty as he would have expected it to be given that the front door no longer hung there. He would have released her, but she didn’t seem inclined to let go of his hand and he certainly wasn’t going to argue. He supposed there would be nothing of interest to see—
“Look.”
At any other time, that tone and that word would have had him doing a little caper of delight over the thought of unexpected spoils where they shouldn’t have been, but at the moment they filled him with a particular sort of dread. He followed the direction in which Léirsinn was pointing and realized there was something on that rough-hewn mantel.
There was no reason not to look and innumerable reasons why he should.
He walked over to the hearth with Léirsinn next to him and looked at the missive sitting there. ’Twas so like that moment all those years ago when he’d found that spell sitting atop a different mantel, wrapped up and irresistible for a lad of eight summers, that he could hardly breathe.
Léirsinn looked at him, then reached out, but he caught her hand.
“In case there’s a spell of harm attached,” he said seriously.
She looked at him as if he’d lost his wits. “And ’tis better that you touch it than I?”
“I think so.” He took the missive, popped open the seal, and pulled forth a handwritten note. He considered, then looked it over for spells. He saw none, which he supposed was an improvement over his last bout of mantel razing.
“Well?”
He held it out. “We’ve been invited to a house party.”
“You mean you have been invited,” she said slowly.
He shook his head. “The two of us. In Tosan.”
“But it’s a trap.”