“Besides, you can’t have answers if I’m dead.”
“Stop stealing my best sayings,” Acair grumbled, keenly aware of how often he’d said the same thing whilst in a tight spot, never mind how often others had said it to him, also whilst in tight spots. “You might be surprised what a body is willing to divulge on their way off stage, if you know what I mean.”
Soilléir only refrained from comment. Too terrified to respond, more than likely.
“Very well,” Acair said, setting aside thoughts of murder for the moment, “I’ll have the entire truth now that I’m at my leisure to hear it. Let’s start with that damned spell you sent to dog my steps. You remember, the one that almost slew me near Durial?”
“I remember.”
“You said you didn’t know who’d made it.”
“I said the spell wasn’t mine,” Soilléir corrected. “I never said I didn’t know who’d fashioned it.”
Acair decided it was too early in the day to start gasping with outrage, so he forced himself to take a deep, even breath instead. “Whose was it, then?”
“Iseabail’s.”
Acair suspected that if he continued to take in the number of deep breaths the conversation was looking as though it might require, he would faint from too much breathing. He instead wriggled his jaw to keep from clenching it too tightly and nodded. “I see. Did she fashion this spell all on her own?”
“She might have had a suggestion or two from someone else.”
“Of course. What was the magic?”
Soilléir took a deep breath of his own. Acair didn’t hope for any fainting on the man’s part, but he did spare a wish for a chair. He had the feeling he might need one.
“I won’t bother suggesting that you might find it an amusing diversion to search for that answer yourself,” Soilléir said.
“Wise,” Acair agreed.
“The magic is Cnuacach, which is the magic of Ionad-teàrmainn, which is uncomfortably similar to Domhainn, which is the magic of Fàs.”
“Why don’t I know any of this?” Acair asked, dumbfounded.
“Because you were too busy looking elsewhere to notice what was in your back garden,” Soilléir said, “if I might be so bold. The spell’s main purpose was to keep you from using magic, for reasons I’m sure you can divine on your own. Its secondary purpose was to aid you in collecting pieces of your soul.”
“You didn’t send my mother a missive asking her to suggest that rot to me,” Acair said, knowing he should have been appalled but finding himself not. “Did you?”
“We’ve discussed the idea before in a general sense.”
“I don’t want to know when.”
Soilléir smiled. “I imagine you don’t. And to answer, nay, our discussion didn’t have anything to do with Sladaiche. I assumed you would find the answers you needed regarding him all on your own.”
“Of course,” Acair said, deciding ’twas best not to think about how closely he’d come to never having given that a bloody thought.
“Do you need to rest?”
He glared at Soilléir. “Do I look ill?”
“Pale, rather.”
“I’m overcome by thinking about all the ways you could be deposited in a ditch in a desolate corner of some untraveled wasteland. All my strength is going to keeping myself from kicking up my heels and dancing a jig.” He walked for a bit more, then frowned. “Did Iseabail know Léirsinn was alive when she fashioned that spell to make my life a misery?”
Soilléir sighed deeply. “Aye. I’m afraid I’m the one who told her—”
“Wait,” Acair interrupted. He stopped and looked at his vexatious companion. “You need to start from the beginning. And before you do, I want you to admit that you deliberately put me in a position where I couldn’t save Léirsinn if necessary.”
“Not with magic,” Soilléir said, “which I’ll admit left Iseabail very concerned.” He shrugged. “I wasn’t.”
Acair wasn’t sure if he should be flattered or furious. “My reputation precedes me, then.”
“It does,” Soilléir agreed.
“I’m still tremendously offended by almost dying, but I’ll try to put that behind me.” He waited until their company had put a bit more distance between them, then he began to walk slowly again. “From the beginning, if you please.”
“How far back do you want me to go?”
“Beyond the range of my fists would be my suggestion.”
Soilléir only smiled. “I’ll keep that in mind. Perhaps I’ll start a bit in the middle with what happened to the children after Sladaiche—”
Acair held up his hand. “You don’t need to say it.”
Soilléir nodded. “Thank you.” He sighed. “After they lost their parents. I’ll admit that I, ah…”
“Made arrangements for them?” Acair finished for him.
“You know how that is.”
Acair looked at him narrowly. “Did you beat that knowledge out of my sister or snoop all on your own?”
Soilléir only shook his head with a grave smile. “I loved Sarait, if you’ll have the truth of it, so I was perhaps more interested in the happenings surrounding her than I should have been. Morgan didn’t tell me, so you can justifiably accuse me of watching things I likely shouldn’t have.”
There was nothing to be said there. The fact that Soilléir had watched Sarait and several of her children be slain…well, whilst there were things he had to admit he occasionally envied about the lives of others with terrible spells tucked in their purses, he had just rid himself of that feeling about the man walking next to him.
“I saw to the children,” Soilléir continued, “because I could. I also took the books of faery tales and hid them for safekeeping, because I needed to.”
“You hid them in your grandfather’s library,” Acair said pointedly, “until you foisted one off on me thanks to whom—Ochadius of Riamh?”
“I need to be more careful about my messengers,” Soilléir murmured.
“More afraid, rather, of what I’ll do to you when I discover how extensively you’ve meddled, but go on. Where is the third one? You obviously don’t know or you would be crowing about it.”