The White Spell (Nine Kingdoms #10)(28)

“He’s a bastard,” he said mildly.

“Who?”

“The one you’re thinking of.”

“Cards and the reading of thoughts?” she said lightly. “What next?”

“The heavens weep over the thought, I’m sure.” He rose and picked up his cloak, but said nothing else.

She understood. There was nothing to say.

She walked out into the night, flinched a bit at the chill, then took a deep breath and put her foot to—

Nothing, actually, because Acair pulled her aside. He did it so casually, she might not have noticed if she hadn’t been the one being pulled. She looked at him in surprise, then watched him point to a spot where she had almost put her foot.

A shadow was there.

She looked at him quickly, but he only lifted one eyebrow briefly, then walked with her away from the pub. It took her several minutes to be able to speak and even then she suspected that nothing useful would come out of her mouth.

“I think I’m losing my wits,” she said finally.

“I would suspect that comes from all the time you have no doubt spent over the years sneaking whiffs of very strong horse liniment, nothing more.”

She would have agreed with him, but she found she couldn’t say anything else. All she could do was put one foot in front of the other and continue on to a place where she wasn’t sure she could live much longer. She had to get her grandfather out of the manor house and herself out of Sàraichte before something dire happened to them both.

Acair fell silent, which she appreciated. Her head was spinning not only thanks to a decent meal, but also from plans she could only dream of putting into motion. It was a testament to how fixated she was on the thought that she didn’t realize how close they were to the barn until she was standing inside it.

She looked up at Acair. “We’re here.”

He nodded. “And so we are,” he said quietly. “Keep a weather eye out.”

She had to take a careful breath. “You too. Thank you for supper.”

“My pleasure.” He smiled briefly. “Got work to do.”

“Me too.”

She watched him go, then took hold of herself and walked off to see to her own work. She was fortunate, she supposed, that she had been doing it for so long that she didn’t need to remind herself of what to do next. That was the only thing, she was sure, that saved her from standing there, wringing her hands.

She put her hand over a charm she wore constantly under her shirt, something she’d been given by someone who firmly believed there were unseen forces at work in the world, forces that could be counted on for aid. Léirsinn could only hope that was the case because if anyone needed help beyond the norm, it was her. There was mischief afoot in Sàraichte and she wanted no part of it.

Unfortunately, she had the distinct feeling she wasn’t going to escape it.





Six





Acair stood outside the stables, leaning against a bit of stone fence, and wondered just what in the hell he was thinking. He could hardly believe he’d been up before the sun so many days in a row without having spent entirety of the night before making mischief, but that seemed to be his lot in life of late.

Do-gooding was, he had to admit, exhausting.

But so was mucking out stalls, which was why he had greeted with such joy the tidings he’d had not a quarter hour ago that he had a day of liberty to look forward to. If he used that day of liberty to skulk about satisfying his curiosity, who could blame him? He was less than a fortnight into his sentence and already he was desperate for something interesting to do.

Ah, and there went something interesting, just as he’d suspected.

He pushed off from the wall and followed the lady of the barn at a respectable distance. Now, that one there was a mystery. He could scarce believe she could control the sorts of equine brutes she faced, yet she’d been completely bested by the thought of his buying her supper. She wasn’t afraid to give a lad a right proper ticking off, but she had no weapon to encourage the same lad to take her seriously.

And she saw shadows where there were none.

That was the strangest thing of all. He had honestly thought her daft as a duck when he’d followed her on his last foray to the local pub, but when she’d pulled him aside, he’d seen what she had been avoiding and couldn’t deny that there was something quite untoward about it. There were shadows, of course, and then there were shadows. What he had seen had been a less of a shadow than a hint of magic. Watching a lad step into its embrace, pause as if he’d had his will to move briefly stolen from him, then carry on as if nothing had happened to him . . . ’twas passing odd, that.

He paused, but that was only because he’d just realized that Léirsinn had stopped, turned, and was currently glaring at him. He examined her for implements of death, then shook his head. As he’d told her a few nights ago, she was going to have to learn to protect herself. He was frankly quite surprised she had reached her current age without having had something dire happen to her.

He might have suggested a thing or two she could do to make herself a bit more terrifying, but he wasn’t entirely sure how one went about teaching a mere mortal how to defend herself. The women he knew saw to that sort of thing thanks to garrisons with sharp swords or their own sweet selves with complements of terrible spells. Léirsinn only had a glare and it wasn’t even a very good glare.