The White Spell (Nine Kingdoms #10)(41)

“Did you know that they intended?” he asked. “Do you know them?”

“Must we discuss this now?”

He glanced at the heap of dead mage, then back at her. “I’m not sure there would be a better time, but I’ve been known to be wrong about that sort of thing before. What do you think?”

“I think I might be ill.”

Well, she certainly looked as if that might be the case. He didn’t suppose she would do any more damage to his poor floor than had already been done, though, so he mentally gave her permission to vomit if she needed to and turned his mind back to the matter at hand.

“I wonder who those lads were,” he mused.

“I overheard someone talking in the garden,” she managed. “About you. I didn’t see who it was, but it might have been those two.” She wrapped her arms around herself. “I couldn’t believe my ears, if you want the whole truth.”

So he wasn’t as anonymous as he’d hoped he would be. He frowned. “Did they name me by name, or was it just general mayhem they were about?”

“I’m not sure,” she said miserably. “They said much I didn’t hear and more I heard but didn’t understand, but there was definitely quite a bit about murder and magic and . . . aye, they used your name.”

Perfect. He sent a silent curse wafting heavenward in the direction of a certain pair of busybodies, then looked at his savior. “You didn’t see them?”

She shook her head. “I just heard them.” She looked at him then. “They were here for you, weren’t they?”

“’Tis possible,” he said, because it was the best he could manage on short notice. Aye, those two were obviously there for him, but the question was why?

His list of enemies was extremely long, something he’d been quite proud of in the past, but he couldn’t bring to mind anyone who would know where he was at present save Rùnach and Soilléir and they wanted him alive to enjoy his current straits. His Aunt Cailleach knew where he was, but it wasn’t possible she would have sent mages to kill him. He was family. Possibly undesirable family, but she had little room for criticism there. If she’d wanted to off him, as she was wont to say, she would have gotten her hands dirty herself. Nay, those lads weren’t from her.

He hadn’t seen anyone else he knew, he hadn’t spread his presence about, and he hadn’t dropped pieces of mischief along behind him like bread crumbs.

He had, however, touched a patch of darkness.

And he was looking at a woman who perhaps hadn’t been as discreet about being able to see them as perhaps she should have been.

“Did you tell anyone?” he asked.

“Tell anyone what?”

“What you can see.”

She looked at him as if he’d just announced he was, well, who he was. “Are you daft? Of course not.”

“Why did you tell me then?”

She started to speak, then shut her mouth. She seemed to be casting about for something say, then finally shrugged helplessly. “I don’t know. I thought you might understand, though I’ve no idea why.”

“You’re wise beyond your years,” he muttered. He studied the mages on the floor at his feet, still as death, then looked at her. “You’re certain you didn’t tell anyone else about those spots? Servants? Stable boys? Potted plants?”

“Nay, none of the three, though I can’t imagine what a potted plant would reveal.”

“It could be a mage disguising himself as a plant.”

“You are mad,” she said without hesitation. “How could a man turn himself into a plant?”

There was no point in even starting down that road. “I have an overactive imagination.”

“I’ll say.”

He watched as the mages in front of him began to steam. Interesting. He realized, as they began to simply vaporize, that the woman beside him was about to faint. He caught her before she fell, sat down rather heavily on his stool, then landed on his arse as the stool collapsed under their collective weight. He clapped his hand over Léirsinn’s mouth as a courtesy.

She put her hand over his hand, then clutched his arm with her other hand. She was strong, he would give her that, but he’d be damned if he squeaked. She pulled his hand away slowly.

“Holy hell,” she breathed.

“Hmmm,” he agreed as the vapors swirled up into the faint light from the lantern. They made a keening sound that was almost too faint to hear, then vanished. He nodded abruptly. “Well, that takes you out of the running for lass-least-likely-to-kill-a-mage. Nicely done.”

“I don’t believe in mages,” she wheezed.

He nodded toward the spot where the bodies had lain. “What would you call that, then?”

“Part of my nightmare?”

“Believe that, if you can.” He patted her back. “Time to go.”

She looked at him. He noticed that she had freckles sprinkled across her nose. The quintessential country miss, to be sure. The quintessential country miss who had apparently just encountered things she had likely never dreamed about even in her nightmares.

“I thought mages were just make-believe characters in those tales told down at the pub,” she said very faintly. “Or in faery tales. If they existed in truth, I assumed they lived in nasty places up north where I never want to go.”