The White Spell (Nine Kingdoms #10)(56)

“Is he dead?” she whispered in horror.

“He’ll wish he were with the headache he wakes up with. Here’s your horse.”

She felt a chill start at the back of her head and slide down her spine. She reached out and held on to the very fine wooden door of the stall simply to keep herself on her feet. “I don’t think I want to come with you,” she managed. “I don’t like how you’re doing this.”

He picked the lock on Falaire’s stall with tools she realized he’d used on the front door, then slid the door open.

“I told you I was not a good man. I’m saving my life, your life, and this damned horse’s life. I can’t help how ’tis done.”

She tried to shut the stall door. “The means don’t necessarily justify the end—”

He turned and faced her. “Listen to me,” he said in a low voice, “and trust me that I know of what I speak. We are dealing with people—” He blew out his breath in obvious frustration. “These men here would slay you with the lifting of a single finger without so much as a flicker of remorse. They would kill me not quickly but over as long a period of time as they could manage. I can guarantee you that neither of us would find the experience pleasant. I cannot fight them in my current state. You might try but in the end you would pay a steep price before your life was snuffed out, again without a second’s thought.”

She didn’t have very many skills, she supposed, but she knew when someone was lying. Perhaps it came from so many years of living with horses. They were mirrors, she supposed, of men’s hearts. If she had learned anything over the past almost two score years, it was a good deal of horse sense. Acair, whatever and whoever he was, was not lying.

She looked over Acair’s shoulder to find Falaire sticking his beautiful nose out into the free air.

He seemed to consider, then he snuffled Acair’s hair. Acair froze.

“He’s going to bite my ear off, isn’t he?”

“Wouldn’t surprise me.”

Acair reached up hesitantly and stroked Falaire’s nose.

The stallion tried to eat his fingers.

Acair winced and pulled his hand away. He wiped his fingers on his cloak, then looked at her. “Come or not, as you like. I can’t force you.”

“But you’ll steal my horse.”

He pulled Falaire’s halter off its hook and handed it to her. “I can’t keep either of us safe—and I’m speaking of you and me—or solve the mystery of those spots, or save your grandfather, unless I have a very pointed conversation with one particular man. To get to him, I need your horse.”

“Then you’re not offering me the choice to stay or go,” she said slowly, taking the halter and clutching it so she didn’t drop it. “Not truly.”

“I can’t force you,” he repeated, “and I’m not quite sure how to persuade you except to lay the facts out in their unpleasant starkness as I’ve already tried to do.” He considered then shrugged. “If you want my honest opinion, you would be mad not to leap at the chance to be off on an adventure with a lad such as myself, but that is, again, just my opinion.”

She would have smiled but she was too cold to. “You’re daft.”

“Pragmatic,” he corrected, “and very fond of my life. Your endlessly hungry horse here is obviously begging to be involved in a fine piece of mischief. I imagine if he could say as much, he would advise you to come along.” He nodded. “Not to be missed, truly.”

Falaire ducked his head, obviously to make it easier for her to slip his halter over his ears. She clutched at the leather in her hands, taking comfort from the familiar feel of it there. She looked at Acair, but he was only standing there, waiting patiently. She looked at her horse, but he was simply standing there with his head still bowed, sliding her a sideways look. If he could have spoken, she supposed he would have been telling her to get on with things.

She put his halter on, then buckled it. She had hooked on a lead rope before she realized what she was doing. Years of habit apparently. She stroked his nose, then looked at Acair.

“I don’t see how we’re going to get him out of the city in the middle of the day.”

Acair smiled. “’Tis still early yet. Anyone important is still lingering over his coffee. We’ll just march about as if we’re supposed to be here. You know what to do. Look as though someone is paying you to do it.” He stepped back. “You lead.”

“I imagine that isn’t something you say often.”

“I imagine it’s something I say never,” he said with a snort. “You see me in reduced and very unusual circumstances. Trust me, they won’t last. Off we go.”

She took a deep breath, then led Falaire out of his stall. Fortunately, she’d had enough experience in barns that finding her way out the back door wasn’t a problem. She led them past several turnouts and continued on to the furthermost one as if she knew what she was doing, all the while looking for a gate.

It was found with less trouble than she’d feared, a poor stable lad was invited to turn around and forget having seen them—Acair handed him a pair of gold coins for his trouble at least—and they were outside almost before she realized just what she’d done.

She’d stolen a horse.