“I’m afraid to ask.”
“Wise,” he said, not because he was particularly spare with words, but because he knew what he was facing there.
His spell made no comment, but he hadn’t expected anything else.
Every light in the damned solar suddenly blazed to life with a crispness that didn’t surprise him in the slightest. He might have been tempted to do the same thing in their place, which he wasn’t entirely sure he wouldn’t be doing—and sooner rather than later.
“And here I thought we were going to escape death,” Léirsinn murmured.
Acair had hoped so as well, but apparently not. Death was waiting there by the doorway, dressed in a perfectly pressed, starched-collared gown and boots that buttoned up the side. He knew about that preferred style of boot because he’d had ample opportunity to examine several pairs of them over the years as they’d kicked him in the arse on his way through the front gates.
At least he could say, with the exception of that one trip over the back garden wall where he’d made such a hash of his trousers, he’d managed to be ejected out the front gates.
He had the feeling the only place he was going to see this time around was the insides of his grandmother’s dungeon.
He cleared his throat and prepared to make introductions.
Fifteen
Léirsinn wasn’t sure what she expected Acair’s grandmother to look like, but the woman at the doorway wasn’t it.
Cruihniche of Fàs was slight, elegant, and dressed so perfectly that Léirsinn felt as if she had weeks’ worth of dung on her boots, not just a bit of dirt she’d done her best to leave behind just outside the back door. It had seemed a bit odd to her at first how the house itself had seemed on edge, as if it feared someone might walk through and find something out of place. At the moment, she understood completely.
She could hardly believe it, but if rumor had it aright, that delicate woman there was the sister of Cailleach of Cael and the mother of Fionne of Fàs. Léirsinn had no idea how the branches of their family tree twisted themselves around, but something definitely had taken a radical turn somewhere.
Acair stepped up and discreetly drew her behind him. “Grandmother,” he said, making her a low bow.
“You odious little rodent,” Cruihniche said crisply. “How dare you show your visage, no matter how handsome it might be, at my door!”
Acair cleared his throat. “If we’re going to be entirely accurate, Grandmother, I’m not at your door—”
“You’re in my private solar,” she shouted, “which you well know. I refuse, Acair, to indulge your penchant for semantics.” She motioned him sharply aside. “Let me see who you have hiding behind your sorry self.”
“Ah, Grandmother,” Acair began.
“Now, Acair.”
He sighed, then looked over his shoulder. “Sorry,” he mouthed.
Léirsinn shook her head in answer. Either both of them were going to escape their current locale, or neither of them would.
Acair sighed, then took a step to his right. “May I present my trusted companion, Léirsinn of Sàraichte. Léirsinn, my beloved and esteemed grandmother, Cruihniche of Fàs.”
Léirsinn watched Cruihniche sweep her from head to toe with an assessing glance, then freeze. She looked as if she’d recently taken a hearty bite of a lemon, then her jaw suddenly went slack.
“Oh... I see.”
Léirsinn wished the woman was merely reacting to an eyeful of Acair’s minder spell, but it was obvious Acair’s grandmother wasn’t looking in that direction. She was looking at her.
She would have ducked back behind Acair, but two things stopped her. One, Acair seemed rather reluctant to allow her to use him as a shield, and two, she realized with a start that shemight be the only thing that kept them both alive. She wasn’t sure what was going through Mistress Cruihniche’s mind, but it didn’t seem to be thoughts of murder. She looked instead as if she’d just seen something that had knocked her firmly back on her heels.
Perhaps it was the dragon charm burning a hole in Léirsinn’s tunic.
Léirsinn had to look down to make certain she wasn’t on fire. The charm was rather warm to the touch even through the cloth, but she’d grown accustomed to it doing unusual things. If it saved them at present, she wasn’t going to complain.
She wondered what she was supposed to do to humor Acair’s grandmother, then decided there was no point in worrying about it. The woman was either going to slay them both on the spot, or—
Apparently, it was going to beor.
