But she might purchase you the time to escape—
Wasn’t that why she’d wanted magic in the first place?
Acair stopped so suddenly that she ran into him before she realized what he was doing. He caught her, then put his arm around her and drew her more deeply into the forest. He leaned against a tree and pulled her into his arms, wrapping his new cloak around her.
“Danger?” she whispered.
“A handy excuse to indulge in a friendly embrace, rather.”
She smiled in spite of herself. She supposed he wouldn’t notice if her teeth were chattering so badly she thought they might be heard all the way back to his mother’s house.
“You have a fever,” he murmured.
“I don’t feel very well.”
“You feel very well to—”
“Will you stop?” she demanded in exasperation.
He tightened his arms around her briefly, then sighed deeply. “I’m trying to distract us both, I fear.”
She was willing to admit that the thought was a good one. She rested her head against his shoulder and closed her eyes. It was probably as close as she was going to come to safety for the foreseeable future, so she thought she might want to take advantage of the moment.
“I’ve been thinking,” she said finally.
“Kind thoughts about me?”
She lifted her head and looked at him. The dark wasn’t quite absolute so she could see the hint of a smile on his face. “Those, too,” she agreed, “but others as well.”
He studied her. “Thoughts about magic?”
“I’m putting that off for a bit still,” she said honestly. She chewed on her words before she managed to put them in an order that made sense to her. “If the spell that was stolen does what Soilléir says it does—and trust me, I’m finding it hard to take any of this seriously—”
“Even now?” he interrupted.
“I’ve only set half a forest on fire,” she said solemnly. “That could have been someone else trying to undermine my confidence.”
He rested his forehead gently against hers. “I’m fighting the urge to spew out a maudlin sentiment.”
“Are you certain it isn’t indigestion?”
“We have yet to ingest what that whoreson from Cothromaiche sent along,” Acair said, “so, aye, I’m fairly certain my tum is still safe. But that wasn’t what we were discussing.” He straightened and tucked a stray lock of hair behind her ear, then pulled her hood closer around her face. “Go on.”
She took a deep breath. “If that mage had taken that spell,” she began, “and it does what it’s supposed to do...” She looked at him. “Well?”
He blinked a time or two, then his mouth fell open. “If he had the spell, then he would have used it long before now.”
“Exactly,” she said. “Why buy a horse if you’re not going to ride it?”
He took her face in his hands and kissed her.
She would have commented on that but he had released her and had begun to pace. She put her fingers over her mouth and watched him, not sure if she should laugh or weep. The man was exactly as she’d seen him in the garden at Tor Neroche.
Light and dark, good and evil, all perfectly balanced.
He stopped and looked at her, then froze. “What?”
“You are...” She blew out her breath. “I don’t know what you are.”
