“Is he?” Acair asked lightly. “Such a pity.”
“He doesn’t like you.”
“The feeling, as it happens, is quite mutual.”
She looked at him with a frown. “I thought all was forgiven, forgotten, and left in the past. What did you do to him?”
Acair shifted. “The tale is long and tedious.”
“I’m completely free of engagements for the afternoon, so say on.”
He leaned his head back against the wall. It was freezing, which was a boon for the state of his pounding head. It was also damned cold, which was less pleasant for his backside, but he didn’t imagine he was in a position to complain.
“The truth is,” he admitted, “I may or may not have spirited away one of his daughters for a fortnight of pub crawling.”
She rolled her eyes. “He has daughters?”
“Several. A son or two as well, I think. Terrifying souls, all.”
“And?” she prodded.
“Are you curious about the results of too much quaffing of ale or how Papa Uachdaran reacted?”
She smiled. “I suspect there is much more to the story than a few mugs of ale.”
“I refuse to admit to it.”
He refused in part because he’d failed but mostly because he didn’t want any eavesdropping guardsmen to remind the king about his true offenses.
He looked at her, looked at her hand that was so close to his but so completely out of reach, then leaned his head closer to her.
“I believe I need to teach you some spells,” he whispered.
“What if I destroy the underpinnings of the palace?”
“It wouldn’t be the first time someone had tried,” he muttered, but he supposed clarifying that wasn’t the best thing to do at the moment either.
He also imagined he could refrain from pointing out that Uachdaran of Léige wasn’t as much of a purist as he might have wanted the rest of the world to know. That one knew spells... well, Acair wasn’t one to recoil at much of anything save a poorly cooked plate of roast potatoes, but the dwarf king’s spells—
Well, they were almost as vile as the ale he brewed, and that was saying something.
He looked at her seriously. “I had hoped we wouldn’t find ourselves in such straits.”
“I’ll muck out a few stalls in the morning,” she said. “Perhaps that will be enough.”
He didn’t hold out any hope for that. The truth was, he could only see one path in front of him and it wasn’t one he particularlywanted to walk. He was going to die, Léirsinn was full of magic she couldn’t control, and the fate of several no doubt critically important social events was in a total shambles.
Never mind the world and the chance to watch it continued to turn.
He was faintly surprised by how desperately he wanted to be a part of that. Unfortunately, he couldn’t see how that was going to be possible unless something miraculous occurred.
He looked down at Léirsinn’s hand on the other side of that invisible spell that locked him in the dungeon, then realized if he put his hand just so, it almost looked as if their hands were touching.
“It’s very dark here,” she said quietly.
“I’ll give you a spell for werelight,” he said with a sigh. “If you are determined to beat it out of me, I might tell you how to add a few things to it that scatter shadows of rodents about, just for the sheer sport of it.” He met her eyes. “If you like.”
“You are a very bad mage.”
