“Acair, you worry me.”
He pushed back his chair. “Let me help you with these dishes, then I believe I’ll go stretch my legs.”
She nodded and rose as well, but she was watching him far more closely than he was comfortable with.
His inability to make idle chatter was coming back to haunt him at the moment, for he had no means with which to distract her. Hardly had he dried the last plate and stacked it again before he realized that she had placed herself between him and the doorway that led to the rest of the house. She was wearing a look he imagined had inspired countless stable hands to blurt out their plans for mischief before she had even asked.
“I’m going to have a little look up the coast,” he admitted, finding himself, metaphorically speaking, standing there in dung-covered boots and holding onto a pitchfork.
“Are you mad?” she asked incredulously. “You know what’s out there!”
“I’ll slip out the back. He’ll never know.”
“And what will I do if you don’t come back?”
“Well,” he said, wondering what sort of list might be best. “You’ll tell Sianach to take a winged shape, then you’ll walk out of my spell and fly to somewhere that appeals. Cothromaiche, if you like. Seannair is daft as a duck, but still a decent fellow. The schools of wizardry—nay, Tor Neroche. Better still, Angesand. Hearn will give you a choice refuge with all the horses you can stand to ride.”
“Nay,” she said, “what will I do without you?”
It took him a moment to realize what she was getting at. He looked at her then, that glorious red-haired woman who had been ripped from the life she knew, thrown into a life she’d never asked for, and sacrificed what would no doubt be the peace she might have looked forward to in order to keep him safe, and he wondered if he’d heard her wrong.
But nay, she was simply looking at him as if she might have been concerned that he would nip out the back and be slain.
He caught his jaw before it made an abrupt trip south—something he was having to do with unsettling regularity. And damn those bloody magics in his chest, Fadaire and that rot Soilléir had crammed inside him, if they didn’t tangle themselves together in a fond embrace and give his heart a mighty squeeze. He could hardly catch his breath. Worse still, he felt torn between weeping and…well, weeping. He cleared his throat roughly.
“I didn’t realize you’d burned supper,” he said, grasping manfully for something that sounded reasonable. “Smoke is still lingering terribly, you know. Best open the back door next time.”
She walked over to him, leaned up, kissed him, then put her arms around his neck.
“You are a terrible man,” she said quietly.
“Such sickly sweet sentiments,” he said, clutching her to him so tightly he wasn’t entirely certain he hadn’t heard her squeak. “Awful wench that you are.”
“But you’re very fond of me.”
“I am. And I’m quite sure you return the feeling, though driving me to such displays is a very poor way of expressing it.”
She whispered something in his ear. He wasn’t sure if it had been an expression of mild affection or a saltyyou’re a complete ass, but he decided perhaps the exact words didn’t matter. He understood the sentiment.
He pulled away. “I’ll return soon.”
“I can’t stop you,” she said slowly.
“You can’t.”
She looked at him seriously. “I wouldn’t actually try, if you’re curious. But if you aren’t back by morning, Sianach and I will find you, then I will give him leave to stomp the life from you.”
He brought her hand to his mouth and kissed it with as much gallantry as he possessed. “You do love me.”
“I might tell you when you return,” she said, “so you’d best be careful, hadn’t you?”
He thought that might be another fact for his mother to make a note of: the number of times in the course of his very long, perilous existence anyone had pointed him toward the door with those words.
The number was still zero.
He made Léirsinn a low bow, then slipped past her and out the back door as a chilly winter breeze.
He flew along the coast, covered in a vile spell of un-noticing—Lugham, it had to be said—because it would definitely discourage anyone from having a closer look at him bolting across the sky.
