Snaffles, who’d finished eating the bone Morwenna had brought him, padded over and began licking Magnus’s bowl clean with big noisy slurps. Izzy didn’t have the energy to stop him. She was tired. So tired. She felt like she could sleep for a week.
“How are ye doing, lass?” Magnus asked softly.
She looked over at him and forced a shrug. “I’m not the one who’s just taken a beating. I’m fine.”
He watched her steadily. “Nay, lass, ye are not, and there’s no surprise in that. It has been a...” He paused as if searching for the right word. “Challenging day.”
“Challenging?” Izzy snorted. “That’s one way of putting it. There are other words I could think of to describe being thrown back in time, running from real life outlaws, then taking shelter in a bona fide fifteenth century stable. Terrifying? Crazy? Absolutely bloody bonkers?”
Magnus laughed gently. “Aye, that sounds about right. So ye do accept now that ye have traveled through time?”
“How can I not? Either I’ve traveled through time, or you, those outlaws, and these villagers are part of averyconvincing reenactment group.”
“I’m sorry, lass.”
“Why? What do you have to be sorry for?”
He shrugged his massive shoulders. “I’m sorry that this happened to ye. I canna imagine how frightening it must be to be tossed so farfrom everything ye know.”
The compassion in his eyes almost undid her. The tight control she’d kept on her emotions began to uncoil and she felt tears gathering in her eyes. She blinked furiously, trying to beat them back. If she lost control now, she didn’t think she’d be able to regain it.
Magnus’s hand came to rest on her shoulder. “Easy, lass. Ye are safe. I willnae let any harm come to ye.”
She nodded, finding that his words and his touch soothed her a little. The panic began to recede. Snaffles finished licking the bowl clean and settled down next to her with a ‘whumpf’, putting his head on her thigh. Izzy ran her hands through the dog’s fur and breathed deeply, her pulse slowly returning to normal.
The darkness outside was thick and the only light came from a lantern burning in the yard. Its weak light lit Magnus’s profile, leaving most of his face in shadow.
“How do you know about all this?” she asked finally. “All that stuff you told me earlier. About fairies and time travel and stuff?”
He shifted, the hay rustling as he stretched out his long legs. “Because of who I serve,” he murmured. “I’m part of an organization called the Order of the Osprey. We have certain...affiliations. The Fae being one of them. That’s how I know about Irene MacAskill and what she can do.”
Izzy cocked her head. “So it’s like some kind of occult society?”
Magnus laughed softly. “Ye make us sound like a bunch of witches and warlocks, lass. Nay, it’s naught like that. The Order of the Osprey is a military organization dedicated to defending Alba from its enemies. Most of the time thoseenemies are of the usual human kind. Occasionally, they are not.”
Izzy digested this in silence, unsure what to make of it. There had been quasi-military orders throughout history. The Knights Templar, for example. Was this Order of the Osprey something like that? Then she remembered something else.
“That man who attacked you—Drew—mentioned an Order of the Osprey,” she said. “That’s why he was so furious. He said the Order of the Osprey was supposed to protect the village.”
“And he was right,” Magnus replied softly. “We failed these people.”
“Is that why you didn’t fight back?”
His gaze sharpened, but then he looked away. “Something like that.”
Snaffles heaved himself to his feet, padded over to Magnus, and slumped down by his side, placing his paw on the big man’s thigh. Magnus reached out and gently stroked the dog’s back, still staring out into the darkness.
Izzy watched them, the man and the dog. She was suddenly struck by the similarities between the two. Both were large and powerful and this power made others wary. Yet beneath the exterior, both were something else, something more than they seemed from the outside. There was a strong but gentle core in both of them.
Ye see the true hearts of people, no matter what they may show on the outside.
Those were the words Irene MacAskill had spoken to her. Was she right? Silence stretched in the stable, brokenonly by the irritated shifting of the donkeys in their stall. She had no idea what they thought of their home being invaded like this but she guessed they weren’t happy.
“So let me get this straight,” she said, breaking the silence and picking up on their earlier conversation. “This mission you’ve been on, tracking those outlaws. That was a mission for this Order of yours?”
Magnus glanced at her and then shifted uncomfortably. “Aye.”
“So how come you were alone? Surely you weren’t thinking of taking on those outlaws all by yourself?”
