Maggie seemed to feel the shift in the air as well, for she went still.
Kristen put a hand on her thick fur. “What is it, lassie?” she asked.
I feel it, too.
After spending almost five years leading the keep, she could recognize danger, especially if it was hiding. She looked once more across the garden, but nothing could be seen beyond the arches ahead.
“Inside,” she said to the children, her voice cheerful but firm. “Now.”
They crossed back and she drew the door wide, guiding the children across the threshold, the dog right at her shin, the fear following as quietly as a shadow that knew her step.
Once inside the castle, the air cooled.
Kristen bent to Anna and smoothed her hair. “Ye will go with Nurse Moira,” she said, her voice light and steady. “There is sweet milk, and oatcakes with honey if ye sit quietly.”
Anna nodded, solemn and brave.
Finn looked past Kristen down the dim corridor. “Are ye coming, too?”
“In a moment.” Kristen ran her hand over his hair and then his cheek, pressing warmth into him. “I must fetch a ribbon for Anna. I will meet ye in the kitchen. Mind Maggie.”
“Aye,” he said, squaring his shoulders.
Maggie hesitated. The dog looked from Kristen to the children and back again. Her tail did not lift.
“Go on,” Kristen urged gently. “They need ye more than I do.”
Moira gathered Anna and Finn and took them away. Maggie fell into step beside them like a soldier taking an order.
Silence settled over the corridor once they were gone. It was the ordinary quiet of the inner yard, yet it felt suspended, as if a breath had been drawn and not yet released.
Kristen stood still until their footsteps faded, then turned toward the Laird’s chambers, the room she had occupied for the past five years.
Torches flickered along the path, guiding her as she moved and illuminating anything that might seem strange. Her slippersfound the smooth run in the middle of each stone step, and she took slow breaths.
Left, right, left, right.
She had walked down this corridor so often that her feet reflexively knew where to go and where to stop. Even so, the prickle at her neck did not ebb.
She told herself it was foolish. It was probably one of the children in the castle being mischievous. Perhaps Lachlan had brought someone he was trying to hide.
She wanted to believe anything but the glaring fact that they had an intruder.
She reached the door and put her hand on the iron handle. It felt colder than it should. She entered the chamber to find the low fire she had left behind that morning. Her brush lay where she had set it, the bristles clean and drying. The bedsheets draped across the foot of the bed, which she herself had made this morning.
Normal things.
She breathed deeply, trying to slow her heartbeat.
She stepped in and pushed the door behind her with an easy hand. The wood swung on its old hinges, and the lock set in place with a sharp, deliberate click.
She swallowed and went very still. That couldn’t have possibly been justthe wind.
“Who is there?” she asked, her voice too loud in the big room.
No answer.
The fire danced over red coals, and the candle flames held steady. She could feel her own pulse in her throat.
