“Now,” Katie said again. “Please.”
Erica frowned. Something felt off. Or was this her being too paranoid?
If she drew a line here, she would be making something out of nothing. And if Alex wanted to talk to her about the letter, better to hear it and be done with it.
She reached for the shawl on the chair and draped it over her shoulders.
Katie’s hand came up, and Erica let the small fingers take hers.
“Lead the way,” she said.
They crossed the passage at a pace too quick to count as a stroll and too careful to be a run. Katie knew the turns like a map… left by the small stairs, past the narrow window that looked out at the kitchen roof, right where the flagstones were worn from heavy feet. Servants passed and bobbed curtsies on the way, and Erica nodded to each.
They came up on her mother stepping out of the dining hall, sun on her shawl, a frown already gathering at the sight of a child towing a grown woman by her fingers.
Her mother slowed down. “What is this?” she asked, puzzled.
Erica shook her head, the smallest of gestures. “Daenae even ask,” she muttered.
Her mother gave an amused smile and watched as Katie tugged again, eager to be useful.
They took the next turn where the light thinned. Erica’s eyes adjusted to the cooler run of the inner hall. She kept track of the route by habit. A door with a new hinge. A bench with a crack in one leg. The wall on the right held an old notch near the base, where a trunk had bitten into it long ago.
None of it mattered if this was as plain as a book shown and a word spoken. It mattered if the request was more.
“Does the Laird often read in the library?” Erica asked.
“Aye,” Katie answered. “Sometimes. When Grandmamma is after him and wants him to read one of the big books.”
Erica let out a breath she had not planned to hold. “And he asked for me,” she said.
She made it sound like a joke, but it did not feel like one.
“He asked that we bring ye,” Katie said, precise as a steward.
They reached the last bend. Erica could see the library door ahead, a finger’s width open. Katie’s braid swung against her shoulder as she hurried the last steps.
Erica looked once over her shoulder down the passage they had come from. No one followed.
“Here,” Katie said, her voice bright. “We are here.”
CHAPTER 13
Alex pacedthe library with his hands folded behind his back, his good eye trailing over spines of books he had known since he was a boy. The titles sat in tidy lines. He pulled one at random and opened to the middle without seeing a word. He closed it and put it on the table, watching the pages glint in the firelight.
The fireplace still held that same thin red seam under ash. Late light poured in through the narrow window and thinned across the table. He checked the window latch, frowned, and turned to the door.
Maybe this was nothing. Maybe Bettie had run him in a circle to steal a sweet from the pantry.
He walked to the door, let out a breath, and reached for the handle.
The door opened first, and Erica stepped inside.The light caught her shoulder, then fell away as the door swung shut behindher. Metal slid in the lock. Laughter, small and quick, carried through the wood, then hurried off down the passageway.
They stood there for a heartbeat, both adjusting to the shape of the room with the other inside it.
“What is going on?” Erica asked, taking another step forward.
Alex stared at her. “What are ye doing here?”
