The door pushed open. Malcolm entered carrying a tray with two tankards, a pitcher, a wheel of cheese, bread, and dried meat. He placed it on the table between the chairs in front of the fire. She watched him, curious, as he poured a bit of weak ale into one of the tankards, then took a sip. He turned toward the bed and their eyes met. Her heart leapt into her throat.
What a strange reaction she had to this man she hardly knew.
“Och, yer awake. How do ye feel?”
She felt like death, honestly. Her body ached from head to toe. She had a raging headache. Her stomach growled from not having eaten a full meal. But her hand had stopped throbbing.
“I don’t know.”
He chuckled, a rumble low and deep in his throat. It was a wonderful sound. He poured the second tankard, then picked it up and walked it to her.
“Here. This will help.”
She took the weak ale and sipped it as he moved back to the table.
“Did you bandage my hand?”
“Aye,” he said. “Whoever did it the first time did no do a good job.”
She flushed, thinking of Evie’s hastily tied bandage around her palm. She rushed to get it done before anyone, namely Callum, discovered what they had been up to.
“Well, I guess she was in a hurry,” she said.
“I cleaned it. ’Tis a shallow cut, but it was starting to fester a bit. Ye might be glad ye were out when I did that.” His mouth turned up into a smile behind his beard.
She shuddered. Yes, she was glad she had been out for that activity. He took a sip of ale, then dropped his tankard to the tray with a thump.
“Ye said something about that wee stone.”
“The keystone?”
She glanced over at it. The offending stone rested quietly on the table beside the bed. Not glowing or humming or anything of the sort. It looked like nothing more than a piece of jagged rock.
“You said it has the power of the Past.”
He paused, the silence stretching between them. His gaze flickered to the stone, then back to her again, as if searching how to ask whatever burning question was within him.
“This keystone of yer sister’s…what power does it hold?”
“You told me yourself what power it held. You saw it when she came to the battlefield. You said time slowed and light shot out from her hand.”
“Aye, I ken that. But…” He gave her a curious glance. “If ye can see the past, then what can she see?”
Ah, she understood then. Evie had told her the keystone showed her Callum would die if she hadn’t come to his aid. She saw in that moment how he would die.
“She told me she had to save Callum during the battle because she saw the possible outcomes of the present. All of them showed her he’d be killed.”
Malcolm stilled, then, slowly lowered himself into the chair by the fire.
“He never told me,” he said, as though he were hurt by the omission.
“That’s why she didn’t use the keystone to return to her future. Our future.”
Chloe pushed aside the blankets and swung her legs down. She was still fully dressed. She walked to the chair and sat across from him, still holding her tankard of ale. She eyed the dried meat, her stomach rumbling.
“And yer piece shows the past,” he said.
“Yes.”
