“Matty? Join us, dear.” The old woman’s voice froze me in place. Like Cian had done, I closed my eyes. I didn’t want to see proof that they’d gotten through the locked door.
The thought of them taking Cian away got me moving again. “Don’t you dare!” I rushed back to him, bumped the arm of a chair, and threw off my balance.
He caught me when I would have fallen on my face and pulled me close.
I held onto him like the life raft he was. “You can’t take him! You don’t need him! Just leave us alone!”
“Matty.” The man’s deep voice got my attention, but I buried my face in Cian’s chest and refused to turn.
“Matty, I havenae come to take him away.”
Cian gasped. “Then why have ye hunted me? Ye mean to erase me from this century another way?”
“Nay. Come, sit. I vow I mean ye no harm. Nor will I send ye back to certain death.”
“Ye ken, then, that it is precisely what I fear most?”
“Aye. What yeoncefeared most. I reckon ye fear something else more,now.”
Cian pulled back and looked at me, then smiled. “Aye, I do.”
One of the women chuckled. “Come, you two. Sit. The sooner we explain, the sooner we can leave you alone.”
“And we will leave you alone,” sang her sister.
Cian took my hand and led me to one of the chairs. He sat, then pulled me onto his lap. “Guan, then.”
“My name is Wickham Muir. These are my sisters, Lorraine and Loretta.”
The three of them were seated on the couch. I glanced at the door, expecting it to be broken, but it was closed and the deadbolt was still turned. I had to ask how they got in.
One of the sisters winked. “We’re witches, dear.”
I reminded myself that I was in Scotland, and we were already sitting down with these people to talk about time travel.Actual time travel. Them flying through a wall, or whatever, wasn’t any more of a stretch.
She smirked. “Oh, we don’t fly.”
I sucked my lips between my teeth in a lame effort to keep myself from thinking anything at all.
Wickham continued. “I saw ye that night, Mr. MacInnis, on the battlefield. I was a wee dazed from bein’ shot.”
Cian nodded. “I assume now that ye had armor under yer clothes, for I saw ye take the shot.”
“Aye. I did. But that wee ball still kicked like a mean mule.” He waved his hand. “By the time I understood exactly what had happened, ye were long gone.”
“Ye went to the battle to save the blond man. Simon.”
“Aye. I did. For he and my niece had fallen in love, and I feared she wouldnae go on livin’ without him. But the lassie lives in the here and now. I had to save Simon before that shot could take him down, to bring him to her. The rest of it doesnae matter now, but the timin’ was important.”
“I heard ye tell the man you could get him free of the place. I wanted the same, but I never got the chance to ask. And then…”
“And then ye reached out when I would have fallen. A kindness in the midst of so much madness. And Iamglad.”
“Ye’re not angry that I took a gift that wasnae offered?”
“If ye could have saved one man from a sure death, would ye have done it? And been glad about it?”
“Certainly.”
