Donag’s mouth twists. “Because the only thing atop Tom a Chrodhaidh hill is a cage.”
“Cage?” Pressure cinches tight around my ribs. This is my fault. I should’ve run off with Callum the moment Hamish started bragging about all the ways he likes topunish people. “Like, they’re going to put him in an actual cage?”
“Aye. Strung up from the tree for all to see.”
Callum, in a cage.All because I wanted to eat something sweet.
“I’m going to the laird to tell him what happened.” I grab my boots and drop onto the edge of my cot to put them on. “I’ll make him listen. This isn’t Callum’s fault. The apples were for me. He only had, like, one of them.” Hopping up, I snatch my cloak and storm to the door. “I’m going to the castle.”
“Dinnae think I trust you to go alone, you wee slutling.” Donag grabs her shawl and slams the door behind us. “I’ll see you don’t hide from the truth as your mother did.”
I halt, my eyes flashing to her. “I don’t hide from the truth. Ever.”
She spits on the ground. “Here’s a truth. I took you in. Gave you a roof and a bed. I didnae let harm come to you. All I asked was that you do your work and be quiet about it. But you were hungry for trouble. You kept running to Callum, asking for his help, when he’s in more danger every day than you ever will be. If you’d done as I asked, stayed away from Callum, in time, I might’ve found a way and sent you home.”
Home.
But I know now—no place would feel like home without Callum.
I take off for the castle at a brisk pace, tossing her a withering look. “Oh, you’ll still send me home. I told you, I’ll make this right.”
“For you, there’s but one thing to be made right.” She catches up to me, her tone creepy as sheasks, “Do you want to hear a story? Your mother came to me. She wanted to slip her bairn. To slipyou.”
My breath hitches.Unwanted.
Callum told me this, told me how Janet wanted soapwort to end her pregnancy. But the sting hasn’t gone away. Instead, it’s burrowed deeper, like a splinter lodged in my chest.
“Your own mother wanted you disappeared,” Donag says, and I know it for the truth.
Janet never wanted me—not then, not now. She’d expected a pampered life where servants were the ones who worried about trivial details like children.
But Poppa wanted me.
The thought is so simple, so obvious, that I don’t know why it surprises me. Even if he knew the truth—that he’s not my blood—he’d still choose me. I know that as surely as I know the sound of my own voice. You choose your family.
And I choose Callum.
Donning resolve like a suit of armor, I meet her eye. “I know this story.”
“Then you know you shouldn’t be here.”
“That’s what I’ve been saying.” The words explode from me. “But you’re the one who yanked me out of my time. Against my will.”
“You’re nae listening.” Her fingertips cut sharply into my arm as she snatches it, demanding my attention. “I’m saying, you shouldnae even exist. Janet begged a wish of me—I could grant it still. She didn’t want you. I don’t want you. Nobody wants you.”
Some version of those words has haunted me my whole life. But everything’s changed. For the first time, fear—that I might not have a place or people to call my own—doesn’t register. Instead, an unfamiliar feeling has taken hold in my bones. It’s the opposite of lonely. The opposite of despair. And it’s a revelation.
Callum. He’s the revelation. I thought returning to my own time would make everything right. But nothing’s ever felt right in my life.
Not until Callum.
At first, he helped me make sense of the past. Now he helps me make sense of myself.
“I know one person who wants me,” I say coolly.
Callum. I’m coming for you.He’ll never be safe here, not with Campbells hunting MacGregors. I’ll save him. And then we’ll go far, far away.
Donag gives me a look simmering with hatred. “What Callum suffers, you shall suffer tenfold.”
