Flora snorted into her tea, a sound shockingly human from a woman who looked to be carved from Skye basalt.
Harris scowled, clearly offended in principle.
But Flora’s amusement faded as she straightened again, her posture shifting to something colder, a commander evaluating a liability.
“Understand me,lassie,” Flora said, voice low and precise. “What ye’ve stumbled into is no’ a story for bards. If the wrong ears hear even a whisper o’ this, if ye breathe the Prince’s name in the wrong glen, or mentiongoldwhere a single redcoat walks—men will come for ye.”
Fiona stiffened, chin lifting.
Flora didn’t soften.
“Women, too,” she added. “Some worse than men.”
Harris shifted, ready to intervene, but Flora lifted a commanding and he stilled.
“Ye asked for truth,” she said. “Here it is: if ye jeopardize what Harris carries… I’ll put a knife between yer ribs myself. You wouldnae be the first sacrifice made for the cause.”
The words landed hard.
Fiona’s breath hitched before she could stop it: a small, instinctive reaction she despised herself for.
Flora saw it, yet her expression didn’t change.
But her eyes—those clever, sharp eyes—registered it. Marked it.
“Good,” Flora murmured. “Fear keeps folk alive. Pride kills them.”
Fiona bristled so hard her fingers shook around her cup, shoulders rigid, jaw set like stone. But she didn’t look away.
Wouldn’t.
Not now.
Not ever.
Flora leaned back, satisfied she’d made her point. “We leave at first light. The Prince is on the island. He moves by night, trusts no one he hasn’t trusted before. And if ye’re asked—ye never heard any of this.”
Her gaze sharpened once more—knife-edge clear.
“Choose your path carefully, Fiona Cameron. The next step ye take may cost someone their life,” she warned.
Dubh whinnied outside, smug as the devil himself.
Fiona dropped her forehead into her hands. “Christ preserve us.”
Flora took a thoughtful sip. “Clever though. No man thinks to search a beast’s tack. And if they tried to steal that one,” —she nodded toward Dubh— “they’d lose a hand.”
Fiona didn’t doubt it.
The cottage crackled with the quiet, the storm muffled by thick stone walls.
For one humiliating heartbeat, the room felt too small. Flora’s reputation pressed on her chest like a weight.
Her spine straightened abruptly, covering the flinch with a glare. “The Bonnie Prince… he is here?”
Harris’s jaw ticked. “Aye. But not for long.”
“What do you expect of me, then?” Fiona demanded, her voice fiercer than she felt.
