The simple confirmation sent a jolt through me. I sat forward, my fatigue forgotten in the sudden surge of energy.“How do ye ken her?” I asked when Murieall did not immediately give an explanation.
Murieall folded her hands in her lap, her voice measured. “Ye will recall that when I came here, I was cursed.”
“Ye ken I do,” I replied. I’d believed Murieall had heard the voices of the dead before Munro. “What of it?”
“Katreine Wallace was—” Murieall shook her head, “is one of my best friends.” Murieall now reached out and grasped my hand. “If ye’ll recall my story of how I was cursed, I was with my three best friends. We each made a wish.”
I felt my eyes narrow and my frown deepen. “Are ye saying—”
“Aye,” Murieall interrupted.
Now I shook my head in disbelief. “But I had assumed that ye and yer friends were near the same age.”
Murieall smiled. “We are.”
I was missing something she was trying to tell me. “But then, that would mean—”
“God’s blood, James,” Murieall muttered. “I ken it’s hard to believe, but Katreine was with me. She made a wish and was also cursed. She can nae age, and apparently the curse is still in place.”
I gawked at her, and she gave my hand a squeeze.
Katreine is not twenty-five summers, James. She just looks it. She is locked in place from the day we were in the Dark Forest and made our wishes. She is my age.
“God’s blood,” I muttered.
Murieall glared at me, and I let out a desperate chuckle. “I do nae mean it as it sounded. ’Tis just a lot to learn.”
“I forgive ye,” she said with a smirk.
“Ye look twenty-five summers to me, my bonnie bride,” Munro said, and Murieall grinned at her husband.
For a long moment, I could not speak as I tried to think, but my thoughts felt stuck in mud, and slowly, ever so slowly, Idragged memories up from the depths of years gone by of how Murieall was cursed and why. “The magical goblet,” I said.
Murieall nodded.
“And the witch that cursed ye—”
“Morgana,” Murieall whispered, as if saying her name too loudly might conjure her to us.
“I’ve met her. Well, of a sort,” I quickly corrected, my mind turning over what I’d learned, trying to grapple with and accept it. “I heard her around me at the cave where I took Katreine.” I had so many questions, but the one pressing on me most was about Katreine’s wish. “What was her wish? Do ye ken?”
“Aye.” Murieall’s voice caught once, then steadied. “Katreine wished to be older than her sister, Millisandre. Katreine fancied herself in love with Alec Buchanan, ye see.”
The words made me flinch to hear.
“But,” Murieall continued, oblivious to how her words affected me, “Alec had chosen Millisandre because Millisandre would inherit Renfrewshire when their da died.” She met my gaze squarely. “Katreine was nae ever betrothed to Alec.”
“Why would he lie?” I mused aloud.
“He’s a cunning man,” Murieall said. “I imagine he saw an opportunity to keep control of Renfrewshire. He was set to lose it, since Millisandre passed and they did nae have heirs. Millicent, the youngest sister, was to inherit it.”
“Until Katreine reappeared,” I filled in, the pieces of what had likely occurred at the king’s court, falling into place so swiftly it made my head spin. Buchanan’s claim of a prior betrothal was a lie, a lever to keep hold of Renfrewshire.
“He’s using her,” I said, the words bitter in my mouth. “To keep the lairdship.”
Murieall nodded. “Aye. It seems so.”
I thought of Morgana then, of the riddles she had given me that I had been too blind, too focused on my prize, to sort out. “The witch told me,” I muttered.
