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Taskill turns on him at once. “Watch yer tongue, lad, or I’ll remind you whose wife ye’re speakin’ to.”
James’s jaw snaps shut.
“Sorry,” he says at once, though the panic has not left his face. “I’m sorry, Ma. I just—”
Maeve cuts him off. “Did ya take them?”
His silence answers.
Her mouth presses thin. “James.”
“Nae,” he admits, dragging a hand through his hair. “We were half in our cups when we left. I didnae think about the charm bags.”
Maeve’s face hardens. “And how many times have I told ya not to go into the dark without them?”
“How was I meant to ken monsters are real, Ma?” The words break out of him before he can stop them. “How was I supposed to ken that?”
Finally.
Someone has said it aloud.
What happened back there wasn’t of the natural world.
Róisín looks utterly bewildered—like I’d imagine most sane people would after hearing a declaration like that—her gaze darting between James, Maeve, and Taskill as though she’s waiting for one of them to laugh and call him a fool.
The laugh never comes.
If anything, though, they look afraid.
Taskill’s eyes cut to him.
“I thought they were stories,” he says quietly. “Just stories.”
“James—”
“I ken what ye told me.” He lets out a humourless laugh. “I just never believed a tiny, smelly charm bag could ward off evil, and keep bad luck and mischief from followin’ a man home.”
“Aye, well,” Maeve says. “The mighty James Sinclair must know better than his auld mam.”
James exhales hard. “I should never have dismissed yer worries.”
“Nae,” she says. “You shouldn’t have. But ye’re about as stubborn and slow to catch on as yer dear father whenever what’s best for you is bein’ offered up on a plate.”
James looks down, pointedly ignoring the jab, but Taskill gives Maeve a look of utter disapproval.
“I thought they were for yer peace of mind, ma.”
For the first time, Maeve’s anger cracks enough to show the compassion beneath it.
“They were there to make sure ya kept comin’ home to me, James.”
The words come quieter than the rest, and something in her expression changes after she says them, as though she’s hearing every warning she ever gave him and every one she failed to deliver.
Something passes across James’s face—guilt, affection, embarrassment, perhaps all three.
“After what we saw…” he shakes his head. “I’ll freely admit I regret not grabbin’ the bloody thing.”
Beside me, Alex winces as he shifts his injured arm, the pain finally catching up now that the adrenaline has begun to ebb. Róisín notices at once and swears under her breath, steering him toward a chair.
