Page 3
She hadn’t seen her younger sister, Skye, in some time and was about to meet her new child. A wee lass, or a strapping lad? Would it have Dougal’s scowl or Skye’s dimples?
Skye’s son had been born at dawn, three hours before Freya’s carriage rattled through the MacKinnon gate. By the time a maid showed her up to the birthing chamber, her sister was propped against the pillows with the bairn at her breast, a look of exhausted triumph on her face that dissolved into alarm the instant she saw Freya.
Freya was still wearing that ridiculous plaid. She wanted to change into something she had left from her last visit, but hearing that her sister had given birth had thoroughly distracted her.
How could she take the time to change when her sister was lying in her birthing bed?
She regretted that choice the moment Skye’s eyes narrowed.
“What happened?”
“Nothing.” Freya sat on the edge of the bed. Her hands were shaking. She folded them in her lap so Skye wouldn’t see, and the ring caught the light. “Nothing. I’m only glad to see ye. The babe looks well, Skye. I always kent ye could get through the birth. Ye are stronger than ye look.”
“Freya, please daenae treat me like a child. I’ve got two of me own, and I ken perfectly well when ye’re tryin’ to hide something from me. Clearly, there is something going on.”
“Do ye or yer husband ken which clan has a wolf as its crest?” she asked carefully.
“A wolf?” Skye frowned. “Many do. Half the Highlands has a wolf on something. Why?”
“Any reason.”
“Freya.”
“Curiosity.”
“Ye’ve never been curious about a crest in yer life.” Skye shifted the babe to her other breast and called, “Dougal! Come in here. Me sister’s being strange.”
“I’m nae being—”
Dougal ducked through the door, sleeves rolled, looking like a man who had not slept and didn’t mind. “Strange how?”
“She wants to ken about wolves.”
“Which clan bears a wolf?” Freya asked. “On a ring. Just the head. No motto, no thistle, nothing else.”
“Show me.” He held out his hand.
She hadn’t meant to, but she pulled the ring off and dropped it into his palm. She hated how bare her finger felt.
Dougal turned it to the window, then turned it again. His frown deepened. “I’ve never seen this.”
“Ye’re sure?”
“I’d remember. This is old work—look at the wear on it. But there’s no clan I ken of that takes a wolf alone as its crest. Nae one that’s registered, anyway.” He handed it back. “Where did ye get it?”
Freya looked at the ring, then at her sister, then at the ring again.
“I have no idea,” she said.
Skye and Dougal exchanged a look. It was the kind married couples exchanged, a whole conversation in one glance.
Freya slid the ring back on her finger and told herself, very firmly, that she had bought it at a fair.
2
The lantern was brass, very heavy brass.
Evander knew this because he had picked it up off the floor after she’d gone, turned it over in his hands, and found a dent in the base shaped exactly like his forehead.
