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Gavan turned towards the door. “Now, the kitchen.”

“Aye.”

He paused at the threshold, as if something in the air had caught his attention.

Without turning fully back, he said, “Yesterday, did anyone follow you from the forest?”

Sorcha swallowed. “I do not believe so.”

Gavan’s jaw tightened. “Think harder.”

Sorcha forced herself to remember the men vanishing into trees, the way the silence had felt afterward, the snapping of her necklace, the distant crow. “I did not see anyone,” she said. “But they knew who I was.”

Gavan’s shoulders went still. “That is what I thought,” he said quietly.

Sorcha stared at him, fear tightening in her chest again. “What does that mean?”

Gavan looked at her at last, and for a heartbeat, she saw something behind his eyes, something grim and calculating. “It means your brother’s sins have teeth.”

Sorcha shivered.

Then he turned away again. “Come,” Gavan said.

Sorcha followed him down the corridor towards the kitchen, her legs heavy, her hands burning, her heart twisting between dread and relief. She had gained William one more day of life, but she had also stepped deeper into the web of consequences, into Munro shadow, into Gavan’s domain.

And if the men in the forest could name her so easily, then Sorcha’s danger was not behind her. It was only beginning.

*

The kitchen was warm. It should have felt like comfort. Instead, it felt like a courtroom. The moment Sorcha stepped through the doorway behind Gavan, the room changed. The voices inside lowered, movements paused just a fraction, as if the air itself stiffened. The hearth crackled with life, flames licking over peat. A pot hung on a hook above the fire, steam curling up in soft white threads. The long worktable was scattered with bread dough, peeled roots, and a half-plucked bird.

It smelled of onions and smoke and soap. It smelled of a house that lived. And yet the people inside it looked at Sorcha as if she were bringing the plague. Three women were working near the table. One older woman with broad shoulders and strong arms that were bared to the elbow, her cheeks reddened from heat; a younger maid with hair tucked under a cap, her face sharp and eager; and another woman of middle years with a basket of linens at her hip.

A boy stood near the hearth, turning a spit, his gaze darting between Sorcha and Gavan like a frightened rabbit.

Gavan did not introduce her. He simply said, “She will work in the kitchen with you, scrubbing the floor, but other tasks as well.”

The older woman gave the smallest nod—not respectful, not welcoming, but merely accepting, as one accepts a storm.

The younger maid’s mouth tightened with open disdain.

Gavan’s gaze swept the room. “She sleeps in the back room. She eats what you eat. She does what I tell her.” A pause, then he added, “She is under my authority.” That last phrase landed like a gauntlet thrown at their feet.

The older woman murmured, “Aye, m’laird.”

Gavan nodded once and turned to Sorcha. “Start with the floor.”

Sorcha nodded. “Aye.”

He did not say another word as he left the kitchen, closing the door behind him. The silence that followed was immediate and heavy.

Sorcha stood still with her hands at her sides, feeling suddenly as if she were exposed.

The older woman, clearly the cook, looked her up and down. “What’s yer name?” she asked bluntly.

“Sorcha.”

The cook’s eyes narrowed. “Sorcha what?”