Sidra walked the streets of Sloane, a basket of healing supplies hanging from her arm. Each door she passed held an offering on its threshold for the spirits. Appeasements and manifest prayers in the shape of carved figurines and small stacks of peat, so the fire could dance and burn, and chimes made of fishing line and glass beads, so the wind could hear its own breath when it passed by. There were small bannocks and cups of milk for the spirits of the earth, and salted herring and jewelry strung with shells for the water.
Desperation hung like fog, and Sidra let her thoughts roam to dark places.
She thought of the two lasses, Eliza and Annabel. Two girls now unaccounted for, and Sidra imagined them being claimed by the folk. She wondered if a girl could become a tree, no longer aging in mortal ways but by seasons. Could a girl become a wildflower patch, resurrected every spring and summer only to wilt and fade come the sting of frost? Could she become the foam of the sea that rolled over the coast for an eternity, or a flame that danced in a hearth? A winged being of the wind, sighing over the hills? Could she be returned to her human family after such a life, and if so, would she even remember her parents, her human memories, her mortal name?
Grief welled within Sidra as she returned her attention to the city thoroughfare. She came to Sloane twice a week, to make a round of visits to her patients there. Her first appointment was with Una Carlow, and Sidra followed the song of a hammer striking an anvil.
She arrived at Una’s forge and stood in the sun for a moment, watching the blacksmith work in her shop. The air was thick with the tang of hot metal, the sparks flying as Una hammered a long blade of steel. Sidra could feel every strike in her teeth until Una finally quenched the blade in a tub of water, the steam rising with a hiss.
Una withdrew the sword and handed it off to her apprentice, who was red faced and perspiring from pumping the bellows. Sidra thought of how the fire always burned at the forge, how its embers never fell cold and docile. If anyone was intimate with Cadence fire, knowing its temperament and power and secrets, it was Una.
As such, Una was one of the only blacksmiths in the east who wasn’t afraid to hammer enchantments into her steel. She could take a secret and an ingot, melt them together over a blistering fire, and shape them as one on her anvil. Once an enchanted blade was complete, she always fell ill with a fever and was sometimes unable to leave her bed for days.
“Sidra,” the blacksmith said in greeting, removing her thick leather gloves. “How are you and Maisie?”
“We’re well,” Sidra replied, but she felt the true meaning of Una’s question. “She’s with Graeme for now. I’m thankful that he’s able to watch her while I’m away on visits.”
“Good,” Una said, joining her at the edge of the forge.
“And how are your two children?” Sidra reached into her basket to find the tonic she had made for Una’s vitality. “It’s been a while since I’ve seen them.”
“Growing up too fast,” Una replied with a smile. “But they’re content. When they’re not at school they’re either here with me or spending time with Ailsa at the stables, keen to learn all of my wife’s horse secrets.”
Sidra nodded, wholly understanding the caution, even though Una and Ailsa’s son and daughter were adolescents now. Old enough to heed the strict rules parents were suddenly doling out with the disappearances.
As she set the tonic jar on Una’s outstretched palm, the blacksmith surprised her by saying, “Do you ever wonder if we are unknowing participants in a spirit’s game? If they move us like pawns on a board and glean pleasure from provoking our heartaches?”
Sidra hesitated. She looked deep within herself and knew the answer was yes. She had thought as much. But her devout nature had instantly stamped out those dangerous wonderings; she worried that the earth would sense that disbelief in her when she worked the kail yard, when she crushed the herbs to make healing salves.
“It’s a troubling thought,” Sidra said. “To think they gain pleasure from tormenting us.”
“Sometimes, when I watch the fire burn in the forge,” Una continued, “I imagine what it would be like to be immortal, to hold no fear of death. To dance and burn for an endless era. And I think how dull such an existence would be. That one would do anything to feel the sharp edge of life again.”
“Yes,” Sidra whispered. She was too paranoid to say anything more, and the blacksmith sensed it.
“Don’t let me keep you,” Una said. “Thank you for the tonic. I’ve been commissioned to make an enchanted blade tomorrow, so this will help me bear the effects.”
Sidra bid Una farewell and continued on her route. The day unfurled just as she had expected until a cold burst of northern wind blew through the city. She paused, watching it twine with smoke, overturn baskets in the market, rattle shutters and doors.
Sidra’s black hair tangled across her face as she stood in the center of the street.
And that was when she heard the faint whisper, like a rush of wings.
The wind brought news.
Jack waited for Adaira at the castle. It was noontide, just as she had requested for their meeting, and a servant had brought him to the music turret, telling him the heiress would be with him directly. Impatient, Jack passed the time by walking the length of the bookshelves, selecting a few volumes to sift through. He found a book brimming with music that he swiftly recognized. These were the ballads of the clan. The songs Lorna once sang on feast nights.
Jack smiled as he read the notes. He fondly remembered these songs; they had shaped his childhood, those wild days roaming the heather and exploring the sea caves. And he was pleased to discover that even years later, this music still roused a warm nostalgia within him. It drew him back to those moments in the hall, when he had savored listening to these songs. Long before he ever dreamt of becoming a bard or dared to imagine that he would one day learn the secrets of instruments.
He eventually shut the music book and set it back on the shelf. It was riddled with dust. Realizing he must have been the first person to touch the volume in years, he suddenly felt sad, thinking of how quiet the east had become without Lorna.
He walked to the harp in the center of the room, but refrained from playing. He noticed the table was cleared; all of the papers and books that had been piled upon it yesterday were gone save for a sealed letter.
Curious, Jack took a closer look at the parchment. The letter was addressed to Adaira, and it bore the crest of two swords in a ring of juniper. The Breccans’ sigil.
He recoiled from it, alarmed. Why would the western clan write to her?
He paced the room, trying to cast his thoughts about the letter aside, but his worries lingered. What could the Breccans want from her? It was strange that the first thing that crossed his mind was that they wanted to marry her.
Jack came to a stop before the balcony doors, disconcerted when he remembered the legend of Joan Tamerlaine, dying entwined with Fingal Breccan. Did the Breccans dream of peace again after so many years of strife?
He wondered if the isle could be made whole again, but thought it impossible.
An hour had passed on the sun dial. Where was Adaira?
The view overlooked the thoroughfare of Sloane, and as Jack’s gaze skimmed the street he realized there was some sort of commotion happening below. People were gathering together in the market. A few men started running, and vendors began to close their stalls early. It looked like school was even released spontaneously; young girls and boys were being escorted home.
Jack looked for Frae amongst the dispersing students, but there was no sign of her bright russet hair. She’s with Mirin today, he recalled, the tension in his shoulders easing. She’s safe, at home.
He continued to watch the activity in the streets. He decided to leave—after all, Adaira had stood him up—and he hurried through the courtyard to the market.
“What’s happening?” he asked one of the women who was closing her bakery.
“You didn’t hear the news?” she replied. “Another lass has gone missing.”
“Who?” Jack demanded.
“I’m not sure yet. Several names have been mentioned, but we’re waiting for it to be confirmed by Captain Torin.”
At once, Jack’s stomach dropped, his blood ran cold, and his thoughts scattered like broken glass. On the mainland, he had been afraid of nothing but failure. Failing a class, failing to graduate, failing to please his lover. His fears had only pertained to himself and his own performance. Now he realized how self-absorbed he had been all those years. He was swiftly learning ever since he had returned home that he couldn’t live on music alone, that he cared about and needed other things, even if their appearance in his life came as an utter shock, like bulbs blooming after a long winter. He felt his greatest fear come to life within him, a fear that had been born only days before.
Frae could be missing.
He didn’t waste another moment.
Jack sprinted along the road. He refused to stop, even when his breath turned to fire in his lungs and a stitch pulled in his side. He ran all the way to Mirin’s croft and vaulted over the yard fence, and he thought his heart had melted when he burst through his mother’s front door.
He halted, his boots leaving a track of mud on the floor. Mirin stood at her loom, startled and wide eyed as she turned to behold his dramatic entrance. And there was Frae, sprawled on the divan, reading a book with flowers tucked in her braids.
He stared at his little sister, as if he didn’t trust his own eyes, and he trembled as he shut the door. He felt a rush of relief, followed by a twinge of guilt, to know it wasn’t Frae but another nameless lass.
“Jack?” Mirin asked. “Jack, what’s wrong?”
“I thought …” He couldn’t speak. He swallowed and battled his breath. “I heard another lass went missing.”
“Which lass?” Frae cried, shutting her book.
“I’m not sure. No names have been shared yet.” Jack hated the fear that crept over Frae’s expression. “Perhaps it’s only a rumor, and not true at all. You know how the wind gossips.”
Mirin’s gaze shifted to her daughter. “It’ll be all right, Frae.”
Jack was stricken as Frae’s face crumpled, on the verge of tears.
He didn’t know what he would do if she wept, but it made something in him ache. At the university, he had come to learn there were moments when words were not enough, and he strode into his bedroom. His harp still sat in its sleeve, waiting to be freed.
He carried the instrument back into the common room and sat in a chair across from Frae. A few tears had trickled down her cheeks, but she wiped them away when she realized what he held.
“Would you like to hear a song, Frae?”
She nodded vehemently, pushing stray hair from her eyes.
“I would be honored to play for both you and Mum,” Jack said, resisting the temptation to glance at Mirin, who was lowering the shuttle of her loom. “But I must warn you, Frae … this is my first time playing on the isle. I might not sound nearly as good as I do on the mainland.”
This was his first time playing in Mirin’s presence was what he truly meant to express. He was worried that she wouldn’t be impressed by the craft he had spent years mastering. But Mirin, who never left her loom in mid-weave for anything, stepped away and joined them, sitting next to Frae on the divan.
“Then let us be the judge of that,” Frae replied with a sniffle. Her lashes were damp, but her tears had ceased. She watched with rapt attention as Jack withdrew his harp. Its first time breathing the air of the isle.
He had earned this harp in his fifth year of study. Constructed from a willow that had grown beside a maiden’s grave, its wood was light and resilient, its sound sweet, chilling, and resonant. Carvings of vines and leaves had been burned into the sides, simple adornment compared to other harps his fellow students had earned. But this harp had called to him long ago.
As Jack tuned the pins, he examined the thirty brass strings, and he thought about all the hours he had spent on the mainland playing this instrument, coaxing sad, wistful ballads from its heart. Out of the three classes of music a harp could make, Jack preferred the lament. But he didn’t want to add to Frae’s sorrow. He should play either for joy or for slumber. Perhaps a mix of both. A song framed on hope.
His old plaid was draped over his knees as he continued to tune the harp, and the fabric caught Mirin’s eye.
Jack leaned the harp against his left shoulder.
“What shall I play for you two?” he asked.
They were speechless.
“Anything,” Frae eventually said.
Jack felt an echo of pain when he realized his sister didn’t know any old ballads. She had been only three when Lorna passed away, far too young to remember the bard’s music. And Jack inevitably thought of the ballads he had read through earlier that day, song after song that he had grown up listening to. Frae’s childhood had been robbed of that music.
He began to play and sing one of his favorites—“The Ballad of Seasons.” A lively and happy tune of spring that melted into summer’s verse, which was smooth and mellow. And that in turn became the staccato fire of autumn, which descended into the sad yet elegant verse of winter, because he couldn’t resist the sorrow. When he finished, his last note fading in the air, Frae burst into enthusiastic clapping and Mirin wiped the tears from her eyes.
Jack thought he had never felt so content and full.
“Another one!” Frae begged.
Mirin caressed her hair. “It’s time to weave, Frae. We have work to do.”
Frae sagged, but she didn’t complain. She followed Mirin to the loom, but her eyes traced the harp in Jack’s hands with longing.
He could keep strumming, he realized. He could pluck notes while they wove.
Jack played song after song while Mirin and Frae worked at the loom. All the ballads he wanted his sister to know. A few times, Frae became distracted, her eyes wandering toward his music. But Mirin didn’t chide her.
The afternoon had deepened by the time Jack set down his harp. Thunder rumbled in the distance, and wind rattled the shutters. The scent of rain was heavy in the air as Jack reached into his harp case and took out the parchment Adaira had given him the day before.
He didn’t know the girls who were missing. He didn’t know what would happen when he played this bewitching music, if the spirits would answer him or not. But he had always desired to prove himself worthy of the Tamerlaines. To be wanted, to feel as if he belonged.
Music had once given that to him. A home, a purpose.
As Mirin and Frae wove, Jack began to fervently study “The Song of the Tides.”
It was Catriona Mitchell, and she was only five years old.
The youngest daughter of a fisherman and a tailor, she had been helping her father mend nets by the quay when she went to play with her older siblings on the northern coast. None of them recalled seeing her wander away, but Torin had found a trace of her footsteps on the sand, just before the high tide rolled in.
He followed her trail. She had been alone on the coast before choosing to climb a knoll, where it became harder for Torin to follow her path. He examined the grass and the rocks, wondering what had prompted the child to leave her siblings on the sand.
A flash of red caught his eye.
Torin crouched, at first fearing it was blood, until he moved the grass aside and saw it was only a flower. Four crimson petals, veined with gold. It was beautiful, and he had never seen anything like it before.
He frowned as he studied it. He knew the eastern landscape well; he was familiar with the plants that flourished on this side of the isle. Yet this flower was odd and out of place, as if a spirit had purposefully left it here to be found.
He wondered if it marked a portal to the other side.
Gently, he scooped it into his palm. The blossom had been lying on the ground, already sheared, and he wondered if this had been what Catriona had seen, what had prompted her to climb the knoll.
Torin searched the area again, combing for evidence of where she had gone next. He succeeded in finding a few small steps heading to the hills of the isle. Her bare feet had crimped the grass, but then it was as though she vanished. There was no further trace, no sign of footsteps, save for another loose red flower, sitting like a drop of blood on the ground.
Torin recovered it, careful not to crush the petals in his hands. He searched the dirt, the nearby stones, the tussocks of grass, for a small doorway. Surely, the spirits had opened a portal, inviting her into their domain. Where else would she have gone?
He felt a strange tug in his stomach. It was fear, something he had learned to tame long ago, but he decided that he needed to see Maisie with his own eyes.
He gave his guards orders to mark the trail and continue scouring the area for more footsteps and doorways, and he rode home.
He was relieved to find Sidra at the kitchen table, herbs spread before her like a map he could never read. She was preparing tonics for her patients, and her sable hair was caught in a messy braid.
She glanced up the moment he entered.
“Torin,” she breathed. “Do you have news?”
He hated the hope in her eyes. He shut the door behind him. “It’s Catriona Mitchell. She’s been missing since this morning. I’ve found a partial trail, as well as something that I need your assistance on.”
At once, Sidra set down her pestle and met him in the center of the room. He carefully retrieved the two red flowers from his leather pouch, setting them into her waiting palm.
“Can you identify this flower for me?” he asked, hopeful.
Sidra studied the flowers. A frown pulled at her brows. “No. I’ve never seen such flowers before, Torin. Where did you find them?”
He explained, suddenly feeling exhausted and defeated. Another lass gone, on his watch. Another girl vanished, leaving behind a strange flower in her wake.
Catriona Mitchell was only five years old. The same age as Maisie.
Torin’s eyes lifted. He could see into the bedroom, because Sidra had left the door open. Maisie was fast asleep on the bed.
Torin walked closer, to lean on the doorframe and watch his daughter sleep. His chest ached.
“Torin? Do you want to rest for a while?” Sidra asked quietly.
He sighed, turning back to his wife. She was reaching for the kettle and had set out a plate of treacle biscuits. The last time he had properly eaten was at this table, when he had brought Jack home.
“No, I don’t have time,” he whispered, fearing if he woke Maisie he wouldn’t be able to leave.
Sidra set down the kettle, looking at him with worried eyes. He began to walk back to the door, but he paused, glancing at the red flowers she had set down on her wooden cutting board. The blossoms were stark against the collection of her other herbs, keen to be noticed.
“I don’t know what to do, Sid,” he said. The confession tasted like ash in his mouth. “I don’t know how to find these lasses. I don’t know how to make the spirits give them up. I don’t know how to comfort these families.”
Sidra came to him. She wrapped her arms around his waist and Torin leaned into her, if only for a moment. He closed his eyes and breathed in the scent of her hair.
“I’ll see what I can uncover about these flowers, Torin,” she said, easing back so she could meet his weary gaze. “Don’t give up hope. We’ll find the girls.”
He nodded, but his meager faith had fully crumbled over the past few weeks.
Not knowing what to believe anymore, he kissed Sidra’s knuckles and left.
The sun was bright, but the clouds to the west had started to bruise. A storm was brewing, which would make it very difficult to find any further trace of where Catriona had wandered to.
Torin was about to mount his horse when his gaze was caught by the hill to his left. It was cloaked with heather, and a walking path cut up the middle. It led to his father’s croft next door, and Torin decided he owed Graeme a visit.
It had been a few years since Torin had properly called on his father. He rarely visited because the memories lingered like ghosts in his childhood home and he and his father had always harbored different opinions. Their estrangement had been sparked when Torin and Donella handfasted in secret.
You’re acting like a fool, Torin, Graeme had said when he realized his son’s plans. You need to ask Donella’s parents before you give her your vow.
Torin, twenty and besotted, hadn’t cared for Graeme’s advice. He and Donella did what they wanted, and it had indeed caused a stir in the clan. It had almost ruined Torin’s chances of being promoted to captain.
After Donella perished, Torin’s days had become bleak, like a winter that never seemed to end. Maisie had been a baby, squalling in his arms, and Torin had finally carried his daughter to Graeme, desperate.
Help me, Da. What am I supposed to do? She does nothing but cry. I don’t know what to do.
The words had poured out of Torin’s mouth, and he had wept, finally, like he had broken a dam. He hadn’t wept when Donella bled to death after the birthing. He hadn’t wept when he watched her shrouded body find its final rest in her grave. He hadn’t wept when he held Maisie for the first time. But all the tears had broken free the moment he set his daughter into his father’s arms and confessed his ineptitude.
How had this happened to him? Donella was gone, he had a child and no inkling how to raise her, and he was alone. This was not the path he had ever envisioned for himself.
Graeme had held Maisie, just as shocked by Torin’s weeping as Torin was himself. Bleary and heartsick, Torin had sat in his father’s chair in the common room. Graeme had then said words he didn’t want to hear, words that made him rigid.
Your daughter needs a tender hand, Torin. Find her a mother. A woman of the isle who can help you.
Find her. As if she grew on a tree. As if she were fruit to be picked.
With Donella buried and dead only three months.
Furious, Torin had snatched Maisie from Graeme’s arms and departed, vowing he would never return to his father for help.
That evening a raven had brought a note to Torin’s door. He knew it was his father’s doing; Graeme had refused to leave his croft ever since Torin’s mother abandoned them.
Warm the goat milk. Test it on your wrist to ensure it’s not too hot before you feed it to her. Walk and sing to her when she cries. Make sure she sleeps on her back at night.
Torin had ripped Graeme’s note to pieces and burned it in the hearth. But he did as his father had instructed. Slowly, Maisie cried less, but she still was far more life than Torin could handle. And then, a few months later, he had met Sidra in the valley.
He ascended the hill now, desperate once more. He made it to the crest, reaching his father’s kail yard. It was overcome with weeds, even though Sidra came once a week to tend to Graeme’s garden. Torin noticed the roof needed mending, the shutters hung crookedly, there was a bird’s nest in one of the eaves, and the rain barrel looked foggy. All seemed broken and disheveled—that is, until Torin approached his father’s door.
Then the weeds retreated with a whisper, exposing the stone pathway. The despondent vines that grew up the side of the house turned into honeysuckle climbing a trellis. Wildflowers bloomed amid the kail and herbs. The gossamer melted away, and the shutters were straight and recently painted.
Watching the cottage and yard change with his presence gave Torin pause. He was humbled, thinking of all the times he had judged the croft and his father’s past decisions from the road. The disrepair, the messiness. Why couldn’t his father take care of things? And yet all along it was beautiful and orderly; Torin had simply been unable to see it.
He wondered if Sidra saw past the glamour, and when he noticed how tidy the rows of vegetables were, he knew she did. She had probably seen the heart of this place from the beginning.
The folk of the earth guarding this yard must be very shrewd.
“Sidra? Sidra, is that you again?” Graeme called from within before Torin had even knocked. The yard must have given his presence away. “Tell Maisie I have her ship ready. Come inside, come inside! I was just about to make some oatcakes …”
Torin let himself in. The common room was messy, and this time it was not glamoured. His father had an overwhelming collection of things. There were piles of books, heaps of loose papers, waterlogged scrolls from another era set in haphazard stacks. Five pairs of fancy mainland boots with laces, hardly worn, and a jacket the color of fire, lined with plaid. Jars of golden pins, a jewelry box that held his mother’s abandoned pearls. A map of the realm pegged on the floor, because the walls were already crowded with drawings and musty tapestries and a chart of the northern constellations. All were possessions from Graeme’s former life, when he had been the ambassador to the mainland.
Torin wound through the maze, coming to the large table by the hearth, where Graeme sat waiting. In his hands was a clear bottle, holding an intricate little ship.
“Torin.” Graeme almost dropped the glass. His mouth hung open, and he stood, startled. “Are Sidra and Maisie with you? I finished the ship for her. See? She and I have been working on it together, when Sidra brings her to visit.”
“It’s only me,” Torin said, and he couldn’t help himself: he soaked in the sight of his father.
Graeme looked softer, older than he had five years ago. He had always been tall and broad, just like his brother Alastair. But whereas Alastair was dark headed and vibrant and given to swords, Graeme was fair and reserved and drawn to books. One brother had risen as laird, the other as his support, his representative to the south.
Graeme’s beard was silver now. His hair was caught in a messy plait. His clothes were wrinkled but clean. The lines at the corners of his eyes said that he must have been smiling more often than not, most likely when Sidra and Maisie visited.
He was a great contrast to his brother. Alastair had become so gaunt and wan over the years that Torin wondered if Graeme would even recognize his brother if he saw him.
“Why have you come?” Graeme asked, as politely as he could.
“For advice.”
“Oh.” Graeme carefully set down Maisie’s ship-in-a-bottle, and his hands moved over the sea of clutter on his table. Bottles waiting to be filled, tiny iron instruments, slivers of wood, tins of paint, pieces of cloth. This, then, is how he fills his days, Torin thought. “Here, sit … sit there. Do you want tea?”
“No.”
“Very well. How can I advise you then?”
“Another lass has gone missing,” said Torin. He felt that beat again, thrumming in his pulse. Time was running out. “This is the third one in three weeks. I found a small trail of footprints, but there is no further trace of her save for two red flowers, as if her blood turned into petals. I’ve been searching for days and nights now. I’ve searched the sea caves and eddies, the glens, the mountains, the shadows between fells. The girls have vanished, and I need to know how to make the folk return them.”
“The spirits?” Graeme frowned. “Why would you do that?”
“Because the spirits have taken this child, just as they took the other two lasses. They are slipping the girls through portals I cannot see.”
Graeme was pensive. He let out a slow breath and said, “You blame the spirits.”
Torin shifted his weight, impatient. “Aye. It is the only explanation.”
“Is it?”
“How else would a bairn completely vanish?”
“How else, indeed.”
“Are you going to answer me or not? Surely you have some thread of knowledge about spirits in all of … of this.” Torin waved his hand to the stacks of books and papers. Most of it was mainland trash, but even so, Graeme Tamerlaine had once known everything. He had been full of wondrous stories, of spirits and mortals alike. He could have been a druid if he had set his heart on it.
Graeme raked his fingers through his beard, still lost in his thoughts. “We see what we want to see according to our faith, Torin. Spirits or no.”
Torin felt his pride flare. His father always knew what to say to irritate him, humble him. To make him feel as if he were eight years old again.
“Faith or no, I know spirits can wreak havoc when they wish,” Torin said. “Just this morning, I spoke with a woman who looked to be ninety but whose voice was that of a young maiden’s. When she was a lass, she saw a gleam of gold in the bottom of a loch and swam down to claim it, only the loch was endless, the trick of a water spirit. And when the lass returned to the surface, a hundred years had passed. Everyone she had known and loved in her life before were dead and gone, and she has no place here.”
“A sad tale, indeed,” Graeme said, sorrowful. “And one you should take caution from, as your answer lies within the lesson she endured.”
“What? That the spirits take delight in tricking us?”
“No, of course not. There are many of the folk who are good, who give us life and balance on the isle.”
“Then what is my answer, sir?”
Speak plainly, Torin wanted to demand, but he held his temper behind his teeth, waiting for his father to explain.
“If you seek a portal, a passage that will lead you into the spirits’ realm,” Graeme began, “you need one of two things: an invitation, or your eyes opened.”
Torin mulled that over before saying, “But my eyes are open. I know this land, even with its capricious nature. I have combed through every glen, every cave, every—”
“Yes, yes, you’ve seen with your eyes,” Graeme interrupted. “But there are other sights, Torin. There are other ways to know this isle and the secrets of the folk.”
Torin was silent. He could feel a flush creeping over his face; his breath hissed through his teeth. “How, then, shall I open my eyes? Since I doubt an invitation would be extended to me.”
Graeme said nothing, but he started to search through a pile of old books. Eventually he found one and set it into Torin’s palm.
Torin was inwardly hoping it held a map of some sort. A chart of fault lines and hidden doors in the east. He was vastly disappointed. The book was handwritten and incomplete, half of it missing, and its pages were worn and crinkled, some peppered by ash stains, some smudged by water, as if it had passed through many hands.
He struggled to read one of the pages, but his irritation waned when he recognized a name. Lady Whin of the Wildflowers. He was tempted to reach for the wooden figurine, still hiding in his pocket, as he read about the earth spirit.
Lady Whin of the Wildflowers was never one to boast But when Rime of the Moors woke late from winter’s chill She challenged him outrightly for the strath by the coast And Rime, steady and proud, deemed her words fair Thinking he could beat her with the last moon of Yore When the heart of the cold beat bright in the air
“These are nursery stories,” Torin said, turning the page only to find it smudged, but he was confident Whin had outwitted Rime. “Where’s the other half of the book?”
“Missing,” Graeme said, pouring himself a cup of tea.
“You have no idea where it is?”
“If I did, don’t you think I would have recovered it, son?” Graeme added a hearty splash of milk into his tea, meeting Torin’s gaze over the rim of the cup as he sipped. “Take it, Torin. Read it. Perhaps the answer you need rests within those pages. But I expect you to return this book to me in a timely manner. That is, unless Sidra and Maisie want it. Then they can keep it.”
Torin arched his brow, only mildly offended. He noticed the slant of sunlight on the floor, realizing he had stayed much longer than he had intended.
“Sidra and Maisie thank you for the book then.” He lifted it as a toast, despite the fact that this visit had been a waste of his time. As he wound his way back through the clutter, Torin was surprised that Graeme accompanied him to the door.
“It once belonged to Joan Tamerlaine,” said Graeme. “It was written before the clan line was formed.”
Torin paused at the gate, frowning. “What are you talking about?”
“The book in your hand, son.”
Torin glanced down at it again. “This was Joan’s?”
“Aye. And it’s in the west.”
“What is?”
“The other half of the book.” His father shut the door without another word.
Jack sat at his desk that night, studying Lorna’s ballad by firelight. He had come to know her notes well. They hummed in his thoughts, eager to be played, and he was just about to extinguish his candle when his shutters rattled.
He froze.
He had no blade to defend himself. His eyes darted around the room, landing on his old slingshot. He rose and grabbed it, although he had no river rocks to shoot, and he pushed open the shutters with a burst of anger.
There was a caw, a flap of dark wings.
Jack’s breath loosened when he realized it had only been a raven. The bird retreated before circling back, then landed on his desk with an indignant screech.
“What do you want?” he asked, noticing the roll of parchment that was fastened to its leg. He gently unraveled it, but the bird continued to wait, and Jack read:
Forgive me for missing our meeting today. As you might imagine, I was swept away by Catriona’s disappearance. But I still desire to speak with you, my old menace. Let me come to you this time. Tomorrow evening at Mirin’s, before you play for the spirits.
There was no signature, but only one person called him “old menace.” Adaira must be expecting a reply, because her raven still waited, watching him with beady eyes.
Jack sat at his desk and wrote:
Your apology is accepted, heiress. My sister will be thrilled to see you tomorrow. My mother will insist on feeding you. Come hungry.
He began to sign his name but thought better of it. With a wry tilt on his lips, he wrote:
—Your one and only O.M.
He rolled it up and bound the parchment with twine to the raven’s leg. The bird took flight with a flap of dark blue wings.
Jack dreamt of the spirits of the sea that night. He dreamt of opening his mouth to sing for them and drowning instead.
