She cowered, too frightened to answer. But then she thought, What if it’s Jack, or Sidra? What if someone has come to help? Frae rushed to the door, unbolting it with icy hands.
She was surprised to find a red-headed man on the stoop, a blue plaid draped across his chest. At his side was an elderly woman, squinting against the wind. Frae blinked and stepped back in fear, but then she realized she had seen this man before. He had once stood in the backyard, protecting her from a raid. He had been dragged into the house as a prisoner, and he had wept her mother’s name.
“May we shelter with you, Frae?” he asked.
She nodded, uncertain how he knew who she was. And it was strange how relieved she felt the moment the man and the old woman stepped into the cottage. She was no longer alone, and even though they wore blue plaids, she trusted them both.
The man had to help her latch the door against the gust. After that, she didn’t know what to say. There was no fire, no tea, and she gazed up at the man, dimly discerning his face in the meager light.
“Is your mum home, Frae?” he asked, and Frae could tell he was looking for her.
“She’s sick,” Frae whispered.
She heard the man inhale, as if her words had cut him, like a knife. “Can you lead me to her?”
Frae guided him to the bedroom. It was still very dark, but she could hear Mirin’s labored breaths and led the man toward her. Frae watched as he sat on the edge of the bed.
“Mirin?” he said, his voice deep and gentle. There was no answer. He called her again, urgently. “Mirin, open your eyes. Come back to us.”
Frae hoped his voice would rouse her, but Mirin continued to sleep.
“I think she needs her tonic,” Frae whispered, crestfallen. “It’s the magic, making her sick.”
The man shifted to glance at her. “Can we make it without fire?”
“No.”
He was quiet for a long, terrible moment. But then he turned back to her mother, and Frae could see only his hair, gleaming in the twilight.
“Come, lass,” the elderly woman said, taking Frae’s hand. “I’ve got some ginger cake set out, and a book eager to be read.”
Frae joined the woman on the divan. They sat close together for warmth, and when the woman offered Frae a slice of rich, fragrant cake, Frae accepted. Mirin would probably scold her for eating food from a Breccan stranger, but Frae, finding comfort in its sweetness, devoured it in just a few bites.
She saw a book laid open before her, a book she had never seen before, and she thought it must belong to the woman.
“What is your name?” Frae asked.
“My name is Elspeth,” the woman said. “My house isn’t far from yours.”
“Do you live up the river?”
“Yes.”
Frae imagined it—the river connecting her and Mirin to Elspeth. She glanced down at the book and asked, “May I read it?”
“I hoped you would, although the light is quite dim in here,” said Elspeth. “I don’t want you to strain your eyes.”
“It won’t strain them. Mum says I have very good eyesight.” Frae set the book on her lap and read aloud through the gloom. Soon she was entranced by the story, and her worries slipped away—her worries about Mirin, about who the red-headed man was to them, about the storm. Her worries about Jack ever returning to them.
Later, she would wonder which came first: the storm breaking or the fire returning. She couldn’t be sure—perhaps they happened simultaneously. But suddenly the flames blazed in the hearth with a crack, and the rushlights found their flames and burned brightly on the table. The wind abated, and sunlight began to stream in through the cracks in the shutters.
Frae gasped. She was gazing at the fire in wonder when she heard footsteps behind her.
“Frae?” the man asked. “Can you help me make your mother’s tonic?”
“Oh yes!” she cried, carefully setting the book aside. “Here, I’ll show you how it’s done.”
He watched attentively as Frae set a kettle to boil and gathered Mirin’s herbs in the strainer. The fire was burning so brightly that the water boiled in a matter of moments, to Frae’s immense relief, and she quickly steeped the leaves in it.
“I’m not sure how we’ll get her to drink it,” Frae said after she had poured the pungent brew into Mirin’s favorite cup.
The man took the cup from her and carried it into the bedchamber.
Mirin still slept, her dark hair pooled around her, gleaming with silver threads at her temples. There were purple smudges beneath her eyes, and her face was ashen. Frae thought she looked very ill, almost as if she would vanish when evening came. She wrung her hands for a moment before climbing onto the mattress.
She sat on one side of Mirin, the man on the other, and she watched as he dipped his fingers in the tonic, then let it drip between Mirin’s parted lips. Frae thought that was strange at first, but she saw how persistent and careful he was. Soon Mirin had swallowed countless drops from his fingers, the color was returning to her face, and the pattern of her breathing had shifted.
Frae would never forget the moment her mother opened her eyes and saw the man, sitting next to her. She would never forget how Mirin had smiled, first at him and then at Frae.
Frae had always wanted to know what magic felt like. She imagined she had grasped it in her hands sometimes, when she harvested wildflowers from the valleys or drank from one of the trickling pools. When she looked up at the stars on a moonless night. But now she knew.
She felt the magic, gentle and soft, when she took Mirin’s hand and grinned.
“How did you know?” Sidra asked, caressing Torin’s hair. “How did you know I was ill?”
In the privacy of her chamber, deep in the Breccans’ castle, they lay entwined in her bed. It had been hours since the storm had broken and the sun had emerged, illuminating the west. Torin and Sidra had filled those hours working tirelessly alongside David and Innes—healing those who had been injured or afflicted, moving rubble aside, making repairs. They had worked shoulder to shoulder with the Breccans, and no one had been opposed, or thought it strange. No, it almost seemed as if it had always been this way, one clan aiding the other.
It was humbling to know that it was the blight and the wind that made their cooperation possible.
When the sun had warmed the afternoon air, Innes had sent Torin and Sidra up to her chamber to rest before dinner that night. They were to dine with the laird and her consort and with Adaira and Jack, as soon as the two returned. Sidra didn’t know what this dinner held, but she hoped that it would mark the beginning of something new. That sharing this meal would forge an understanding, and maybe even a friendship.