“I take only discreet, ladylike sips,” she said archly. “I’ve appearances to keep up. Now, let’s see what you’ve done to yourself, ye wee babe.”
Léirsinn wasn’t weak-stomached, but the sight of Mansourah’s forearm bent at a spot where it shouldn’t have been was unsettling, to say the least. The witchwoman of Fàs clucked her tongue at him.
“The follies of youth, obviously.”
“Of course, Mistress Fionne,” Mansourah managed. “If I might call you that.”
“You might call me several things, my wee princeling,” Acair’s mother said, “and that would be the least of them.” She considered, then looked at Léirsinn. “No magic, eh?”
Léirsinn shook her head. “Not a drop.”
“Life is simpler without it, but a far sight less exciting.” She looked at Mansourah. “Acair couldn’t see his way clear to do anything about this?”
“He is enjoined from using any magic for the time being,” Mansourah said, wincing as he shifted. “I’m certain he’ll tell you all about it when he arrives, though that may take some time. He’s walking here from Eòlas.”
“Do him good,” the witchwoman of Fàs said without hesitation. “Let’s have a closer peek at your arm, young Mansourah.”
Léirsinn exchanged an alarmed look with Mansourah, but she had absolutely no idea how to stop what they’d set in motion. His sleeve was carefully cut away and tossed into the kitchen fire. Acair’s mother shook her head, tutted, and uttered the occasional salty curse. It was nothing Léirsinn hadn’t heard before from Mistress Cailleach, so she didn’t think anything of it.
She was genuinely appalled, however, to watch Acair’s mother drop words like feathers onto Mansourah’s arm and see how they sank into his flesh. She could have sworn she heard his bones snick back together—
Mansourah poured himself another generous glass of whisky, then tossed it back with abandon. He gasped, his eyes watered madly, then he looked at Acair’s mother.
“My most sincere gratitude, my lady,” he rasped.
The witchwoman of Fàs put her hand to her throat and colored a bit. “Don’t you have pretty manners, child. My lady, indeed.”
He set his glass down with an unsteady hand. “I must repay your kindness,” he said. “I am your servant.”
Léirsinn watched Acair’s mother consider him calculatingly for a moment or two and wondered how high that price might be.
“I have nieces,” the witchwoman of Fàs said slowly. “They would appreciate a delicious piece of goodness such as yourself. That, and I owe their mother a great whacking favor.”
“Ah,” Mansourah began, looking absolutely panicked.
“Come along, Léirsinn,” Acair’s mother said without hesitation. “We’ll leave our young prince here to contemplate future delights whilst we give your pony instructions on where to go look for that blasted Acair. He’ll come limping in at an unseemly hour and cause a great ruckus if we don’t find him first.”
Léirsinn looked at Mansourah, shrugged, then followed Acair’s mother through her house and back out the front door. Words were beyond her. That magic back in the kitchen . . . all she could do was shake her head. It had been as real and tangible as any piece of tack she’d ever put her hand to.
She decided abruptly that she had had enough magic for the day. She knew what she’d seen but she didn’t want to believe it, never mind all that rubbish about essence changing and shapechanging when all she wanted to do was change the topic of conversation—
Unfortunately, she was starting to see why the stuff might come in handy, which was probably the most appalling thought she’d had in a solid fortnight of absolutely shattering thoughts.
She came to a teetering halt next to that worker of dangerous magic and gaped at Acair’s dragon, who was currently in mid-chew of something with feathers. He looked at Acair’s mother, then tossed whatever he’d been eating up in the air, caught it again, then swallowed it in one bite.
Léirsinn thought it might be time to have a little lie-down.
The witchwoman of Fàs only laughed. “A fitting match for my youngest. How do they get on?”
“Sianach tries to bite him every chance he has,” Léirsinn said weakly.
“Perfect,” the witchwoman of Fàs said. She walked over to the dragon and looked at him sternly. “You may not want to do this, but he’s your master, ye wee fiend. You’d best go find him, hadn’t you?”
Sianach snorted out a very discreet, almost chagrined bit of smoke from his nostrils. He heaved himself up, waddled backward a step or two, then leapt up into the sky.
“Wind is faster,” the witchwoman of Fàs shouted at him.
He threw back his head, roared, then disappeared. Léirsinn wasn’t sure she wanted to know what he had become, mostly because she’d already been on his back when he’d chosen a different shape than horse, Pegasus, or dragon.
Chosen a different shape. She laughed at the thought, truly she did. If she laughed silently and it sounded thoroughly unhinged in her head, who was to know?
Acair’s mother returned, shaking her head. She stopped and looked at Léirsinn.
“I’ll see you settled, gel, then you can decide to wait up or not. Acair’ll manage to get here or he won’t. Worrying won’t change that.”
Léirsinn scrambled for something to say. “I wasn’t worried.”
The witchwoman of Fàs grunted at her, then nodded toward the door. “You should be,” she said bluntly. “That boy takes terrible chances, but he’s old enough to make his own choices. Children leave the nest and all you can do is bar the door so they don’t come back in and eat through your larder. I’ll do him the favor of reworking the spell here so it doesn’t fall on him and slay him instantly, should he manage to outrun whoever is chasing him at the moment. ’Tis the least—and the most, I’ll admit—that I can do for him.”
Léirsinn shut her mouth when she realized it was hanging open. She was beginning to see why Acair had such a tolerance for shocking things.
She put her head down and followed the woman inside, hoping she wouldn’t see anything more than she already had. That had been more than enough for the night.
? ? ?
It was a pair of hours before dawn when she heard the front door open. It wasn’t that she’d been listening for that, of course. She’d had plenty of her own concerns to see to.
She’d watched Mansourah be placed in the best guest bedchamber with the same sort of care a baker might use while popping a delicate batch of cakes into an oven. She’d been quite happy to be offered a spot on the divan in front of a roaring fire in the Lesser Parlor, then spent the better part of the night pacing. If she’d fallen asleep for an hour or two, sitting on that divan with her cheek propped up on her fist as she leaned against the rolled arm of the sofa, who could blame her?