Acair, however, seemed incapable of doing anything past reading his book. She could have beaned him with a tree branch and he likely wouldn’t have noticed. Perhaps she was more valuable to him on their quest than she’d suspected.
A quest, she reminded herself, that she had found herself unwittingly and unwillingly pulled into, a quest that seemed to have an equal amount to do with righting wrongs and getting rid of that spell she knew without looking was lurking in the shadows of a tree not ten paces from the mage in question. She was still trying to come to terms with anyone being able to use magic, never mind anyone in particular being trailed by a spell that didn’t want him to use any of that magic.
Magic, she reminded herself, that quite possibly could be used for good.
She jumped a little when she realized Acair was currently watching her instead of his book. He pushed away from his post and crossed the yard to her.
“I was coming to find you,” he said, tucking his book under his arm, “but I became distracted.”
“I was chatting with your mother in the barn.”
“Did Sianach bite her?”
“I don’t think he dared,” she said.
“Did she bite you?”
She smiled slightly. “Thankfully, nay.”
“I’m not sure why I don’t inspire that same deference in either of them, but the day is still young.” He smiled and offered her his arm. “A seat by the fire?”
“It would definitely be a step up from a seat in a dungeon,” she said.
“We can only hope. With my mother, one never knows.”
She took his arm and walked back toward the front door with him. She thought she might make it inside before she asked the question that burned in her heart, but realized she wasn’t going to manage it. She stopped him.
“Do you think my grandfather is truly afflicted by a—” She tried, but she couldn’t force herself to use the word.
“A spell?” he finished.
“Or something that looks like that but seems more reasonable.”
He smiled briefly, then sighed. “I don’t know what to think about your grandfather,” he said slowly. “I find it curious that, as you say, he was fine in the evening, yet so different the next morning. I can’t bring to mind a commonplace, unmagical malady that would have rendered him so thoroughly incapacitated. Something that dire would have simply killed him.”
She nodded, then met his gaze. “Can you heal him?”
He hardly looked surprised, which left her wondering if he might have considered the same before.
“My bent lies more toward dismantling things,” he said carefully, “but I could attempt something a bit more, ah, altruistic, if you like.”
She tried to smile but found she couldn’t. “Would you?”
He looked suddenly quite winded. “Of course, Léirsinn,” he said very quietly.
“That would be very kind.”
“Just this once, though,” he said seriously, “then I’m back to my usual business of trying to overthrow kingdoms and rid the world of monarchs sporting curly toed slippers. I will also, of course, deny any involvement in your grandfather’s rehabilitation.”
“I’ll only admit to watching you at your worst.”
“I would appreciate that.”
She turned toward him and rested her head against his shoulder for a moment or two, not because she didn’t want him to watch her weep but because she was resting up for all the questing they still had in front of them. If he reached up and smoothed his hand over her hair, just once, well, she wasn’t going to make a fuss over it.
She finally stepped back. “I suppose I’ll need to carry on with you for a bit longer, just to hold you to your word.”
“Or you could come along because you’re safest with me,” he said.
“That seems unlikely,” she said before she thought better of it. “What with all those black mages who seem to be following you everywhere.”
“I’ll concede that, but nothing else.” He looked at her gravely. “I would appreciate your company, actually. My heart is ashes, Léirsinn, and you breathe fire.” He shrugged helplessly. “I have no more answer for you than that.”
She stopped just short of gaping at him. “You say the damndest things.”
“You said you wanted a lad—if you were in the market for such a thing, which you insisted you weren’t—who expressed sentiments of some maudlin sort. Daily, if memory serves.”
“That wasn’t just maudlin.”
“Definitely don’t spread that about.” He eyed the door behind her. “There’s a spell sitting on the roof there that I believe my mother set specifically to vex me should I try to enter the house. I’m not sure the back door is any safer.” He looked at her. “Are you willing to try a window?”
She supposed that might be the least of the things awaiting her, so she nodded and followed him around the side of the house. The thought of his perhaps being able to heal her grandfather, though . . . that was almost more than she dared hope for.
Besides, that was so far in the future that even she with her newfound clarity of sight couldn’t begin to see how it might come about. She was hundreds of leagues away from the only home she remembered, keeping company with two lads of royal blood who wanted to kill each other, and trying to avoid dying thanks to any of the numerous souls who apparently wanted to kill Acair but might miss and snuff out her life by mistake.
She put her hand over the dragon charm she wore and wondered if there might be anything to Mistress Fionne’s unwillingness to even touch it.
She just wasn’t sure she was ready to know.
Ten
The witchwoman of Fàs wasn’t humming any longer.
Acair reshelved a rather tattered copy of Scenic Byways in Durial, shuddering over the content as he did so, and realized that not only had his mother stopped humming, she had deserted him entirely. He looked about himself in her rather substantial library only to find himself quite alone.
He leaned his shoulder against bookshelves that would likely remain standing long after the world had ended—his mother had her priorities, to be sure—and wondered when she had abandoned him to his own devices.
He had started his search for the obscure and perilous directly after luncheon. He had been joined by his mother and Léirsinn whilst leaving Mansourah of Neroche the unenviable task of trying to entertain two women who would likely wind up brawling over him.
He was fairly sure that after a pair of hours, Léirsinn had pled the excuse of more barn work as a means of escape, something for which he absolutely couldn’t blame her. His mother, however, had remained in the trenches with him. She had entertained him with an admittedly impressive repertoire of Durialian drinking songs for the better part of the afternoon, most of the time merely humming the tune, pausing now and again to burst forth into a verse or two before descending into wheezing laughter over the lyrics.
His mother was, he had to admit, a woman of extremely eclectic tastes.