“Something slipped my mind,” she said.
“Grandmother,” Acair said carefully, turning and making her a very low bow, “I’m not sure how to thank you—”
“Aren’t you?” Cruihniche asked smoothly. “I think you know exactly what will appease me.”
Léirsinn had absolutely no desire to find out what that might be, but Acair apparently wasn’t one to shy away from the difficult. He sighed deeply.
“I’ll find a way,” he said.
“You’d best succeed.”
He hesitated. “If I might make an observation, they are, as you know, simply little tatted bits of—”
“They’re my damned doilies!”
“I didn’t realize you’d done the handwork yourself,” he ventured.
She leveled a look at him that Léirsinn was rather happy wasn’t aimed at her.
“I stole them from your grandfather’s mistress, you idiot,” she said shortly. She tugged on her collar, then smoothed down the front of her dress. “They have great sentimental value to me.”
“As in, the thought of their being missed is something to chortle over during tea?” he asked.
“Perhaps,” she said archly, “or perhaps not. I’m too well-mannered to admit to anything. You just concern yourself with fetching my damned doilies, you little rotter.”
“Of course, Grandmother.”
She reached out and poked him in the chest. “I want the one in Uachdaran of Léige’s throne room.”
“I didn’t,” Acair began, then he sighed. “Very well, I did.”
“He keeps his bloody mugs of that undrinkable sludge he gulps down atop it, and don’t think I haven’t watched him do it.”
“Scrying his private audiences?” Acair asked sourly.
“One amuses oneself from time to time with the doings of lesser souls,” she said with a shrug. She looked at Léirsinn. “Remember what I said.”
“I don’t think I could forget it if I wanted to,” Léirsinn said honestly.
Cruihniche reached out and opened the door. “I’m counting to one hundred before I set things upon you. Best trot on off into the Deepening Gloom quickly, don’t you think?” She held out her hand toward Acair. “Kiss.”
He did. Léirsinn supposed she shouldn’t, so she patted Cruihniche’s hand, then didn’t protest when Acair grabbed for hers and pulled her out of the solar.
“How fast can you run?” he asked.
“Faster than you can, I’ll warrant.”
He smiled briefly. “No doubt. Stuff this into your satchel, will you?”
She took the notebook his grandmother had scribbled in and shoved it back into her bag. She looked at him. “Now what?”
“Pray she counts slowly.”
Léirsinn supposed there was nothing else to hope for. She was happy that Acair knew where he was going because she was hopelessly lost.
She was also without a single sighting of any stray pieces of Acair’s soul, but perhaps he’d left none of it behind, in spite of all the rather questionable things he’d done in his grandmother’s house.
He paused at the entrance to some enormous hallway or other, swore enthusiastically, then reached again for her hand.
“Front door,” he said with another curse.
“Why—oh, never mind,” she said, because she could see what he saw. There were bright-eyed, sword-bearing creatures blocking every path except the one that led straight ahead. She didn’t bother asking if Acair thought that would end badly for them because she suspected she already knew the answer.
“She must want that ale-saturated piece of lace very much,” he groused.
“And this is her parting shot of good cheer?”
He pursed his lips. “I think you two might get on quite well if I weren’t involved. Aye, I imagine this is just what that is.” He took a deep breath, then looked at her. “Ready?”
She didn’t suppose there was any alternative, so she nodded and darted across the polished marble with him.
What she assumed was the front entrance certainly was worthy of the name. She had never in her life seen doors so large or fine and she honestly couldn’t remember the last time doors opened for her without anyone manning them. That she only shuddered as she hopped across the threshold instead of remaining rooted to the spot was perhaps less surprising than it should have been. The last place she wanted to linger was the grand house at Fàs.
She bolted with Acair down the path through a palatial front garden, along a tree-lined path that would have hosted at least half a dozen horses riding abreast, then through an enormous metal gate that started to close as they approached.
It was either good fortune or an ability to sprint perfected thanks to many years of eluding ne’er-do-wells on her way back from town, but she avoided being caught on the gates as they closed. Acair had to leave his cloak behind, but she imagined he thought it a light price to pay, all things considered. She continued to run with him until they reached at least the minimal protection of the trees that were a bit farther away than they’d looked at first glance.
Acair skidded to a halt and she ran full into his back before she realized what he was doing. She supposed the only reason she didn’t flatten him was because Mansourah caught them both. She heaved herself upright, then felt something unpleasant run through her at the look on the prince’s face.
“We need to run,” he said quickly.
“Why?” Acair wheezed, then he shook his head. “Don’t answer. Pick a direction.”
“Take your horse,” Mansourah said urgently. “I’ll hide us as we fly. I say west, but that’s only because I think we’re being driven in that direction.”
Léirsinn flung herself onto Sianach’s back as if she’d been doing the same for years, didn’t complain as Acair almost knocked her off as he scrambled up behind her, then thought she just might have to give that horse-turned-dragon an extra measure of grain the next time they were in a barn for having so thoughtfully provided her with reins.
“I don’t know that we’ll manage this one,” Mansourah said, standing on the ground next to them. “There are things coming after us that we won’t like.”
“My grandmother’s minions,” Acair said dismissively. “Easily eluded.”
Mansourah looked at him seriously. “I don’t think so,” he said frankly. “Not this time.”
Then he disappeared.
Léirsinn had become unfortunately familiar with the sort of spell Mansourah used to hide not only his tracks but theirs. She could still see herself, so she wasn’t entirely sure what good it would do them. At the moment, perhaps any help was good help.
She forced herself to breathe normally instead of wheezing with what she didn’t want to call fear. Acair’s grandmother had advised her to send that sort of feeling to the back of the barn, which sounded a bit better when one was sitting in relative comfort in front of a fire instead of climbing fiercely up into the night sky on the back of an invisible dragon.