I raise an eyebrow. I’ve known ladies who fancied each other, but they only spoke about it in whispers. “A woman, you say?”
Her laugh is short. “Did you think Kadamach was the only one whose weakness was ladies in armor? If you weren’t his, I’d ask you to be mine.”
“Aithinne, I think that might be the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me.”
“Don’t you dare tell my brother. He’d never stop teasing me.” She nods to her cottage. “In here. I have a few things for you and then I’ll tell you what I know about the Book.”
Aithinne pushes open the door and grabs some clothes off the bed. “Put these on.”
I glance down at my own clothes, the ones Derrick hastily stitched together when I arrived at the camp. “What’s wrong with the things I’m wearing?”
Aithinne is strapping on her weapons: small blades attached to her wrists, one at her boot. “They look terrible,” she says, checking the point of her blade.
Oh, for goodness’ sake. “I’m preparing to fight either Kiaran or a very large group of soldiers. Not attend a ball.”
Aithinne looks me over from head to toe and smirks as if to say, Aye, but you look like shite. “When my brother sees you, do you want to be wearing those dirty, stinky clothes riddled with holes?” She wrinkles her nose. “Wait, don’t answer that. He might still be demented enough to find it romantic.”
I roll my eyes, but start removing my wool shirt and trousers. The breeches Aithinne has given me are made from the softest leather, molding to my legs as if they were made for me. They match the tall, soft leather boots she provided.
The coat is probably the finest I’ve ever seen: a stunning brocade with a faelike design of intricate swirls, with golden stitches sewn right in. It cinches at the waist, closing with buttons made of fine, polished gold. It’s a coat made for royalty—made for a queen.
I hesitate before putting it on. “Derrick made this for you, didn’t he?”
“He seems to have the misinformed notion that I ought to wear it to a coronation that is never going to happen.” Aithinne’s shrug is flippant, but I see the hint of worry there. “I’ll probably be wearing it for my own funeral rites if we don’t find the Book.”
“Aithinne—”
“Aileana,” she says with a sigh, “it’s just a coat. Put the damn thing on.”
I do as she says, keeping quiet when she passes me the sheath with my blood-made sword already tucked inside. I put it on the bed next to my discarded trousers. “What if Kiaran doesn’t listen to me? Do we have an alternate plan?”
“Use your powers on him.” Aithinne straps another blade to her wrist. “Throw him into a tree like you did me.”
“Didn’t we already establish that Kiaran finds that sort of thing attractive? He’ll thinks it’s—” I wave a hand, unable to come up with a delicate word for what I mean. Oh, for heaven’s sake. How can I possibly be thinking about propriety now?
“You, hinting at him to take off your clothes?”
“Aithinne!”
She flashes a smile. “When you saw me in the clearing, my power called to yours, didn’t it?” At my nod, she says, “Kadamach’s will be the same. The Cailleach’s power recognizes its own.” Then, more quietly, “And it’s easier because he’s your lover.”
I can’t help but touch my neck, pressing my fingers there. The memory of the dream still hasn’t faded. The warmth of Kiaran’s lips on my throat. The pressure of his teeth sinking into my skin. His whispered words against my neck.
If you were alive, you’d wish you had killed me.
“You’re distracting me, Aithinne. Enough about your brother’s lunatic ideas of romance.” I can’t think of Kiaran, not after that dream. I can’t. “Tell me about the Book. Did your contacts say where it is?”
Aithinne looks thoughtful. “Something like that.” She makes a face. “Apparently it’s not anywhere.”
I pause in the middle of buttoning the coat. “I beg your pardon?”
“That is to say, it’s not anywhere here. The Book”—now she’s grinning, so this ought to be good—“is elsewhere.”
Confound it. I’m going to kill her. The fae passion for riddles is something I will never understand. “Are you purposely trying to annoy me?”
“Did you know that when you get impatient, you make these clicking noises with your teeth like an irritated cat? It’s rather delightful.” My glare would be enough to sear the skin off an ordinary person, but Aithinne is anything but ordinary. “What I mean is that the Book is in a realm outside this one.”
“Not the fae realm?” I ask, thinking of where Lonnrach kept me. It’s not somewhere I’d like to revisit. I barely made it out the first time.
“No. According to my source—who, granted, is a very old, very inebriated will-o’-the-wisp with a bigger honey problem than your pixie—the Book was hidden in another realm for its own protection. According to our stories, any faery who managed to get its hands on it would be unparalleled in power. They’d be able to alter time.”
I freeze. “Alter . . .” I seize Aithinne’s wrist. “Can it do that or not?”
“I don’t know. I—”
“What did the wisp say?” I demand.
I sound half-crazed, but I have to know. Doesn’t she realize? If that were true, it would change everything. We could reverse the course of fate, prevent all of Scotland and elsewhere from being destroyed. We could bring Edinburgh back. We could bring everyone back. My father. Gavin and Catherine’s mother. My mother.
“Aileana.” Aithinne’s voice is calm. “I know what you’re thinking and I don’t know for certain. The only thing the wisp could tell me was that if someone controlled the Book, it would make them more powerful than my mother.”
The original Cailleach was believed to have created the realms—both human and fae. The dramatic landscapes of Scotland were born of her incredible power; some claimed she formed the mountains and the streams, that she blessed the Scottish people with fertile lands.
That power was passed down through her lineage all the way to the last Cailleach, who gave her power to me, a human she despised. And she did it because she was dying: She needed to pass it to someone, and both of her children loathed her.
So I just happened to be a convenient vessel to hold her powers, which are slowly killing me. I release Aithinne. “Tell me everything the wisp said.”
“He said that long before the first Cailleach became monarch of the fae, the Old Kingdom was ruled by another queen. She was the Cailleach’s sister.”
I sit on the bed to buckle my boots. “Why do I have the feeling this doesn’t end well?”
Aithinne looks amused. “My kind makes a lot of noise about being better than humans, but when it comes to power, immortals aren’t immune to greed. We’re not like lobsters.”
That makes sense. After all, I’ve met plenty of fae who—“Wait, what?”
“Lobsters,” Aithinne says again, just in case I misheard her, and I rather hoped I had. “I hear they’re biologically immortal,” she explains, “and exempt from greed. And they’re funny looking, so I’ve decided they’re my favorite.”