you. Still.”
Ruith shot him a dark look, then followed him across the solar and out the door. He felt Soilléir’s spell close behind them, then looked at his host.
“You couldn’t add a little extra to that, could you?”
“An alarm?” Soilléir asked mildly.
“Aye.”
“I’m her host, not her jailor.”
“This will be an extraordinarily short luncheon, then.”
Soilléir only smiled at him and walked away.
Ruith looked behind him, on the off chance that Droch was lurking in the shadows, paused, then set his own spell across Soilléir’s doorway, one that would alert him if anyone but Rùnach or Sarah walked through it. He took a deep breath, then followed Soilléir.
And he hoped he wouldn’t regret it.
Twelve
Sarah watched Ruith and Soilléir leave the chamber, trailed by Rùnach, then saw a spell fall down like a curtain over the door. She knew she should have felt safe, but she was too restless to feel safe. She was tempted to have another bath, but even that didn’t appeal. She was cold, so she stood in front of the fire for a bit until she was then too hot and was left with no choice but to pace a bit more. She had no stomach for the very lovely luncheon Soilléir had provided, and she wasn’t sure she could sit at a loom and produce anything that wouldn’t need to be ripped out and begun again.
She began to pace. Far easier that than simply standing in one place where her thoughts could catch her up. She found herself eventually standing in front of Soilléir’s desk, looking down at the books he’d obviously left there for her. She was sure they were nothing out of the ordinary, but somehow even looking at them made her uncomfortable.
Which was, of course, ridiculous. They were simply words on pages. How dangerous could that be?
She took her courage in hand and had another look at them. If they were of a magical nature, she couldn’t see it. She picked them up, then carried them back over to the fire and sat down. The silence that fell around her like a cloak was warm and comfortable, Soilléir’s doing, no doubt. She concentrated on the books in her hands, happy to have something to do besides ignore the things she’d learned over the past pair of days.
Such as the fact that she could see things she didn’t want to. Or that she had, before she could stop herself, agreed to carry on with Ruith on a quest she was sure would lead to places she didn’t want to go. Or that she had left Ruith no choice but to at least have a look at ten other women before she would allow him to look at her—and those gels were to be princesses, no less.
She opened the books, just to distract herself. The world was, she was quite sure, full of places she’d never heard of, and apparently the tome she held in her hands was from one of them. It was poetry, she suspected, but she wasn’t equal to even beginning to decipher it. The other book was a lexicon, which she supposed would be useful in time in translating the runes on her knife. What she needed first, though, was perhaps a child’s primer to help her become acquainted with letters and simple words.
She kept the books in her lap and simply stared into the fire, grateful beyond measure for a bit of peace where she didn’t have to think about anything more serious than how she would stay awake.
It was destined not to last much longer, she knew, but for the moment, she would enjoy it and not wish for anything else.
She woke to the sound of the door opening at the opposite end of the solar. She jumped briefly, then realized it was just Ruith and Soilléir, arguing in a good-natured way about how things had gone below. Rùnach, she realized with a start, was standing in his accustomed place at the window, but with his back turned to her, no doubt to give her a bit of privacy. She wondered how long he’d been there and how deeply she’d slept. Long enough for the books to grow warm under her hands, which was odd, but she set the thought aside in favor of watching Ruith. He smiled, then turned back to his discussion with Soilléir as they continued across the floor.
He was, as she had noted on more than one occasion, exceptionally handsome. He looked as though he’d spent the