Chapter Twelve
Aidan insisted on taking them back to Nettlestone on horseback so she wouldn’t have to walk across the hills in shoes that might not fit properly. He took Brutus’s horse, of course, claiming it was reparation. Brutus had gone anyway, taken to the moors to keep searching for his daughter.
Sorcha sat in front of Aidan, his arms around her, his chest warm and solid at her back.
The sun was clearing the last of the mists, where it hung in tatters among the gorse and the thickets.
They passed a standing stone that someone had crowned with a wreath of wild grapes, blackberry vines, and the last of the white roses that had overtaken the island over the summer solstice.
It was soft and beautiful, but Sorcha was distracted by the very large man behind her, by his strong wrists, the way his fingers held the reins.
The peek of tattoo, the soft scattering of hair.
The liquid heat that threatened to melt her from the inside out, even if he was clearly not interested in kissing her again.
It was the only reason she resisted leaning back, nuzzling his shoulder.
They had a goal. A mission.
And it did not include nuzzling.
More’s the pity.
“All right there, songbird?” he rumbled behind her.
She swallowed. “Of course.”
“You sighed.”
And she was not about to explain why.
They were nearly at Nettlestone now. She could have another cup of strong tea, the punishing comfort of chores, the work of the bakehouse to set her to rights. Granny’s sharp tongue. Kitten teeth.
There were pigeons gathered around the lilac trees at the end of the path, where it led from the hills to the courtyard walls.
Sorcha had scratched protective sigils into the moss on the stones, and buried iron nails underneath.
She had also hung wards in the lilac bushes where the pigeons currently waited.
They cooed at her. Her witch knot prickled.
“Aidan,” she murmured, touching his wrist. “A moment.”
He pulled the horse to a stop. “What is it?” His mouth touched her ear. She suppressed a tiny quiver.
“I don’t know yet,” she replied, sliding to the ground. He was beside her before she took a step, searching the thickets and the shadows.
The pigeons stepped into a perfect circle, staring up into the lilac leaves.
“That is…unsettling,” Aidan said.
“They are very clever creatures,” she muttered defensively.
“Aye.”
She crept closer, elbowing Aidan. “Don’t frighten them.”
“Aye,” he said again, slowing his giant steps.
The pigeons cooed together as one. Sorcha peered under the branches and pulled one of her protective wards down, snapping the red thread. It was a small piece of mirror, fringed with evil-eye beads. She had soaked it in water gathered under a full moon and infused with salt.
The mirror was cracked, reflecting back her frown, a strand of her red hair, Aidan’s sternly set mouth.
“Your wards?” he asked.
“Yes,” she said. Witches often warded their homes, if not quite as enthusiastically as she did. The Red Cloak could take no chances. Neither could Sorcha Beauregard. “This one’s broken. Probably just the wind. Or a squirrel.”
“Mayhap.” He didn’t sound convinced. His eyes were turning gold again.
She went to the next lilac across the pathway, where more pigeons waited, in the same perfect circle. That ward was also cracked.
It might still be a coincidence,” she said.
Aidan growled.
“I’m sure it’s fine,” she insisted.
“It’s not that,” he said darkly. “I smell smoke.”
Sorcha broke into a run. Aidan swore, his steps thundering beside her. When they crested the hill, the smoke was visible, a smear of gray against the bright sky.
Nettlestone was on fire.
Panic choked her for a long moment she could not afford.
She could smell the smoke, but she could not see flames.
“Where is it? Is it the bakehouse?” Every baker’s nightmare.
One stray spark, one unattended coal. Granny had had the buildings constructed near the well, with stone for the floor and the surrounding area in the back courtyard.
But fire was fire. Like magic, sometimes it made its own rules.
“This way,” Aidan said. “Stay behind me,” he added, which was ridiculous and did not even deserve a response. This was her home. Her family. “It’s not the bakehouse.”
“The stables?” Panic shoved her into a rush of movement.
Aidan caught the back of her dress. “Not the stables either.”
She trusted his wolf’s sense of smell. He must have noticed, because he released her immediately. He pointed to the open front door of the house, where Aesop was hauling an enormous bucket of water. “Your Minotaur seems to have it in hand.”
Simon filled more buckets from the nearest trough.
The phoenix circled overhead, curious, calling to the flames.
Sorcha whistled a haunting trill, a request to stay aloft.
Fires responded to phoenixes, sometimes growing dozens of feet tall to try to reach them.
And worse yet, a single red phoenix feather could start a fire that no water would put out.
The crows lined the stable roof, cawing. There were seven of them.
One for sorrow, two for mirth, three for a wedding, four for a birth. Five for silver, six for gold, seven for a secret never to be told.
Sorcha raced into the house, inserting herself into the chain of buckets being passed hand to hand at the top of the stairs. Aidan paced behind her, an enormous jug of water on one shoulder.
Their efforts seemed to be concentrated on the small morning room no one used.
Thank the stars. Granny chose that moment to rematerialize in a pop of light that seared the eyeballs, her expression peevish.
Ice instantly formed all around her, icicles bristling like the hackles of a disgruntled animal.
Aidan turned to shield Sorcha before she had a chance to greet her grandmother.
Again.
He was definitely making a habit of that. Must be all that earl etiquette. And the natural protectiveness of his wolf. She peeked around his shoulder. “Granny, thank the stars! You’re all right.”
“Takes more than that iron hex to banish me. Where is that lout?
“He’s gone.”
“Good. Now what’s all this, then?” Granny froze the walls to stop the fire from spreading.
Sorcha tossed the contents of a bucket. It was a drop compared to the waterfall produced from Aidan’s jug.
Aesop had pulled down the heavy brocade curtains and was stomping them out with his hooves, impervious to the heat.
The smell of singed fur and hoof mingled with the burning of silk and the lacquered wood chess table.
The damage to the morning room was extensive in one corner but had not spread to the hallway or the other chambers.
The floor would need repair, and the settee replacing.
Sorcha was beginning to wonder if the curse breaking had worked.
“What happened?” she coughed.
“We don’t know,” Aesop said. “Simon smelled the smoke. It must not have been burning long, which is a blessing.”
“I’m so sorry, Sorcha,” Simon said, his eyes red. “I should have caught it earlier! That’s why you let me live here.”
“That’s not why,” she assured him. “Don’t trouble yourself, Simon.”
Aidan frowned at the burned wallpaper, the ruined drapery in a sodden, sooty mess on the floor. “You do not lead a quiet life, Lady Sorcha. What’s on the other side of this wall?”
“A linen closet.”
He nodded to the ruined wallpaper, the shattered portrait of Nettlestone Hall. “And behind this wall?”
“My bedchamber.” She wiped the sweat from her brow.
“It’s a lucky thing you weren’t in your bed.”
Simon, Aesop, and Granny turned toward her. “Yes, where were you, exactly?” Granny asked.
“It’s a long story.”
“I’m dead. I have time.”
Sorcha only turned to Aidan, frowning at her in his damp and soot-stained shirt, a burn marring his left boot.
There were iron nails on the floor and she had no idea where they had come from.
“You might want to go before something else goes wrong. Clearly, I need to strengthen the salt wards and get myself an Iron Witch.”
Aidan’s jaw clenched, eyes going icy. “Someone set this fire deliberately,” he said. “So I’m not going anywhere. Best get used to me, songbird.”
Hosting an earl was one thing.
Hosting a wolf was another.
And hosting Aidan was a third thing altogether, with no precedent.
She might have tried to talk him out of it, but it seemed churlish, especially as he already knew everything there was to know. Anyway, she had other things to see to.
Thinking about Aidan, about wolves and curses and kisses, would just have to wait.
First things first. The kennel had erupted into a cacophony of howls and whines, and she darted around Aidan to get down the stairs faster. “Do you never rest?” he asked, chasing after her.
“This is more important,” she tossed over her shoulder.
She sent more calming imagery toward the birds on the kennel roof, but it could only do so much.
They had sensed too much violence. Smelled too many wolves, the smoke from the fire.
And who knew what the crows had told them? They were a gossipy lot.
She circled around the side of the tower to the outbuildings.
The yard outside the kennel was home to a very disgruntled donkey with wings and a pony with antlers who sneezed when he was anxious.
A sneeze was innocuous enough on its own, but these sneezes called beetles out of the ground.
Beetles sometimes liked to nibble on books.
The pony had been banned from Hallow immediately.
Sometimes spells went awry. And the witches of Hallow, especially the students conducting experiments that were questionable or beyond their abilities, had long ago learned that if you left animals near Nettlestone, Sorcha would take them in.
She had also caught more than one professor sneaking toward the wall.