Chapter 13
The paragraph was winning.
Forbes glared at his laptop, where the same three sentences had been mocking him for the better part of an hour. He’d rewritten them six times. They still sounded like a textbook having a nervous breakdown.
His neck ached. His eyes were dry. And his stomach had started making pointed observations about the fact that he’d skipped dinner in favor of “just finishing this section.”
The section remained unfinished. His stomach remained unimpressed.
He pushed back from the desk and headed downstairs, hoping the MacBeans had left something in the kitchen he could raid without waking anyone.
The house was strangely quiet. No thump of small feet on the stairs. No dramatic sighs from Olivia. No Sinclair narrating adventures to invisible friends. He’d grown used to the chaos of this household. The silence felt odd.
Light spilled from the dining room. Murmured voices.
Forbes was heading for the kitchen when Alan appeared in the doorway.
“Forbes.” Alan looked... uncomfortable. Which was unusual. The man faced down his children’s sword fights with perfect composure. He didn’t do uncomfortable. “Have ye a moment?”
“I was just getting a snack. Something wrong?”
“No. Aye. Maybe.” Alan rubbed the back of his neck—a gesture Forbes had never seen him make. “There’s something I’d like to talk with ye about. If ye’re willing.”
Curiosity replaced hunger. “Of course.”
He followed Alan into the dining room. Lilith sat at the table with a pot of tea and three mugs, her expression suggesting this conversation had been planned. Candles burned low in the center, giving the room a strange, almost ceremonial feel.
Forbes settled into the chair Alan indicated and accepted a mug from Lilith.
“So,” he said, glancing between them. “Should I be worried? This feels verra... formal.”
Alan’s jaw worked. He looked like a man who’d rather be anywhere else—possibly facing down an army.
“That depends,” Alan said finally, “on how ye feel about impossible things.”
Forbes thought about glowing rosemary and air that changed weight. About Gwen’s eyes when she’d shown him magic was real. “I’m becoming more flexible on the subject.”
Alan nodded slowly. Then, in the tone of someone ripping off a bandage: “I died at Culloden. April 16th, 1746. Spent the next two hundred and seventy years as a ghost on that moor. Then a witch named Soni pulled me back, and I ended up here.”
Forbes blinked.
“That’s the short version,” Alan added, shifting in his chair. “The long version involves Lilith handcuffing me tae a pipe so I couldnae leave, and her threatening Soni in the parlor. But that’s her story to tell.”
“I was very brave,” Lilith said mildly. “Also possibly insane. It’s a fine line.”
Forbes looked between them, waiting for the punchline.
None came.
He let out a short, uncertain laugh. “All right. What’s this actually about?”
Alan’s expression didn’t change. Neither did Lilith’s.
“Because I’ve had this before,” Forbes continued, his smile faltering. “People approach me with story ideas. ‘Write this, we’ll split the profits.’ If that’s what this is, I appreciate the creativity, but—”
“It’s no’ a story idea,” Alan said quietly.
“Then what? Some kind of... local tradition? A tall tale you tell guests for atmosphere?” Forbes heard the edge creeping into his own voice. “Because I have tae say, the delivery is verra convincing, but—”
“Forbes.” Lilith’s voice was gentle. “He’s telling you the truth.”
Forbes stared at her. Then at Alan. Then back at Lilith.
They looked completely serious. No suppressed smiles. No glances at each other like they were sharing a joke at his expense.
“Ye’re serious,” he said slowly.
“Aye.” Alan’s discomfort was palpable. “I ken how it sounds. Ye can walk out right now and never speak of this again. I’ll no’ blame ye.”
Forbes studied him. The tension in Alan’s shoulders. The way his hands wrapped around his mug like he needed something to hold onto.
And now that he thought about it—the way Alan moved.
Nothing like the reenactors Forbes had met at Highland games.
No self-consciousness, no performance. The unconscious economy of a man who’d trained with blades before his bones had finished growing.
The habit of positioning himself with his back to walls, eyes tracking doorways.
And his accent. Forbes had grown up in Scotland, had traveled the Highlands extensively for research. He’d heard every regional variation from Edinburgh polish to Outer Hebrides lilt.
Alan’s was different. Heavier. Older, somehow—like listening to someone who’d learned English from people who’d learned it from people who’d barely needed it at all.
Forbes had noticed it before. Had marked it as unusual without examining why.
Now it made a terrible kind of sense.
He’d assumed military service. Special forces, maybe.
This was considerably stranger.
“Why tell me?” Forbes asked. “Why now?”
Alan was quiet for a moment. When he spoke, his voice was rougher than before.
“Because every time we sit in that library talking about Culloden, I’m lying tae ye.” He met Forbes’s eyes directly. “By omission, aye, but still lying. And I’m no’ built for deception. Never have been.”
“He’s been wanting to tell you for days,” Lilith added softly. “Every time you two got deep into the genealogy records, I could see it eating at him.”
“Ye ask the right questions,” Alan said. “Ye care about getting it right. The history, the people, the truth of what happened.” His jaw tightened. “I havenae met many folk like that since... well. Since before.”
Since before he died, Forbes thought, testing the idea. Since before he supposedly spent three centuries as a ghost.
It still sounded insane.
But Alan wasn’t smiling. Wasn’t fidgeting like someone trying to sell a lie. He just looked... tired. Like a man setting down something heavy he’d been carrying too long.
“And ye’ve proven ye can handle the truth,” Alan continued. “Ye saw Gwen’s magic. Ye didnae run. Ye defended her work tae strangers.” He shrugged awkwardly. “Figured if anyone could hear this without calling for the men in white coats, it might be ye.”
Forbes absorbed this. Then: “Does Gwen know? About you?”
“Aye. Has for about three years now, since she and Lilith got close.” Alan’s expression softened slightly. “She’s family. Honorary, but family all the same. Couldnae tell ye herself—wasnae her secret tae share.”
Forbes didn’t know what to say. Part of him wanted to laugh again—to insist this was absurd and they both knew it. Part of him wanted to ask a hundred questions, poke holes in the story, find the logical explanation that had to be there.
And part of him—the part that had felt the air change in Gwen’s kitchen, that had watched rosemary glow in her hands—wasn’t quite ready to dismiss it entirely.
“I doonae imagine there’s any way to prove something like that,” he said finally. Not a challenge. Just... reality.
Alan glanced at Lilith. Something passed between them.
“There might be,” Alan said slowly. “If ye’re willing to try.”
“Try what?”
Alan held up his hand, palm open. “Take my hand. Just for a moment.”
Forbes stared at it. “And then what?”
“Then ye’ll see what I saw. Feel what I felt.” Alan’s voice was rough. “It’s no’ pleasant. But it’s true.”
Forbes hesitated. This was ridiculous. Holding hands with his host wasn’t going to prove anything except that they’d both lost their minds.
But Alan’s face held no deception. No performance. Just a man offering something that cost him to offer.
What’s the worst that could happen? Forbes thought. Nothing, probably. I hold his hand, nothing happens, and we all pretend this conversation never occurred.
He reached out and placed his hand in Alan’s.
For a heartbeat, nothing did happen.
Then the dining room vanished.
Cold slammed into him—brutal, shocking. The air smelled of gunpowder and churned mud and blood. Shouts rang out, Gaelic and English tangled together. Men surged beside him, tartans brushing his sleeve.
Someone laughed nearby—wild, defiant. Forbes knew, without knowing how he knew, that the laugh belonged to Sweeney. The one who joked at the worst times because what else could you do when death was coming?
Ahead, a line of redcoats raised their muskets.
“For the prince!” someone roared.
Pain flared white-hot in his side. The world tilted. And the last thing he felt was grief—not for himself, but for the brothers he was leaving behind. Callum. Jamie. All of them.
Forbes wrenched his hand free and slammed backward in his chair, nearly toppling it. His lungs heaved like he’d been drowning. His hand clutched his side—the side that had taken the blade—and found nothing. No blood. No wound. Just his own racing heartbeat pounding against his ribs.
“Easy.” Alan’s voice, somewhere distant. “Ye’re all right. Ye’re here.”
Forbes stared at him, wild-eyed. His hands were shaking. His whole body was shaking.
He could still smell the gunpowder. Could still feel the cold mud seeping through wool. Could still hear Sweeney’s laugh echoing in his ears like a ghost.
Like a ghost.
“Sorry,” Alan said quietly. “That was more than I meant to show ye.”
Forbes opened his mouth. Closed it. His side still throbbed with phantom pain. His eyes burned with someone else’s grief—grief that didn’t belong to him but felt as real as anything he’d ever known.
He’d died. For one terrible instant, he’d felt what it was to die on that moor. Felt the blade punch through him. Felt his legs give out. Felt the horrible certainty that he was leaving his brothers to fall without him.
“How—” His voice came out as a croak. He cleared his throat, tried again. His hand still pressed against his side. “How is that possible?”
“Magic,” Lilith said simply. “The same magic that brought him back. The same magic that runs through Salem, even now.”
She pushed a glass of water toward him. Forbes grabbed it and drank, his throat raw, his hands still unsteady.
He should walk out. As a rational person, he should say they’d both had a very creative shared hallucination and recommend a good therapist.
But he’d felt Alan’s death. Had lived it, for one terrible instant.
That wasn’t metaphor. That wasn’t madness.
That was real.
And more than that—he’d felt what Alan felt.
The love for his brothers. The grief at leaving them.
Forbes now understood: even when Soni had offered Alan a second chance at life, he’d bargained to return to the moor afterward.
Hadn’t wanted to leave his brothers alone.
Had been willing to give up everything rather than abandon the men who’d fought beside him.
Forbes knew something about walls. About carrying things alone because it was easier than letting anyone share the weight. About convincing yourself that distance was the same as strength.
He looked at Alan MacBean—this impossible man who’d been offered freedom and asked only to go back to the people who needed him—and felt recognition settle in his gut.
Recognition, maybe. Or the beginning of something like kinship.
“I believe ye,” he said.
The words came out steadier than he expected. Maybe because they were true.
Relief flickered across Alan’s face—there and gone, quickly controlled. Lilith let out a breath she’d apparently been holding.
“Thank you,” she said quietly. “For believing him. I know how it sounds.”
“It sounds impossible.” Forbes managed a shaky almost-laugh. “And yet...”
He should go upstairs. Process. Let his spinning mind settle.
But something nagged at him. Something that didn’t quite fit.
“Can I ask ye something else?” The words came out before he could stop them.
Alan nodded. “Ye’ve got that look. The one that says ye’ll pace a hole in the floor if ye doonae get it out.”
“It’s about Gwen.” Forbes hesitated. “Her magic. I’ve seen her try, Alan. Multiple times. And it never...” He trailed off, not wanting to say works.
“Never works the way she expects it to?” Alan finished. “Aye. I’ve noticed.”
“So is she—” Forbes stopped. Is she deluding herself? seemed cruel.
“Is she what? A fraud? A failure?” Alan’s voice was mild. “Let me ask ye something. When Gwen’s magic fails—what’s she trying tae do?”
Forbes thought back. The garden blessing, with him watching. The protection charm in her cottage.
“Prove something,” he said slowly. “She’s always trying tae prove it works.”
“Aye. And there’s yer answer.” Alan leaned forward. “Gwen’s magic isnae broken, Forbes. It’s too big. She’s spent her whole life trying to squeeze it into small spells—candles and charms and party tricks. Things she can prove.”
“And that doesn’t work?”
“Would ye try to fill a thimble with a waterfall?” Alan shook his head. “Her magic isnae built for performance. It’s built for protection. When she stops trying tae prove herself and starts trying tae help someone else—ye’ll see exactly what she’s capable of.”
Forbes absorbed this. “How do I help her?”
“Stop watching her like she’s a test to be passed.” Alan’s voice was gentle but firm. “She can feel it—every time ye’re in the room, she knows ye’re waiting to see if her magic is real. That kind of pressure is exactly what makes her power retreat.”
Forbes felt heat rise in his face. “I didn’t realize—”
“I know ye didnae.” Alan held his gaze. “Gwen doesnae need an observer right now. She needs someone who believes in her even when she cannae believe in herself. Can ye do that? Even if ye ne’re see proof?”
The question hung in the air.
Forbes thought about Gwen’s fierce determination. Her vulnerability. The way she kept trying, over and over, even when everything fell apart in her hands.
“Yes,” he said. “I can.”
Alan studied him for a long moment. Then he nodded.
“The doubt willnae go away because I answer yer questions right, Forbes. It’ll go away when ye decide tae trust. That’s a choice, not a conclusion.”
Forbes rose, steadier now. “Thank ye. For all of it.”
“Get some rest, lad.” Alan’s mouth twitched. “Ye look like ye’ve seen a ghost.”
Forbes huffed a surprised laugh. “Aye. Something like that.”
He climbed the stairs to his room. His mind wasn’t spinning anymore. It was settling—arranging itself around a new understanding.
Tomorrow he’d see Gwen. Tell her he understood now. That he’d made a choice to believe in her before she proved anything.
Sleep came easier than he expected.
And when it arrived, he dreamed of battlefields and bagpipes and a woman with green-gold eyes whose magic was bigger than she knew.