Chapter 40
Chapter
Forty
The door to the human realm will not open for me until midnight on Mabon, which means I have roughly seven weeks to learn everything I can about Granny Maggie’s time here in Tír na Dubh.
According to Sabre, her quarters have not been touched since she left. But there is no dust on any of the surfaces, and the air does not have the stale quality of a boarded-up room.
It’s almost as if someone spends a little time in here regularly.
But if Sabre had been visiting Granny’s abandoned rooms, my presence is the perfect deterrent. Any pretense of courting me was discarded the moment he made his confession. Perhaps even earlier than that.
Still, in order to figure out why my grandmother stole the fragment and what she planned to do with it in the human realm, I needed to understand her mindset while she was here.
And the greatest source of that information is Sabre himself.
He seems to be the only thing in this manor to which the ring reacts.
But he’s a hard man to pin down. Since our arrival, he’s taken no more meals with us.
And from what I can tell, most of his hours are spent locked in his study.
I crept past the other day to find he’d left the door cracked.
He was bent over his desk, hair mussed and fingers ink-stained, making notes on what looked like blueprints or architectural drawings.
Before I could ask him about it—or sneak a closer peek—he got up and slammed the door in my face.
I’m starting to question Granny Maggie’s taste in men.
And wondering if I might have inherited it from her.
George was obviously a bad choice, though the further I get from that affair, the more I realize he took advantage of my open nature.
I’m not excusing my own role; I am a fully functioning adult capable of making my own decisions.
But it was na?ve to assume a man like that would have proposed to me.
Not because there’s anything wrong with me, but because of those unsavory qualities of his that I was all too eager to overlook: an obsession with status, a need to be adored, a compunction to be seen as the “good guy” in any scenario.
Regardless, I am done reprimanding myself. George and I were never meant to be.
Lachlan, on the other hand … I am not sure how to classify an entanglement that was doomed from the start. Yet another example of my appetites getting me into trouble?
Aunt Teddy was always scolding me for them, be they gastronomical or on the more prurient end of the spectrum. Said if I didn’t learn to regulate them, that no man would ever take me seriously as a wife. I often wondered if she’d guessed what George and I were up to.
My appetites never seemed to bother Lachlan. Though I suppose becoming his wife was never a possibility anyway. Perhaps that’s why I was not afraid to indulge?
I will leave it there because to examine my motives any deeper might mean unearthing world-shifting revelations about my feelings for him. Bury, bury, bury. If Bretonnic society taught me nothing else, it at least taught me that.
Tonight, I’ve decided to go for a walk around the property at dusk in an effort to clear my head, shake off some of those buried feelings, and pout over my inability to find anything that might inform my search for the Bannrhorn.
I have only just stepped outside when I hear paws pounding toward me and the unmistakable huffs of a pursuing animal.
I turn, then freeze as Skadi races toward me, Sabre jogging after her. It looks as if they’ve come from the wider walking path that rings the outskirts of the property.
She bounds closer and closer, her tongue bouncing, like a gigantic, half-dead puppy.
“Skadi!” Sabre shouts, and my ring heats at his voice. “You blasted fool. Halt!”
Skadi may be excitable, but she will not disobey her master, thank their gods. She stops, then sits back on her haunches in front of me. She’s enormous. Larger than Torvil’s báshounds. Nearly the size of the elephants in the zoological gardens at Harbridge.
Her hot breath fans my face and I pinch my nose, expecting to smell rotting carcass, but am treated to a scent that’s more like peppermint leaves steeped in snowmelt.
She barks at me, a short, sharp yip, then tip-taps her front paws.
Granny and I never had a dog, but our closest neighbors lived on a farm with all kinds of animals.
Including the sweetest wolfhound named Sheilagh who used to perform this same bark and tap routine.
I know what it means. Pets. That’s what Skadi wants.
I raise my palm and Skadi bends down to nudge her wet nose against it. I try to keep my hand to the intact half and not the half that’s mostly exposed nasal cavity.
“My apologies, Miss Fitzroy,” Sabre pants as he scuffs through the gravel toward us.
We’re at the back of the house, several paces from the veranda and overlooked by the guest rooms. Most are dark, mine included, but there’s a shardlight glowing in Aowen’s. And I swear the curtain just billowed.
“Skadi is usually far more obedient”—Sabre side-eyes his … well, I’m not sure exactly what Skadi is—“but where you are concerned, she seems to forget her manners.”
“It’s alright,” I say, continuing to pet Skadi’s nose. Her glowing green eyes slip shut; she’s in pure ecstasy. A small giggle escapes my lips. “She’s adorable.”
Sabre grunts out a laugh. “I have never heard anyone other than your grandmother say that about a necrowolf.”
“A necrowolf.” I roll the word across my tongue. “What is that?”
“I could give you a proper explanation, but I’m afraid it might take all night. Have you heard the saying ‘a cat has nine lives’?”
“Yes?”
“Well, a simplified version might be something like Skadi’s on her seventh.”
Before I can craft a quip about Skadi seeming more canine than feline, Sabre turns away. And I’m about to lose the only chance I’ve had in weeks to probe him.
“Wait!” I blurt. “I … Have you … Can you spare me a moment, Your Grace? I’d love to talk to you about my grandmother.”
He swivels back, his eyes squeezed shut as he pulls a deep breath through flared nostrils. Like this is precisely why he’s been avoiding me.
“I don’t doubt the subject is quite painful for you, but my searching has borne no fruit.
And if I cannot find your piece of the Bannrhorn, well …
” There are so many consequences I could name.
I don’t know Sabre well enough to discern which one will move him, so I go with the most broad. “Your kingdom will remain fractured.”
It’s hard to tell if Sabre even cares about that. If he desires the crown at all. Or why, outside of my heritage, he’s decided after seven years to participate in the Season.
Resignation softens his features, and his shoulders dip. He gestures toward a stone bench just off the path, consumed by a cloud of overgrown black elderberry bushes.
I sweep aside a branch of dark, spidery leaves, stirring a rich, sweet scent like honey and cooked berries, then take a seat. Sabre sits down at the other end. As far away from me as possible.
I might be insulted, were I at all invested in his courtship.
Silence reigns for several charged moments, broken only by the winds whistling across the moors and over the stone wall surrounding the property.
Skadi releases a few long-suffering, canine sighs from her position at her master’s feet.
Insulted that we do not seem occupied and yet no one is playing with her.
“What was she like?” I ask, diving in headfirst. “While she was here?”
“She was … ” Sabre starts, then stops. Struggling to find words.
“Well, she was radiant. The most beautiful woman I’d ever seen at the time.
” His eyes flick toward the glowing window.
“But it wasn’t just her appearance that made her beautiful.
It was her craving for life. Her curiosity.
She wanted to know everything about me, about Tír na Dubh.
And she had a way of looking upon the world without judgment.
Accepting all its graceless sinners as they were, not as they should be. ”
I pinch the skin between my thumb and forefinger to forestall tears. It’s as if he’s plucked the description of my grandmother from my own head.
“Well,” Sabre sniffs, “you can imagine how attractive someone like that was to a man who’d never thought very highly of himself to begin with. And who’d recently been thrust into a bid for the monarchy.”
“What did she do while she was here?”
Sabre raises a brow, and my face flames.
“I mean, besides the … well, surely, you know what I …” I recover myself. “Were there places she visited frequently? Anywhere that might have given her a reason to steal your fragment?”
“I have no idea why she did it. Perhaps she thought taking it would mean no other human woman would be forced into the Wild Hunt against her will? Or perhaps there was something sinister in that reading she received in Farlock’s Edge; something she was too afraid to tell me.”
“Does that seer still work there? Perhaps we can pay them a—”
“She died. Shortly after Margaret and I had gone to visit her. It was the first place I went for answers.”
So strange to hear someone use Granny’s full name. She was Maggie to all our friends and neighbors. There’s reverence in Sabre’s pronunciation. And long-tended sorrow.
“Did she not want you to fall in love with someone else? Maybe she took the fragment out of jealousy.”
“Gods, no.” Sabre laughs, the boisterous thumps of a booming timpani.
They reconfigure the harsh planes of his face into something truly breathtaking.
I can start to see why Granny Maggie fell for him.
She loved to study people’s laughs, tried to encourage them as often as possible.
“If she saw me now, she’d tear my head off for spending all this time mourning the loss of her when I could have been …
” He tilts his gaze toward the clasped hands resting in his lap. “She’d be terribly disappointed in me.”
He composes himself, sitting up straighter, and the elderberry bush leaves tickle over us like searching fingers. “She spent much of her time here drawing. I assume you’ve found the sketchbooks in her rooms?”
I nod. “I’ve reviewed less than a quarter of them. She was very prolific while she was here. Had an endless well of inspiration to draw from, it seems.” I slide my eyes toward him, suppressing an instinct to nudge his shoulder or take his hand. He looks … Well, he looks touch-starved.
“What was her life like in Breton?” he asks softly. “With Edward.” There’s no jealousy in his question. A bit of envy, perhaps. But it’s clear he never begrudged her happiness.
“I’m afraid I do not know.” I pick at the stiff leaves.
“He passed before I was born.“ I’m embarrassed to tell Sabre everything my grandmother sacrificed to raise me.
Her position within society, her grandiose estate, a life that would have been far more comfortable—certainly more convenient—than the wild one we lived in the southlands.
“Was she happy?”
“She was.” That I do know to be true. “But she was always a little restless. That curiosity you mentioned? It stayed with her throughout the years; she was always searching for something. I used to think it was novelty—a new village to visit, new players coming to town, a new painting to work on. She dragged me all over the southlands, anywhere she could afford to chase her muse. But now I think … perhaps a part of her remained in the Otherworld. And it wasn’t novelty she was searching for, but rather something she didn’t even remember she’d lost.”
Sabre rattles out a breath, angling away from me.
I allow him his privacy, and when I can feel the moment has passed, I ask, “How did you know who I was? During the presentation ceremony? I never thought Granny and I looked very much alike.”
“No, you really don’t.” Sabre turns back wearing the ghost of a smile.
“But you have her spirit. As soon as Skadi saw you through the mirror, she wouldn’t stop barking.
I wasn’t certain, but I had my suspicions.
Information about the human realm can be bought in Farlock’s Edge—if you know who to ask and can afford their exorbitant prices.
I knew who you were by the time Desmond showed up last month, begging me to take part in the Hunt with his intriguing offer. ”
His eyes slide up the manor to that glowing window again. Mine follow. There’s the barest hint of a shadow at the edge of the curtain.
“She will never accept you, or forgive you, if you force her to marry you.”
“I know it,” he sighs, idly rubbing a hand along the bottom of his horn. He stares up at the guest room with a longing far too intense to be solely inspired by the dark-haired spitfire he won in a marriage bargain.
“But I’m tired of being lonely.”