Page 24 of A Fine Scottish Spell (The Magical Matchmakers of Seven Cairns #2)

“E ither I go with her into the Dreaming, or she does not go at all.” Gryffe stood his ground with his teeth bared and fists clenched, staring down his mother.

Emily and Inalfi had gone on ahead, probably heading to the kitchens to get that feckin’ panther posing as a wee cat a saucer of cream.

“Ye know how dangerous the place can be. I will not have her there unprotected.”

Nicnevin rolled her eyes. “I had no intention of simply dropping her in there like a bowl of scraps tossed onto the heap.” She patted her chest. “I am going with her. I shall keep her safe.”

“The hell ye will.”

His mother frowned. “Ye have become most petulant of late. I wouldha thought finding the other half of yer soul wouldha put ye in a better mood.”

“It does, except when someone suggests she do something dangerous.”

Nicnevin shook a finger. “It was not I, my son. It was Grimalkin.”

Gryffe unleashed a growl that did nothing to alleviate the tense knot of worry in his chest. “That feckin’ thing. And in my keep, no less.”

“She will protect Lady Emily and, someday, yer children. Ye know that.”

He decided to debate the Fae panther’s arrival later.

After all, from the looks of it, Emily had already decided that matter for him.

“Be that as it may, whoever put the thought of the Dreaming into my dear one’s head, there will be no getting it out of her thoughts until she tries it. As I said, I am going with her.”

“Fine.” Nicnevin shrugged and tossed her hands in the air.

“Take the entire clan, if ye wish, but I am sure Lady Emily wishes to go as soon as possible, so make certain everyone is ready by tonight at moonrise.” Head held high and her chin jutted even higher, the dark queen swept away as if she had grown tired of her Court and dismissed them.

Gryffe glared after her, clenching his teeth so hard his jaws ached.

“Yer dark-hearted mother makes me arse twitch,” Ferris said from behind him. “And was that a feckin’ Fae panther yer Lady Emily was toting?”

“According to Nicnevin, Grimalkin chose my dear one. The cat considers herself my Emily’s protector.” Gryffe turned and eyed his friend. “Hiding in the shadows?”

“I prefer the word lurking , and I do some of my best work in the shadows.”

“Indeed.” Gryffe glanced around, then lowered his voice. “Do ye wish to share yer news here or somewhere more private?”

Ferris tipped his silvery head toward the nearest door to the left. “Best step into the library. Did ye not once tell me ye placed wards in there that keep Nicnevin deaf to what is said?”

“Aye. Come.” Gryffe led the way, an ominous sense of dread taking root in his gut and squeezing like a poisonous vine.

Ferris swaggered into the room after him and closed the door. He studied Gryffe for a long moment before joining him in front of the roaring fire in the hearth. “The Weavers?—”

Gryffe held up a hand. “I know. Their frantic whispers reached my ears as well.”

“Be it yer Emily they search for? Is she their precious mortal that must be found at all costs?”

“I dinna ken.” He paced the width of the massive room lined with floor to ceiling bookshelves, and then he halted and scowled at Ferris. “Ye would not have known the place had ye been with us that day. It was Seven Cairns—yet somehow—it wasn’t.”

“What do ye mean it wasn’t ?”

Gryffe shook his head. “It looked the same and all the folk knew me, but they nay spoke as the close friends and allies they have always been in the past. Their words were stilted. Formal. Devoid of all emotion.” He resumed pacing, beating the air with his hands as he walked.

“And even though my Emily knew their names, called out to them with the heart of a friend, they denied knowing her.” He halted again and slowly turned to face his friend.

“They thought her an Unseelie and demanded I take her away.”

“Seven Cairns is hallowed ground. Forbidden to the Unseelie.”

“Aye, I know.” Gryffe raked a hand through his hair. “The only reason they suffer my presence is because of my father and my oath to the Highland Veil.” He shook his head again. “But Emily has no Fae blood. Weaver ancestry? Aye, that she has, but nothing from the Fae—be they light or dark.”

“And that was before the two of ye spoke the binding oath?” Ferris widened his stance and folded his arms across his broad chest, appearing as perplexed as Gryffe.

“Aye. At that time, if she could have gone through the portals, she would have left me.”

Scrubbing the stubble of his day’s growth of beard, Ferris cringed as if the wonderment of it all pained him.

“There is no way Nicnevin, even as powerful as she is, there is no way she could have spelled the entire village of Seven Cairns and the Weavers. The goddesses blessed that land in the beginning—eons ago—it protects those upon it.”

“Aye, and any glamour Nicnevin might have attempted to place on Emily to hide her from their minds would have fallen away as soon as we stepped inside the borders of the village.”

Ferris appeared even more pained. “This stinks of a higher power meddling. Ye ken that, aye?”

“Aye, and where they have meddled once, I fear they will meddle again. They have been known to take away just as quickly as they give.” A feeling of helplessness, the not knowing, raged through Gryffe.

“They will never take her from me,” he said with a low, guttural growl.

“Not her nor any of our children. Never.”

Ferris took hold of Gryffe’s shoulder and squeezed. “Whatever ye need from me, ye have it. Aye?”

“Aye.” Gryffe appreciated his old friend more than he could ever put into words, and he knew Ferris knew that. “Come into the Dreaming with us tonight. Nicnevin put it into Emily’s head as a way of visiting her loved ones, and there’ll be no peace now until she attempts it.”

Ferris’s lips curled back in a distasteful sneer. “I hate the Dreaming, and so does my wolf.”

“I would never ask it of ye if I didn’t fear I would need ye.”

Ferris nodded. “I’ll be there, old friend.”

“I thank ye.”

With a formal nod, Ferris went to the door. “I shall return at moonrise.”

“Aye—to moonrise.”

* * *

Inalfi adjusted both the front and back ties of Emily’s corset.

“You’re actually loosening them?” Emily sucked in a satisfyingly deeper breath. “Usually, you yank them so tight they cut me in half.”

The studious maid gave her a scolding look.

“If yer stays are not tight, they do little to support yer lovely figure, my lady.” She caught hold of the bottom edge of the corset and tugged and shook it, settling Emily’s parts more snugly into the increased space.

“But the Dreaming is…different. Yer ability to move is more important than uplifting yer bosoms.”

“That sounds ominous.” Emily stepped into the dark blue overskirt Inalfi held out, then wiggled to straighten the layers of petticoats beneath it before the maid buttoned the waistband in the back.

“If I need to be able to move, perhaps I should wear the clothes I wore when I arrived here in this time.” The more she heard about the Dreaming, the more she wondered if using it as a way to contact Jessa was wise.

That momentary cowardice made her shake her head.

No. She would not be a chicken. She had to at least try to let everyone know where she was and that she was all right.

With a nod at the trunk beneath the window, she resettled her footing as if about to charge into battle.

“Everything’s in there, isn’t it? Fetch my stuff.

All of it. Hiking boots and underthings too, please. ”

Inalfi went still, her pale blue eyes narrowing as she eyed the fullness of Emily’s skirt.

“That is not a bad plan, my lady. Those clothes from yer time are scandalous the way they cling to ye, but ye would be able to run, jump, and roll with more speed and accuracy.” She wrinkled her nose. “But Himself might not be pleased.”

“Himself will only fuss a little, then I’ll fuss back, and he’ll give in because he’ll know I’m right.” Emily glanced back over her shoulder and smiled at the great black panther stretched across the bed. “Case in point right over there.”

“Himself gives in because he is besotted with ye and willna deny ye anything as long as he knows it willna hurt ye.” Inalfi grunted as she hefted open the thick lid of the wood trunk trimmed with brass and leather.

She rooted around in it, then returned with the clothes and boots bundled in her arms.

After helping Emily remove her corset, skirt, and petticoat, she backed away with the eighteenth century garments hugged to her middle. “On with yer things, my lady. I know ye dinna need my help to don them.”

“They’re not that bad, Inalfi.” A happy sigh escaped Emily as she pulled on her favorite panties and sports bra.

She had missed the ease and comfort of her twenty-first century garb.

After wiggling into the snug, black tank top she always wore as another layer during workouts, she slipped on the fleece-lined leggings that had been her mainstay.

“These are my old friends. I wore them all the time back home.”

“I thought this was yer home, my lady.”

Emily paused before slipping on her chunky cable knit sweater, suddenly guilty about the quiet but impossible to miss hurt in Inalfi’s usually sparkling tone.

“Well, of course, this is my home—now.” She tried to shake off not only a silly sense of guilt but the strange sensation of having somehow betrayed Gryffe by referring to somewhere else as home.

“It’s just a figure of speech. A lot easier than saying I wore them all the time in the reality I came from in the twenty-first century.

See? So many more words. I don’t want to sound like one of those people who love to listen to themselves talk.

” And yet here she was babbling. Why? Why did she feel so guilty about that one little slip?