Page 7

Highlands of Scotland

1295

It had taken two days of hard riding, but Patrick had caught up with the Tinkler wagons at last.

“Where is Elesyria?” he asked as soon as he pulled even with the lead wagon.

He chose to ignore the look that passed between Editha Faas and her husband as he posed his question. He also chose to ignore the pity brimming in the Tinkler woman’s eyes when she turned her gaze in his direction.

“I’m afraid she is beyond your reach, warrior,” Editha answered.

“Explain yerself,” he demanded, his impatience growing with the typical Tinkler answers.

This woman who stood before him didn’t understand the depth of his feelings. Nor did she understand what he would do to find the woman he loved. No place was beyond his reach. There was nowhere in the world he wouldn’t go to find Syrie.

“She’s not in this world, I’m afraid,” Editha said with a shake of her head, responding to him as if she’d heard his thoughts.

“Then where is she?” he asked, fear and anger bubbling together in his chest. “I ken that you spoke to her before she disappeared. You spoke to her, leaving her visibly upset. Within hours after that, she was gone. I’d have you tell me what you said to her and where she’s gone to.”

Editha climbed down from her perch on the wagon and clasped her hands in front of her, clearly signaling that she waited for Patrick to join her.

Tinklers and the Fae. They might as well be one and the same. Perhaps that was why some claimed they were one and the same.

“I merely carried warning to Elesyria of what was to come. She had angered the powers that be in her home world and they intended that she should return to them to answer for her offenses.”

“Offenses be damned,” Patrick said. “Wherever she is, I plan to bring her home. You’ve but to point me in the right direction and I’ll do the rest.”

Again Editha and her husband exchanged a pointed look.

“It’s no’ so easy as that. She’s been taken to Wyddecol, a place no uninitiated man can reach unaided.”

The Faerie home world. He should have guessed as much.

“Then aid me. Or initiate me. Whatever it takes to get me to her.”

“I’m afraid I have no way to—”

“Orabilis?” her husband suggested, his voice little more than a hiss of air.

“She does have the power,” Editha said with a hint of a shrug. “Though perhaps no’ the desire.”

Patrick’s heart pounded in his chest, his fears lifting at the possibility those words opened for him. The old witch had the power to get him to Syrie.

“Orabilis it is, then,” he said, his foot already lifted to his stirrup.

“Wait!” Editha ordered, her voice carrying an authority that stopped him where he stood. “You canna go to her alone. We’ll go with you to assist.”

With an effort, Patrick shook off the invisible hands that held him and lifted himself onto the back of his mount.

“You’ll only slow me down, Tinkler. In this part of my quest, I’ve no need for yer assistance.”

Editha snorted, turning her back to climb up onto her perch on the wagon. “The assistance we offer is no’ to you, warrior, but to Orabilis herself. There’s much she’ll need to hear before she can set about helping you. Assuming she has the desire to help you at all.”

“Suit yerself,” Patrick muttered, turning his horse in the direction he’d traveled from only days earlier.

In spite of what the Tinkler woman believed, the desires of the old witch who’d all but raised his sister were of little matter in this situation. After all, Orabilis had already declared herself to be in his debt, and the time had come for him to collect on what she owed.