Page 41 of The Moorwitch

Back at Ravensgate, Mrs. MacDougal fusses over Sylvie while I dry off by the kitchen fire. The girl gives me a conspiratorial smile as the housekeeper bundles her off to her room, but the moment she is gone, I sag onto the hearth, gasping a little. Pressing my hand to my chest, I breathe out long and slow, willing my heart to calm. To unclench itself. It takes longer than usual, this recovery, and that terrifies me.

Fates above.

I must find the gateway to Elfhame, and I must find it soon.

Later in the evening, after a simple but warming supper of potato soup and bread, I task Sylvie with some history reading in the library. In moments, however, she falls asleep in the great armchair, snoring softly.

On the floor beside her, I set about meticulously pasting the maps we assembled this morning, unable to bear letting the precious pages fall to pieces again. With the soft pattering of the rain at the windows and the soothing crackle of the fire, I catch myself yawning. Mr. and Mrs. MacDougal have already retired for the night, but Mr. North has still not returned from his trip to Blackswire.

As I fit the maps back together, I find tiny notes scrawled around the borders that I had not seen earlier. Childish script traces the outlines of the continents, penned in ink faded with age.

Here the Bedouin nomads pitch their tents! This is where the pyramids are—Mustsee them first. On these islands, dragons can be found—but not the flying, fire-breathing sort, just big lizard things.

I am so engrossed in reading these little addenda that I do not realize I am being watched until a deep voice rumbles over me.

“Where the devil did you find that old thing?”

Startled, I drop the bottle of paste, and it spills across the carpet. “Oh, Fates!” I glare up at the laird in the doorway. “That’s the second time you’ve nearly startled the heart out of me, Mr. North!”

“I hardly think you’re in a position to judge, given the nature of our first meeting.” Conrad North kneels across from me, taking a handkerchief from his pocket. Captain pads softly behind him and settles down on the warm carpet, his long tongue lolling. “Here. Let me.”

“I can do it.” I reach for the cloth, but he refuses to relinquish it, and for a moment our fingers tangle together. His are cold and damp from the rain, mine warm from the heat of the fire, and for a heartbeat, the temperature difference sends a spark up my arm.

He tries to snatch his hand away, but the paste on mine holds fast, and to my utter humiliation, I realize I have glued my hand to Mr. North’s.

“Ah ... my apologies,” I stammer. “Um.”

He stares at our hands. “Well. This is bloody hilarious.”

“I can fix it. Just—hold still.” I twist my hand.

“Fates, woman! Stop that wriggling! You’re peeling the skin off my bones!”

“Oh, hush. You’ll wake Sylvie. If you had just let me handle it—”

“I think we can both see how yourhandlingturns out. What the hell is in this paste?”

“Language, sir!” I grind my teeth together, biting back a curse of my own. In attempting to wrest my fingers loose, I’ve only entangled us further. “I am not ordinarily this clumsy, I swear.”

Captain rests his shaggy head on his paws and regards us both with a plaintive whine.

I study the situation as if it were a knot I am trying to unravel. I feel Mr. North’s eyes on me, his steady gaze making the heat rise even higher in my cheeks. I must look stricken with rash by now, an absolute fright. His skin is hot against mine, his large palm enveloping the back of my hand. I find myself thinking, insensibly, of how gently and skillfully that hand had pulled a poor struggling lamb out of its mother.

The pattern of veins over his large knuckles reminds me of a vanishing spell I learned in my third year at school, useful for making small objects disappear for a few moments. I wonder if it would work on a small schoolteacher?

“Do you often solve problems by glaring at them?” he asks, interrupting my admittedly irrational line of thought.

I glare athim, just to see if it might work. “I wasthinking. Which is more than you seem to be doing, laird. Have you got any bright ideas? No? I thought not.”

Scowling, I go back to prying at my fingers, then his. Until he puts his other hand over mine, his thumb lightly brushing my wrist.

Right where the two circular burn scars gleam like white pennies.

“What’s this, then?” he asks softly.

I instinctively attempt to wrench my hand away, which is, of course, impossible at the moment. Oh, but the Fates can be cruel.

“Nothing,” I say. “Old injury. Hazards of a life devoted to magic.”