Page 23 of Time of the Druid (Stones of Scotland #7)
Chapter 23
S taying away from Norah all day was painful. After staring at her during breakfast—and noticing all too well how she didn’t come to sit beside him—Matthew thought that she might want some space. He’d busied himself scribbling out notes and plans in his rough old notebook, his feet dangling in the cold water of the lake. There was still a lot to do. Frustratingly, he still had a few gaps in his knowledge of the stones, but it shouldn’t be too long before those gaps were filled. He just had to wait, hard as that was.
By the time the next day dawned, Matthew had almost convinced himself to stay away from Norah for good. After all, they couldn’t have any kind of future together. Matthew didn’t even have a future, and it was foolish to pretend otherwise. One night with Norah had been beautiful, but anything else would just be leading her on, and that wasn’t fair. Not when there was so much he couldn’t tell her. So much that she would never know.
He set off for the beach just as the first hints of sunlight crept over the still water of the lake, casting delicate ripples in gold and rose where the breeze touched the surface. Reeds swayed gently at the shoreline, their feathery tops catching the light, and a pair of ducks stirred sleepily in the shadows beneath the crannog’s causeway. The air smelled of lake water and woodsmoke, and his boots crunched softly on a scattered carpet of last night’s dried pine needles.
The guards waved him past—although not without a few ribald comments about him and Norah at the harvest festival—and he offered them a half-hearted smile in return, tugging his hood up a little higher. Bedwyn’s crannog was certainly a very different place than the druid nemeton: all noise and indulgence, smoke and laughter. If it wasn’t for the cruelty of its lord, Matthew might have been almost sorry to leave it behind.
Norah and Jack wouldn’t arrive for a while yet. Matthew ate the food he’d filched from the kitchen—a hunk of bread still warm from the hearth, an apple tucked hastily in his satchel—and wandered down to the water’s edge. He stood quietly, letting the silence settle over him like a blanket. The lake spread out before him in a hush of early light, each tiny ripple gilded with gold and rose where the breeze kissed the surface. Above the trees, the sky was shifting from indigo to pale lavender, the first rays of sun reaching to touch the tips of the reeds swaying along the shoreline.
Somewhere nearby, a bird trilled, and Matthew turned toward the sound, inhaling deeply. The cool air carried the scent of woodsmoke and lake-weed, pine and damp soil, all of it grounding him more than he’d expected. He closed his eyes for a moment, feeling the quiet thud of his heart, the chill of dew-damp air against his skin. Funny, how some things didn’t matter anymore, and others mattered too much. Like this sunrise—the way the light pooled over the lake, soft and glowing, like Norah’s hair when it spilled across his chest. Once, when he’d believed all of time lay beneath his fingertips, he would’ve barely registered such beauty. Now, it gripped him, held him still.
He couldn’t imagine anywhere he’d rather be.
His companions arrived quietly, slipping through the trees without a word, but Matthew heard them anyway and turned to greet them. Jack seemed the same as usual, or perhaps a little more gruff, but Norah looked downright odd. Haunted, Matthew might have said, if he was a fanciful man.
Matthew launched into the description of his plan so far, just as he’d intended, but his heart wasn’t in it. Doubt coiled tighter with every word he spoke, every stolen glance at Norah’s face. She looked distant, guarded—and he couldn’t tell if she was hiding guilt, or just grief. The thought twisted inside him. Was this worth it? Really? Could tearing apart the foundations of time be justified, even if it meant shattering lives? Even if it meant losing her?
He imagined the world his plan would leave behind—a fractured echo of what had once been. Lovers separated by centuries. Families who’d never even know what they’d lost. Would anyone remember the way things had been? Or would those bonds simply vanish, unmade by magic, their love stories reduced to dust between cracks in time?
And Norah—what would happen to Norah? Would she walk away from him, safe but alone?
He drew a breath and pushed the thoughts aside. No . No more doubt. The cost was high, unbearable even, but it had to be paid. Lucanus Edmondson could not be allowed to twist time into his weapon.
Yes. It had to be enough.
The more Matthew talked, though, the more he could tell that something was wrong with Norah. He desperately wanted to ask her what was going on, but Jack never stepped more than a few feet away, standing close to Norah as he lectured her on her shooting technique. Matthew’s frustration built and built, but he couldn’t think of any way to get rid of Jack.
Instead, he focused on preparing his own spells. Norah and Jack didn’t understand everything he was doing, of course, but he wanted to make sure they knew what to expect. Fewer surprises meant fewer chances of anything going wrong.
"So this one will… explode the stone?" Norah asked, her eyes wide.
Matthew hadn’t realised she was paying that much attention to the words he used as he wove his magical net.
"It will explode the stone’s magical defences," he said, hoping that sounded plausible.
Don’t forget, she thinks you’re stealing the stones to hide them from your father.
"What sort of magical defences do we need to be prepared for?" Jack asked.
Matthew launched into a discussion of how druid protection magic worked, but he could see that Norah had quickly lost interest. She sat down on the sand and began sorting through the contents of her bag.
"What have you got there?" Matthew asked, bringing his lecture to an abrupt halt.
She shoved everything back into her bag before he could get a good look.
"Poisons," she said defensively. "You already know I work with them, so don’t start judging me now."
"I’m not judging you," Matthew said mildly, although something about the tone of her voice set his nerves on edge. "I just wondered how you thought we might use them in our raid on the druid village."
Norah shrugged.
"I don’t know yet," she said. "But it’s worth keeping an eye on my stock. Poison arrows, perhaps?"
"That could be helpful," Matthew said, trying to sound encouraging. What was she really up to? He wasn’t used to seeing Norah so on edge, not when she was always so confident, so controlled. It took a lot to unbalance Norah.
He leaned in to get a better look at her supplies, but the moment his hand hovered near the edge of her satchel, Jack’s arm shot out like a viper. The bigger man grabbed Matthew’s wrist in a bruising grip and yanked him backward, his boots slipping in the sand as he was hauled bodily toward the shade of the nearby trees. Pebbles scattered beneath their feet, the rough bark of a pine catching Matthew’s shoulder as he stumbled. Dazed and breathless, he twisted around and stared at Jack, heat flaring in his chest—not just from pain, but from shock. And maybe, somewhere deep beneath it, fear.
"Don’t push her," Jack said, his voice low and menacing. "She’ll tell you what she wants to tell you."
"I didn’t mean to upset her," Matthew said, not quite sure what was going on. "Should I apologise?"
Jack shook his head decisively.
"Just don’t cause her any more trouble than you have to. And what’s your game, Matthew? Don’t think I haven’t noticed all the holes in your plan."
"No game," Matthew assured him, although his heartbeat picked up speed. "I just need to figure a few more things out."
Jack took a threatening half-step closer.
"If you plan to tangle Norah up in something nasty, I swear you’ll regret it."
Matthew raised his hands in the most conciliatory gesture he could manage.
"Jack, I promise that I’ll do everything in my power to stop Norah from getting hurt."
Even if she forgets I ever existed.