Lennox, passing through the lower hall, caught sight of the packages and arched a brow. “God save us.”
Frederick did not slow. “Find someone else to trouble.”
“That sounds like a man with secrets.”
“That sounds like a man with work.”
He left Lennox grinning behind him and continued up through the keep, searching already.
Where are they?
The answer mattered more than it ought to have.
21
“Once upon a time,” Iona read softly, her voice steady as she turned the worn page, “there lived a clever fox who thought himself the wisest creature in the wood, and so he listened to no one but himself.”
Jamie lay curled against her side, small and warm beneath the blanket, her head resting against Iona’s arm. The book was one they had carried with them for years, its corners softened from use, its pages bearing the faint creases of many nights spent reading by dim light in places that had never truly felt safe. It had always calmed her daughter. Tonight, it seemed only to hold her still.
“Did he get eaten?” Jamie asked quietly, her gaze fixed not on the page but somewhere just beyond it.
Iona smiled, though there was a carefulness beneath it. “Nay. Nae yet. Ye must let the story tell itself.”
Jamie hummed, but the sound lacked its usual curiosity. Her fingers toyed absently with the edge of the blanket, twisting the fabric and releasing it again as though she could not quite settle.
Iona continued, letting the rhythm of the words carry the moment forward. “One day, the fox came upon a trap set by a hunter, and though the birds warned him and the deer called out to him, he would nae listen, for he believed himself too clever to be caught.”
Jamie shifted slightly. “That sounds foolish.”
“Aye,” Iona said gently. “It does.”
She glanced down at her daughter, studying the faraway look in her eyes, the way her small mouth pressed together as though she held thoughts she did not yet know how to shape into questions. It had been there all day, that distance. Even in play, even in laughter, there had been something quieter beneath it.
Iona had tried to fill the day with simple comforts. A walk in the courtyard. A warm meal. This story, their favorite, chosen because it had always brought Jamie back to her with ease. Yet still, the child remained half-turned inward, as though listening to something Iona could not hear.
“What are ye thinking on, lamb?” Iona asked softly, letting the book rest open in her lap.
Jamie did not answer at once. Her fingers stilled against the blanket, then resumed their small, restless movement.
“I am thinking,” she said slowly, “about what happens now.”
Iona’s chest tightened.
“What do ye mean?” she asked, though she understood well enough.
Jamie turned her head just enough to look up at her. “Since he kens.”
The words were simple, but they carried the weight of years.
Iona brushed a strand of hair from Jamie’s forehead. “What happens now is that nothin’ must be hidden any longer.”
Jamie studied her face, searching for something, perhaps for certainty, perhaps for permission.
“And that is good?” she asked.
“Aye,” Iona said. “It is very good.”
Jamie’s gaze drifted again. “Ye are sure he didnae mind.”