Iona’s pulse was so loud in her ears she could scarcely hear the silence that followed, though she knew it was there. Archer did not answer at once. His fingers shifted once against his knee. Then stilled.
When he did speak, his tone had changed just slightly. The charm remained, but it had narrowed.
“My mother-in-law goes where she pleases more often than I would like,” he said. “Had I known she intended to visit your lands, I would have sent word myself.”
“That is not an answer.”
“No,” Archer agreed. “It is the truth.”
Iona could not seem to draw a full breath. She looked from one man to the other and found no comfort in either expression, only calculation set against calculation, suspicion meeting suspicion without either of them raising a voice.
Archer leaned back by a fraction. “I did not send her to watch ye.”
Frederick said, “Then why ask whether I am involved?”
Archer’s gaze sharpened. “Because women are vanishing from my lands, from yours, and from others near enough that only a fool would fail to note the pattern. Because I would rather ask an insulting question in person than believe a dangerous lie insilence. And because if there is rot between our borders, I mean to know whether I am standing beside it or across from it.”
The answer was too immediate to be invented on the spot. Too harsh to be merely performative.
Still, it did nothing to ease the pounding in Iona’s chest.
She forced herself to speak before the silence thickened further.
“If ye both suspect this reaches across clan lines,” she said, and hated how thin her voice sounded to her own ears, “then surely accusing each other does little to stop it.”
Both men looked at her at once.
Archer’s expression softened first, though not enough to lose its edge. “A fair point, my lady.”
Frederick’s gaze stayed on her a moment longer. Not to silence her. Never that. But she could see the awareness there, the immediate recognition of how hard her heart was likely beating beneath the calm she was trying and failing to maintain.
Archer looked back to Frederick. “I came because I would rather have the truth from your own mouth than from rumor. I have it now, or near enough. If ye are not involved, then we have a common problem.”
Frederick’s jaw shifted once. “Aye.”
It was not agreement given lightly.
Archer rose then, slowly, the movement graceful and controlled even now. “Then perhaps the ceilidh may serve some purpose after all.”
Iona did not know whether to feel relief or dread. Only that neither man had lowered his guard, and her own heart had not yet remembered how to beat properly.
Archer’s words settled heavily between them, and for a moment, no one moved. Iona felt the weight of it press against her chest, tightening her breath as the implications took shape. Frederick remained still, though she saw the shift in his focus, the way his thoughts turned inward before sharpening again.
“There is more,” Frederick said at last, his voice steady but firmer now. “Two women from me own lands had gone missing as well, but one has returned to us.”
The air seemed to thin.
Iona’s hand moved without thought, finding his. Fear surged, swift and certain.
“Lady Noor is behind it,” she said.
Frederick’s hand tightened around hers as the words left her mouth, though his gaze did not immediately shift away from Archer.
Archer did not move at once. Then, slowly, his attention turned fully to her, the faint ease in his expression gone entirely now, replaced with something colder, more exacting.
“That is a serious accusation,” he said. “On what grounds do ye make it?”
Iona heard the question, understood it, and yet she could not seem to pull her gaze away from Frederick. Everything in her narrowed to him. The weight of what she had just said, the risk of it, the years she had carried it alone all pressed forward at once.