“I already said you needn’t concern yourself with her.” Keelynn had no place in this conversation.
“She’s not your usual type. So severe. And the black dress?” Caer snorted, allowing the silk tie barely holding her robe closed to slip between black-tipped fingers. “Drab and downright depressing.”
I didn’t want to talk about Keelynn. I wanted to get this over with.
“Enough about the human,” Cait said, stroking the creamy rug beneath her. “We brought you here to discuss the little misunderstanding we had a few years back.”
Misunderstanding? They had been caught murdering innocent humans and selling their innards to other witches for potions.
I sank onto the free chair, stretching my legs toward the fire. “What’s there to discuss?”
“You must’ve heard of the executions in Mántan. They burned Olive and Aurora.”
Olive and Aurora. Two witches almost as old as the twins before me now. I knew of the executions but hadn’t read the names of those killed.
“Surely, after all this time, we have paid our debt,” Cait went on. “We would like to return to our home in Tearmann.”
Olive and Aurora hadn’t deserved their fates. The same could not be said for the two witches in front of me.
Cait trailed a finger between her breasts, drawing my gaze lower. And lower. “Would you be willing,” she said slowly, untying her robe, “to ask Rían to consider letting us back in?”
There wasn’t a hope of him agreeing to that. I’d been otherwise occupied on the day these two stood trial, leaving their fate to my brother. For as long as I had known the man, Rían never went back on a ruling. He followed Tearmann law to the letter. “I will certainly ask,” I said, pushing away from the chair. “If that’s all, I really must be going.”
With any luck, Keelynn would have ordered another round of drinks.
Caer caught my arm in a vice-like grip. “Ah-ah. We didn’t just bring you here to discuss our request.” She untied her robe and let it slip down her shoulders. “It’s my turn to go first.”
13
Why wouldit be nice and sunny and warm when it could be pissing down rain and cold enough to freeze the bollocks off a brass monkey? My head ached from all the drink I’d swamped to get me through last night. My body ached from being used by two insatiable witches with a penchant for violence. My heart ached from . . .
Actually, I didn’t want to think about what could be going on there. Better to focus on avoiding the tiny rivers and lakes quickly overtaking the cobblestones as I hurried to where Padraig waited by the stables.
The moment he saw the sorry state of me, his expression darkened. “Ye look like shite.”
I hadn’t bothered looking at myself in the mirror this morning when I rolled out of bed. “I feel worse.”
Something about the way he tapped the whip against his leg made me think he was considering using the thing on me. “What happened?”
“Witches.”
The tapping stopped. “Ye went off with a witch?”
“Two, actually.”
“I thought . . .” He let the words die there. There was no sense continuing. Whatever he thought would happen hadn’t. “Yer some fool.” He gave my shoulder a shove. “Hasn’t this gone on long enough? Shouldn’t ye be telling the truth?”
He wanted to talk about the truth, did he? The truth was that I was better off dallying with those feckin’ witches because that was where I belonged. In a world of shadows and pain. “You’re awfully high and feckin’ mighty talking about truth. How long have you been hiding behind that feckin’ glamour?”
He adjusted his grip on the whip, eyes faintly glowing. “I wouldn’t need the feckin’ glamour if yer father hadn’t given up.”
My father had been nursing a broken heart, hadn’t cared a whit about anything or anyone after the humans had killed my mother. It should’ve enraged him, should’ve stoked his internal fire. Instead, her death had snuffed it out, and he’d given in to the humans’ unfair demands.
Keelynn emerged from the inn, bowed head hidden beneath the hood of her cloak.
Padraig’s eyes flitted toward a wide puddle reaching nearly to the waiting carriage. Raindrops splattered my boots, cleaning the sludge from the long walk back this morning.
My father may have given up, but I wouldn’t make the same mistake.