“We don’t need a guard here at night, Jack,” she said. “Although I appreciate the thought.”
Jack dismounted and walked into the kail yard. He didn’t want to have this conversation. This was his last true moment of ignorance. After this hour had shed its minutes, he would know the truth about his blood and what his mother had done, and it would change him.
“I need to have a serious conversation with you, Mum,” he said.
A frown crossed Mirin’s brow when she noticed the disrepair of his plaid, the garment she had fortified with a secret only she knew. Her gaze shifted to his face next, and she seemed to finally see him, how battle-weary he appeared. She saw the silver that now graced his hair, as if he had been touched by death’s finger.
“Jack!” Frae cried, slipping past their mother to embrace him in the yard. “I thought you’d never come home.”
“I had things to do in Sloane, but I should be back for a little while. Here, let me ask you something, Frae.” He crouched down to meet her gaze, noticing how much his knees hurt with the action. “I need to talk privately to Mum. Do you think you can stay in the yard for a little while?”
Frae’s eyes widened. She sensed the tension, glancing from him to Mirin.
Their mother gave her a nod of permission, and Frae offered Jack a small smile.
“All right,” she said, holding up her slingshot. “But afterward, can you practice with me?”
“Yes,” he said. “I’ll come find you when I’m done. Please don’t leave the yard.”
Frae skipped off toward the byre, where the cows were eating their hay. Jack straightened, waiting for Mirin to invite him in.
She did, but her face was pale.
It felt like he hadn’t been home in ages. The first thing he did was begin to close all of the shutters.
“Leave one open so I can see Frae,” Mirin said sharply.
Jack glanced at his mother. “This is not a conversation you want to ride the wind. Or for Frae to overhear.”
Mirin gripped the front of her dress. “What is this about, Jack?”
He latched the final shutter, motioning for Mirin to sit on the divan. She did so, albeit reluctantly, and he took the chair across from her, setting the harp on the floor. He listened to the rasp of her inhalations. How they caught on the web of secrets she held.
He was staring at her when he asked, “Is there a chance my father has taken the Tamerlaine lasses?”
Mirin froze. But her eyes widened as they met Jack’s. He saw the shock in her; she had never entertained this thought. “Your father? No, Jack.” But her voice softened, as if she was beginning to see what he did. “No, that cannot … he would not …”
Jack’s blood was coursing, fast and warm beneath his skin, but he kept his tone calm as he spoke. “You have held this secret for decades, Mum. I never understood why, and for years I resented you for your silence. But now I see. I understand why you wove and held it close to your heart. But the time has come to let it unravel. I need to find the missing lasses, and the answer lies within your past.”
“But that would mean …” Mirin couldn’t finish her phrase.
“That Annabel, Catriona, and Maisie have been kidnapped by a Breccan and taken into the west.”
Mirin closed her eyes, as if his words had struck her. She remained silent, so Jack began to speak, as if he had uncovered an old ballad.
“Long ago, you came to love your greatest enemy. A man of the west. I don’t know how he crossed the clan line unnoticed by the east, but he did, and you held the secret of him until I made that impossible. And so you led us all to believe I was the bastard of an unfaithful man in the east, and you wove the truth into a plaid because the threads would never betray or condemn you. Once I was sent away to the mainland, you must have seen him again, for Frae came into the world, and our two lives defied everything—east, west, and the hatred that thrives in between. You had no choice but to raise her as you raised me, as a Tamerlaine without a father.”
Mirin looked at him. Her face was pallid, but her eyes were lucid and dark as new moons, and she held Jack’s gaze. She laced her fingers together to hide their shaking.
“Do I speak truth, Mum?”
“Yes, Jack. Your father is a Breccan. But he wouldn’t steal children from the east.”
“And how do you know that?” Jack’s temper flared. “Lasses are going missing, vanishing into the mist, taken by the west. Could my father be the force behind it all? Because he was robbed of his own children?”